Marks of a Cult (Part 5)

Division, the Protestant Reformation, and Why Some Churches Must Separate

Our time with the video and we want to, as we've been doing every week, we watch the video and then we spend a few minutes going over some of what was taught and looking at some important parts. As we said, the entirety of the video, and I'm doing this for the sake of the fact that we're recording this and it goes out, the entirety of the video begins with the idea that cults add to the scripture, they subtract from the Trinity, most specifically in the deity of Christ, they multiply the works required for salvation, and tonight the video described they divide their adherence from the body of Christ.

They divide their adherence from the body of Christ. Now, I want to talk tonight about division. I want to talk about good division and bad division and the division that's being described in what we have learned this evening.

Would anyone here agree? I'm going to Protestant Reformation was a positive division. Would we all agree that the Protestant Reformation was a positive division? Why was it a positive division? Because the Roman Church, which at the time of the Protestant Reformation held the majority of power within Christendom, the Roman Catholic Church had become corrupt.

Its teachings, its practices from the Pope down, the Roman Catholic Church had become a place where the gospel was no longer being preached, where the gospel itself was being put aside and replaced with man made traditions.

So we could say that there are times when division is necessary, right? In fact, even today, there are many places which call themselves churches, which we would not want to associate ourselves with. In fact, I hate to say this, but in America today, there are many and I would go as far as to say a majority of the churches are not preaching the gospel and thus we would not want to be associated with them necessarily.

However, what the video is talking about when it talks about division, is it specifically talking about how a cult, the leader of the cult, will proclaim his own superiority within the group and the superiority of the group over and above others who would claim Christianity.

The True Church Versus a True Church

All right. That is the key to the type of division that's being talked about tonight, and I want to I want to put something on the board. I want you to think about this. Let me ask you a question. Some of you have done this little exercise with me before, and if you have, that's OK.

You can answer if you want. But let me ask the question. Do we seek as SCFC, Sovereign Grace Family Church, do we seek to be the true church? Does anybody want to try and pick out what I'm trying to say?

Maybe do we seek to be the true church? OK, the key word, the key use in here is the article. We seek to be a true church. This is what separates a church from a cult. The Mormons believe they are the true church.

The Jehovah's Witnesses believe they are the true church. And if you don't belong to the Jehovah's Witnesses, you're not a part of the church. If you don't belong to the Mormons, you're not a part of the church.

If you, for instance, this goes back to Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism believes they are the mother church. They are the church. And if you do not belong to the church, then you are not in Christ.

That is where this little exercise becomes very important, because we don't seek to be the true church. We seek to be a true church. We seek to be part of the grand church, the body of Christ, which is in all the world.

We seek the spiritual unity of all believers, which Christ prayed for in John 17. But yet at the same time, we do not in any way believe that you have to be a member of Sovereign Grace Family Church to go to heaven or to have ever heard of Pastor Foskey or to have ever spent time eating with Richard Taylor.

These things are not required for you to go to heaven. These things, because the church universal and the church local have to be distinguished. OK, and that's an important we talk about the universal church.

In fact, the Roman Catholics have stole the word Catholic from us because the word Catholic simply means universal. That's all the word Catholic means. That's why I don't call them the Catholic Church.

I call them the Roman Catholic Church, which is actually an oxymoron because you can't be universal and limited to one city. You can't be a Roman universal church. It's only the Roman Catholic Church because they have hijacked the term Catholic.

This is why I don't have a problem saying some of the old creeds, because some of the old creeds use the phrase Catholic. But I know that when those creeds were written, they in no way envisioned a Roman Catholic church.

They envisioned a universal body of Christ. So when we talk about the universal church, we're talking about the body of Christ as a whole. But then we have to talk about the local church. What distinguishes, let me put a little line here, what distinguishes church universal from church local?

What are some quick distinguishing things that you might be able to come up with in your mind? Church universal from church local? Well, location. All right. Size and scope. OK, complete body of Christ, local body of Christ.

All right. Yes, the universe. That's a very good answer. The universal church is all believers. The local church is made up of believers, unbelievers. You say, now, wait a minute. I thought the church is only made up of believers.

Trust me, there are unbelievers in the church. There are unbelievers who join the church. There are unbelievers who come in and get baptized. You remember the apostles? They baptized a group of people.

One of them was named Simon, not Simon Peter, but Simon, who was the magician and who had been doing all those works to get people's attention. And when he saw the apostles doing their works, he said, hey, can I pay you some money so you can let me have those powers and I can go get all the attention?

And they said, you don't have the Holy Spirit. You're not saved, brother. He was wet because he'd been baptized, but he wasn't saved. The local church has believers and unbelievers in it. As a believer, we are all part of the universal church, but as a part of a local body, we have we have a body that is often mixed.

Now, should it be? Well, it shouldn't be, but it is. And that's why we're going to get into a minute. That's what that's what things like church discipline are put in place for is when somebody demonstrates their unbelieving heart, the church has to separate from that person.

We'll talk about that as we go along. Anyway, that's the first distinction. Universal church is only believers. Local church is made up of believers and interspersed with unbelievers. There's tears among the weak.

All right. Now, what's another distinguished? That's a good one. What's another distinguishing thing? The local church has God ordained leadership. Never in Scripture is someone given the title Pontifus Maximus.

What's that title? The pope. No one in Scripture is given the title Vicar of Christ. Right. The only positions we see given in Scripture are at the local level. There are no district assemblies. Now, they did have times when leaders from the churches would come together as an act.

Fifteen, they would come together for councils to try to determine God's will on certain issues. But it was at the local level where leadership, discipline, teaching, instruction in righteousness and service were all supposed to be done.

So even though there was a universal body of Christ, there was not a universal head within the body of Christ except Christ himself. It wasn't as if Christ had a flesh and blood man to say, OK, this guy is going to be in charge of all the churches.

All right. Early on, the apostles were recognized as being leaders within the universal church. However, remember what Paul would do when he would write the letters to these churches? He would say, you know, I could come there and I could solve the problem, but the elders should be dealing.

I think of First Corinthians five and he's talking to turn there real quick. First Corinthians five. What happened in First Corinthians five? Sin. All right. First Corinthians five. We got a guy who is having an affair with his dad's wife, which we can only hope is his stepmother.

OK, has to be. First Corinthians chapter five, verse one, Paul is speaking. He said, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans.

For a man has his father's wife and you are arrogant, not rather to mourn. You see, it was apparently they were accepting it. They were not doing anything about it. He said, shouldn't you be crying over this?

Shouldn't you be doing something about this? Let him who has done this be removed from among you, for though absent in body, I am present in spirit. And as present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.

When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the name of the Lord.

By the way, that's what discipline is all about. Someone is to be put in a position where they recognize their sin in the hopes that they would repent and thus be saved, because in practicing such a thing, they're demonstrating that their heart is an unconverted heart.

OK, but the point Paul is making is this should have already been done. I'm not even there and I can pronounce judgment. I'm not even there and I'm telling you what you should have already done. But since I'm not there and since you haven't done it, pretend I'm there and get it done.

You don't need a district assembly. You don't need me to come there and get all the churches around to give you authority. You have the God ordained leadership in the church and this should have been handled.

All right. That's a little bit more than what the text is saying, but I think that's bound up in what he's saying. You should be mourning over this. The fact that nothing yet has been done about this issue.

So we have believers and unbelievers in the local church. We have God ordained leadership in the local church. The universal church is all believers. There is no universal church leadership. The leadership of the local church is done at the local level.

Now, does that mean that the local church cannot become corrupt and its leaders become corrupt? Yes, it can. This is why even in the Bible, the elders are held to the account of the congregation. This is why it says you are not to rebuke an elder without what?

Without good, without a the witnesses, without two or three witnesses, you're not to rebuke an elder without having just cause. But it doesn't tell you not to rebuke an elder. It just says don't do it hastily.

Don't do it just on a whim. But if an elder needs rebuke, he, like the rest of the church, needs to be rebuked. And if the entire elder board needs to be rebuked, the entire elder board needs to be rebuked.

If that is the case, as much as the church is accountable to each other, the body of Christ within the local church, so too are the elders accountable to the congregation. The congregation is to submit to the leadership.

That's what the Bible says. Hebrews 13, to submit those who are put in power over you because they are made responsible for your souls. So there's a submission that goes on there. But at the same time, the elders are to shepherd the flock of God.

And I always love that phrase because it's the flock of God, not the flock of Keith or the flock of Richard or Byron or Jack or any of the others. And that's the key. We have a responsibility. The congregation has a responsibility and the leadership works that way.

Understanding that massive responsibility. So I go back now. We say, OK, there's a universal church. There's the local church. Local church has believers, nonbelievers. Local church has God ordained leadership.

Is there anything else you can think of that is distinct between the local church and the church universal? OK. All right. The local church is going to have doctrinal divides. They're going to doctrinal division.

I've said many times I believe Danny Baggett is a believer. Danny Baggett is pastor of Ocean Way Assembly of God. I believe he's my brother in Christ. We're friends. We've we've been on TV together. He and I, we're great.

But I wouldn't be able to join his church. Because there's enough doctrinal separation between he and I, that I could not comfortably worship conscious with my conscience underneath his teaching, not because I believe he's a rank heretic.

But because there is doctrinal division among us, there's a way we understand scripture enough so that I could not go down there and be able to fully worship with my in good conscience. And the Bible says that which is not done in faith is sin.

If I can't go and worship in faith, worship in good conscience with his congregation, then I shouldn't do it. And do I think some things that he says is wrong? Yeah, he probably said the same thing about me.

And we could probably have long discussions. That's why next two weeks from now, we're having a theological debate here at this church, because we believe theology is worth discussing. We believe theology is worth debating.

We believe theology is worth sitting down in a godly way and discussing what says the scripture. That's important. But yes, I'm glad you said that because there is division. Now, let's break it down. Let's go back.

I got to erase. So give me a second. Everybody got what they want from here can be taking notes. Is it going to go away? I was looking into those paper ones the other day, the paper, like the ones that Darrell used to use.

We'd write on them and flip it over. They're expensive, but they had the benefit of you never lose what you wrote. Is every time I lose this, those paper ones were like thirty dollars a pack. It just didn't seem to be cost effective.

What Makes a Local Church a True Church

OK, I want to go back to this issue of a church versus the church. All right, we're going to make a we're going to make a two parter here. All right. We said there are those who claim to be the true church and then we want to be a true church and a true church.

We can add the caveat local. Because really, in the final analysis, what is the true church, the universal church? That's in the final analysis. The only true church is the universal church. Any other group that claims to be the true church, whether it's the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Moonies, I don't care.

They're not. Any group that claims to be the true church and that no one gets to the sun but through them, that's that's the thing. Jesus said no one comes to the Father but through me. Well, they add another caveat.

No one gets to the sun but through us. All right. So there is a true church. There is the true church, which is the universal church. But what is what would constitute a true church? We already talked about what it has.

A true church. Local churches have biblical leadership. They have doctrinal divisions and things like that. But what is necessary for a true church? OK, so right away, somebody else said worship. Who said worship?

OK, Miss Charlotte said worship. OK. To be a true church, meaning a collection of members of this, this is members of this. So to be a collection of members of the body, it requires, first and foremost, allegiance to Christ and to his teachings.

All right. So we could say that. All right. And his teachings. All right. What else? You said, Miss Charlotte said worship. You have to believe the Bible's inspired word of God to be a Christian. OK, now I'm going to simply add a thought, OK?

I do think there are people who never considered that. They believe the Bible, but they've never considered what infallibility means, inerrancy means. They've never been confronted with ideas such as that.

But they have faith in God and in Christ and what the Bible says about Christ. So what I'm saying is we have to begin to consider what is required knowledge and what is not. That's where it gets kind of a little bit difficult.

I believe, as you do, that someone who denies scripture is, in a sense, denying Christ. Well, for instance, like if like if I went to Calcutta and I preached to a family of Calcuttanians, I don't know what they're called, people from Calcutta, and they'd never heard anything but the gospel that I preached to them.

And they heard it and they believed it and were regenerate and believed it. Yet the Bible had never been translated into their language and it couldn't be explained to them in their language. But yet they still believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and were saved.

That's what I'm just I'm not saying it's not an essential thing. I'm saying it's something that we have to understand. Where are we making the mark of demarcation? OK, and I know that's an extreme example.

I'm just I'm and I'm not in any way saying that you're wrong. I'm just saying we have to think about more than just those type of things. You have to maybe. I'll tell you this before we go any further.

John Calvin. Yeah, I know that old John Calvin. I talk about him a lot. John Calvin made three distinctions as to what constitutes a church, not the church, but a church. And even though I think that some of what he says, I think it lacks a little.

I think he distilled it down, though, to something that could be helpful. And though I want to I want you to think about what they said, I'm going to erase it real quick because I'm going to write his thoughts up here real quick.

OK, number one, a true church proclaims the gospel. The gospel is proclaimed in the true church. OK, number two, a true church observes the ordinances. They would he would have said sacraments. OK, observes the ordinances.

And by the way, they may know the difference. Why we use the term ordinance and not sacrament. OK, there really isn't anything wrong with the word sacrament. And every once in a while, I'll throw that word out there just to get people saying, what does that mean?

The word sacrament, though, has a mystical foundation. It speaks of mystery and it can sometimes be attached to doctrines like the doctrine of transubstantiation, the idea that Christ, the body and the blood are actually present in the bread and wine.

So we we replace using the word sacrament with the word ordinance, meaning it is a command of Christ that we participate in the table is command of Christ that we participate in baptism. So just so you know that that's the reason why you might hear me say the word sacrament sometimes I'm not using it in a in the sense of the Roman Catholic sense of the word, just like Catholic.

I might use the word Catholic in a in an appropriate way, whereas I think the Roman Catholic Church has misappropriated the word. All right. Finally, yes, sacrament. Actually, in the Roman Catholic Church, there are seven sacraments.

Yet we what we would call ordinances, we we could still define if we want to use the word sacrament, we'd say the sacrament of baptism in the sacrament. In fact, the night of the debate, you'll probably hear me use baptism described as a sacrament.

Just because I'm speaking to someone from a Presbyterian background in that they will use that language. And often I I might at the same time use back and forth language like that, because some Presbyterians use the word sacrament, some use ordinance.

It really depends. All right. Finally, this is a big one. Practices discipline. This was John Calvin's threefold, threefold answers to because because the question is, well, what makes a real church? Because you remember, this is during the time of the Reformation when the Roman Catholic Church is claiming to be the true church.

And here these churches have come out and said, no, we are true churches. Well, the question was, well, what makes a true church? He says, well, first and foremost, the true church proclaims the gospel.

They teach the teachings of Jesus Christ. Right. That's kind of goes along with what Richard had said. They proclaim the gospel. If a church is not proclaiming the gospel as it is, as it's given to us in Scripture, then it is not a true church.

Yes, sir. I keep my hand to know what is necessary for salvation. How do I know that I become a child of God outside of the Bible, which would be part, I guess, part of this gospel? Yes. But the thing that really is puzzling to me is that if I'm to believe as some people that are members of a true church, if I'm to believe what they believe, I feel like I would not have been saved or would not have known enough for salvation.

OK. This is just knowledge. Having a Holy Spirit direct me, guide me in this, but just for knowledge sake, what is necessary for me to know to be saved and for salvation? Now, after that, there is a multitude of ways to know they grow.

Sure. As far as salvation itself, the primary mechanism for for anything, any relationship with God Almighty, how do I know I'm safe? I would. If anything goes against that. Yes. I mean, if there are two different views on that.

Yeah. That's how I'm really having trouble saying that's a church. Absolutely. And that's why I could not I could stand. I could stand on the corner and I could preach the gospel and I could stand next to Danny and we would we would likely be saying many of the same things.

He may say some things that I don't necessarily like as to how he presents it. But the gospel is very simple, and that is that the finished and completed work of Christ is applied to our lives because of our sins and our sins are then transferred or were transferred on the cross to Christ.

And we call that substitutionary atonement. This is why the simple statement. Remember when Paul was singing in the jail, Paul and Silas and the and the jailer fell down and he said, what must I do to be saved?

And Paul was simply able to say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and now shall be saved. You and your household. He's able to say that to him. Why? Because he's not going to leave him with that. But that is the foundation.

That is the starting point. That is what is necessary, that faith, not just in Jesus Christ, but in the completed, finished work of Christ, not in ourselves, not in our works, but in the works of Christ.

And I think that is the foundation of the gospel upon which everything else is built. And if anything else is the foundation, then it's wrong. That's why I can stand next to Danny and preach. But I couldn't stand next to a Mormon and preach because their gospel would be a completely false.

Well, if somebody tells me I'm going to be saved, that's a false gospel. Then I'll be in continuous sin. If that's what they're preaching, are they an age first? This is why Dr. Johnson, Jerry Johnson, this is why he in the video described the Church of Christ in a cultish said he would say the Church of Christ because of their teaching on baptism.

Their teaching is that you are not saved until you are baptized. Now, that's a cult. I would I'm I'm I'm hesitant because I have I I'm hesitant to say that because I think that there are many people in the Church of Christ who do not understand what they're saying.

OK, but they did go through the process of being baptized properly. Well, that's a whole other issue. Honestly, I think there are cultish behaviors within the within the Church of Christ. Yes. And a lot of it centers around baptism.

But it also centers around the idea that and I know a lot of people like like Campbell and all those guys, Campbell and Stone and the Restoration Movement believed very much that they were the true church.

They were they were restoring the true church and every other church was just wrong. And I think in that was was cult like mentality. All right, so he's a he's a Roman Catholic preacher. I heard him say he said, you know, I'm not too worried about you, Protestants.

He said you were all baptized properly named Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And when you were, he said that you said that makes you one of us. Well, see, I would argue that I would argue back with him if he said that to me, because I would say it wasn't done by a priest and as such did not have the sacramental authority of the priesthood.

So I would argue myself out of it. But but that's a whole other story. All right. The proclamation of the gospel is essential to being a true church. And the question then becomes, what is the gospel?

I think Sunday we spent that was what my sermon was. What is the gospel? And we talked about that. And we must we must be it is essential to know what the gospel is. Number two, observe the ordinances, the sacraments, I think this is this is something that is often forgotten about.

And what saddens me is how the church has forgotten this sacred duty is because the revivalist movement of the early part of the 1900s, early part of the 20th century, the revivalist movement almost did away with baptism because people started replacing baptism as an external sign of faith with walking an aisle.

They started saying, if you come down here and you get on this altar and you pray or you come down here and you speak with our counselor, if you come down here and you go back to one of our prayer closets, then you'll be saved.

And whereas receiving Christ in faith is the first initial step of salvation, the experiential step, the step in which we experience with the congregation of the faithful, the entrance into the body of Christ is when we are baptized.

It's not saving us, but it is an experience. It is why Peter said on the day of Pentecost, repent and be baptized, because one was the necessary following of the others. And leaving out baptism is just as bad as saying it's essential for salvation.

It's sort of the pendulum swinging both ways. It swings too far one way and saying it's what saves. And then it swings the other way and saying that you don't have to do it. That's it's just as bad. The ordinances are to be properly practiced within the church.

The Lord's Supper. Oh, I could spend years talking about the Lord's Supper, and the reason why is because it has been the place of major division in the church and it was supposed to be the place of major unity.

It's sad how Satan has corrupted the table to divide the church over over simple things. Now, I would never say transubstantiation is a simple argument. That one's pretty difficult. But what always saddens me is that when you're Rick Zwingli, one of my heroes, met with Martin Luther, they had 15 points of doctrine upon which to discuss.

They agreed on 14 out of 15, but because Martin Luther could not give up what is called the real presence doctrine of the doctrine that Christ is really present now, now, whether or not Luther believed in transubstantiation can be argued.

But the idea of real presence and transubstantiation, not the same thing. I don't have time to go into it tonight, but we can talk about that another time. But the point is, Martin Luther would not give up the real presence view.

The old Rick Zwingli held to the same view as us, that it is a memorial dinner. It does not actually become Jesus's body and blood, but that it memorializes that. And Luther got so angry that he just shouted him out.

He was like Bill O 'Reilly. He wouldn't let the other person talk. He had to shout. And Luther, hunk es corpus meum, hunk es, and all that is Latin for this is my body. And he just wouldn't let him speak.

Yes, Martin Luther, historically, when he was studying the issue, he made a very clear declaration that he denied transubstantiation, but that he would not give up consubstantiation.

Yeah, consubstantiation, which is what we would call real presence. The idea that Christ is really there. But OK, so he did. He did deny transubstantiation. OK, that's that's good, at least. But transubstantiation implies within itself a sacrificial offering that's being made on the table.

That's an entirely different doctrine. And that's what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. Very dangerous doctrine at that, because it's a representation of the once for all sacrifice of Christ. I take a breath.

OK, all right. Now, I'm getting close. I'm circling for a landing. But when we talk about Luther and Zwingli, it saddens me that on this one point of doctrine, they had 14 that they agreed on. But this one point of doctrine they could not agree on and thus separated and were no longer even in fellowship with one another to the point that Luther ended up saying some very ugly things about Zwingli, which again, saddens me because they both have a hero's place in my heart because both of them, I think, did great works for the faith.

I always sort of sort of lean towards Zwingli a little bit, though, because I agree with him on baptism. But it's still important to note that where the ordinances should have been a place in history for coming together, it's often, you know, the place of division.

Honestly, the only thing that we that I don't say we because I realize within the church we do have some variance of opinion. But I said one of the only things that I would disagree with the Presbyterians on mainly would be infant baptism.

I would hold to almost all the other or maybe some of their ecclesiology, but pretty much I would be in line with that. But infant baptism would be the main division. So, yes, there's division within the body.

But I would still say the Presbyterian church that preaches the gospel, a lot of them don't, you know, the USPCA or the USPS, PCUSA, the longer one. You always tell which one's the liberal one because they got more letters.

It's PCUSA versus PCA and liberals use more when it's not always necessary. All right. Finally, this one here, this one here, you have to understand the context in which Calvin said it. The practicing of discipline to constitute a true church.

Calvin made a very specific point about the church. He said that the church and I'm not quoting him, I'm just basically giving what what he was teaching, his essential idea was that if the church didn't have the authority to practice discipline within the body, that the church would very quickly become sinful in the church and to allow sin in the church would become a corrupt church and would cease being a church.

You see, the whole idea is what constitutes a true church. Sanctification could be number three. You could take number three and say practice of discipline. You could you could strike that and just write sanctification, the conformity to the image of Christ.

If we are not being conformed to the image of Christ in our walk, in our worship, in our lifestyles, then we are not a true church. The true church is the universal church that every person who is a genuine born again believer in Christ makes up the true church of Christ.

When when we think about the the the fact that you and I. And the people in this room who are believers and the people in Calcutta and the people in Russia and the people in Croatia, like Walter, who are believers, that is the body of Christ.

In the world, we make up a local portion of that body, but the true church is that whole body. Saints who have gone on before, saints who will come after us and the saints who are alive now, all believers make up the body of Christ.

This is why the bride of Christ, the ones for whom Christ gave himself, that is who we are. That is who the true church is. That is his bride. All that the father has given him will come to him. That's us.

Would be the true church. Yes, would all be to collectively would be the true church. Yes. And then a local church, a true church is any local church which practice, which claims the gospel, observes the ordinances.

And the issue of practicing this one, beloved, I must say this, if a church is overrun with sin, it's not a true church. It cannot be. If a church is overrun with sin. So I say I say Calvin's three still stand, maybe described in a little different way.

But I think history still stand because a church that's overrun with sin is not a church. A church is not proclaiming the gospel is not a true church. And a church that doesn't understand the right place of the ordinances is not a true church.

And as such, we seek to be a true church. We don't want to be the true church. We want to be a part of the true church. And that goes back to the indefinite article. We want to be a true church.

Salvation Outside the Church, Sacraments, and the Fear of Losing Grace

Yes. I'd just like to make this one statement. It's kind of important to learn enough about all these different groups to know what they mean by what they say, even though they may use the same terminology.

For instance, a study of early church history over and over again to say that was made by the Roman Catholics saying there is no salvation outside of the Church of Christ, which is true when you look at it in its correct sense.

But what they were saying was that you could only say that you were not coming to the Church of Christ unless you were coming under our organization with. That's a good answer. What they're saying was that was actually true with what they meant by what they're saying.

Absolutely. It's a true statement to say there is no salvation outside of the church. What we mean, though, is you can't be saved if you're not a member of the body of Christ because the church is the body of Christ.

But like you said, what they meant was there's no salvation outside of the Roman Catholic communion. Without being. Yes, in the Catholic Church, grace is distributed through the sacraments. Yes, it is a distributive grace that the church has power of.

This is why during the time of the Protestant Reformation, there was so much fear about the restoration or reformation churches being divided from the Roman Catholic Church because they would lose things like the power to marry.

How can we get married if we don't have the authority of the church? How can we have communion if we don't have a priest who is doing the the saying, the words of consecration? How do you can't repent?

There's no offense. Yes, absolutely. And there was great fear because it was believed that the grace of God is distributed by the church. And as such, there was much fear in taking a stand against that, which is why we owe such a great debt to men like Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and Wycliffe and the rest.