Heaven, Hell and Everything In Between (part 5)

Father, we thank you this morning for being our God, for being our

Savior, for being our provider, for being our sustainer. Lord, as we come to your

Word this morning, we just pray that you would bless your Word, that you would pierce our hearts, that you would use your truth to impact our lives in such a way that we would want to impact the lives of others.

Father, we pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Well, you know, since I've become my mom's guardian and...

What's the other term? Doesn't really matter. But anyway, I get all of her mail now, which means I also get the Deseret catalogs, which come with some amazing books and other things.

Like, how about this one? Well, this is a CD. It's actually, I guess, a talk.

We wouldn't call them sermons back in the Mormon days. By Gerald N. Lund, it's called

Personal Revelation. Why is it sometimes hard to recognize revelation when it comes?

How can we avoid being misled? Elder Lund answers these and other questions about the hows and whys of receiving answers from the

Lord. This engaging talk, see, I knew it, gets at the heart of our belief in continuing revelation and what it means for us in our lives.

Continuing revelation, that's Mormonism. Here's another one talking about continuing, and this will get right more to what we're going to talk about this morning.

It's a book by Brad Wilcox called The Continuous Atonement. Listen to this first sentence.

Perfection is a long -term process. Don't despair.

This book offers hope through powerful true stories and scriptural insights that will stay with you, reassuring you of the great love the

Savior has for each one of us. Here's one reader who said this. This book made me realize there's no waiting period for you to become worthy to repent.

It's just a whole wrong view of things. You have to reach a certain level before you can repent, is what she's saying, and this book made her realize that that wasn't right.

But perfection is a long -term process. She previously thought, apparently, that you had to be perfect before you could repent, but now she realizes that you repent so that you can become perfect.

Issues, and why is that pertinent to what we're going to talk about this morning? Because for two reasons. The continuing revelation, because we're going to see this morning, as we continue to talk about purgatory, that any time you hold up anything and say, this helps us to understand the

Bible, this is what the Bible means, not what the Bible says, but this is what the

Bible actually means, or you put some other authority up on par with the Bible, then what you really do is, in essence, throw the

Bible away. The Bible isn't God's word unless you say it is. And we started looking at purgatory last week.

I have a few new things. How about this? The difference between mortal and venial sins.

Anybody describe that for me in Catholic theology? Mortal and venial sins. Did you know it is a mortal sin?

In other words, one that if you were not to confess to a priest or something like that, you would go straight to hell.

It is a mortal sin to intentionally miss church on Sunday. Or not to go to mass in a given week.

Did you know that? Mortal sin. Stay home to watch the NFL? I mean, think about that.

Stay home to watch the NFL? Hell for you. Listen to how they describe venial sins or lesser sins.

And there is the lesser sin of forgetting to turn off your Blackberry. All sins are not equal before God, nor dare anyone assert that the daily faults of human frailty will be punished with the same severity that is meted out to serious violation of God's law.

On the other hand, whatsoever comes into God's presence must be perfectly pure. For in the strictest sense, his eyes are too pure to behold evil.

There is a biblical concept. Good for them. For unrepented venial sins, for the payment of temporal punishment due to sin at the time of death, the church has always taught the doctrine of purgatory.

So deep was this belief ingrained in our common humanity that it was accepted by the Jews, and in at least a shadowy way by the pagans long before the coming of Christianity.

Some sins are worse than others. I mean, is there some truth to that?

Are there some sins that are worse than others? Not in God's eyes,

Charlie. Humanly speaking, there definitely are, because they can have more impact on other people.

You know, which is worse, to speed or to kill someone? Well, I don't know. That's a tough call. But God says one violation of the law,

Bruce. Yeah, like teachers and, you know, certainly when we read what

Peter and Paul say about false teachers, that kind of thing, I mean, there are some things that, you know,

I mean, what does the Proverbs say? God hates, you know. There are six things, even, yeah, even seven.

Yeah, I think there are some things that kind of stand out on their own. But when judgment, let's say that you, the only sin you ever committed was in your entire life.

I don't know, it was something venial. You know, would you then be able to get into heaven?

And the answer is no, because God demands perfection. The same man, a

Catholic apologist, says several things. He talks about the controversy engendered by purgatory.

But let's look for a moment at Hebrews 10, 18. I think it's really kind of instructive, you know, as I've been reading what they say here.

It's instructive to me, anyway, that some of the things they said about Protestants.

For example, he says that, you know, Protestants take things out of context. He says this is a common example when he talks about Romans 10, 18.

He says this is a common example of how, of not only how Protestants misunderstand what

Catholics mean by purgatory, but how they take a biblical verse out of context.

I'm going to show that that's essentially what Catholics do over and over again. Hebrews 10, 18.

Now there is forgiveness of these things. Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

And, you know, some commentators or one interpretation says, our forgiveness is already complete.

We do not need to be purified in purgatory. Or it's interesting that he also uses the new revised standard version of the

Bible, which is not all that great. Anyway, his point is

Protestants teach that our forgiveness is already complete. We do not need to be purified in purgatory.

And he says that's not what this verse means. Well, I would say it doesn't really have anything to do with purgatory at all.

But if we back up a little bit, let's talk about context. 10, 14. For by one offering, he has perfected for all time all those who are sanctified.

And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us. For after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them.

After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws upon their hearts. And on their mind, I will write them.

And their sins and their lawless deeds, I will remember no more. Now, where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Now, what about that entire context there would make you think that purgatory is in play?

If Christ has perfected us by virtue of his sacrifice, why then would we go to purgatory?

Let me read something else he said here. But let's say salvation was a done deal. I'm in favor of that.

Is our sanctification instantly accomplished? Who says that?

What Christian Protestant says that when you're saved, you're as solid a

Christian as you will ever be. You're 100 % sanctified. Peggy says it's your position with Christ.

Right, your sanctification is an ongoing process. Vida? Yeah, positionally we are.

Yes. You shouldn't sin once saved.

Yeah, well, right. Yeah, so anybody who understands the

Bible correctly would not say those things. So he kind of sets up a straw man. But he goes on to say some

Protestants say Catholics don't understand the difference between justification and sanctification. That's because they don't.

Here's, for those of you not familiar with Roman Catholic theology, justification is, according to Roman Catholics, a process.

It's an ongoing infusion of the righteousness of Christ so that you become more justified over time.

And we say, along with Paul and along with the rest of the Bible, that we are justified.

That is, declared righteous. Not because we are righteous, but because positionally we are righteous in Christ.

He is our righteousness. As Vida was saying, he is our sanctification.

He goes on to say, they say justification is instantaneous. Yes, we do. And sanctification is a lifelong process.

Yes, we do. Even granting this, I like it when he grants us things. Listen to this. The final step into heaven would require us to be perfectly purified and made completely holy through Christ's grace since the church in heaven, where nothing unclean can enter, contains holy and perfected people.

Would we agree with that? But listen to this conclusion. So, we do need to be purified, according to Scripture, and Christ's one sacrifice is the application of that final purification and sanctification necessary for heaven, which

Catholics call purgatory. So, Christ's sacrifice is our ticket into purgatory.

Quite bad. He goes on to say, you know, when Paul says, I would rather be absent from the body and present with the

Lord, he says, look, desiring something is not the same as meaning that that's going to be the case.

I could say that I want a million dollars. It doesn't mean that I have a million dollars. It completely misses the point of Paul's teaching.

Anyway, yes. Yeah, I probably should have even looked that up in some

Catholic apologists to see what they say, and I think I know the answer to this one. The thief on the cross,

I think they say that it's a special exception that sometimes Jesus can grant or God can grant special exceptions, such as with Mary.

And the idea with Mary is certainly Jesus would not allow his mother to undergo, you know, because his mother is a special case and he wouldn't allow that to happen to her.

And same with the thief on the cross. But it is a great, you know, when Jesus says today you will be with me in paradise.

What did he really mean? Today you're going to be with me and we're going to be suffering for somebody else's, you know,

I'm going to suffer for somebody else's sins. You're going to be suffering for your own sins. No, paradise is heaven,

Bruce. Well, and yeah, he basically said that, you know, the idea that Paul would wish such a thing doesn't make it so.

And you just, I mean, it just sort of dodges the whole issue. But it's this idea that we have to be purified before we go into heaven.

And what does that ultimately say? And again, this gets back to the idea of the continuous atonement. What is it?

Christ's death was not enough. Christ is not enough for you. You have to suffer on your own.

Jesus Christ did not pay the price for all of your sin. You know, it reminds me of a line from a movie

I'm somewhat enamored of for many, many years where Billy Crystal says, you know, he's only mostly dead.

Well, in this case, Jesus only mostly paid for your sins. You have to suffer for him too.

And I'm like, is that the good news? The good news is that Jesus bought you some time in purgatory.

It is finished. I have paved the way for you to get to where you can suffer for your sins.

For an unknown, I mean, you know, some of us might be in there for less of a time than others. But we talked about last week some of the problems with this issue and some of the scriptures they take out of context.

We also did something we'll probably not do again for a while, which is read from 2 Maccabees. And I even gave a list of scriptures that they use.

We talked about any time you have to go to 1 Corinthians 15 -29, I think you've already just thrown the towel.

You've lost the argument. When you start talking about baptism for the dead, you've given up because very few people can explain that and have you go, oh yeah, that makes sense.

There are about 30 different explanations for that one. Not really a critical doctrine though. Let's look at Matthew 12 -32.

And when someone has that, would they please read it? Please forgive me in advance if I just break into a coughing fit.

So I did sleep well last night. I just woke everybody else up.

Matthew 12 -32, Bruce. Okay, now what is that?

What is Jesus talking about? Blaspheming, right.

Jesus was performing, Daniel said Jesus was performing miracles. The Jewish religious leaders looked at what he said, and they attributed those miracles to Satan.

And so Jesus said, you know, basically there is no forgiveness for attributing the works of God to Satan, either in this life or the life to come, and it became known as the unpardonable sin, the unforgivable sin.

But you know what? Catholic, and I didn't give you any

Catholic quotes, but I can summarize their teaching on this. How about this? What this says, actually saying in Matthew 12 -32, is it proves that there are some sins that will be forgiven in the age to come.

In other words, in the next life. Thus, it is a proof text for purgatory.

Comments? Thoughts? Putting it in context, does that make sense?

If Jesus says something cannot happen, then obviously the reverse must be true.

Some things can happen. If some sins cannot be forgiven in the next age, then logically the extension of that is that some sins must be able to be forgiven in the next age.

Is that a logical truth or a fallacy? Thank you.

I didn't know what to call it. It's an error of equivocation. What does that mean? Okay, putting equal weight to both sides of the clause.

I mean, there is no reason if Jesus says, look, you can never be forgiven. And why could you never be forgiven for saying, watching the miracles of Jesus.

I mean, they literally saw the miracles of Jesus and then said, those are works of the devil. Why can they never be forgiven for that?

What more proof do they need, Pat said, Casey? Full revelation, they rejected it.

Okay, blaspheming the very means of salvation, Holy Spirit. I mean, it showed the condition of their hearts.

If you could see the miracles of God, I mean, this would be like, well,

I mean, here's the quintessential argument of the atheist.

If God would just reveal himself to me, I would believe. And the answer is, no, you wouldn't. Because people saw the miracles of Jesus and what did they do?

They said, oh, those are of Satan. Their hearts were so hardened, it didn't matter. This doesn't show anything of the sort.

James White, he says, the Roman Catholic interpreter, looks at this passage and says, see, it is possible to have sins forgiven in the age to come, just as Jesus said.

This gives some support to the doctrine of purgatory. And then James White goes on to say,

Christ emphasized the impossibility of forgiveness for this blasphemy, not the concept that there is forgiveness for sin in the age to come.

It is the same as saying it is unforgivable, period. It can never be forgiven.

A related doctrine to purgatory, and I said on the way to church this morning,

I said, I want people to come away, listen carefully to what I say, hating

Roman Catholic theology more than they ever have this morning. Why?

Because purgatory denies the sufficiency of Christ and his death. And listen to this, this related doctrine, this treasury of merits.

Again, this just ultimately, we're going to see that not only do they have a system that supplants the

Bible of church teaching and church tradition, but they also have doctrines that deny the essence of Christianity.

And this doctrine of merit is one of them. Top of page 22, the concept is that Christ has excess merits.

Now, in general, I would say, you know what, that's true. What would we say? We would say that Christ's death is sufficient for, if there were billions of people on millions of planets,

Jesus' substitutionary death is sufficient for all of them. There's enough merits, infinite merits in his death.

So, you know, if you want to say there's excess merits, okay. Listen, the concept is that Christ has excess merit beyond that required to bring about the salvation of humankind.

Consequently, now here's kind of, does this logically follow?

Again, just kind of put your logic glasses on. Consequently, this excess merit goes into the treasury and is available through the church to those who need it, to those in need of it.

Mary, likewise, had more merit than was required for her salvation. Therefore, her excess merit goes into the same treasury, adding to the super abundance of Christ's merits.

But that is not all. The saints also had more merit than they personally needed to enter into heaven.

So, their excess merit is placed in the treasury along with that of Christ and Mary. Now, why is it, by the way, what scriptural reason is there that the church gets to dispense this merit?

It's very close, very, very close. It is in Matthew 16, 18, is where the foundation of it comes.

Well, you hit it, but I mean you need to back up one verse. Matthew 16, 18, Jesus talking to Peter says,

I also say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

Verse 19, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

And they say, there you go. That gave

Peter the right to dispense the treasury of merit as he saw fit and every pope in succession to give out the treasury of merit as they saw fit.

It's clear as day. That's their teaching. But let me back up a little minute, just a second here.

What we think about Mary likewise had more merit than was required for her salvation.

What scriptural text could you use for that? For all who sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Very good. That really proves that point. Yeah, I mean we need to read this just so that you can kind of get just a glimpse of how really horrific this is.

Open to Luke 1 and verse 30.

This is the angel Gabriel coming to Mary to make the announcement of Jesus' birth, upcoming birth.

And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And that's all you need right there. And you think I'm making this up.

I would encourage you to go home and look up on some of these Catholic apologists' websites. This is the kind of thing they do.

Yes, John. Oh. Found favor.

Well, they turn it and say that she has an inherent worth to her.

You have found favor with God. John. You know, that's a good question.

I don't know the answer to that one. But the doctrine, and it's a good one, they teach that she was not a good one, that it's right.

A good one. I need to clarify that. A good one in that it brings light to the sort of thing that they do.

They say that Mary was born without a sin nature. What's that called?

Immaculate conception. Yeah, yeah.

And it's the same, it's in the Magnificat where she exalts in, yeah, there are other places where, excuse me.

Yeah, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. Well, why did she need a Savior if she was without sin?

So, I mean, there are problems. Well, let's just follow the logic, again, trying to use our logical minds here.

What's the problem with saying, well, if Jesus was going to be born without sin, his mother had to be without sin?

Would make Mary the second Adam, but there's another problem. How could Mary be born without sin if her mother wasn't born without sin?

And, you know, you just kind of go up the tree and we've got all these sinless women back to, you know, the treasury of merit is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

I mean, how could Mary be born of a sinful woman and be sinless?

She wasn't God, she wasn't perfect, that's right. Although, it's kind of hard to tell, you know, when she shows up in cookies and pizzas and different things all around the world.

Grilled cheese sandwiches. I mean, how do they know it's Mary? That's what I always wonder. You know, who has that snapshot of her?

In this cated photo, we see, it's just, it's terrible.

But, you know, again, another problem. Saints. Who are the saints? What is the definition of a saint?

Christians. Those who are set apart. I mean, if we were to read some of the beginnings of the epistles to the saints who are blah, blah, blah, at such and such.

Well, what does that mean? You know, today, how do you become a saint in the Catholic Church? You're canonized, shot out of a canon.

You know, you have to meet certain levels of holiness. You have to have, you know, had all these miracles attributed to you.

Daniel. Decanonize.

In retrospect, we decided, you know, Saint so -and -so didn't cut the grade, so. Well, I'm not familiar with that one, but okay.

Decanonize. I like this. Moving on here. A withdrawal from this treasury, the treasury of merit, can only be dispensed by the

Roman Catholic Church, and it's called an indulgence. You know,

I would like to make a withdrawal. McCarthy in his book says, once a Catholic has acquired an indulgence, he is free to decide how to use it.

He can apply it to his own temporal punishment, or by prayer he can apply it into the account of a deceased loved one in purgatory.

So, I pay my money, I get the indulgence, and I think about somebody I, you know, know and love and care about and who's probably suffering in the fires of purgatory right now, and I go, you know what,

I'm going to apply it to that person. Or I could save it for myself, knowing, you know, that I've got a long time to go in purgatory.

That's not entirely clear. Charlie's question was, if that person's already out of purgatory, do you get a refund?

And I think not without a receipt. So, I don't know how that goes.

That's. I mean, it's so complicated, it's so convoluted, and, you know, ultimately, what is, you know, what really offended

Martin Luther? I mean, I think there were a few things, but this whole idea of an indulgence,

John. What kind of merciful and compassionate pope sits there having this vast treasury of merits and just allows people to suffer when he can let them out of purgatory?

How vile is that? Oh, you cynical person here.

Charlie says St. Peter's Basilica would not have been built. Well, that's quite true, because they collected money for indulgences.

I mean, think about it. If we believe this, then what is the right thing to do? It's to sacrifice everything that we possibly can to get people that we love out of purgatory.

And then we give more money to the church. You know, God loves a cheerful giver, and he also loves, apparently, you know, people who are willing to impoverish themselves to build basilicas.

But sad. Okay, I asked the question, what does it say about the sufficiency of Christ's death?

Well, we've already talked about it a little bit. Here's a Catholic document cited by McCarthy.

It says people who have committed many sins, even if they are only venial minor sins, those are your major minor sins, but who have never done penance by themselves and never tried to gain any indulgences have a heavy load of punishment to atone for.

I just want to let that sink in. You have a heavy load of sin to atone for.

What does that say about the sufficiency of Christ's death? Reason alone, this

Catholic document goes on to say, without the aid of revelation, leads us to expect that there must be some means of purifying the punishment due to sin after death.

This concept is what we express in the word purgatory. Scripture and tradition both clearly teach that purgatory does exist.

Can any mere human have excess merit? And I decided Matthew 5 .48,

what's Matthew 5 .48? Be perfect even as your

Father in heaven is perfect. How does that answer the question?

Can any human being have excess merits? God's standard is perfection.

How do you exceed perfection? They make it sound like God, well, what

God really meant by perfection was 70%. And if you hit 92, well, that's 22 to the treasury of merit.

70 gets you in, 22 to the treasury of merit. Good job, Steve. I mean, it's just so, again, so convoluted and so demeaning to the

Lord. It is so demeaning to the holiness of God. I mean, it discounts everything, and ultimately what it presents us with is a system where we are, where Catholics are trying to walk the stairway into heaven.

They're trying to earn their way in. That's why they're going to, you know, crawl across broken glass.

Why? Because they're going to suffer in this lifetime so that they don't have to suffer in purgatory.

The sufferings of Christ alone are not enough to get you into heaven.

Now, what does this doctrine mean concerning salvation by faith alone? Obviously, I just said it. It just discounts it. It throws it away.

Phillips says, Purgatory presents at best a warped perspective of God's mercy, supposedly in the interest of protecting

His justice. It is good news, we are told, that God let you into purgatory instead of hell.

But we reply it is not very good news, and it certainly presents a view of God's mercy that is less than inspiring.

Purgatory, we are told, is necessary so God will be just in justifying sinners. In contrast, the

Bible teaches that God's justice is satisfied by the sacrifice of the spotless

Lamb of God in our place. Jesus Christ is enough.

Let's read Hebrews 7 .27. Basically, commentator after commentator will tell you that if you read

Hebrews 7, chapters 7 through 10, you will never, ever come to think that there is any validity to the

Roman Catholic system, the sufficiency of Christ, the supremacy of Christ, that He is better than all the

Old Testament systems. Who has Romans 7 .27? Go ahead,

Casey. Again, what does that say about the idea of once for all,

Jesus? Jesus is the only one who didn't need a sacrifice for his own sins because he had no sins.

Everybody else, including Mary, had their own sins. Listen to what

Grimacki says. The Levitical priests offered sacrifices daily. The high priests functioned not just once each year on the

Day of Atonement, but they also presented daily offerings. They would offer two lambs of the first year day by day continually.

One lamb was sacrificed in the morning, the other in the evening. Each priest knew that he was a sinner, therefore had to offer first for his own sins and then for the people's.

On the other hand, Christ presented one sacrifice once. It never had to be repeated.

Its intrinsic value was universal and eternal. Instead of lambs, he offered up himself.

No priest could die for his own sins or for the sins of others but Christ bore the sins of others.

It just struck me even while I was studying this this week. What is Isaiah 53? Peggy says she was just there right now.

How would we view Isaiah 53 in light of this? How satisfied could

Jesus be by his own sacrifice knowing that it wasn't enough?

Knowing that he didn't really take the sins of us all. I mean,

I don't know what else to say other than this is just blasphemous.

Well, Peggy says, isn't it the basic issue that they're dead in their sins and trespasses, therefore they're trying to make up a system that will get them into heaven.

Well, that's absolutely right. That's absolutely right. But it is, again, what it shows us is that we have so many neighbors who think that they are

Christians by virtue of being in the Roman Catholic system. And the Roman Catholic system itself is a system of works.

It denies the essential doctrines of Christianity. Listen to this,

Isaiah 53 verse 4. Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried.

Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was pierced through for our transgressions, but only most of them.

He was crushed for our iniquities, but only some of them. The chasing for our well -being fell mostly on him.

It is just absolutely an insertion into Scripture. It's an insult to the

Lord. Phillips, again, a message he gave at 10th

Presbyterian, says the doctrine of purgatory is a doctrine of fear, as illustrated by the countless

Roman Catholics who place money in jars trying to shorten the stay of their dearly departed, supposedly now in purgatory.

Purgatory exposes the system divergence of Roman Catholicism from biblical

Christianity. It ultimately puts human merit in the place of divine grace as the principle of our justification.

Underline it, mark it, that's it right there. It ultimately puts human merit in the place of divine grace as the principle of our justification.

Stealing glory from Christ, and giving it instead to the church and its priests, who ultimately control the means of salvation under that system of spiritual oppression.

Let's read Romans 8 .1. Now, just to kind of set the context, of course,

Romans 7 is what? Paul's struggle with sin.

Trying to figure out why it is that even though he loves the Lord, he still sometimes does the things he doesn't want to do, doesn't do the things he wants to do, what we would just call sin,

Romans 8 .1. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own

Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin.

He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the law might be mostly fulfilled.

Fulfilled in us. Kistemacher says this, in line with this twofold reference, no condemnation is the phrase in Christ Jesus.

What Paul is saying is that those who are not only forensically, or those who not only forensically are in Christ Jesus, the guilt of their sins having been removed by his death, but also spiritually by the sanctifying influence of the spirit dominating their lives, there is now consequently no condemnation.

I don't know about you, but I would think about suffering for venial, unconfessed sins for a period of untold years as condemnation.

Finally, Kistemacher says for them there is justification, therefore salvation full and free.

And that is the ultimate issue here. The question is whether or not Jesus Christ paid for all the sins of all his people for all time, or whether he paid for most of the sins for all people, until they subsequently suffer for the rest of them.

Did Jesus actually secure heaven? Or did he make heaven, open the door to heaven so that you could suffer for it?

Mother Teresa is many times given to us as a terrific role model.

One of the things that she did was she would withhold painkillers and things like that for people who were sick or dying.

Why would she do that? Suffer here. She was consistent with her theology, which was better to suffer here than to suffer the pains and tortures of God in purgatory vitae.

She went through what is called a crisis of faith. I think it was probably a crisis of no faith.

If you are trying to establish your own righteousness, and think about it, if you are trying to contribute to the treasure of merit, which there are no doubt going to make her a saint and say that she contributed to the treasury of merit.

Again, having been in one of those kind of systems where you are trying to perfect yourself, there has to be a sense at which you reach a point, you just go,

I'm not making it. I can't do this on my own. I keep trying and trying and trying, but I'm not perfect.

I'm starting to figure this out. For Mother Teresa, think about her being praised while she is alive.

As this great worker of mercy and everything else. I don't know.

I'm sure she had a conscience. I think that must have disturbed her in some way. But again,

I think if we see how all these doctrines lock together, what they actually do, you have purgatory, the treasury of merit, this idea of Mary and other saints actually contributing to this.

It really, as I've said, it denies the sufficiency of Christ's death. It denies the holiness of God in that it says, you know what, some sins are worse than others.

Some unconfessed sins are worse than others. It comes up with all these convoluted schemes and ultimately

I think the goal of it is, A, to make you feel like you can contribute something to salvation,

B, to raise money for the church, and C, to degrade the work of Jesus Christ.

I think those are the objectives. It's a great point because ultimately

Casey points out what this does is it makes you completely reliant, if you're in the Roman Catholic system, who could understand all this stuff?

So you become dependent on the church. It becomes your source of teaching and truth because it's so convoluted, who could possibly understand it?

Pastor Dave. I couldn't have said it better.

I mean, think about, again, what this says to a Catholic. Go to Mass, say your prayers, go to confession, and then really you can do whatever you want.

Why? Because ultimately, what's going to happen? You're going to go to purgatory, be punished for a little while, you're going to go to heaven.

Daniel. Yeah, I mean the

Catholics are discouraged from going to Scripture. Why? Because if they went to Scripture, they would never come out with a system that the

Roman Catholics have developed. I saw another hand back there. I think that hand was suggesting it's donut time.

Okay. I looked back there and somebody was going, so, okay.

Let's close in prayer. Father, we rejoice in your

Gospel. We rejoice in the simplicity of it. Believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Invest yourself entirely in Him. His finished work.

Father, we would pray for our many Roman Catholic neighbors, friends, family members.

Lord, that you would, even this week, bring light to their eyes.

They would dust off their Bibles. They would have their ears open to some radio program, anything,

Father, where they would hear the Word for the first time. Having been deceived by this complex system of works.

Lord, we don't rejoice. We are not happy that many are deceived.

We are grateful, Lord, that you have opened our eyes and we would pray that you would make us the vessels of hope, the messengers of good news, or the ambassadors of reconciliation.

Father, would you bless each one here that we would be those who would be quick to speak the

Gospel. Not to even engage in debates about purgatory, which ultimately is not fruitful.

But to tell the truth and to trust in your Spirit to convict the hearts of those that you would work in.