March 17, 2020 Show with Stuart Quint, Greg Bentley, & Mike Gendron on “Friends Pay Tribute to the Late Richard Bennett (3/10/38-9/23/19)”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

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This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

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Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this

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St. Patrick's Day, 2020, March 17th. And today is a very appropriate date to pay tribute to a very dear friend of mine and a very dear friend of the guests that I'm going to be interviewing today.

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Today we are paying tribute to the late Richard Bennett. Richard Bennett, who was a founder of Berean Beacon, which is a ministry primarily to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, but secondarily to open the eyes of Roman Catholics who are believing and trusting in a false gospel.

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And Richard had been used and continues to be used, even after his entering glory with Christ, to be used as a vessel and a vehicle to draw many lost souls to salvation in Christ.

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Richard Bennett was born on March 10th, 1938, and went home to be with the

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Lord last year on September 23rd, 2019. He was a son of Ireland, a former

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Catholic priest, a Reformed Baptist evangelist, and an ambassador for Christ at bereanbeacon .org,

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the ministry he founded. And I just want to, before I introduce you to my guests,

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I want to read to you something that I actually wrote in tribute to Richard Bennett before he went home to the

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Lord. And then I was honored to have been asked permission for Berean Beacon, or should

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I say from Berean Beacon, to use these words that I wrote as a part of his obituary on the

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Berean Beacon website. But here is what I had to say about Richard. Richard was an extremely rare individual, especially in the 21st century.

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He possessed the character traits that are nearly impossible to find in our day, all combined together in the heart and mind of one man.

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Those traits included an unwavering passion and determination to boldly proclaim the undiluted truth of Jesus Christ, his gospel and his word, and to boldly expose the cunning and damning deceptions of Christ's disguised enemies.

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All this was pouring out from the palpably humble, meek, tender, compassionate, and loving heart of a gentle servant who would much rather see the never -dying souls of men, women, and children spared from the torments of an eternal hell than spared from temporarily hurt feelings, troubled consciences, and sleepless nights.

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When Richard's words offended, it was the gospel itself flowing from his speech that cuts his hearers, not anything ad hominem or unnecessarily offensive that sadly all too often accompanies the bold words of bold men whose egos tarnish any good they are seeking to accomplish.

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And I was, as I said, honored that Berean Beacon chose to use those words written prior to Richard's homegoing to eternity as a part of their obituary on the

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Berean Beacon website on September 23rd, 2019.

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Well, as I said, we are going to have some friends of Richard Bennett join us today to pay tribute to this dear saint.

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First of all, we have Stuart Quint, Coordinator of International Translations of Berean Beacon.

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And let me welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Stuart Quint.

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Thank you, Chris. We have Greg Bentley, who is the Director of Berean Beacon. It's great to have you also for the first time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Greg.

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Well, thank you very much, Chris. I don't know if he's joined us yet, but Mike Gendron is supposed to be with us.

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Is Mike, the founder of Proclaiming the Gospel, with us? Yes, Chris. Thanks for having me.

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Yeah, thanks for joining us, Mike. And I'm going to let our listeners have our email address in the event that they would like to join us on the air with their own questions.

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The email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. Well, first of all, let me have Stuart Quint start off.

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As I said, he's the Coordinator of International Translations for Berean Beacon, the ministry founded by the late

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Richard Bennett. And Stuart, first of all, let me say to all of you, if you would like to chime in at any time, you don't have to wait for me to call upon you.

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This sometimes can be difficult conducting a radio program when we're not all in the same studio. Because I can't see people's facial expressions,

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I can't see anybody waving their hand. So I would like anybody, when they see an open moment, to jump into the discussion with your own thoughts, comments.

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I will call upon you each individually as well, but don't wait only for that. And if you could, identify yourself every time you chime in.

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Just give your first name, or actually give your full name would be better. And then we'll know who is speaking.

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But Stuart, tell us, first of all, about Richard Bennett's testimony.

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I know that he was a Roman Catholic priest, and I believe he was serving in Trinidad, am I right? Correct. And he was in an automobile accident.

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It might have been a Jeep. I can't remember the vehicle he was driving, but he was in an automobile accident. And it was when he was laid up, recovering from his injuries, that he came to Christ.

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Am I correct on that? So generally, yes, a little bit different.

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He was actually walking up a huge flight of steps outside when he was in Trinidad. And he fell down and he damaged his back severely.

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And that led to a period, it was actually several years. I mean, he went through the rehab, but then it was an extended rehab after that outside of a hospital.

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Lots of pain. In fact, even to the last day before he went on to eternity that Richard suffered from that injury.

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But God was very gracious to use that to point him to the cross and point him to the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

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I have no idea whether the car accident came into my mind. Was he ever in a car accident?

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No. I was going to say, Richard's done so many different things.

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I don't know about a car accident. I know one time he was beaten. In fact, I think, Greg, you were with him, if I'm not mistaken, in Peru.

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He was knocked out for a couple days unconscious. Right, yeah.

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This was back when he was asked to go and speak at a conference for national pastors working in the

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Peruvian mountains. And after speaking at a local church, it had been quite an uproar for the community because it was a primary

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Roman Catholic area. But after he had spoken at a church one evening,

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Richard and I had gone out for a walk. And I think most likely everyone in the town knew where Richard was staying.

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And I have a feeling this is Greg Bentley speaking, right? Right, yeah, this is Greg. Okay, that's all right.

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Continue. Yeah, and we were jumped on a street and Richard was knocked out.

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Eventually we were able to find our way into a local hospital. Jumped in the street by thieves?

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Right, yeah. We never really could identify who the people were. It was dark. There were three of them.

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And Richard was knocked unconscious. And actually what was quite ironic is that the person that came out into the street right after the incident was actually a priest.

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And he came with us to the hospital. And when Richard came out of his unconscious state, he began to just continue to evangelize and witness to the priest that was there.

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And then eventually he spent three hours with the surgeon who had been actually prepared and ready to hear the gospel message.

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So Richard seized every moment of his life to be the evangelist that God called him to be.

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So I was truly amazed at every time Richard was in a difficult situation.

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Even when he was dying, it was just an amazing work that he was performing amongst the people that were helping him.

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So it was quite a remarkable life. This is Mike Jenner, and if I could jump in on that because Richard was a major influence in my ministry.

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We've been doing proclaiming the gospel now for 30 years. And of course our primary focus is to reach the 1 .2

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billion Roman Catholics who are perishing because of a false and fatal gospel.

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And I did conferences with Richard, and Richard and Lynn were guests in our home. And all through the years he was such an influence with his boldness and courage, his unwavering loyalty to the gospel, and his unwillingness to compromise.

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And so I learned a lot from Richard, and mostly just how he would spend most of his life just engaging people, total strangers.

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And so, for the most part, he had no fear of man, and I learned that from Richard.

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I will go up to anybody, including the Pope. I tried to have a conference with him, but was not allowed in.

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But, you know, I visit with Roman Catholic priests throughout the world whenever I travel.

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And Richard, along with Barb Brewer, another former Roman Catholic priest who is now in glory, was also an influence.

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So I really owe a lot to them both, and just their great compassion for those who are perishing.

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And having grown up as a Roman Catholic myself for 35 years, I was very devout and very indoctrinated.

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So it was the Word of God and the Spirit of God that brought me to faith, and nobody witnessed to me.

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It was truly amazing, very similar to Martin Luther's testimony. I just began reading the

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Bible at age 35, and that literally turned my life upside down. And very quickly

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I realized the only two things in this life that are eternal are the souls of men and the

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Word of God. And I wanted to invest the rest of my life in the things that would last throughout all eternity.

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So just to say that Richard was a major influence in my life. Great. And going back to his own conversion, while he was a

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Roman Catholic priest recovering from that injury you mentioned, falling down a staircase, and perhaps,

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Stuart, you can chime in first. What was it that was troubling his heart about his

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Roman Catholic faith and his office as so -called priest that eventually led to his fleeing from Rome and embracing

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Christ and his work on Calvary as his only hope for salvation?

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What was it that troubled him, and was that troubled conscience something that began before the accident even occurred?

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Yeah, Chris, that's a very good question. I would say definitely looking back, and I'm thinking about several conversations with him.

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He also has his testimony and biography as well. There were seeds that were planted well beforehand.

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I think when you look, you know, it's interesting what Mike Gendron said about Luther, because at the funeral what really struck me was that you could see actually some parallels between the

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Lutheran or Richard in the sense of, you know, Richard was a very diehard Catholic.

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Like, I remember him talking about, you know, taking cold showers in the middle of January outside to try to free souls from purgatory.

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And this is in Ireland where he would remind you that Dublin's about the same latitude as Moscow.

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Russia, that is, not Idaho. So, you know, and some of the other things that he described in his life even before he actually entered the

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Catholic seminary. So I think he would say that he had a sense of God, a sense of Jesus, but unfortunately it was all covered up with the, you know, the works, the deadness of the

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Roman Catholic Church, all these mediators. And I think once he became a priest, and the accident was more, you know, look back, right?

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It was more of an event that shocked him to really take the time out and think things through. But I think he would say that even before that there were seeds planted where he recognized there was something wrong.

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I mean, he would talk about what is the role of the Roman Catholic priest? Hatch, match, dispatch.

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Hatch meaning baptizing a baby when someone is born. Match, that is, wedding someone within the

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Roman Catholic Church. Dispatch, that is, somebody before they die, anointing them with oil and hopefully they get to purgatory, which is pretty much what the

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Roman Catholic Church teaches to this day. He recognized there was an emptiness in it. There was not only no paternal permanence, but it really minimized the work of Christ.

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It was as if the work of Christ was simply another add -on compared to the saints or Mary or, you know, the rites of the

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Roman Catholic Church. I would definitely say that while the accident was a significant turning point which focused

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Richard on considering the gospel, and of course after that time he did a lot of reading in the scriptures, which, you know, one shock to me in his life was he would be the first to tell you that they don't really study the

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Holy Scriptures. Certainly when he studied in the Roman Catholic Seminary, he also studied at the

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Vatican for a time. He was at the Aquinas University training to become a professor in the

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Roman Catholic Church. That's a whole other story why he ended up not doing that. But he really did not come to contact with the

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Holy Scriptures until that accident. Now do any of you know... I like that a lot. Go ahead,

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Greg. Yeah, I just wanted to chime in a little bit because one of the common themes that would come out as Richard would share his testimony in different places around the world is the fact that as a priest he would perform these rituals and people would look to him to instruct in how to be a

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Catholic. And what he would always come back to is that none of these rituals ever did anything.

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There were no lives that were changed. And he used to talk about the times when he would be at the deathbed of an individual that had been a member of his church and who had practiced all the

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Catholic rituals and was active in the sacraments and yet they would be cursing God on their deathbed.

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So he saw that it did not work. The rituals did not do anything to the soul.

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Now, I don't know which one of you would be best to answer this. But whoever it is, the first one to chime up, please identify yourself.

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But I know that Richard very often preached at churches that shared his convictions against Roman Catholicism but sometimes they did not share his convictions about the

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Reformed faith. And I was wondering how Richard actually became a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace that salvation is truly by Christ alone from beginning to end and that God's sovereignty is in control of all things in heaven and on earth.

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This is Greg. I can share a little bit about having that discussion with Richard and both

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Lynn. Because they had ventured off after they were married to be missionaries in China and through various avenues they ended up attending a church in Atlanta.

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They were actually going to be sent out by the church in Atlanta and it was there that a man who knew the doctrines of grace actually sat down and discipled

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Richard. And I think that would have probably been in the early 90s.

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And it was really the start of... He went to China not as the director of the

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Berean Beacon that had not been formed yet but it was during his time as the missionary in China and he saw the working out of these principles in people's lives and eventually when they left

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China after the Tiananmen Square event they got back to Portland and began their ministry.

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I remember having to hold back a laugh a couple of times because sometimes

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I would be in the audience or amongst the congregation at events that were held by non -Calvinistic, non -Reformed fundamentalist churches and Richard would be very bold criticizing the altar call which is something that nearly every fundamentalist church that I'm aware of practices.

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And I can still remember him saying, What's this nonsense about going forward at the church and inviting

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Jesus into your heart? I invited Jesus into my heart, my mouth and my stomach and that never saved me.

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He was talking about the Eucharist obviously as a Roman Catholic. So true.

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This is Mike and I'll never forget we did a conference together with several other

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Armenians including John Ankerberg and at the end of John's message like he always does, he asked people to close their eyes and raise their hand if they wanted to quote unquote accept

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Jesus and then he would lead them in a sinner's prayer. At the end

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Richard lovingly confronted John Ankerberg in the hallway and many people gathered around because even though Richard was very compassionate and soft spoken, it quickly came into a heated argument.

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Wow. Richard just didn't want anyone to have this false assurance of repeating a prayer and raising a hand and closing your eyes out of shame.

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And so he just confronted John Ankerberg and hopefully the people that were listening understood that that's how

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Satan plants many terrors in our churches today by these unbiblical methods of evangelism.

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And so Richard just didn't want it to happen and he wanted to lovingly correct him so that others wouldn't be deceived.

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Now there was one point early on in my friendship with Richard which began in the 1990s and I first met him face -to -face at New Hyde Park Baptist Church in Nassau County, Long Island when my friend

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Rich Wozniak had been instrumental in inviting Richard to speak there.

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Rich Wozniak was a member of New Hyde Park Baptist Church at the time before he moved to Pennsylvania.

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And at that time I can recall Richard saying that his family in Ireland were still not speaking with him since his abandoning

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Rome for the true gospel of Jesus Christ and the true church of Christ. And I was wondering, did he ever reconcile in any way or did his family ever reconcile with him before he went home to glory?

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I have a fuzzy memory of something like that occurring but I'm not 100 % confident about it.

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This is Greg. Richard had some reconciliation with some of his siblings.

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Richard actually did an update of his testimony and it's up online at the

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Berean Beacon where he was glad in that aspect that some of his siblings had actually,

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I think one of his sisters actually became a believer. But it was something that grieved his heart all the time that I had known

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Richard was the fact that his family had rejected him which is actually almost a fulfillment of scripture.

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But it was a burden of his and he spent many years just trying to reach his precious family in Ireland.

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So that was really a cry of his heart, I know that. One thing that I hinted about in my opening remarks, the words that I wrote that Berean Beacon used as a part of their obituary for Richard, you could never get the idea, no matter how boldly

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Richard was preaching the gospel and telling people, warning people, urging people to repent of their idolatry and of their superstition and their false theology as a member of the

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Church of Rome, you could never get the idea that he was saying this from a heart of arrogance, of self -righteousness, of bigotry, of mockery.

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You always could sense very palpably that this man had a heart for the people that he once claimed as his own, the

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Roman Catholics. He had a heart to see them rescued from their damning delusions.

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And if any of you could comment to add to this about this very key manner in which the gospel should be proclaimed to the lost.

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That is something that I know that I very often fail to do and some of my greatest heroes in the

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Christian church have failed to do, especially perhaps in the world of apologetics. They can boldly proclaim the falsehoods, or should

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I say boldly denounce and expose and refute the falsehoods of those in false religions, but very often it is not done with the meekness and the gentleness and the compassion, the oozing compassion that flowed from Richard when he preached.

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That is a missing element in many of our lives who seek to, with good motives most of the time, warn our loved ones or even strangers about false teaching.

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But isn't that something that we should all be seeking to imitate, that when we're preaching boldly the truth, we have to be coming from a heart of love and compassion and humility?

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Amen. This is Mike. Yes, that was one of the traits that really marked

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Richard's life, that of humility, and he was a very humble man. And I think a lot of that comes from a clear understanding of the doctrines of grace, that he recognized that he was unworthy to be saved.

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I just recognize that his approach to sharing the gospel was one that you cannot argue anyone into heaven, that all we do is we present the message with clarity, with completeness.

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We lay the results to God. And so that was Richard's style. It was a very humble approach, whether or not he was on radio or TV or even in his writings.

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It was definitely pointing out the errors of Rome, but doing so in a very objective way, compared always to the

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Scripture, which was Richard's supreme authority for truth. I think that's something we can all learn from Richard, his humble approach to sharing the gospel.

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Amen. Hi, this is Stuart. I just saw in there really quickly as well that, though he primarily focused on people of Roman Catholic background, not for obvious reasons, he wasn't exclusively focused on them.

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I mean, for instance, he really wanted to have, and we have some material now on the site, he wanted to share the gospel with anybody, but he's interested in Eastern Orthodox people, for example.

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I remember him talking, telling stories about Muslim people, about really, he did not care who you were, because his gospel taught him that God was sending us to go to the world to preach the gospel to all creation, to all kinds of people.

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Happens to be that he just came out of a Roman Catholic background, so naturally he's going to write and do more videos about that, but totally agree with the gospel that he learned.

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And I just also add, based to another question you pointed out or brought up earlier, is that he would tell you that the only way you can really share the gospel with somebody, especially from a

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Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox background, is really the doctrines of grace, because how do you understand then that Christ did it all, and it's only in Christ?

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How do you understand the depravity of man? You can't do that if man can take 1 % of the credit for his salvation.

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Praise God. We're going to our first station break right now, so if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please at least give us your first name, your city and state in your country of residence, if you live outside the

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USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you're a

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Roman Catholic listener, and you've been questioning some of the things that you believe and do as a

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Roman Catholic, and you'd like to ask one of our guests about that, and would rather not identify yourself.

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I understand that completely. You may remain anonymous. So if it's anything about a personal and private matter that compels you to remain anonymous, we will honor that request to remain anonymous.

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But if it's just a general question, a theological question, or just a question about the life and legacy of Richard Bennett, a general question, then please at least give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

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Pastor Christopher McDowell. For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

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That's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711.

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42:32

St. Patrick's Day of 2020, and I know that Richard Bennett would be very pleased to know that we are paying him tribute on St.

42:42

Patrick's Day. I had interviewed Richard Bennett on several occasions on St.

42:49

Patrick's Day to talk about the true Patrick of Ireland, not the

42:55

Patrick of superstition and folklore, or the St.

43:01

Patrick of Roman Catholic piety. St. Patrick was not a Roman Catholic. There is very clear historic evidence that he was a

43:11

Christian even before there was such a thing as Roman Catholicism, although obviously our

43:17

Roman Catholic friends would insist Jesus Christ himself founded the Roman Catholic Church. That is obviously something impossible to prove, not only from Scripture, but even from history.

43:29

But it was a favorite topic of Richard Bennett, being a son of Ireland himself, and he loved to talk about the true

43:39

Patrick of Ireland. So I thought this was a very appropriate day to celebrate the life and legacy of Richard Bennett today.

43:46

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, or even a comment, a story, or what have you, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

43:57

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Now I understand that everyone on this show today is a former Roman Catholic.

44:03

That would include me. And I'd like each of you, we'll start with Stuart again, to tell our listeners why this is such an important topic to warn everyone about the dangers and deceptions about the idolatry and superstition and false teaching, false doctrine, false dogma, and false gospel of Rome, when in our day and age, and this is nothing new really, but it's especially prevalent in our day and age, people view the differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism or Evangelicalism.

44:50

They view them as very superficial, tertiary kind of differences.

44:58

They will say, well, what's the real big deal? They have priests who don't get married.

45:04

We have ministers who have wives and children. Their priests wear robes and our ministers wear business suits or today they wear

45:13

T -shirts and skinny jeans and sneakers. And, you know, they really don't understand the magnitude, the chasm of difference.

45:22

And if you could start with yourself, Stuart, and even if you want to bring in a part of your own testimony and how

45:30

Richard Bennett made even more clear these vast differences between Roman Catholicism and Biblical Christianity.

45:41

Hi, Chris. So, wow, there's a lot in that question. I would just start out with that I think about John 14, 6, when

45:50

Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. And I think that's really important because a lot of things allegedly pretend to be

46:02

Christ. They pretend to be the gospel. And, you know, I mean, Mike Gendron said it before.

46:08

There's 1 .2 billion Roman Catholics, people who identify in some way with Roman Catholicism.

46:14

That's a lot of people in the world. The reality is that they don't believe in Jesus as he presents himself in the scriptures.

46:23

That includes the old and the new. That it's only through him that salvation is found. It's only through him that we can be sanctified, we can be glorified.

46:32

You know, the Lord had saved me before I'd come to know Richard, but I would point out this with Richard.

46:40

So the way we met was actually, you might have heard of a guy named Rick Warren who has been popular among certain evangelical circles and where, you know, truncated in the story, but basically the church where we had been attending was bringing his teachings in, and it caused me great concern, particularly in the way that, you know, they were spinning

47:08

Jesus in a way completely different than what you would see in the holy scriptures. And it was through course of doing some research on the internet that I ran into this guy named

47:17

Richard Bennett who had written a couple of articles about why the purpose -driven life is not the gospel.

47:25

That it lowers God to, you know, it lowers the holiness of God. It lessens the value of the sacrifice of Christ that we cannot save ourselves in any way.

47:37

And keep in mind, folks, I just wanted to make it clear to our listeners, Rick Warren is not a Roman Catholic.

47:42

He's a Southern Baptist. So this shows you how Richard, although he might have primarily focused on Roman Catholicism, he also exposed the serious, deadly, and damning errors of modern -day evangelicalism and Protestantism.

47:59

Amen to that. And I just quickly add also, by the way, that Rick Warren would consider Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox as his brothers and sisters.

48:08

In fact, he considers Pope Francis his pope. Yes, which is a bit problematic to say the least.

48:16

But, you know, it was through that, through talking with Richard, that it really helped me understand more sharply, you know, not just the need for the gospel, but I think the depth of the gospel, the fact that, again, you know, that we really are the holiness of God, the sinfulness, my sinfulness.

48:35

You know, especially for someone coming from a Roman Catholic background, our tendency is we want to earn our salvation.

48:41

We want that one percent. We're semi -Pelagians at heart. And so not only does God save us from the consequences of our past sin, but he also saves us from those wrong patterns of thinking that are likely to crop up, particularly in someone who's of more of a religious background, as Richard Bennett clearly was.

48:59

And I think he really helped me particularly, and I'd also throw in Greg Bentley. I mean, I remember we had a conversation about, look, if you really want to be out there, you know, and Richard reinforced this as well, the only true gospel antidote to the false gospel of Rome and other false gospels is the doctrines of grace, because that's what the scriptures teach.

49:22

It's got to be fully God. It can't be 99 percent, because otherwise you're basically back to an evangelical form of Roman Catholicism.

49:31

That's so true. This is Mike. This is Mike. Not only the sovereignty of God and he's 100 percent, but when we look at Roman Catholicism, they proclaim an insufficient

49:42

Christ, and the Jesus of the Bible is totally sufficient. He did everything necessary to save sinners completely and forever, which is why salvation is offered by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone.

49:56

But it all goes back to authority, and I know that that's the reason I began reading the Bible for the first time.

50:02

Having been to an evangelical seminar, I came away for the first time realizing that the

50:09

Bible is the supreme authority in all matters of faith. So as I began reading it,

50:14

I had a crisis of faith, because what the Bible was teaching was diametrically opposed to what the

50:21

Roman Catholic Church had taught me regarding salvation and the gospel. And so I did the wrong thing.

50:27

I called up my uncle, a Roman Catholic priest, and I asked him, why does the

50:32

Bible teach one thing and the Catholic Church another? And he said, well, that's not true. Give me an example.

50:38

I said, well, in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 it says, we are saved by grace through faith. It's not of ourselves.

50:45

It's the gift of God, not of works that no man may boast. My uncle, the priest, said, well,

50:51

Mike, God doesn't really mean what he's saying there. And I just thought, wow, how can this priest know what

50:58

God really means? And so it pacified me for a moment, but the more that I dug in the scriptures, the more it was impossible to reconcile the two teachings.

51:08

And so that's when God granted me repentance and gave me the gift of faith and turned my life upside down, and I've never been the same.

51:17

But it really starts with authority. You know, when the Catholic Church submits to Scripture, tradition, and the infallible bishops, they say they're equal in authority, but it's the bishops that actually sit above Scripture and tradition to twist and distort

51:33

Scripture so that it lines up with their ungodly tradition. But it leads to another

51:39

Jesus that's insufficient. And whenever you have another Jesus, it always leads to another gospel that instructs people what they must do in order to be saved that Christ did not accomplish.

51:50

And that's really the bottom line difference between biblical

51:55

Christianity and Roman Catholicism. The Catholic Church teaches a false and fatal gospel that's under the divine condemnation of God based on Galatians 1, 6 -9, and that's why we need to rescue

52:09

Roman Catholics out from a religion that's under the curse of God. And Richard pointed that out so thoroughly.

52:17

And that's one of the reasons, by the way, that ministries like ours are so important and a brilliant beacon.

52:25

We're living in a day of ecumenical unity where evangelical leaders are signing accords stating that we share a common faith with Roman Catholics and the

52:36

Eastern Orthodox. And that's the furthest thing from the truth when you look at Scripture.

52:41

So we not only need to evangelize Roman Catholics, but we need to educate evangelicals that there is a difference, that Roman Catholics are lost.

52:51

I did a message last week at Park City's Baptist Church here in Dallas, and before the meeting started,

52:58

I asked the people that were there, have you witnessed to Roman Catholics? And one of them responded, well, we didn't know they needed to be witnessed to.

53:07

And that's because of the ecumenical movement.

53:13

The average evangelical today doesn't know if the Roman Catholic Church represents a huge mission field or whether or not it's a

53:22

Christian denomination made up of brothers and sisters in Christ. And so we need to educate evangelicals more than ever.

53:30

And if Richard was still here, he would be doing that more than ever. And of course, there are multitudes of people who call themselves evangelicals who don't know the gospel either.

53:43

They're just as lost as the Roman Catholics around them. And one of the reasons why they don't view

53:50

Roman Catholics as a mission field is because they don't really see much of a difference in the so -called gospel that they believe and the one that Roman Catholicism represents, which is also another complicated issue because you have very few

54:07

Roman Catholics today dogmatically teaching what the

54:12

Church of Rome historically taught. Time and time again, when

54:19

I bring up the Council of Trent condemning me and every other heir of the

54:25

Protestant Reformation to hell in their anathemas against us, many, if not most,

54:32

Roman Catholics I speak to don't even know what is taught in the Council of Trent. And if they do, they don't even think it's relevant today because it's a 16th century document that was produced by that council.

54:47

But I'm going to have Greg Bentley chime in when we come back from our midway break. This is a longer -than -normal break, folks, so please be patient with us.

54:56

Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida requires of us a longer break in the middle of our show because they have to, by FCC regulations, localize

55:08

Zion Sharp and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida with their own public service announcements and other things that they air, which they air in the middle of our show.

55:17

And while they air their localized public service announcements, we air our globally heard commercials.

55:23

So please be patient with us as we take this longer -than -normal break. We also ask of you to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and more successfully patronize them because, keep in mind, folks, without our advertisers, we cannot exist.

55:43

And one great way to further ensure our advertisers will stick around is if you, the listener, patronize them as often as possible.

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So please write down their information, and also write down questions for our guests today who are paying tribute to the late

55:58

Richard Bennett, and send them to chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

56:03

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these words. Iron Sharp and Zion welcome

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01:00:00

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as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

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Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here. I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

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01:06:43

Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

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Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have.

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That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:08:10

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are on this

01:08:16

St. Patrick's Day of 2020, paying tribute to the late Richard Bennett, founder of Berean Beacon Ministries.

01:08:25

He was formerly a Roman Catholic priest who came to discover and embrace the gospel of the

01:08:34

Reformation, which is more importantly the gospel of Holy Scriptures and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:08:42

Richard Bennett was born on March 10, 1938. We're just a week away from the anniversary of his birth.

01:08:53

He went home to be with the Lord he so loved for eternity on September 23, 2019.

01:09:02

He was a dear friend of myself and the guests that we have on the program today.

01:09:07

Stuart Quint, who is the coordinator of international translations for Berean Beacon, Greg Bentley, the director of Berean Beacon, and Mike Gendron, the founder of Proclaiming the

01:09:20

Gospel. All of us are former Roman Catholics who came to the same truth that our dear brother and friend

01:09:27

Richard Bennett came to embrace by the grace and mercy of the

01:09:33

Lord God Savior and King Jesus Christ. We are delighted to all pay tribute to this dear brother now in eternity.

01:09:43

He is survived by his wife Lynn. We ask that you pray for Lynn as she is struggling with her own health issues.

01:09:51

We hope that Lynn gets this recording in her hands in the very near future so that she can hear friends of her late husband pay honor and tribute to him.

01:10:04

I hope that she is delighted to hear it. Before I return to our discussion,

01:10:11

I just have a couple of announcements to make. There was a

01:10:16

Bible conference, as many of you know who listen to the show, that was scheduled to take place this

01:10:23

Friday and Saturday at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, featuring Gary DeMar of American Vision.

01:10:30

That conference has been postponed due to the restrictions being placed on not only churches but everybody, requiring that public gatherings not exceed 10 people.

01:10:44

So this conference has been postponed, likely to take place the second week of May, but I do not know.

01:10:55

Obviously nobody knows other than the Lord. But I will keep you updated as I receive updates from Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island.

01:11:05

So sorry to be the bearer of the bad news that this conference has been postponed. The Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon for Spring of 2020 is still being scheduled to take place, and I hope that as many men listening who are in ministry leadership will attend however you need to get to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, by plane, train, automobile, by parachute, or whatever other means you need to get here.

01:11:39

We would love to see you here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on Friday, May 29th, at the

01:11:45

Bongiorno Conference Center. This is absolutely free of charge. As it has always been ever since this annual and now biannual

01:11:56

Pastors Luncheon began in the 1990s as a direct result of a brainstorm by my precious late wife,

01:12:05

Julie, who came up with the idea to treat pastors every year to a fun time of fellowship, fabulous food, phenomenal preaching, and even free books donated by major Christian publishers all over the

01:12:20

United States and United Kingdom. Well, this has been going on every year. And then when

01:12:25

I relocated to Pennsylvania from New York, New York was where the

01:12:31

Pastors Luncheons were born and were repeated every year for a number of years in New York.

01:12:39

When I relocated to Pennsylvania, I relaunched these luncheons in memory and in tribute of my late wife,

01:12:48

Julie, who is now in eternity with Christ, as I said. And we continue to do these luncheons in her honor and memory.

01:12:57

So, the exciting news, in addition to all that, is that for the very first time,

01:13:03

I have Dr. Conrad M. Bayway speaking at the Iron Sherpins Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon.

01:13:10

He is the pastor of Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa. He is also a lecturer at African Christian University.

01:13:20

And I believe he is the most powerful preacher alive on the planet Earth. And many who have heard him share that opinion.

01:13:29

So, if you'd like to come to this free luncheon, remember, everything's free. Free food, free fellowship, free admission to hear

01:13:37

Dr. M. Bayway preach. And free books from major publishers. All of that's free.

01:13:44

If you'd like to register, if you are a man in ministry leadership, whether you're a pastor, elder, deacon, power church, ministry leader, just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:13:55

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. And put Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. I will register you for this event.

01:14:03

And last but not least, well, not last but not least, but close to last, I have to remind you, please, folks, if you love this show and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves,

01:14:15

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01:14:41

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01:14:50

One of our major sponsors has delayed in renewing his sponsorship contract for this program because of the fact that his business has been hit pretty bad financially as a result of the coronavirus, or should

01:15:07

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01:16:07

I have to remind you folks that if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church, you're not even prayerfully looking for one, you are living in rebellion against God.

01:16:18

If you need a church wherever on the planet Earth you live, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:16:25

and put I need a church in the subject line, and I may be able to help you find a church from the many lists

01:16:31

I have of biblically faithful churches all over the world. I've already helped many people find churches near them in all parts of the world that they have joined and where they have become members, or they have visited there when they've been on vacation, or they have recommended these churches to family, friends, and loved ones who live in areas where they cannot find a

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01:17:02

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to help us remain on the air, we really could use your advertising dollars. So as long as you are promoting something that is reasonably compatible with what we believe,

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01:17:37

And that's also the email address where you can send in a question to our guests about Richard Bennett, the late

01:17:44

Richard Bennett, now in eternity with Christ. Richard Bennett, who is the founder of Berean Beacon Ministries, a former

01:17:51

Roman Catholic priest, who came to discover and embrace the doctrines of sovereign grace and became a zealous ambassador for Jesus Christ to expose the errors and the damning deceptions of Roman Catholicism to anyone with an ear to hear.

01:18:12

And that website is bereanbeacon .org bereanbeacon .org

01:18:17

And before I continue with our subject, since we have one individual here on the panel who is not directly on the staff of Berean Beacon, we have

01:18:32

Mike Gendron. Why don't you tell our listeners about your own ministry, Proclaiming the

01:18:37

Gospel. Well, sure, Chris. It was founded 30 years ago.

01:18:44

My last semester at Dallas Theological Seminary, we were introduced to a video on Catholicism, Crisis of Faith, and I brought it home, and my wife and I, Jane, who is also a former

01:18:58

Catholic, were so moved by the video that we wanted to invite every Roman Catholic we knew over to our home.

01:19:05

So for the next three months, every Tuesday night, we invited Catholics over, and then they started inviting their

01:19:12

Catholic friends over, and within three months, we saw 17 Roman Catholics exchange their religion for a relationship with the

01:19:21

Lord Jesus Christ. And so what do you do with new babes in Christ? Well, we invited them back on Wednesday night to help them grow in the grace and knowledge of our

01:19:29

Lord. And looking back, that was the genesis of this ministry. We never really set out to begin a ministry, but God began opening doors for me to preach in churches and seminaries and conferences around the world, and the next thing you know, we've literally been around the world twice and equipping the

01:19:49

Body of Christ to be faithful witnesses for the Great Commission with a primary focus on reaching

01:19:55

Roman Catholics or anyone lost in religion. And so over the years, we've developed six different gospel tracts.

01:20:03

Three of them are dedicated to reaching Catholics. They're entitled Roman Catholicism, Scripture vs.

01:20:10

Tradition. That's in six different foreign languages. We also have Rome vs. the

01:20:16

Bible. And the most important track, Which Jesus Do You Trust? Because so often, evangelicals will tell us that they know a

01:20:24

Catholic who's saved, and we ask, How do you know they're saved? And they'll say,

01:20:29

Because they love Jesus. So this really points out the contrast between the Jesus of Rome and the

01:20:36

Jesus of the Catholic Church. I'm sorry, the Jesus of the Bible. And so later on,

01:20:42

I wrote a book called Preparing for Eternity, which is a manual to help people know how to witness to Roman Catholics, but it's also written in a form that Catholics can read it and see the contrast and put their trust in an all -sufficient

01:20:59

Savior. We also have 15 different DVDs with two different PowerPoint messages on each one.

01:21:06

Also a set of Gospel cards that highlight the 12 most important words of the Gospel. We found that the main reason people do not witness faithfully today is they don't feel like they know the

01:21:18

Gospel well enough. So these 12 Gospel cards really help them go deeper into the

01:21:24

Gospel. My latest book is called Contending for the Gospel, and I wrote that out of a need to contend earnestly against the ecumenical movement that is really sweeping across the

01:21:37

Evangelical Church. It's really an exhortation from Jude to contend earnestly for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.

01:21:48

And so through all of this, we've just been very encouraged by the fruit that God has brought forth as His Gospel goes forth, and we really stand in awe of everything

01:22:00

God has accomplished through a couple of broken vessels. The website is

01:22:05

ProclaimingtheGospel .org, so a wealth of resources are listed there if anybody would like to visit

01:22:11

ProclaimingtheGospel .org. Great, and hopefully we will remember to repeat that website before the conclusion of the program.

01:22:20

We have Archie, I'm sorry, not Archie. Arnie, with an N. Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks,

01:22:29

Could each of you give your favorite anecdote about Richard Bennett? That's a great question.

01:22:36

I have one of my own that I'll start the ball rolling with. I can remember one of the first radio interviews

01:22:43

I conducted with Richard Bennett. It was not on Iron Sharp and Zion Radio because Iron Sharp and Zion Radio did not yet exist when that happened.

01:22:51

This was back in the 1990s. I was working for WMCA Radio, 570

01:23:00

AM in New York, an affiliate of the Salem media stations worldwide, and I was interviewing

01:23:12

Richard on his testimony, and I knew that Richard had a very good sense of humor despite the seriousness of the subject or subjects that he most predominantly brought to any pulpit where he was invited to speak.

01:23:27

But he did have a sense of humor, and that even came out in many of his sermons and lectures, even though he wasn't a stand -up comic by any stretch of the imagination with the seriousness of his subjects, but he would crack up an audience from time to time.

01:23:44

But the very first time I interviewed him on his testimony, I had, before he came on the air, when

01:23:52

I was introducing him, I had Dean Martin singing a Riva Dirci Roma in the background, and when the show was over, he said to me,

01:24:04

Oh, brother, I couldn't believe you were playing that song. I didn't know how to react. I was just totally stunned by it.

01:24:11

But that's one of my favorite anecdotes with Richard. I had many others, but if you could,

01:24:18

Greg Bentley, why don't you share one of your own? Well, I've had so many different experiences with Richard.

01:24:28

I think the thing that was most impactful to me, and I believe in this ministry at large, was his emphasis on presenting the true gospel.

01:24:40

And he wrote an article and produced a video on it as well called The Invincible Gospel and the

01:24:47

Modern Evangelical Lie. And I found as, you know, this was, you know,

01:24:56

Richard would go around to different places. He would minister to various evangelicals had been caught up in this modern gospel presentation.

01:25:05

And I remember one incident, he was at a conference of Baptist pastors out of New York, and these pastors had been, you know, very accustomed to making a call, an altar call, you know, telling people to ask

01:25:20

Jesus into their heart and so forth. And I remember during this conference, this man finally, like the light bulb came off in his head, and he stood up and he recalled how he was down in South America and he was preaching, and it was translated to a bunch of Spanish -speaking individuals that were there at the outreach.

01:25:40

And in his announcement, he asked people that whoever wants to receive Jesus, raise their hand.

01:25:47

And the whole church stood up and they raised their hand and then they said, whoever wants to receive

01:25:52

Christ, I want you to come forward. And they proceeded to march out in single file, just like in a

01:25:58

Catholic church. And so he realized he was offering a message that was actually a syncretistic message.

01:26:06

So I was really, I think, Richard's sticking to and explaining the true gospel to Roman Catholic people was what impacted my life, and I think the lives of so many others.

01:26:18

Yeah, he viewed that false practice of the altar call just like a Protestant sacrament, didn't he?

01:26:24

I mean, not that he agreed with the sacrament, but that many in our day and age, and for over 100 years, and many people don't even realize that the altar call didn't even exist until the 19th century, but that Protestants had added their own new sacrament, something required of people to do to be saved.

01:26:49

Exactly. And that's played well into the hands of the ecumenists, and that's the reason why, that is the ecumenical gospel is basically ask

01:26:58

Jesus in your heart, and that's one the Catholics accept, that's one the modern evangelicals accept.

01:27:04

Well, actually, even your most ardent fundamentalist, who is a separatist, and opposed vehemently to ecumenism, even many amongst them have embraced that false concept of the altar call and invitation system.

01:27:27

Exactly, and I really think that this is Richard's legacy for the church in our day, is to actually break that open and communicate that effectively to Catholic people, that a lot of them, they believe they're

01:27:40

Christian, and Christian pastors think Catholics are Christians because they ask Jesus in their heart, and it's very deceiving.

01:27:47

Hey, and Stuart, do you have your own anecdote? Yeah, I'm not going to give you a story,

01:27:56

I'm going to give you two things about Richard that really stick with me, I think you might be interested in.

01:28:01

So, one was his real passion, when he was talking about when he and Lynn went over to China.

01:28:11

And even to, many years later, hearing about some of the people, and even in one case, running into some of the people that they worked with, that they really...

01:28:23

And again, you think, I mean, there are Roman Catholics in China, but that wasn't their thing. Their thing was preaching the

01:28:30

Gospel, sharing it, and especially in a country where, at that time, it was not the easiest thing.

01:28:37

And also, in the year, if you remember, this thing called Tiananmen Square, is when they literally had to get out of the country.

01:28:43

But that was something that was very dear to his heart. I'd say the other thing was, whether it was making videos, and I have one particular story.

01:28:51

He was at a conference in Pennsylvania, he was at a church, I'd come, I'd driven up to meet him, and he was presenting, and right,

01:28:59

I don't know if it was Q &A or it was right after his session, but there was a man, no, a woman that came up, who, whether she was genuinely seeking, but was a

01:29:12

Roman Catholic, or whether she was actually a plant and thought that she was fighting against this apostate for Roman Catholicism called

01:29:19

Richard Bennett, I'm not sure, but what really struck me was his calm, his peace.

01:29:25

He wasn't ruffled by somebody who was very emotional. And he really had a firm rest on the gospel.

01:29:35

That was his life. And if you could, Mike Gendron, do you have any anecdotes, favorite stories about Richard Bennett?

01:29:46

Well, none come to my mind other than, again, just his character and his humility, his compassion, his passion for the truth, and his strict adherence to the doctrines of grace.

01:30:02

I didn't come to know the doctrines of grace until probably midpoint of my

01:30:09

Christian life, and so he was a great influence in that area as well.

01:30:15

And having understood the doctrines of grace, as I shared earlier, I can understand how he had such a humble and contrite spirit toward those who are perishing.

01:30:30

And also, he extended that knowledge of the doctrines of grace to our

01:30:36

Arminian brothers that did not know the doctrines of grace, and when we first started speaking at conferences together, there was four who held to the doctrines of grace and three who did not, and so we would get together at different times to discuss the doctrines of grace that are so gloriously revealed from Scripture, and Richard was very passionate in that area as well.

01:31:03

So, again, great influence in my life. Praise God. And I can also remember how generous, financially,

01:31:13

Richard was, even though he was never a man of any wealth that could be commented on, a man of meager means, and when he had heard in the early 2000s that I was wrongfully terminated from a job that I had where I was earning a lucrative income and had a very established career, when he realized that my wife and I were in dire financial straits and I was having a hard time even paying for my mortgage and even just ordinary bills and groceries and so on, on at least six occasions.

01:32:01

It might have been more. Richard surprised me by sending a very generous check in the mail, and I was astounded by that, knowing of his meager means that he was not somebody of great wealth or even any notable wealth or notable financial income that could be discussed.

01:32:26

But he was a very generous brother, and I just thank God for him. And a man who was very convicted about the dangers of Rome, and this is one thing

01:32:45

I think we have to make clear in our discussion today, because there are many people, both

01:32:51

Roman Catholic and Evangelical, who just can't get it out of their minds that what we are talking about today, when it comes to warning people about the damning doctrines of Rome, they can't help but erase from their minds, they can't help but believe that what we are doing is bigotry, what we are doing is hate speech, that we think that we are superior in some way to Roman Catholics and others, and that is not at all the case.

01:33:26

And when we come back from our final break, I would like each of you to really focus on the fact that Richard Bennett and all of us on this panel, we have no ill will towards our

01:33:41

Roman Catholic friends and loved ones. We want to see them in heaven. We want them to be rescued of something that is dragging them to hell.

01:33:51

And just like anybody else that we love who might be addicted to drugs or alcohol or involved in sex outside of marriage, you could go on and on, or any other false religion, anything that is bringing them to hell, or even pride that if you love someone and you recognize they are doing something that is damning, it is your obligation as a

01:34:28

Christian to, in love and humility and compassion, warn such people.

01:34:35

And I will have each and every one of you address that because that was the hallmark of Richard Bennett's life.

01:34:42

But if anybody else has a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com. chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:34:51

And as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Don't go away.

01:34:57

We'll be right back with more of our tribute to the late Richard Bennett. When Iron Trump and Zion Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Welcome back.

01:45:23

This is Chris Arnzen for our final segment of today's tribute to the late Richard Bennett, founder of Berean Beacon Ministries.

01:45:31

And let me start with Mike Gendron proclaiming the Gospel. Mike, as I was saying before the break, there are a lot of people, especially because of the ecumenical climate in the world today, they can't get it out of their heads that what we are doing is strongly connected, inseparably connected to bigotry, self -righteousness, sectarianism, my denomination is better than yours.

01:45:57

They think that we are somehow perpetuating that kind of mindset when we are seeking to see our

01:46:06

Roman Catholic friends, family and loved ones, and even strangers, rescued from their damning delusions.

01:46:13

If you could comment on how this is just a totally false motivation for those who are truly born from above, those who are truly regenerate

01:46:22

Christians, acting in accordance with the Holy Scriptures in spirit and in truth.

01:46:31

Well sure, Chris. The greatest attack on the Christian faith today is on the purity and the exclusivity of the

01:46:37

Gospel. Very few people want to recognize the exclusivity of the Gospel, that there is only one

01:46:43

Gospel, nothing can be added to it, nothing can be taken away from it. If anybody perverts the

01:46:49

Gospel, then they are under a divine curse. And so Roman Catholics, who I know many that are zealous for God, and one of the verses in Scripture that really moved me toward my compassion for Catholics was

01:47:02

Paul's prayer for the Israelites. In Romans chapter 10, he said they had a zeal for God, but it wasn't based on knowledge, and they sought to obtain their own righteousness, not knowing the righteousness of God.

01:47:15

And as I studied that verse in seminary, that's when God, I think, really used that verse to give me a burden for Catholics that are in the same boat.

01:47:26

They're zealous for God, but they don't have knowledge of the Bible. They don't have knowledge of God's righteousness, that He requires perfection, and the only way that you can get into Heaven is through the perfect righteousness of Christ that's imputed, not infused, to all those who will put their trust in Christ as their all -sufficient

01:47:45

Savior. And so it's out of a great compassion for these that really are talked about in Matthew's Gospel, in Matthew chapter 7,

01:47:55

I'm sure, verses that are familiar to all of your listeners. Jesus says, Not everyone who says to me,

01:48:01

Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven will enter.

01:48:10

And then Jesus goes on to say, Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not do all of these things in your name?

01:48:18

And so they're boasting in a works -righteousness salvation. They're trusting in what they were doing rather than what

01:48:25

Christ has done. And so my heart goes out to all of these people who even acknowledge

01:48:30

Jesus as Lord, but they don't know the Gospel. They don't know that works -righteousness is a false and fatal

01:48:37

Gospel. And, you know, Roman Catholicism, in that sense, is no different from all the other religions in the world.

01:48:44

They all teach you must do things in order to appease God when the Gospel tells us that Christ has done everything necessary to save us.

01:48:53

And He only saves by grace. As Paul said in Romans 11 and 6, if it is by grace, it is not of works.

01:49:00

Otherwise, grace is not grace. And so Satan knows this. That's why he adds works to any

01:49:07

Gospel, any plan of salvation, because it condemns people rather than saves them.

01:49:13

And I think the bottom line, Chris, is that people don't have a sense of the reality of hell.

01:49:20

Roman Catholics, for example, they have this safety net called purgatory, and they believe most of their sins are venial.

01:49:27

And we need to warn Catholics that the venial sin, the doctrine of venial sin, is really the lie of the devil in the

01:49:35

Garden of Eden when he said you surely shall not die if you break God's command. And so this whole purgatory doctrine is one that gives

01:49:45

Catholics a sense of security, and it really makes them almost unapproachable to the

01:49:53

Gospel because they are really trusting their religion and their priesthood to get them to heaven. We need to strip them of their own righteousness and let them know that purgatory does not exist, that when you die, you're either in the presence of our

01:50:08

Lord or you're satisfying divine justice on your own in the eternal fires of hell.

01:50:14

And so I think that, more than anything, gives me great compassion for the 1 .2 billion

01:50:19

Roman Catholics who are where I was for most of my life, believing I belonged to the One True Church, believing

01:50:25

I was on my way to heaven, albeit through a detour in purgatory. But they need to be...

01:50:34

First, we need to tell them that they're lost and that their religion and their priest can't save them.

01:50:40

We need to share with them the exclusivity of the Gospel. And that's what our ministry tries to do, and that's exactly what

01:50:46

Richard Bennett did for so many years. He was so faithful to it. So hopefully, if there's any

01:50:52

Roman Catholics listening, that they will look at our resources, go to ProclaimingtheGospel .org,

01:50:58

and we're not here to condemn anybody. The Bible does that. We're here to save people through the

01:51:04

Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And, Stuart, if you could continue with your own thoughts on why what

01:51:12

Richard Bennett stood for and what we are doing today has nothing to do with bigotry. Yeah, I'd actually direct it a little differently toward...

01:51:22

And I'm sure all of you who've run into this situation with professing Christians will say, Why are you doing it, professing evangelicals?

01:51:30

And it reminds me of Jude 3, where it says... Jude writes, and he says,

01:51:36

Our job, if we're truly of Christ, is to earnestly contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

01:51:43

And he goes on, and he explains that certain men have come in from long ago to go and basically infiltrate and promulgate a false gospel, you know, as Mike was talking about just now.

01:51:53

And so number one is, yeah, there's 1 .2 billion Catholic people. Hey, we're all former

01:51:59

Catholics. Of course we love Catholic people, and Richard especially loved Catholic people. He was one. But I think for Christians, they need to also consider that if you don't...

01:52:10

If you really love the Gospel, the true Gospel of our true Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, you need to share that with people, including and especially

01:52:19

Roman Catholics, those who are caught up in a false gospel. So that's what I would say.

01:52:25

And Greg? Well, I would agree with everything that's been said so far, and the thought that came to my mind is that, in my experience in corresponding with various Catholics that are struggling,

01:52:41

I find they're trapped somewhere in the labyrinth of their sacramental system.

01:52:48

And for Christian people who truly are saved, understanding this and the system of Rome is important.

01:52:57

So as the Christians, you know, can know who they're reaching and why they're thinking the way they're thinking, they need to be freed from that.

01:53:08

And it is a difficult task. Richard's motto that we have out on the

01:53:13

Internet is reaching Roman Catholics in a world of compromise. And that is the battle, is that there's just smoke and fog all over the field.

01:53:23

No one knows who is what and what is what anymore. And having a grounding in church history helps.

01:53:30

That's one of Richard's passions. We have a large section on our website. And a lot of the missing links are church history and where we came from, and knowing what the

01:53:41

Roman Catholic Church teaches. And it is the passion of all these ministries that are reaching out is for the souls of Catholic people.

01:53:51

That's what it's about. It's not about promoting any church. It's about reaching the soul of the

01:53:57

Catholic person. And everyone I know in this work, they used to be Catholic.

01:54:02

That's why they're doing it. They want to reach the people out of love and truth. Amen. By the way,

01:54:09

B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, wanted me to clarify something when I was talking about interviewing

01:54:14

Richard for the first time before I had my own show. She was confused about wondering if I had a show on WMCA.

01:54:22

And I did not have a show of my own on WMCA when I interviewed Richard for the first time. I was filling in for the late

01:54:29

Andy Anderson. In fact, I believe it was after Andy went home to be with the Lord himself where the station gave me opportunities for,

01:54:37

I think, two weeks to fill in for Andy until they found a permanent host. And Richard was one of my guests.

01:54:44

And that's when I had him on for the first time. We have... Let's see here.

01:54:52

We have Christian in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks,

01:54:59

Did Richard and did any of you notice a change in the approach of conservative

01:55:06

Roman Catholic apologists after the election of Pope Francis to pope because knowing that he is the most liberal pope this church has ever known has caused great confusion and, in fact, great embarrassment to many conservative

01:55:23

Catholics that I know personally? Maybe Mike Gendron, you could start. Well, sure,

01:55:30

I have noticed. Well, I would say many of the

01:55:36

Catholic apologists that I keep abreast of, they have recognized that this pope is a false teacher.

01:55:43

They've tried to distance himself from his teachings such as he has taught that there is no hell, that atheists will make it to heaven as long as they're sincere.

01:55:53

I mean, he's just the most bizarre pope in modern history, and so many of the

01:56:00

Catholic apologists are really denying that he is infallible, and they're really distancing themselves from him and really going to the

01:56:10

Catechism of the Catholic Church, which Pope Benedict, his predecessor, actually authored and put into play.

01:56:18

So there may be a split within the Roman Catholic Church if this continues, and we'll just have to wait and see.

01:56:25

But I think it's a great time to witness to Roman Catholics because they don't know who their authority is anymore.

01:56:31

They can't trust the pope. So we can point them to the one and only high priest, the

01:56:37

Lord Jesus Christ, and his word. He will never deceive them. He will never mislead them. He will never abuse them, and his word is always true.

01:56:45

Yeah, in fact, I view this as a positive thing because it is further proof of the fictitious nature of the whole concept of a pope being a safe guide to Christ's flock.

01:57:05

It is ridiculous. The Catholic Church for centuries has said that Protestants are basically breeding anarchy because we go by our own individual understanding of Scripture and we don't have an infallible guide.

01:57:22

Well, since the Catholic Church believes the pope is only infallible when defining dogma, they don't believe that anything any pope just says is infallible, it really becomes to a moot point when you have a pope that says a lot of things but doesn't define anything, and he's saying some of the most left -wing and insane things that somebody of the stature of the

01:57:51

Roman Catholic Church has ever said. Not that he's the first pope that has said liberal things.

01:57:57

Even Pope John Paul II kissed the Koran and prayed with pagan priests and so on.

01:58:06

This isn't the first time, but he seems to be the most consistent liberal in that office.

01:58:12

But I just want to make sure, while we still have time, that I give all of the contact information for our guest today.

01:58:21

First of all, Stuart Quint, who is the coordinator of international translations for Berean Beacon, and Greg Bentley, the director of Berean Beacon.

01:58:30

The website for the Berean Beacon is bereanbeacon .org

01:58:39

And then, of course, we have, as we were just mentioning, with Mike Gendron, we have

01:58:45

Proclaiming the Gospel, and his website is proclaimingthegospel .org

01:58:51

I want to offer my condolences to Lynn Bennett, if she is listening, either live or by recording, and we are praying for you, dear sister, as you await joining your husband at some point in the future, that you are given the grace and peace and joy to live your life here on earth without him, knowing that you will be joined to him at some point.

01:59:18

We ask anybody who knows Lynn to continue reaching out to her with the love and compassion and grace of Jesus Christ.

01:59:27

I want to thank each and every one of you who are on my panel today for being a part of our panel, and I want all of you listening to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater