The Errors of Roman Catholic Theology (Part 6)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "...but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Program Setup and the False Friday Series

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome back to No Compromise Radio ministry. We are taping the show today, so if you've got a call, go ahead and call in during Tom Krause's show. Basically, what has happened over the last seven or eight months as we've done the show, we used to do it live in the church studio, but then by the time people knock on the door and want to know where the locker room is for the donuts or something like that, or technical difficulties, it just makes it problematic.

So we tape the shows, so if you'd like to correspond with us, you can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com, info at nocompromiseradio .com, and then we'll take those questions. If you want to have us address the questions on air, we can do that, or I'll just privately email you, or Josh McDonald, our executive producer for No Compromise Radio, can take care of that as well.

I answer the easy questions, and I give Josh the hard questions. Today we're continuing our False Friday series with the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. Listen to what Irenaeus said in a book called Against Heresies.

Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced more true than the truth itself.

Why Roman Catholicism Can Seem Christian

And I think that exactly describes the Roman Catholic Church in its current composition. You can't get up and tell people, by the way, I'm Anton LaVey and this is the Satanic Bible, come worship Satan and go to hell with me.

I guess you can do that, you just don't have a very large following. You can't get too many people snookered into buying that kind of program, that kind of religion. So what do you do? You use the Bible.

You say God. You say Jesus. You say we believe in the virgin birth. You say we believe in the triune God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, one God. You say you believe in the crucifixion, the literal resurrection, the return of Christ.

All those things are true and they all sound great and they make the medicine go down much smoother. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. My grandmother used to give me medicine, by the way, when I was coughing.

She was German, spoke German, came from Germany, and she said, all right, here's a teaspoon of sugar and we'll pour a bunch of scotch on it and then you have to drink slash eat it, swallow it, and it'll help your cough.

And so I don't know what kind of home remedy that was, but it was long before the organic stuff that's out now. Today we want to talk about Roman Catholicism and how you ought to evangelize your Roman Catholic friends.

Once again, if you say, I know Roman Catholics who were really born again, then instead of evangelizing those Roman Catholics, you need to tell them to leave the apostate church called Rome. Listen to what B .B. Warfield said, the great Princetonian theologian, when Princeton was actually a great school.

The chief dangers, Warfield said, to Christianity do not come from anti-Christian systems. Mohammedanism has never made inroads upon Christianity save by the sword. Nobody fears that Christianity will be swallowed up by Buddhism.

It is corrupt forms of Christianity itself which menace from time to time the life of Christianity. Why make much of minor points of difference between those who serve the one Christ? Because a pure gospel is worth preserving.

And it is not only worth preserving, but it is logically the only saving gospel. B .B. Warfield. And so it's not like we're going to have some Zoroastrianism come over and take Christianity by storm and infiltrate it and make it go away.

No, it's those that closely, most closely resemble Christianity itself. And so what we plan on doing today is talking about the Roman Catholic Church and how you ought to love Roman Catholics so much that you tell them the truth.

Truth in Love and the Call to Evangelize Roman Catholics

People say this is an unloving show. Well, if we were to speak the truth in love, that is true, Ephesians and Galatians have much to say about how we speak. But love rejoices in or with the truth, 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

If the Bible's true, if Roman Catholicism is false, you don't do your friends any favors by not telling them the truth. How unloving could you possibly be by letting the Roman Catholics go to hell by not telling the truth because you want to save face, because you want to be politically correct, because you want to do friendship evangelism, because you don't want to rock the boat, because you want to have nice thanksgivings when you have your Roman Catholic relatives over, because you don't want to have other people think you're weird, troglodytish, etc.

That is the epitome of self-ish hate when you won't tell people the truth about their eternal souls, about Jesus Christ, the Jesus of the Bible, not the Jesus of Rome, the Jesus of the Bible who was sacrificed once for all who would ever believe.

Not weekly, not daily, not monthly. And so what my challenge is today is that if you are really a Christian, you will remember that if it is not a grace-based system based on the substitutionary death of Christ alone, His life, death, and resurrection, and faith not in self, turning away from self by repentance and trusting alone in Christ Jesus, the risen Savior, there is no hope.

Whether you're a Mohammedan, a Mormon, or a Roman Catholic, there's no hope. And you say, I don't want to hear this. Catholics are Christians. Well, the question is, are they born again by trusting in the Jesus of the Bible?

And by definition, they are not. Of course there are exceptions, and I'm glad. And there are exceptions on the other side as well, where people go to evangelical churches and they're not a Christian. But that is not the point today.

The point today is there is a system called Roman Catholicism that so closely mirrors Christianity, that unless you're careful, you can't see the damning doctrine of human works that slips right in. You can't see it at all.

Listen to what Thomas Oden said, a very, very wise comment, although I can see that there are other tasks more important than the exposure of heresy. I warn, if there is no immune system to resist heresy, there will soon be nothing but the teeming infestation of heresy.

And he's exactly right. There are better things to do than just expose error. That's why we have positive preaching on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but on Friday we specifically, I want to pick a fight in the sense of not being mean, but to tell you the truth.

Who else is going to tell you? Certainly your friends aren't going to tell you, or maybe some of them are good friends, but you're going to have to learn the truth one way or another, and ignorance in this particular case is not bliss, and so you ought to be evangelizing your Roman Catholic friends.

You have a great opportunity to preach the gospel to them. The fields are white for harvest, especially here in New England. And when you understand justification by faith alone, as we've talked on previous shows, you will have a great opportunity, a great base to proclaim the gospel.

That is, because you have been known by God, you know God, and now you know how He saves people. We live in a world where let's forget what divides us, find what we have in common ground, pick a particular political or social enemy, and let's just gather ourselves together, lock arms, Red Rover, Red Rover, send political enemies right over, lock arms with other religions, and somehow think that's admirable?

Christian mission in the third millennium, evangelicals and Catholics together say, we are evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics who have been led through prayer, study, and discussion to common convictions about Christian faith and mission.

So you know right where this is going, and it's not going to a good place. In this statement we address what we have discovered both about our unity and about our differences, like heaven and hell, like grace and works.

We are aware that our experience, so let's just trump up experience over the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 6 especially, reflects the distinctive circumstances and opportunities of evangelicals and Catholics living together in North America.

Well of course we have to live together, and we ought to be kind to one another, and we ought to mow each other's lawns and, you know, loan milk when you're out of milk baking some baked goods, and you ought to help them, you ought to be friends with them, but we're talking about evangelistic things?

We're talking about affirming the works-based righteousness that Rome has? I think not. The Evangelicals and Catholics Together Accord goes on to say, At the same time, we believe that what we have discovered and resolved is pertinent to the relationship between evangelicals and Catholics in other parts of the world.

We therefore commend this statement to their prayerful consideration. So let's toss out justification by faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone. The evangelicals say let's toss that out so we can link arms with Rome.

Rome's quite happy to do that because they will absorb everything and they will tell evangelicals whatever they want to hear without changing any of their doctrines from Vatican I, Vatican II, Council of Trent, et al.

What is the purpose of ECT? As Christ is one, so the Christian mission is one. Well that's true so far. That one mission can be and should be advanced in diverse ways, like blasphemous works-righteous, baptismal regeneration, and the proclamation of sovereign grace?

No. Legitimate diversity, however, should not be confused with existing divisions between Christians that obscure the one Christ and hinder the one mission. This is all cloaked in the garb, in the livery of diversity.

Diversity is good. Anybody who says no is anti-diversity. This just reeks of works-righteousness. This just reeks of political correctness, post-modernism. The document said, we are called and we are therefore resolved to explore patterns of working and witnessing together.

We don't witness together with Roman Catholics. We evangelize them. It's like J. Adams when he said, you know, when unbelievers come in for biblical counseling, J. Adams said, we don't evangelize. Just between us girls, I remember his exact quote, he was talking to pastors, just between us girls, we don't counsel unbelievers.

We evangelize them. When you compare the good news, quote-unquote, of Roman Catholicism and the good news found in the gospel that John the Baptist preached, that Isaiah preached, that Jesus preached, that Paul preached, that John preached, you are not going to find agreement.

You are not going to find agreement. Sure, we could all get together and say abortion is bad. It is bad. We all could say poverty is bad. It is bad. We could all say, let's help the homeless. That would be good.

But you can't just think that you're on the same team. That's so post-modern. That's so Hinduistic. That's so, well, you know, everybody's got their own truth. Everybody can believe what they'd like to believe, but there's one truth, the true truth, as Francis Schaeffer was apt to say.

The Real Issue Is the Gospel, Not Cultural Agreement

So the one thing I want to say today, before I've gotten into any of the doctrine, as we continue our False Friday series, you're not on the same team with Roman Catholics, and as soon as you can get that into your noggin, the better it's going to be for you.

And when someone says, I believe in Jesus, please don't be so naive to think, oh yeah. When they say, I go to church, yeah, I believe in heaven, by grace, through faith. This is not the same religion if you're an evangelical Protestant.

You ought to still protest that kind of thinking that says Jesus' death was not adequate enough to save anybody, and we have to add in baptism and six other sacraments. No, this is different. So I know it's easier, frankly, I admit now, that it is much easier to not rock any boat, that when it comes to evangelical laziness and evangelical not wanting to rock the boat-itis, it's so much easier if you meet somebody, yeah, I believe in Jesus, good, we're good to go, let's go fishing.

It's much harder when you say, oh yeah, what church do you go to? Oh, I go to Immaculate Conception of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Mary. Well, you think, well, you're going to say you believe in Jesus, because they say Jesus, it's just the different Jesus, it's the Jesus who dies on the cross, but that's not enough.

How shaming is that of Christ to somehow think His death was not adequate enough, that His death did not provide salvation, it just made it potential. No, you need to present the truth to your Roman Catholic friends and families, and you need to say to them that the Jesus of the Bible is sufficient to save sinners completely.

That's what you need to do. And you need to preach that it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast, Ephesians chapter 2.

You need to tell your Roman Catholic friends that God saved us, not because of the righteous things that we have done, but because of His mercy, Titus chapter 3. You need to tell them Romans 11, and if by grace, then it is no longer by works.

You add one part of works to ninety-nine trillion parts of grace, and what do you have? You have damnation, you have works. Listen to what John 19 says, it is finished. It's not finished at a Roman Catholic church, the regular, blatant rejection of these words demonstrated by the Roman Catholic altar, it's not finished.

Hebrews chapter 10, by this we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once a week, no, once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

Talking about Old Testament, but good implications right there of what the Roman Catholic priests do. But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. Christ's death was sufficient, it was adequate, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.

For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. You can't add anything to this perfect sacrifice because it doesn't need it, because it's not lacking in anything. When you have the Mass, it says, according to Roman Catholic Catechism 1382, the Mass is the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated.

It doesn't need perpetuation. Listen to what the Roman Catholic Church also says in its Catechism 1366 -1367 -1524, the number to call is BR 549. The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it represents the sacrifice of the cross, and because it applies its fruit, the forgiveness of sins we daily commit.

The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice. The victim is one and the same. The victim! I'm so sick and tired of this victim kind of talk, Jesus the victim. He is the one who is given, I won't even explain it that way, in the eternal decree of God.

The Son was glad to go, the Father was glad to send Him, the Spirit was in full agreement, and Jesus was no victim. He was no victim, especially the way this is portrayed. In this, the Catechism goes on to say, in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered Himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner.

It is the seed of eternal life and the power of resurrection. No, why don't you preach the Jesus to your Roman Catholic friends that is a great Savior that died a great death on the cross, that was raised from the dead, that doesn't need any extra help thousands of years later?

Catholic Catechism 13, 24, and 25, the Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the people of God. It is the source and summit of the Christian life, for in the blessed Eucharist it is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ Himself.

Jesus, the victim, the sacrifice on the altar forgives sin, in the Eucharist is Christ Himself. Doesn't this sound like a different religion to you? If you've read your Bibles, you realize this isn't the same Gospel, this isn't the same Jesus, this isn't the same Church.

So don't link arms, evangelize. Do you love your Roman Catholic friends and family enough to tell them the truth? Because if they die in their sins believing such nonsense, they're not going to heaven.

And since you've been given new life, you've been made alive by God, by His tremendous grace, by the price of His Son, ought you not to tell other people and preach that good news to them? Well, you know the answer.

The Mass, the Eucharist, and Once-for-All Forgiveness

If somebody is believing this kind of stuff from the Catholic Catechism like 1394 and 1414 as sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and of the dead, and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.

Holy Communion separates us from sin. I should always receive it so that it may always forgive my sins. Because I always sin, I should always have a remedy. Well, if that's the case, if Jesus' death was not perfect and complete, Jesus sitting down, there's no more work to do.

Priests never sat down because they always had more sins to... Old Testament priests always had to keep slain sacrifices. But Jesus, the priest, sat down. And He was a sacrifice and priest. He sat down, the work is done.

Why go back? I mean, if I was a Roman Catholic, I basically would try to go to Mass three times a day. Because at least that way I'd have my sins covered for the three sections of the day. I wouldn't go once a week.

I wouldn't go on Easter only. I'd go at least every day because I'd have enough sense to know that I sin every day. But I'd rather point people... I mean, at least that's consistent. It's still bad, but consistent.

Why don't you look to the Jesus of the Bible that does not need to be slain ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever again? He's been raised from the dead. And to somehow come through with some machinations from unbelieving priests who do a bunch of hocus-pocus and change it into the body and blood of Christ, we don't need it.

So if people are caught up into that kind of thinking, you need to preach the real Jesus to them that's sufficient to save them completely. And why don't you tell them that they can have complete forgiveness of sins?

Their priest is not going to hear it. Tell them. The Roman Catholic Church is not going to tell them. You've got to keep people in this theological cult coming back for more and more and more. I did not say sociologically a cult with Saltpeter, sleep deprivation.

The theological cult to me is someone and some system that adds works, that denigrates the cross. You say, well, I'm mad that you talk that way. Well, I'm mad when people say something about the Savior, my Savior, the Savior and Lord, and say His death was not good enough.

His life was not good enough. You want to talk about mad? That makes me mad. So don't give me this, well, you're not talking nicely enough. You're not talking like a woman would talk. Well, A, I'm not a woman.

B, there should be a healthy masculinity to defend the gospel. 1 Corinthians 16, act like men. We're the people today who are going to act like men. They've got a bunch of folks who are acting like they're basically feminist and they don't want to rock anybody's boat.

I hope if you're a Roman Catholic today, I hope you're so mad at me you open the Bible up and read Hebrews 9 and 10. I hope you're fuming. I hope you're irate. I hope you write to Manny at WVNE and say, what is going on here?

I want you to be so mad you open your Bible up and say, you know, this is true. This is exactly right, and I believed a lie. My whole life I've wasted, every Mass I've ever attended is a big fat waste.

It's counted for zero. Matter of fact, it's counted for less than zero. It's not just unmerited, I mean, it's a demerit because I've been trusting in the works of something less than Jesus Christ, perfect life, perfect death, once for all death, once for all resurrection.

And so I hope you are mad at me. I hope you're mad enough to do something about it. Get your Bibles open. Open up your Catholic Bibles. Find by me Hebrews 9 and 10 and read about this once and for all Savior who after He sacrificed Himself for sins sat down at the right hand of God, a place of honor, a place of majesty, a place of authority, a place of dominion.

The Father was well pleased with the Son's sacrifice, and it was once and done. That is it. That's why when we talk next Friday about purgatory and complete forgiveness, you're probably going to have another theological conniption fit because this is such a different religion.

The Real Enemy Is Works-Righteousness

Everybody wants to smooth the contours out and say, you know, we all believe in the same God, kumbaya, let's not rock the boat, let's have some kind of, you know, protest against other things, and, you know, well, the homosexuals, they're the enemies.

Homosexuals aren't the enemies. They are created beings by God, and God has created men upright, and people are fallen, and they're sinful. We need to evangelize them. You want to show me what the enemy is?

The enemy is a system that promotes works righteousness, and an enemy that says Jesus' death on the cross was not beautiful, magnificent, precious, and that the blood He shed up to His own life's blood is not good enough.

And I'll stand against that with my last breath to say there's free grace found in Christ Jesus. So repent of your sins and look to the great Christ at the cross. Or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.