Roman Catholics and Protestants

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Whoever hears this is going to lose the first five minutes.
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So I apologize to whoever this is, because I was asked to record tonight.
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And now we're recording it.
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So should we do all that again? Yeah.
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No, we're not where we are.
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We were talking about us as a reformed church.
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When we say we are a reformed church, what we mean is that we are a church in the Protestant tradition, that we are a church which has upheld the teachings of the men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Eurich Zwingli, John Knox, Jonathan Edwards.
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And when we look back at the time of the Reformation, it was a major divide.
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Those people who went against the Roman Catholic Church were considered anathema, cut off from the church.
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There were times where it was against the law to believe and teach different than what the church had established as dogma.
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If you oppose the church, you oppose the pope.
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If you oppose the pope, you oppose the very the very vicar of Christ, the one who is the vicarious one who sits in the seat of Peter, the one who is the representative of Christ in the world.
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You then are opposing God if you oppose the Roman Catholic Church.
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So when I say these people are heroic, I believe they're heroic because they did something which in and of itself was a very difficult thing to do.
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They went against what was the greatest religious power in the Western world at the time, and they did so much to the imperilment of their own lives.
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Now, many of them didn't die as a result.
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Martin Luther lived a good old age, John Calvin lived and wasn't martyred, but there were many people who were martyred as a result of teaching, reformed teachings.
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So we fast forward to today and the question becomes, well, is is that which was fought for during the Reformation? Is the is the teachings which were fought for during the Reformation, are they still important? I mean, really, I think that that's what that's what really we have to come, because what's happening now is there is a blurring of the lines between that which is Catholic and that which is evangelical.
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Wouldn't we agree with that, that there's a major blurring of the lines? There's an attempt towards this big word.
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I mean, if you've ever heard this word.
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Well, yeah, I think I'm spelling it wrong.
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I don't want to try it because I can't think of how to spell it right now, but it's ecumenism is the word is also known as ecumenical.
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Right.
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The word ecumenical means what ecumenism or ecumenism simply is the idea that Christianity is a monolithic religion.
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And so everyone who claims to be a Christian, whether they are Roman Catholic, whether they are Baptist, whether they are Lutheran, whether they are Calvinist, whether they are Zwinglian, whether they are whatever, that doesn't matter that everyone, because they have a faith in Jesus Christ, that they're all the same, essentially.
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So the idea of ecumenism is that what we need to do is that we need to break down the barriers which divide us and all just gather under the banner of Christ.
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Right.
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That sounds really, really good.
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I mean, it really does.
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I mean, at the heart of it, if you think about it, Christianity is still before you question Christianity is still the largest religious religious group in the world by number.
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Islam is making a quick catching up.
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The reason why Islam is catching up is not because they're winning converts, but because they are producing and reproducing much faster than many in Western cultures.
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Well, we average less than two percent or less than that, less than two point one, which means we don't have most families have less than two children, one or two children.
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And in Islamic cultures, it's four or five, six children.
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So they're there.
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That's how they are.
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They're reproducing and creating a much larger society of Islamic people that way.
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But Christianity, people say, well, Christianity is the largest religion in the world.
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But if you think about that, Christianity itself is not a monolithic religion, even though Christ is the one Lord.
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When you think of Christianity, the vast majority of people who you would say are Christian in that group are Roman Catholic.
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And then it would be Protestant, and then it would be Eastern Orthodox, and then it would be miscellaneous.
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And guess what falls in those categories.
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If you if you look at a standard survey of Christianity, the largest group, if you just say Christianity, the largest group is Roman Catholic after that is Protestant or evangelical.
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Then what's the next group? It's actually Mormonism.
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And then you have Eastern Orthodoxy and even Jehovah's Witnesses.
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They don't really make the list because there's not enough of them.
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There really isn't.
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In the meantime, they're not in your door.
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There's not enough to make the list.
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They're just they're really, really, really busy.
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But there's not a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses out there.
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So when somebody when you hear the term, well, there's more Christians than anything else.
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Well, yes, it's true.
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But then you have to start looking at what is the list made up.
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It's comprised of people who generally, by and large, do not worship with each other and don't believe the same doctrines.
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So the question becomes, well, wouldn't it be better if we just all sort of joined hands and sung Kumbaya and just all just wouldn't it be better if we just blurred the lines? Wouldn't it be better if we just said, hey, there is no difference.
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We're all we're all under Christ and everything's OK.
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OK, now you can want to say, no, universalism is different.
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And I don't mean that you're close.
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You're very close.
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Universalism is the belief that there is one God and all religious systems will take you to that one God.
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So you can believe that monotheism, polytheism, you can believe in various types of gods.
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You can believe in a Buddhist revelation of God.
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You can believe in Indian Hindu revelation of God.
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You can believe in Native American revelation of God.
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That is universalism.
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And that is to simply say there's one mountain, there's one top of the mountain, and we're all taking different trips to get to the top of the mountain.
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But we're all going to the same God.
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That's a very simplistic, but that's what universalism is.
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This isn't that.
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That wouldn't be this.
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This is ecumenism or ecumenicalism.
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This is the idea that all people who call themselves Christians are, in fact, followers of Jesus Christ are, in fact, Christians.
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That's what this would be.
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And that would, again, take you all the way down to what we would consider the cult groups.
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And I'm not a problem with calling Jehovah's Witnesses cults.
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I have another problem called Mormon's cults because of the teachings of the history.
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And Mormonism is not even a monotheistic religion.
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Mormonism believes in many gods and that there is an eternal regression, that there's always been gods that producing more gods and gods produce other gods.
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And the God Yahweh, who is the God of this world, or Elohim, the God of this world, was once a man who lived on another planet.
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And he, by teaching and adhering to Mormon teaching, became himself a god and was able, through celestial marriage, to produce many spiritual offspring.
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And you and I are spiritual offspring of Elohim, or having been imbibed into these bodies through coming here.
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But we existed, we pre-existed as spiritual children of Elohim.
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So it's very, very, it's not even, it's nowhere even close to a biblical Christianity.
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Do you know what is that? Well, how easy it is, or how tricky it is.
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Well, that's the whole story of Mormonism.
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You have a very talented storyteller who is a very charismatic individual.
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And he, in turn, produces an entire religious sect that follows after him and believes that he is a modern and Latter-day prophet.
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That's the Latter-day Saints mentality, that Joseph Smith was the modern prophet of God.
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Yeah, well, that's how, yeah, and you can typically trace cult behavior back to an individual because of personality and things like that.
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So the question again, getting back here, I'm kind of derailed a little bit.
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The question is, are the lines important? Well, my belief has always been, and I think that it's important to point out that the lines are not only important, but the lines are definitional.
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Because the question that I have, and we're getting back to Roman Catholicism now, because this week again, you know, or last week, Rick Warren, he went on Twitter and, you know, let's pray for the 115 cardinals.
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I think is what he put.
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Yes, pray for the 115 cardinals seeking God's will in this new leader.
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OK, so here's Rick Warren, a person who would be considered to be a Protestant, at least would be considered to be an evangelical, a leader in the evangelical movement, who is saying that he's praying for God's will in a system of belief which has, in fact, condemned him.
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Because let it be not ever mistaken that there is very strong belief in the Roman Catholic Church and through the teaching of the magisterium that what we teach is wrong.
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Let it never be for a second forgotten that it's the same way.
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If you read Vatican II, if you read these documents, it's very clear that it has been determined that what the Reformation did was wrong.
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That what was taught in the Reformation was wrong.
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Anyone who believes in sola fide, sola gratia, sola deo gloria, the five tenets of the Reformation, that those things are wrong.
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So the question is, are these lines still important? Are these definitional lines still there? And so my question in response to that, because, you know, people say, well, the new pope seems like such a great man, seems like such a nice guy, took his own meals, lived in his own apartment, rode the bus to and fro wherever he went.
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Heard a lot of good things about him, and he seems to be, in general, a nice fellow.
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I mean, from what I've seen and read about him and some of the things that have been said about him are all nice things.
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In fact, he made I thought was funny.
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He made a call and the secretary that picked up the phone didn't believe it was him.
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They were like somebody said he called because he wanted to get out.
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He wanted to line out to speak to someone.
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And he said, yes, this is Pope Francis.
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And he says, yeah, I'm the queen of England.
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That's how the guy answered.
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But it really was him.
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So and he laughed it off, you know, so so obviously, you know, as far as personality wise, there's a lot of good things that have been said about him.
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And, of course, you know, not here to bash an individual.
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But the question is always got to be no matter how nice a person is, no matter how much the Roman Catholic Church does that we agree with.
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The Roman Catholic Church is one of the strongest supporters of the pro-life movement, which we are 100 percent pro-life.
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We believe in pro-life.
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We believe that the baby is a baby from conception and we support the saving of lives in the womb.
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And we support that financially.
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We support that verbally.
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We support that with everything that we have.
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And we are glad that Roman Catholics support that with us.
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You know, so we can say, hey, we're glad we can stand together on that.
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But the most important thing in the world, the most important thing in the world is the gospel.
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Because the gospel of Paul tells us that the gospel is the power of God and the salvation for everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
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The gospel itself is the power of God and the salvation.
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So the question is not do Roman Catholics do good on the subject of abortion? Do Roman Catholics do good on the subject of on many subjects? It's not is the Pope a generally nice individual? But the question is, does Rome have the gospel? And to answer that question, you have to define what that is.
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OK, that's because no matter where you blur the lines.
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If if the answer to the question of how is a person saved? If the answer to the question is, what is the authority in the church, if the answer to the question of.
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What happens when we die? If the answer is different.
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Then no matter how much we've tried to blur the lines, we're still believing.
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In a different system, we still have a different doctrine, and ultimately we're looking at a different view of God and.
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If I say something is a and you say that it's not a.
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Then then we can no longer say that we share the same faith, I say it is and you say it is not.
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Then we can't say that we share the same faith.
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No matter what we call it, so that's the question is, do we share a belief in the gospel? So that's what we're going to deal with tonight and we're.
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Time is never my friend because I talk and talk and talk and talk.
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So let's let's actually get to I have four major distinctions between the Protestant view of the Bible, God and the gospel and the Roman Catholic view.
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That we're going to discuss, if you're taking notes, I'll give you this is a point at which you might want to write down your first line of notes.
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The first major distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism is in the sufficiency and authority of the scripture, Roman Catholics.
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Yes, from one thing you have to remember, just like in Protestantism.
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When you say they say an individual Roman Catholic person may not affirm the inerrancy of scripture, just like an individual Christian Protestant may not affirm the inerrancy of scripture.
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But from the magisterial teachings, from the highest point of authority in the Roman Catholic Church, they believe in the inerrancy of scripture.
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So far as it has come down in their in their documents, yes, there is a belief in the inerrancy of scripture, but that's not the problem.
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The problem is not whether or not what the Bible says is true.
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The problem that we have and the difference between Protestants and Roman Catholics is not an inerrancy, it's insufficiency and ultimately in authority.
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Protestants believe that the Bible alone is the sole source of God's special revelation to mankind, and as such, it teaches us all that is necessary for our salvation from sin.
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Protestants view the Bible as the standard by which all Christian behavior should be measured.
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This belief is commonly referred to as what? What do we believe about the Bible? It's a sola scriptura, scripture alone.
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That's one of the five tenets of the Reformation.
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We believe in sola scriptura.
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Well, the tradition is part of it.
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The difference, the difference, because obviously they have the Bible.
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The difference is they do not believe that the Bible alone is sufficient to provide the authority that the church needs, that along with the Bible, there has to be.
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The church itself providing the authority, and so and this is not in any way to sound to be negative, but I want to just show you what the position that I would say the Roman Catholics would be sola ecclesia.
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What is sola ecclesia? What is ecclesia? What does that mean? Church.
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The church has the authority.
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To interpret the scriptures, to affirm the scriptures, to say this is right or this is wrong.
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So the church itself and who is the head of the church in the Roman Catholic system? The pope is the head of the church in the Roman Catholic system.
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So who is imbibed with the authority? The pope, the pope has the authority when he speaks, he speaks what he speak only when he speaks ex cathedra.
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When he speaks from the seat of Peter, he speaks with ultimate authority.
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He speaks supposedly infallibly.
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So he has that authority over the church.
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OK, in the Protestant system, we say that the Bible alone has that authority and that that authority is not shared with.
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Popes or priests or anyone else that the Bible alone has that authority.
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Well, where's the problem? And again, I'm not trying to pick on us, but I want to kind of poke our side for a minute.
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Where's the problem with our side? Yeah, I believe everybody interprets the Bible differently.
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Right.
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So that's what the because I've spent some time listening to some very intelligent, very articulate Roman Catholic apologists and their major argument.
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Is that, look, man, you believe the Bible alone is sufficient, but you can't tell me what it means.
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You need an infallible interpreter.
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We give you that in Roman Catholic Church.
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We give you the magisterium.
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We give you the pope.
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He gives you an infallible interpretation.
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So not only do you got the book, but you got the interpreter of the book.
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And you see, many people like that idea.
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It is appealing to have not only the infallible word, but the infallible representative to give you the interpretation of that word.
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So for many, that would that would seem to be very positive.
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But what's the problem? It's then human.
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What you're going to say is not infallible.
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The problem is simple.
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The problem is that within the solar ecclesiae, within the power structure of the church, throughout the history of the church, there have been many documents, papal bulls that have come down that have contradicted one another.
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There have been many statements that have been made, teachings that have been taught that have been reversed, reverted, changed over time.
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So how can we say there's an infallible authority when this infallible authority is constantly reversing its decisions? And even now, if you were to ask, where is the perfect commentary on the Bible? Where is the Roman Catholic official stance on any verse of the Bible? Because if you ask some Roman Catholics what their position is on Genesis 1, well, some say it's figurative, some say it's literal.
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Well, hey, that happens in the promise of the church.
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If you ask their position on original sin, some people say it's an absolute, some people say it's not absolute.
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If you ask them about the prophet of the human heart, some say it's true, some say it's false.
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And you might say, well, wait a minute.
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It doesn't matter what the individual Roman Catholic believes, it only matters what is taught from the top.
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That, as I have said over the centuries, what has been taught from the top has changed.
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So there has been no consistency there either.
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So that's the problem.
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By imposing upon the scripture an external authority, what they have done is simply taken a step back.
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They've removed the sufficiency and authority from the scripture.
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They put it in the church.
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And in doing so, they've given all authority to an individual or a group of individuals who themselves have demonstrated that they're not a fellow.
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Well, that's we're going to get to that.
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I don't mean to cut you off.
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I do this to you a lot because you jump ahead a lot.
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Ultimately, the dispensation of grace comes through the church and the Roman Catholic system.
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If you are excommunicated from the church, then you are excommunicated from the grace of God.
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This is what was so difficult during the time of the Reformation, because if you were removed from the church, you were removed from the opportunity for God's grace.
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Many people, they wouldn't leave the Roman Catholic Church because you couldn't be married, because marriage is a sacrifice.
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Sacrament.
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You couldn't experience that sacrament without the church.
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So there's a lot of.
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Yes, the dispensation of grace comes through the church.
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That is true.
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But ultimately, this is the difference.
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The Protestant says that the Bible is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice.
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That's what sola scriptura means.
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The Bible alone is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the believers.
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I'm willing to say that not every interpretation that I make of the Bible is 100% accurate.
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I make every attempt.
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I use the grammatical and historical method in my interpretation.
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That's the only way you can interpret an ancient document.
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I don't roll dice or sit with my head.
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One guy told me, he said, this is how I study for my sermons.
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I lay flat, I put the Bible on my face, and I pray.
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I was less than impressed.
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This was a holiness preacher, and he said, this is how we do it.
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Hopefully, he learned from the lost Moses, I guess.
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But, you know, I'm willing to say that, you know, that we are not, that I don't have perfect interpretation of the scripture.
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But that is not to say that the scripture itself is lacking.
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I still believe that the scripture itself is both sufficient and authoritative.
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It says it is.
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What verse am I thinking of? All scripture.
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The Second Timothy.
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Second Timothy 316.
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All scripture is, is what? Ah, inspired.
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I hate that word.
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Thank you.
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And I don't mean I hate it because you know, it sounds ugly.
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But inspire means to breathe what? To breathe into something.
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Yeah.
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But that's really that's a that's that's an improper use of the term.
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We use it in English and we know what we mean.
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We say inspiration.
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But actually, the Greek word is theanostos.
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It is God breathed.
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All scripture is theanostos, is God breathed, breathed out by God.
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That is him speaking to us through his word.
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The church is never called theanostos.
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No preacher, teacher, priest or pope is ever called theanostos.
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Only the Bible, only the scripture is ever called theanostos.
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It's the only thing ever referred to as being literally breathed out by God.
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And because of that, we believe it carries the sufficiency and authority of God's word.
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That mean we can't make mistakes? No, we make mistakes.
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But that's not to say that the word itself is not sufficient.
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And I believe we are responsible for our mistakes.
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I tell I say this sometimes when people think I'm a hard head and maybe I am.
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I say I believe I do.
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I do think believing wrong is a sin.
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I do.
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I don't think that we have the right to to simply be wrong.
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Because if so, then why does it matter what we believe? We need to believe what's right.
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And to do so, we have to study to show ourselves approved to work and need not be ashamed.
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Rightly dividing the word of truth.
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That's also from the book of Timothy.
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That we are to study to show ourselves approved.
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You know, so we have that responsibility.
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We have the responsibility to study the word of God.
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We have the responsibility to compare scripture with scripture.
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We have responsibility for using both grammar and history to determine the meaning of something.
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Right? And that's all part of what it means.
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That's all part of what was so important to Luther and Calvin and these men.
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Is they said, you know what? This is where the authority lies.
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Because they had teachings that were going on in their time that were so opposed to this.
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And they said, when you take what you're teaching about indulgences.
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When you take what you're teaching about the pope.
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When you take what you're teaching about the grace coming from the church.
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And not through faith in Christ alone.
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And you compare.
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Who are we to trust? That was the issue.
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Who do we trust? Do we trust what you're saying? Which is opposed to this? And that's where the issue was.
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So the issue first between Protestants and Catholics is the sufficiency and the authority of the scripture.
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Number two is the authority of the pope.
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So we're looking at one sufficiency and authority of the scripture.
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We disagree on that.
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Well, number two is the position and authority of the pope.
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According to Catholicism.
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The pope is called what? Holy Father.
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That's right.
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We'll put that one first.
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Holy Father.
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Vicar of Christ.
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Is also called.
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Huh? Successor.
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Very quickly.
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What is the word vicar of Christ? He had it.
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Yeah.
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How many of you ever heard the word vicarious? You ever heard of a parent who lives vicariously through their child? To live vicariously means to to live in place of that person.
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Like if I like, you know, some people might say my son, you know, he's a karate man now.
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And I'm getting old.
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So one day I'll look at him and let him be.
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I live vicariously through him.
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You know, he'll be this, you know, in my place.
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That's what it means to be in my place.
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So the idea of the vicar of Christ, that the pope is himself the vicar of Christ.
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He is vicarious.
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He is Christ to the world.
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This position, according to Roman Catholic teaching, was begun with the apostle Peter, who was supposed to have been the first bishop of Rome.
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And after him, each of the bishops of Rome had taken that authority as being the vicar of Christ in the world.
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Interestingly enough, even in the writings of the early church fathers, which we talk about the early church fathers of the first hundred years of the church.
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In the writings of the early church fathers, any pre-19 writings, there is no such authority given to the bishop of Rome.
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The bishop of Rome.
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During the time of the of the.
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Everybody know about the Nicene Council 325.
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It is when they first came together to discuss the arguments of Arius.
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Arius was teaching about the was anti-Trinitarian.
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The church believed that God was God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
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Arius believed that Jesus was not divine, that he was a man and not God.
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And he came in to teach that and Arius teaching this.
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The bishops conferred at Nicaea and the Nicene Council produced what is called the Nicene Creed that we believe in one God and eternally exist in three persons.
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And I don't know the Nicene Creed to spit it out to you, but it explains the doctrine of the Trinity very clearly.
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But the bishop of Rome was one of many bishops who came together.
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To to be a part of this council.
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And he was not given in any way, any type of authority that would rise him up and make him the authority of all churches.
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In fact, this is why later on the Eastern Orthodox Church, which was really the first reformation.
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If you want to the Eastern Orthodox Church, because of their argument that the bishop of Rome did not have that authority, they made their divide.
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They was in 1056.
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No, they have they have regional leaders, but it's not a pope.
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Well, there was that that was during the time of the Reformation.
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There were two men who were who were vying for the position of pope.
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And there was a third.
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And each one of them had his own following.
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And during the time of the Reformation, there was a lot of politics.
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There was a lot of negativity going on.
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You have the birth of the Anglican movement.
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Why is that? I'm coming to you just quickly.
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Why was the birth of the Anglican movement? Because the pope wouldn't allow for the for the divorce of the king.
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So what did he do? He produces the Church of England.
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I'm now the king of the Church of England.
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I'm the king.
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I'm the head of the church.
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I can get a divorce.
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It's what happened.
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I can't get a divorce.
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So I'll start the Church of England.
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And guess who's the head of the Church of England? I have a friend, Steve Camp.
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He's a musician.
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He performed before the Queen of England.
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And while they were after they performed, they had the procession of all the queen and her queenettes? I don't know what they are.
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The people? All of the regalia? All the people? And as they're walking by, one of them came up to Steve Camp and said to him, because it was a Christian concert, and he said, did you know that here that the queen is the head of the church? And he looked at her straight in the face and he said, well, in the Bible, Jesus.
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And she goes, well, it's nice for you to be here.
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Yes.
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There's argument as to if you if typical Roman Catholic teaching is that the pope goes all the way back to the seat of Peter.
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There's arguments as to whether or not Peter was ever even in Rome.
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There's debate there.
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Some people say he died upside down on a Roman cross.
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So there's some debate there.
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The first person to ever use the word pope.
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The term pope, I think, was in the mid 600s.
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I have to look that up.
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That's first.
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In fact, the term pontifus maximus was actually a slur.
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You know, the term pontifus maximus, which is used for the pope now, the highest authority, the pontifus maximus, that was originally used as a slur.
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It was it was it was an attempt to degrade the bishop of Rome who was trying to impose that authority when he didn't have it.
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And now it's become a regular part of.
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So there is argument.
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The biggest issue, though, is the position that has been has been given to the pope is scripturally the position which belongs to who? Who is the vicar of Christ? No, no, there is a vicar of Christ.
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Biblically, who is the vicar of Christ? Thank you.
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John 14.
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I will ask the father and he will send you another comforter.
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Then he will be with you forever.
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That is the spirit of truth and the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him.
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But you know him because he abides with you and will be in you.
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The Holy Spirit is the vicarious one.
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He is the vicar of Christ.
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He is the one who when Jesus said, I will go, but God will send you another one like unto me.
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All those percolators, another comforter, one like me, he will live within you.
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This is the Holy Spirit.
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That's the vicar of Christ.
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So the scary thing about the idea of a pope is that he's he's assuming a position which rightfully biblically belongs to the Holy Spirit.
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And he assumes the name of Holy Father, a title which, again, is used by Christ in John 17, 17 to describe God alone.
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So it's it's serious, very serious.
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All right.
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Time is never my friend.
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Let me move on.
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Number three, racist.
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Number three, very important.
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Catholics and Protestants disagree on how a person is saved.
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What's that? OK, they disagree on how a person is saved.
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Another important phrase from the Reformation.
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Sola Fide.
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Considered to be the one cardinal doctrine of Martin Luther's teaching, which was mostly condemned or condemned the most.
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In fact, the idea that we are saved by faith, justified by faith, apart from worse, is considered to be heresy and Roman Catholic teaching.
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One of the things that one of Luther's teachers said to him when he first began to to address this subject and teach it, because he was teaching through Paul's letters to the Romans and he was explaining it's right there in Romans.
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And as he's saying it, one of his teachers addressed him and said, if you leave man to live by faith alone.
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And don't give him the rules to go with that faith, then then he will become an illicit sinner.
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That was the idea that was the fear was that if you say salvation is by faith alone, then you can believe in Jesus and go on and become a reprobate.
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And here's the scary thing, even though that man misunderstood what Luther was saying, and most people don't understand Sola Fide, the truth of the matter is that's what's happened in a lot of churches today.
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A lot of people misunderstand Sola Fide and they live just that way.
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Well, I believe in Jesus, but I live like the devil.
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Well, beloved, that's not Sola Fide.
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Sola Fide is found most exquisitely expressed in Romans chapter five and verse one.
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That's why I actually go there.
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Romans five verse one.
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Somebody asked me one time if you could have any book.
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If you were stranded on an island, you can't have any book.
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I said, there's a Bible.
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If you only have one book of the Bible, I said it was a book of Romans.
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If you can only have one verse, I said it was Romans five one.
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Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus.
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Remember how earlier I said it's important that you use grammar and history both to understand the grammatical historical method when you're interpreting an ancient document? Well, here's one of those times where grammar is so important.
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Therefore, what does it mean when you see the word therefore in the text? It means that what was said before has something to do with what's being said now.
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Like if I said I stubbed my toe, therefore, I'm limping.
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You're leaving me.
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Therefore, I'm leaving.
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You know, therefore, always has an attachment to what came before.
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So when we study the book of Romans, understanding Romans five one, it's imperative that we understand Romans four.
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Romans four talks to us about justification.
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Romans four tells us all about how Abraham was justified by faith.
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What shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God.
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For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
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Now, for the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as is due as to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly.
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His faith is counted as righteousness.
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Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.
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Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.
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And he goes on and continues on about God giving someone the blessing of justification as a result of faith and not works.
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That's what chapter four is.
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It's all about that.
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And I encourage you, if you want to go home, read it, study it, you'll see what I'm saying.
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It's all about.
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He uses Abraham as the example.
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He goes back to Genesis 15 and verse six.
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He says, here's the example of Abraham having been justified by faith alone.
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He is the example of sola fide to us.
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He's the example of having believed and been justified by God.
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So too.
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Are you? And that's why in Romans five, one, therefore.
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Having been justified, what tense is that in? Past tense, right? I mean, it's the past tense.
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Having been justified by what? By faith.
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We have.
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What tense is that in? Present tense.
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It means right now.
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We have peace with God.
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Through what? So we have the first part.
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Therefore, having been justified.
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That's already happened.
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By what? By faith.
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We have now peace with God.
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Here's the problem from the Roman Catholic perspective.
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The Roman Catholic perspective is this.
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That when you receive the grace of baptism.
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Your original, the taint of original sin is washed away.
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After that, you must go through the sacraments of the church.
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To be given grace throughout your life.
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You get the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
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The Lord's Supper gives you a certain amount of grace.
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You get a certain amount of grace through other.
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Well, I have the list here.
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I'll make sure I get these right.
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I do not want to be incorrect.
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The seven sacraments are baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders and matrimony.
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You receive grace from Christ, which is conferred to you by the church.
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And what happens is as a result of this, if your life is lived in accordance with that.
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At the end of your life, you will then receive justification.
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I actually know because there's purgatory, but we'll get to that in a minute.
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But the whole idea is you're going towards what? You're going towards justification.
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You're trying to get to justification.
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You're not there yet.
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You're on the way there.
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But you haven't attained it.
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You receive it through the works of the seven sacraments.
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Displayed in different ways.
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It is truth and it has been stated by a Roman Catholic apologist that a person could participate in the mass a thousand times in a lifetime and still die in church.
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Because there are two types of sin.
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Before we get into it, there are two types of sin in the Roman Catholic Church.
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There is mortal sin and venial sin.
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Do we understand what the difference is? Venial sin is one that does not affect our justification before God.
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It does not affect our justification before God.
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And we die having not confessed that mortal sin and received absolution of that mortal sin.
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If we die of that mortal sin, we will then be damned.
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Even if we had a thousand times at the communion table, if we had a thousand times of doing acts of penance, whatever, we die impure.
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That's another thing that I don't have time to get into tonight.
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The whole idea that there are some sins which are mortal and some sins which are venial.
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That is a clearly Roman Catholic teaching that's not a biblical teaching because the Bible never expresses the two that way.
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Jesus said if a man looks at a woman with lust, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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He describes the action and the lust as both being both offenses to God and thus both a sin.
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James says if you've broken the law at one point, you've broken the whole law.
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So the idea of accounting law as mortal and venial is again an unbiblical concept.
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Yes, Bruce, you were going to ask.
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Well, that's last rites.
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Yes, the last rites is a dispensation of grace.
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Yes, we're out of time.
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OK, well, you bring up regeneration.
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And again, time is I could do six weeks on this.
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But the issue of the issue of regeneration is important because in Roman Catholic theology, regeneration happens at baptism.
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They believe in baptismal regeneration.
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That that is when the taint of original sin is washed away.
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So that's when regeneration occurs.
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It's not a biblical regeneration, as we understand.
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Regeneration is a changing of the heart.
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But in the work of the Holy Spirit of God.
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All right, last one, number four.
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This is so important.
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Oh, I changed colors.
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And that is not only how the person saved, we believe the person is saved by grace through faith alone.
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We didn't really finish this on something real quickly.
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Apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter two and verse eight, for by grace have you been saved through faith.
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And that is not of yourselves.
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It is the gift of God and not of works.
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Lest anyone should boast.
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For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
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Ephesians chapter two, verses eight through ten.
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Good memory verse, by the way.
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It's good to memorize that because when you're talking to anyone about faith, what is faith? Faith is a life change that produces good works.
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No, don't ever think that just because we say we're saved by faith alone.
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That means we live a life of debauchery.
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No faith that is real produces good works.
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But we must never think that those good works are what bring about our justification before God.
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Because we have been justified.
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It's past tense.
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Even in that sentence, therefore, or I'm sorry, in Ephesians two, for by grace, you have been saved through faith.
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And that is not your own doing is the gift of God have been saved through faith.
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It's already done.
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The salvation which we have is already done.
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It's not something that's coming.
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It's something that's already occurred.
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It's not something we're looking forward to.
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It's something that we've already experienced.
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That's a major, important difference.
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Lastly, of course, is what happens when we die.
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There are many, many other things here.
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But again, I had limited the four to two because time.
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What happens when we die? Well, both people, the Roman Catholic and the evangelical or Protestant, believe that when an unbeliever dies, that they are consigned to hell.
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However, again, there are Protestants who believe in what's called psychopenia or soul sleep.
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There are Roman Catholics who believe in a similar situation, soul sleep, or that a person when they die, their soul just simply ceases to exist.
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It's burned up like a fire and it just ceases to be.
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That seems to be so much better to me, the idea that someone would just simply cease to be than to burn for all eternity.
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But I don't believe it because the Bible is clear that hell is an eternal state.
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And people say, well, how can God judge sin and hell and it be eternal? Their sin is not eternal.
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How can it have an eternal consequence? Well, the answer to that is very simple.
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Number one, God's holiness is completely pure.
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And the fact that we have offended that holiness is an eternal consequence.
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But the second thing, I always ask people, why do you think that when they go to hell, they're going to quit hating God? I think the hatred of God will continue on in hell and that the reason why they're there will continue in perpetuity.
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So, you know, the fact that people say, people don't hate God.
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Yes, they do.
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Don't think for a second that unbelievers sit around loving God.
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They love the image of God they've created in their own mind.
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But when you face them with the God of the Bible, they do not like him.
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It's very clear that unbelievers don't like God when you really force them to look at who God is.
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They don't like that.
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They don't like a God that sends people to hell.
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Well, that's me.
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Don't like a God who is opposed to our sin.
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Well, that's ungenerous.
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They don't like that God.
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And that's when they're in hell.
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They're not going to just turn around and start loving on him.
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They're going to continue to hate him.
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All right.
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So let's finish.
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What's the difference? So if we both believe in hell, what's the difference in the Roman Catholic position, the Protestant position of the other position of heaven? Well, the Roman Catholic has a third category.
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You have heaven and hell and you have what's called purgatory.
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Purgatory is what? What does the word purgatory come from? Well, it's not halfway.
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No, it's purging.
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To purge something.
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What do you do if you purge it? You get rid of all impurities, right? The idea is that if you die impure, but you are not guilty of mortal sin, but you are guilty of venial sin, which we would all die guilty of venial sin because even a thought would be a venial sin and improper and impure thought.
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So if you go to eternity, impure, you must continue to be purged of that impurity until such time as you reach the proper state of purity to be in the presence of God.
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Thus, you have to go to purgatory.
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Here is the major dilemma.
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A belief in purgatory is a belief that the work of Christ on the cross is insufficient to purge you of your sins.
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To believe that you must continue to work off a debt that supposedly Christ has already paid is to believe that either his payment was insufficient or that your debt was greater than he could pay.
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Either way, it's to say the cross was not enough.
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So there's an issue there, right? During the time of the Reformation, this one issue was what really caught the fire of the church because there was a man who was going about.
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They were attempting to raise money to build St.
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Peter's Basilica.
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And there was a man who was a wonderful salesman.
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Can't think of his name right now.
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It's lost me.
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If anybody thinks of it, please tell me.
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But as he was there, he would go about from town to town and he would sell the papal indulgence.
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And not only could you buy an indulgence for yourself, but you could buy an indulgence for a loved one who had passed on, who you had been taught was now experiencing the fires of purgatory.
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One of the statements was, when a coin in the copper rings, a soul from purgatory does spring.
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I forget his name.
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It's on the tip of my tongue, but he would go about teaching this.
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And the idea was, if you just simply paid, you could purchase this indulgence.
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And this indulgence would relieve your dead mother, or dead father, or dead relative, dead wife.
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It would relieve them from the fire.
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And somebody would say to me, Pastor Keith, man, those indulgences are five hundred years ago.
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Why are you still riding that pony? The new pope was put into his position.
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There was an indulgence at the end of the prayer.
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The teachings are still there.
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The lines are still drawn.
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What do we look to? The scripture.
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It's the only place we can.
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And when we see something that's outside of the scripture, we have to call it what it is.
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It's not to be mean.
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It's not to be hateful.
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In fact, it's the greatest way to love someone, is to tell them the truth.
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It's not mean.
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It's not hateful.
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I don't hate anybody.
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I want everybody that I know.
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I want everybody to call upon the name of the Lord.
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Tonight, I just encourage you, don't ever quit studying.
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Don't ever quit.
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The men like John.
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They didn't just fight because they didn't have anything else to do.
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And they didn't have MTV and iPods and other things to keep them busy.
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They fought because it was valuable.
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And the word of God is valuable and worth fighting for.
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Yeah, today thou shalt be with me in paradise.
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That's that's a very good example of one who who lived a life of complete and utter.
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Sinfulness, but yet when looked at Christ and called on his name, was given forgiveness.
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And there was there was no no opportunity for any expressions of penance or anything else.
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It was all it was all of grace.
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And that's all salvation is.
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Salvation is of grace.
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By grace through faith.
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All right.
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We are we are way out of time.
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So let's pray.
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Father, thank you for this opportunity again to look at your word, to talk about the importance of knowing the truth.
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I do pray, O Lord, that you have used this time to to benefit this group of people, that you would encourage them, open their hearts to the truth.
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And just remind us always, Lord, that we need to judge everything that we believe by Scripture alone to see what the Bible says about anything.
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And, Lord, we know that we're not perfect as individuals and we're not perfect as a church.
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But we pray, O Lord, that you'll continue to draw us closer to being in line with your Bible, your word, your truth.
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In Jesus name we pray.
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Amen.
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Amen.