Evangelizing Roman Catholics

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Well, let's begin at the throne of grace, shall we? Our Father, what a joy it is to come together on this
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Lord's Day to worship Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray,
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Father, that as we look into Your Word, that it would edify us, equip us, and encourage us to be faithful witnesses, faithful to the
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Great Commission. We ask this in the power of Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, I was asked to give a message on how to reach
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Roman Catholics, and just as the moon reflects the light of the sun into darkness, so you and I, as children of God, are also to reflect the light of the
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Son of God into the darkness of Roman Catholicism. And if you're not familiar with the Roman Catholic religion, it's made up of 1 .3
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billion precious souls that need to hear the gospel. I was a Catholic for 35 years, a very devout
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Roman Catholic, but I'd never heard the gospel. Never heard about the substitutionary atonement of Christ, so this morning we're going to look at that.
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But I'd like to begin by asking you to open your scriptures to Mark chapter 1, verses 14 to 18.
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And here we see that Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days, and he came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.
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Repent and believe the gospel. That was our Lord's first command as he began his earthly ministry.
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Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
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And Jesus said to them, follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
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So in this passage, we see that Jesus has just begun his earthly ministry, and his first priority is what?
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Evangelism. From the very beginning of his ministry, his plan was to use disciples to make disciples.
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So he's calling disciples to follow him so that he can make them fishers of men.
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Instead of casting their nets into the depths of the sea, he's now asking them to cast their nets into the depths of fallen humanity.
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The Lord Jesus is giving his disciples a new purpose for living, a higher calling, which with a much more important priority.
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And I don't know about you, but when the Lord saved me at age 35, he gave me a much higher calling rather than trying to gather all the toys of the world into my corner and make lots of money.
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He gave me a new purpose for living to reach into the depths of fallen humanity and share the gospel.
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So the Lord's divine calling supersedes what they have been doing in the past. Their new purpose for living now has an eternal perspective to seek and to save the lost for the glory of Christ.
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Notice their response in verse 20. They immediately left their nets and followed him.
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So please don't miss this. Evangelism was of utmost importance to the
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Lord Jesus. He began and ended his ministry with the call to spread the gospel.
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So this morning, we're going to see how we can become effective witnesses to Roman Catholics. But before we do, can
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I ask you, when you first became a Christian, was there an event in your life that really boosted your faith in the
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Lord Jesus Christ? Well, I had such an event. I was still in the corporate world and we were invited as sales directors up to the salmon capital of the world, north of Vancouver, British Columbia.
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And before the meetings began, we went out one morning to try and catch salmon.
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And I'll never forget just the beauty and the majesty of God's creation. I was seeing it for the first time through believing eyes.
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And I just remember just lifting up a prayer of praise and thanksgiving for the privilege of being here.
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And at the end of my prayer, I said, Lord, I know you're sovereign. I'm here to catch a fish.
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Will you send one my way? Well, immediately after I threw my first lure into the intercoastal waterway,
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I thought Jaws 2 had jumped on the end of my line. And this fish starts swimming out about 500 yards and the fishing guide is barking in my ear saying, keep the pole bent, otherwise he'll throw the hook.
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And so I battled this fish for 45 minutes, only to hear him say, now be ready. When he sees the side of the boat, he's going to get spooked and run again.
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I laughed and I said, if he runs again, he wins because I'm done. And so immediately, we got him into the boat and we headed back to the fishing village.
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And as we approached the fishing village, he pointed to the number 35. He said, that represents the largest salmon caught in the world so far this year, 35 pounds.
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And when we put the fish the Lord sent on the scale, it shattered the world record, 46 pounds.
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I just began trembling. I said, Lord, I just wanted a fish. But Ephesians 3 .20
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came to my mind. He does immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine. Well, that was the last fish
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I ever caught. Seriously, that was August 8, 1988.
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Ever since then, I've been fishing for men. And I don't know if you know the difference between fishing for fish and fishing for men, but when you fish for fish, they're alive, but then they die.
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When you fish for men, they're dead. They're dead in their sin, but then you see them come alive in Christ.
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As much joy as I had establishing a world record, there's no greater joy than to see sinners come alive in Christ.
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Amen. So there's some principles of effective fishing I'd like to share with you this morning.
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Not that I'm an expert, but I want to share with you the similarities between fishing for fish and fishing for men.
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We need to know the nature of what we're trying to catch. So when you're fishing for men, we need to know what we're going after.
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The Bible describes unbelievers this way. They're enslaved to sin and held captive by the devil to do his will.
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They are spiritually dead and they cannot understand truth. A natural man does not accept the things of the
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Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.
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That's Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 2 .14. And then in 2 Corinthians 4 .4
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we see the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.
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So knowing all of this, it's no wonder Peter asked the Lord, well, who then can be saved?
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Remember the Lord's answer? With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
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So we also need to be properly equipped. And that means to be equipped with the
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Word of God. I really don't believe that we should go anywhere without gospel tracts.
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Because I firmly believe when you give the gospel verbally, you should always leave it in written form so that people can go back over what they've heard you say.
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So be equipped with the Word of God and gospel tracts. We need to go where the lost are.
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The fish aren't going to jump out of the water and come to you. You've got to go to them. And so it is when you're going after the lost.
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And that's why Jane and I, we go out to Catholic churches on Resurrection Sunday, on Christmas Eve.
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Catholics are mindful of giving and receiving gifts on Christmas Eve. So we carry our gospel tract, the greatest gift ever given.
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And as Catholics come out of their church, we ask them, what is the greatest gift you've ever received?
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And they'll point to their children or their jewelry or their cell phone. We say, there's a greater gift than that.
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It's the gift of eternal, everlasting life with Christ. See, Catholics don't have that.
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They only have conditional life. That's why we have to share the good news of eternal life.
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We need to use the right lure. What does that mean when you're fishing for men?
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The only lure is Jesus Christ. He said in John 12, 32, When I am lifted up from the earth,
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I will draw all people to myself. We need to cast our line. What does that mean when you're fishing for men?
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Well, we need to speak the gospel. We need to tell others about Jesus. Nothing can be caught until you do.
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Remember, faith comes from hearing and hearing the Word of God. We need to be patient.
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How many fishermen do you know that give up after five minutes and say the fish aren't biting today? It's the same way when we're fishing for men.
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As we share the Word of God, we need to allow the Spirit of God to bring conviction and to illuminate the
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Word of God to their hearts. Remember, there's two things necessary for sinners to come alive in Christ.
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They need to hear the Word of God and the Spirit of God must be present for conviction and illumination.
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We need to stay out of sight. Fish could be scared away if they see you.
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It's the same way when we share the gospel. It's not about us. We need to decrease and the
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Lord Jesus needs to increase. Then we need to reel in our catch. We need to call them to repent and believe the gospel.
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Urge people to follow Christ. Give them a sense of urgency. Today is the day of salvation.
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God doesn't promise anyone tomorrow. And then we need to trust God. Just as I prayed to a sovereign
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Lord to send a fish my way, Jesus said the fields are white for harvest but the labors are few.
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If you make yourself available to a sovereign Lord and ask Him to send lost sinners across your path,
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He will be faithful and do that. Remember, we can only take the message to the human ear.
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God needs to take it from the ear to the heart. You know all about the sovereignty of God and salvation.
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Listen to the words of Spurgeon. We long to be successful fishers for Jesus, but we are tempted to try methods which
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Jesus would never have tried. Shall we yield to this suggestion? We must follow
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Jesus to succeed. Can we imagine the Lord Jesus using such means as are now commonly used?
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Spurgeon goes on to say, we must preach our Lord's doctrine and proclaim a full gospel, for this is the net in which souls are taken.
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We must preach with His gentleness, His boldness and love to have success with human hearts.
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We must work under divine anointing depending upon the Holy Spirit. Then we shall be fishers of men.
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There are so many different ways of evangelizing today. There's man's way and there's
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God's way. We need to do it God's way if we expect to see people come alive in Christ.
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I want to share with you the importance of fishing in the depths of fallen humanity. What a contrast between believers and unbelievers.
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Believers are alive in Christ, but unbelievers are spiritually dead. Believers are under God's grace.
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Unbelievers are under God's wrath. Believers are destined for heaven. Unbelievers are destined for hell.
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Believers stand forgiven and justified by a holy God, whereas unbelievers stand guilty and condemned.
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Believers are empowered by the Spirit. Unbelievers are controlled by the flesh.
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Believers are children of God. Unbelievers are not only enemies of God, but they're also children of Satan.
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It's hard for me to realize and come to grips that I was a child of the devil for 35 years of my life.
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And it's only when children of the devil repent and believe the gospel that they can become children of God.
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Believers are set free by Christ. Unbelievers are in bondage to sin and bondage to the flesh.
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Believers are reconciled to God, and unbelievers remain separated from God.
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What a contrast. You know, I've often shared this when
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I equip the body of Christ to be faithful witnesses, and if only unbelievers could see a contrast between who they are in the eyes of God versus what believers are in the eyes of God, perhaps that might even encourage them to put their faith in Christ.
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Well, when you witness to Catholics, you need to expect a stubborn resistance.
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Indoctrination is a captivating power that causes a strong resistance to God's word.
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And I can tell you this from experience. I was a devout Catholic. The word of God bounced off my heart anytime someone started asking me if I wanted to hear the gospel.
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The other powerful tool Satan uses to blind people is religious pride.
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Catholics are so proud of their one true church. That's what they think they belong to. And so how do you get through this stubborn pride?
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Well, it's only by prayer. Only God can open the heart of a stubborn sinner, and only
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God can penetrate their hearts. How many times have you heard this?
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I was born a Catholic. I'm going to die a Catholic. That's how proud people are to belong to their religion.
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Whenever someone tells me this, I respond this way. Not according to the
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Bible. The Bible says you were born a sinner, and you're going to die a sinner unless you repent and believe the gospel.
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So we need to look at the obstacles that must be overcome when we witness to Catholics.
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Did you know that they're utterly dependent upon their priest? Not only in this life, but also after they die.
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They're still dependent upon the priest to offer the sacrifice of the mass to get them out of this fictitious place called purgatory.
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Catholics believe baptism put them on the way to heaven. It's the sacrament of regeneration and the sacrament of justification.
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Catholics believe they belong to the one true church. Two months ago, you can visit our website to see it, but I did an article on what is the one true church, because this is really something we need to communicate to Catholics.
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Their church started possibly in the 4th century under Constantine when he became the pontificus maximus of the 4th century church.
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And a lot of the pagans came into the church not repenting, but coming in really to try and get ahead in Constantine's political world.
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And so the church was a means for them to do that. There's also family pressure to remain
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Catholic. I was invited up to preach in the
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Midwest, and there was a member of the church that had a
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Catholic husband. And the Catholic husband never would join her in church, but she had the church praying for his salvation for three years.
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And then she found out I was coming to deliver a message conference on the weekend.
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So that Saturday night she begged and pleaded for him to come and listen to a former Catholic.
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And so he finally accepted and came. Well, I did a message entitled,
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Where Will You Spend Eternity? At the end of the message, I walked out of the pulpit, went down, and she introduced me to her husband,
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Peter. I said, Peter, based on what you've heard from God's Word this evening, what is keeping you from trusting
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Jesus as your all -sufficient Savior right now? He just looked at me like a deer in the headlights.
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Didn't say a word. I wasn't going to speak again until he said something. Finally, after about a minute, his wife blurts out,
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It's your parents! You don't want to offend your parents! He said,
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You know what? She's right. I don't want to offend my parents. So I took him to Matthew 10, and I showed him where Jesus came to divide father against son and mother against daughter.
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I said, Who do you love more, God or your parents? And then I gave him a couple of gospel tracts.
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I said, Please read these tonight and come back tomorrow morning, and I'll be doing the
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Sunday morning service. Well, Peter and his wife were the first two people in the church that morning.
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He said, I couldn't sleep at all last night. After I read what you gave me, I tossed and turned, and finally
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I cried out to the Lord to save me. And then I couldn't wait for my wife to wake up, and we sat on the side of the bed, and I apologized to her for biting her head off every time she invited me to church.
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And he told her that he trusted Christ in the middle of the night. Well, clearly, tears of joy were coming down our cheeks as we recognized the
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Word of God and the Spirit of God brought forth life. And I share this for two reasons.
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Number one, the importance of praying for lost people. This faithful wife had prayed for her husband for three years.
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And the second thing is, make sure that you handle their objections.
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After you give the gospel, ask people, what is keeping you from trusting Christ as your all -sufficient
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Savior right now? See, we never would have found out about Peter had not
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I asked that question. And then we were able to overcome that with gospel tracts.
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So you need to be aware of some Roman Catholic traditions that distort the gospel. They reject the supreme authority of Scripture.
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And we'll talk about that in a moment. They deny the sufficiency of Christ. They do that in a number of ways, but one of them is they continue the work of redemption on their altar.
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The perfect, all -sufficient, finished work of Christ on the altar, on the cross, they continue on the altar.
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And they reject the promise of the gospel eternal life. So these are the things we need to address when we witness to Roman Catholics.
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So quickly, I'll go through what we're going to cover on the principles of effective witnessing, and then we will look at them in more detail.
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We need to use the word of God as the supreme authority for knowing truth. We need to proclaim the gospel and its promise.
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What's the promise of the gospel? Eternal, everlasting life. We need to declare the sufficiency of Christ.
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And Catholics will be unwilling to let go of what they're doing to save themselves until they know that Christ has done it all.
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We need to teach antithetically not only what is the truth, but what opposes the truth.
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We need to pray. We need to declare that all sins are mortal. And you'll see in a moment why that's important.
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And finally, we need to point Catholics to the narrow way that leads to life. So the first principle, use the supreme authority of God's word.
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I think if you had to look at just one scripture to prove this, it would be 2 Timothy 3 .16.
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All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof.
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What does the word reproof mean? It exposes error. And once the error has been exposed, guess what?
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Then you use scripture to correct the error that you just exposed with the word of God. And then for training in righteousness.
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When you look at Catholic authority, they have three different authorities. They're all said to be equal, but in actual practice it is the bishops of the church that sit above scripture and tradition.
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The magisterium is another name for the bishops of the church. Whenever they speak with one voice, they are said to be infallible.
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And they dare to say that their bishops are the only authentic interpreters of God's word.
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Whenever I witness to a priest, you know what they say? You don't have the right to interpret the word of God.
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You need to come back to Holy Mother of the church. Let the bishops interpret it for you. The magisterium sits above God's holy word, scripture, and the ungodly traditions of the
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Catholic church. And they twist and distort scripture so that it conforms to their ungodly tradition.
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Peter had an answer for that, didn't he? Those who twist and distort scripture, it's to their own destruction.
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So we need to establish scripture as the supreme authority over the teachings of men and the traditions of religion.
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I've been traveling quite a bit over the last 50 years of my life, and some of you, well
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I'm sure any of you that traveled in the old Hartsfield Airport remember that you had to walk out onto the tarmac and then up the stairs on the plane.
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Well, one particular weekend I did that, and as I sat down and fastened my seatbelt,
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I turned to the guy next to me and I said, so what are you going to be doing in Boston today? He said,
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I'm not going to Boston, I'm going to Milwaukee. I said, well this plane's going to Boston. He said, no, it's going to Milwaukee.
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I said, I know for sure I got on the plane to Boston. He said, I know for sure I got on the plane to Milwaukee.
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So what do you do to settle the disagreement? You go to a higher authority, right? So I pressed the flight attendant button.
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She came back. I said, where is this plane going? She said, it's going to Milwaukee.
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And so he asked me, what are you going to be doing in Milwaukee today? The importance of establishing
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God's word as the supreme authority over the teachings of men and sacred tradition.
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Now, Acts 17 .11 I think is the perfect verse to take Catholics to. Here you have
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Paul teaching in the synagogues of Berea. As he's teaching, he notices that they're searching the scriptures to test the veracity of an apostle.
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So shouldn't your pope and your bishop and your priest, shouldn't I and any other one that teaches the
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Bible come under the same scrutiny? Shouldn't we all be tested by the supreme authority of God's word?
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And then you have the tradition, religious tradition. Mark chapter 7, the apostate
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Jews were nullifying the word of God for the sake of their tradition. So Jesus soundly rebuked them because scripture must be our supreme authority.
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So the second principle when we witness is to proclaim the gospel and its promise.
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The gospel is eternal. It's the same message for every generation. First announced in the garden, it will go throughout the world, and then the end will come.
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Everybody in heaven will be there because they believe the one and only eternal gospel of Christ.
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The gospel is exclusive. It dares to say that all other faiths and all other religions are false.
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It's exclusive because of the person of Christ. In John 14, 6, he said,
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I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
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He is the way for those who are lost. He's the truth for those who are deceived. And he's the very life for those who are dead in their sin.
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The gospel is according to scripture alone. And this is so important as we witness to Catholics.
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Paul defines the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 to 4. It is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ according to what?
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Scripture. It doesn't point us to any other authority. It doesn't point us to the bishops of the church, or to sacred tradition.
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If you want to know how to get to heaven, it's fully contained in scripture. The gospel has divine power to save those who believe it.
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Romans 1, 16 is the theme verse of our ministry. The gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.
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And it is of grace. Those who add anything to it stand condemned.
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And we're going to look at this in the Sunday morning message. And finally, it promises eternal life.
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Not conditional life as the Catholic Church offers. I love to take
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Catholics to 1 John 5, 13, where Jesus writes to those who believe in the name of the
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Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. God wants us to have that joy right now in our possession.
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We have eternal, everlasting life. Well, in Hebrews 11, 1, we read that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
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What does every person hope for? That when they die, they'll go to heaven. Catholics don't have that faith.
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So by definition, they have a false faith. Assurance can only be realized when the object of faith is
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Christ alone. Because he did everything necessary to save sinners completely and forever.
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Anybody that adds anything to his perfect, finished, all -sufficient work has not only nullified
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God's grace, they have insulted the Savior. Because they believe he didn't do enough.
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We must get the gospel right. Before the Lord saved me, I was a rocket scientist at Cape Kennedy, Florida.
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One of the first things I learned, when astronauts re -enter the atmosphere, they must get the true angle of re -entry precisely correct.
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Because if an astronaut comes into light, he will skip off the Earth's atmosphere into outer space.
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If he comes in too heavy, he'll burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. You're probably thinking, what's this got to do with the gospel?
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We've got to get the gospel precisely correct. If you take anything away from the gospel, and you believe that, you'll skip off into outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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If you add anything to the gospel, you'll burn up in the eternal lake of fire. We must get the gospel precisely correct.
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As I mentioned, Paul defines it in 1 Corinthians 15. It is about one person, the eternal
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God incarnate, his virgin birth and his perfect life. And it's about two events, the unique, historical, unrepeatable, atoning and substitutionary death of Jesus Christ and his glorious resurrection from the dead.
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Now you're probably saying, Mike, why do you have to define the death of Jesus Christ that way?
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Because the Catholic Church denies it. They deny the substitutionary death of Christ.
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They deny that it's unrepeatable because they repeat it every day during the sacrifice of the mass.
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Remember, Catholics don't know of the substitutionary death of Christ. The Catholic Church taught me that Jesus died for the sins of the world.
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That's history. When I found out he died for me, that was salvation. Well, Catholics have a different gospel.
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The first part of the Catholic gospel, it is by baptism. That's how you're saved.
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Paragraph 1256 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That is the sacrament of regeneration.
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That's the sacrament of justification. Now, you're probably thinking, well, the
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Bible says justification is by faith, and infants don't have the capacity to believe anything, so how can they be justified?
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The Catholic Church gets around that by saying it's the faith of the parents or it's the faith of the church.
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That's how the Catholic infant is justified. After baptized, you have to have faith, then you have to receive sacraments.
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They are utterly necessary for Catholics to attain eternal life. Again, these numbers are paragraph numbers of their catechism.
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They must attend the sacrifice of the mass. They must believe purgatory will purge away their sins.
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They must believe indulgences can remit temporal punishment for sin. They must do good works in order to be justified.
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They must keep the law. That's part of the requirements for getting into heaven.
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Well, what did Paul say in Galatians 1 verse 9? If any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed.
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Please don't miss this. Every Roman Catholic clergy member, every priest, every bishop, every monsignor, every cardinal, every pope, every
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Roman Catholic nun is under a divine condemnation because they teach a different gospel.
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That's why we need to rescue these precious souls out from a religion that is condemned by Almighty God.
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By the way, I don't know why this is such a secret in the evangelical church.
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Why aren't our pastors telling us that the Roman Catholic clergy is under divine condemnation?
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Why aren't they telling us they're the modern day Judaizers that came in distorting the gospel?
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Why are we so fearful of man? Lives are at stake.
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We need to tell the truth. The gospel is good news because it promises the complete forgiveness of sin.
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Catholics don't have that. It promises a permanent right standing before God.
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Every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus and the assurance of eternal life. Catholics reject or deny all of these promises because they embrace a false and fatal gospel.
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The third principle of effective evangelism to Catholics, we must declare the sufficiency of Christ.
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When Jesus cried out, it is finished, he had accomplished everything necessary to save sinners completely and forever.
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He died once for all sin for all time. There are no more offerings for sin.
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Hebrews 10 totally destroys the Roman Catholic mass. He died once for all sin for all time.
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There are no more offerings for sin. And yet the Catholic mass is said to be that, an offering for sin.
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That's why Catholics have to come back week after week because the sins they committed in the previous week are paid for during the
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Roman Catholic mass. It is said to be a propitiatory sacrifice. For it is finished speaks volumes.
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Righteousness was perfected so that Christ could give it as a gift to those who repent and believe.
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Divine justice was satisfied so that believers will never ever be condemned.
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Redemption was paid and finished. Sins were forgiven and the debt was nailed to the cross.
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Colossians 2, 13 and 14. And reconciliation was achieved so that believers will never ever again be separated from God.
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Jesus did it all. What an insult to say that you must add to his perfect finish all sufficient work.
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Death was conquered and salvation was secured. But the
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Catholic Church denies this by saying that the work of redemption continues every day on Catholic altars.
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Paragraph 1405. Every time this mystery is celebrated, the work of our redemption is carried on.
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If anyone says the sacrifice of the mass is not a propitiatory one, let him be anathema.
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See, the New Testament condemns the Roman Catholic religion with an anathema.
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The Catholic Church condemns born -again Christians with over 100 anathemas because we don't believe their false and fatal gospel.
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And yet we have evangelicals calling for unity with this apostate religion. This is a very troubling quote, but yet this is what
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Roman Catholics believe. This is what they believe takes place every time the mass is celebrated.
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When the priest announces the words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens and brings
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Christ down from his throne and places him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of man.
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It is a power greater than that of saints and angels. The priest speaks and lo,
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Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command.
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This has the official imprimatur of the Catholic Church. This is what they officially believe takes place every time a mass is offered.
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This is heartbreaking. And yet evangelicals are signing unity accords with this religion.
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Rome denies the sufficiency of Jesus. To his grace they add works which are necessary for justification.
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To his purifying blood they add purgatory. To his righteousness they add their own works of righteousness.
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To his finished work they add the mass. To his word they add their tradition. To his unique headship they add a pope who is said to be head of the church.
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To his unique role as sinless mediator they have another sinless mediator, and her name is
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Mary. And to his high priestly office they add the confessional box. Again, I was invited up to equip a church up in Emporia, Kansas.
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And after equipping the church all afternoon, all morning,
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Saturday, we went out to a Catholic mass, it's Saturday afternoon, to practice what they had learned.
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The Catholic mass was going to start at 5 o 'clock, so we went out about 4 o 'clock and we walked in.
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And normally when I travel to a city I try and have a meeting with the priest. This priest was too busy.
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But as we walked into the church there was a red light on over the confessional that told me that he's inside hearing confession.
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So I told my wife and the elder of the church to pray for me, I'm going to confession. I was going to go talk to the priest and share the gospel.
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So I walked in, I said, I don't even know where to begin, it's been over 30 years since my last confession.
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He said, don't you worry, when you leave here I'll forgive all your sins. And then he said, why has it been 30 years?
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I said, well, I've been reading the Bible. He said, how has that kept you from the confessional?
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I said, well, what I've been reading in the Bible goes against what I was taught as a Catholic. He said, give me an example.
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So I said, well, in John 19 .30 Jesus cried out in victory, it is finished, so why do you continue on an altar with Jesus finished on the cross?
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He said, give me another example. I said, well, in 1 John 1 .7
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it says the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin, so why do we need purgatory?
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He said, I can see this is going to take longer than I thought. Why don't you call me on Monday and we'll continue the conversation.
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So I did, I flew back to Dallas and called him. By then he knew why we were there. He said, why were you proselytizing us?
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I said, I told you in the confessional because you have a different gospel. And then
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I started sharing the gospel with him and about five minutes in he said, you know what, nothing you can say is going to change my mind.
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I was born a Catholic and I'm going to die a Catholic. I said, no, not according to the
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Bible. You were born a sinner and you're going to die a sinner unless you repent and believe the gospel.
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Well, then he hung up on me, but you know what? I was successful in that I got a chance to give him the word of God.
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And then I just prayed, Lord, don't give this man any peace until he comes to the
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Prince of Peace. Well, then we need to teach antithetically. And that simply means as we give the truth, we must also teach what opposes the truth.
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And I think you'll see that as you read the scriptures. A classic example is Ephesians 2, 8, 9.
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Listen to Paul teaching antithetically. For by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves.
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It's the gift of God, not of works, so that no man may boast. Paul's sharing what the truth is as well as what opposes the truth so people can repent of their dead works, of their false teaching and believe the truth.
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I was on a missionary trip to Mexico, and we went into a cathedral. There was a
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Bible on a kneeler in front of a statue of Mary. So I knelt down on the kneeler. I opened the
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Bible to Ephesians 2, 8, 9. I reached in and got my yellow highlighter and highlighted those two verses.
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These are two verses that have set so many Catholics free. I wanted them to look down and to see these verses.
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We must pray. Pray for the salvation of those blinded by religious deception.
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You know, Paul is praying for the salvation of the Israelites in these verses. And as I studied this in seminary,
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I really believe this is when God placed on me a burden to reach Catholics. Because Paul prayed.
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He said the Israelites have a zeal for God, but it's not based on knowledge and not knowing
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God's righteousness. They seek to establish their own. As I read those verses,
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I thought, I know so many zealous Catholics that also don't know the word of God.
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And so they don't know God's righteousness and they seek to obtain their own righteousness.
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God requires perfect righteousness. We need to pray for God to open doors and hearts for us to proclaim
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Christ clearly. God is sovereign over every man's heart. And he's sovereign as far as opening doors for us to get the gospel out.
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Pray for wisdom to make the most of every opportunity. Jane and I pray for divine appointments during the week.
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Lord, lead your lost souls across our path. How do you know when
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God's given you a divine appointment? Well, you don't unless you ask questions. So throughout the day, as we go to and fro, we're asking questions.
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And even if you only have a few moments, at a line in the post office at a restaurant, we ask people, are you a
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Christian? It's a good way to get to the gospel. And if they say yes, we say, where do you go to church?
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And that's a good indication as to whether or not they know the true gospel. And then if you only have a few moments, the very least you can do is share a few words about the gospel and leave a gospel track behind.
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We need to declare all sins are mortal, and this is why. Catholicism teaches that venial sins do not cause death, only temporal punishment.
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That's paragraph 1863. This false teaching repeats Satan's first lie, you surely shall not die.
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We must show them the wages of sin is death. I call this the trilogy of deception.
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So the lie of the devil in the garden, which is a doctrine of demons, which Paul told us about in 1
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Timothy 4 .1. In latter times, some will follow doctrines of demons. So he declared that if you break
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God's command, you surely shall not die. That's the Roman Catholic lie of venial sins.
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They perpetuated the lie of Satan. And so now that you have Catholics dying in the state of venial sin and not mortal sin, you need a place to send them to.
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So they created another lie called purgatory, and this is where venial sins are purged away by fire.
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But now that you have Catholics in this place called purgatory, now you need a means to get them out.
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So they invented another lie. It's called indulgences, and this is where their temporal punishment for sin is reduced.
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You know, this was one of the marks of the Reformation, the selling of God's forgiveness.
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So this is the trilogy of deception. John MacArthur calls this the safety net for Catholics.
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They don't believe they've done anything serious enough to warrant mortal sin and fear hell, so they all believe that someday they'll have to spend some time in purgatory.
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But the priest will get them out, as he says, the sacrifice of the mass for them.
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And lastly, we need to point them to the narrow way that leads to life. My uncle was a priest for 30 years in the jungles of Burma.
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Whenever he would come to town, we would always sit down with him and open a Bible and plead with him to believe
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God's word. And one night he just threw up his hands and said, Mike, how can one billion
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Catholics be wrong? I said, can I let Jesus answer that for you? So I took him to Matthew 7, where Jesus said, enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
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I said, Father Charles, just because there's a billion people traveling on the same road doesn't mean it's the right way.
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Jesus said it leads to death, for the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
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Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
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Do you see the context here? False teachers are standing in front of the narrow gate saying, this isn't the way, it's the broad way.
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And so anyone who wants to know the true way must diligently search the scriptures, strive to enter the narrow way.
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My last semester at seminary, I put these two paths to eternity on a gospel track.
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Every time I share the Roman Catholic path to eternity with the Catholics, I say, yes, that's the path
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I'm on. Well, they believe that they're born destined for hell, but it's water baptism that puts them on the road to heaven.
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They commit venial sins, they lose some of their right standing. They commit a mortal sin, now they're de -justified.
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They need to be re -justified, doing good works and receiving the sacraments. Catholics go through this hundreds of times, never knowing where they stand.
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At the end of a Catholic's life, if he's never heard the gospel or rejected it, he will stand before the
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Lord Jesus at the great white throne and hear the most terrifying words anyone could ever hear when
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Jesus says, depart from me. They're cast into the eternal lake of fire. And then you show them the biblical path.
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It's not water baptism, it's faith in Christ. And then that great promise, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
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At the end of a believer's life, they will stand before the Lord Jesus and hopefully hear the words, well done, my good and faithful servant.
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And they will sing his praises throughout all eternity. Amen? Two different paths.
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Boy, I encourage all of you to make sure you carry this track around with you as you witness to Catholics and show them these two different paths.
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Well, I know we're out of time, so I'm going to end where I began.
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Jesus calls us all to be fishers of men. You are a people for God's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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That's the great privilege we have. Success in fishing is being faithful to do
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God's work, his way for his glory. I want to share just a couple of gospel resources.
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I wrote this book, Preparing for Eternity, out of my love and compassion for Catholics.
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It's not only a good book to give to a Catholic, but it's a good book for you to equip yourself on how to be an effective witness for reaching
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Catholics. Should we trust God's word or religious traditions? That's what it really comes down to.
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And one of the great principles to leave you with, we must encourage Catholics to always test the uninspired words of men with the inspired word of God.
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We've got 20 of our messages on a thumb drive. If you like the keynote slides, my wife does all my keynote slides.
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I give her the message, and she prepares the slides for me. We must tell
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Catholics they have broken God's law, they are condemned by God's justice, they deserve
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God's wrath, and they need God's mercy. Their only hope is God's Son.
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We'll talk about contending for the gospel in the next hour. But visit our resource table.
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This is 12 of the most important words of the gospel. These are a set of gospel cards that you can use either as a means to witness.
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On the back of each card, you have four bullet points defining and explaining what each word means.
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So you can use it to go deeper into the gospel so it will just flow from your tongue every time you get an opportunity.
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So let's close in prayer, and then I guess we'll... Transition. Yeah. And if you have any questions, we'll be here after the main service, and I'd love to answer any questions you have.
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Father, we do recognize that there is a lost and dying world that needs to hear the glorious gospel of our
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Savior. Thank you for the great privilege of being an ambassador for Christ.
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Help us to be faithful to the Great Commission. We ask this for the glory of Christ and for the eternal destiny of those that are outside of Christ.
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We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You're welcome.