The Errors of Roman Catholic Theology (Part 2)

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

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

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Why Roman Catholicism Should Be Tested by Scripture

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, this is Mike Abendroth, and we are back on the air today. I think we're in about six months into this ministry, Monday through Friday at 3 .30 on the Great Station WVNE 760 right here in Central Massachusetts.

If you're listening on devices, iPods, downloads, et cetera, good to have you. You might want to know why I don't have an accent. At least I don't think I have an accent. Once in a while, I don't have a New England accent.

I might say I dear, or some kind of alpha, or something like that, and I add an R there by accident. But I think I've pretty much kept my Midwest accent intact over the years. 49 years later, still speaking like I'm from Nebraska.

Does anything good come out of Nebraska? Johnny Carson, I think, was from Nebraska. But anyway, Gerald Ford, too, I believe. So Warren Buffett, hey, how about that? Just pulling a lot of my rabbit out of my hat left and right.

What I want to talk about today is continuing in my mini-series now on Roman Catholicism. It goes without saying that people are going to say I hate people, I'm a Catholic basher, scream and yell and call names.

And that's a very easy thing to do when you don't have the truth to back you up. If you want to make some kind of ad hominem attack upon me, you can, join the club. But what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to push you to the Bible.

If you're a Roman Catholic, I dare you to read your Bible. Pick up the book of Romans and read it. Pick up the book of John and read it. Pick up the book of Mark and read it. And the one that I double dare you to read that I don't know if you'll have enough courage to read because it will blow your mind and it'll blow the theology of the Roman Catholic Church out of the proverbial water is the book of Hebrews.

And you will see very quickly that the book of Hebrews destroys the theology of the Roman Catholic Church. And so we both can't be right. Either the protesters are right, the Protestants, or the Roman Catholics are right, or both could be wrong.

But only one can be right. And I hope you're not going to base your eternal existence. You will live forever. You're gonna base your eternal existence on what your priest is going to tell you, what your grandparents have told you, what your friends have told you, what CCD has told you.

Friends, it's one thing to trust someone. It's another to say, I will trust them, as my father would tell me, as far as I could throw them. That's how far I trust them. And for my eternal life, I cannot trust a man.

I will trust the Bible. And so you say to me, well, then why should I trust you? I don't even know you. Well, I don't want you to trust me. I want you to open your Bibles. That's why we're called Bethlehem Bible Church.

I want to teach people the Bible. There's no agenda except extolling Christ Jesus, the man who was slain for the sins of all those who would believe once for all. He was slain one time and was raised from the dead.

And if you look at the Scriptures, you'll see this great Jesus Christ. You'll see a Jesus that doesn't need to be slain again. You'll see a Jesus who is a triumphant God. And it's my hope that you'll read your Bibles, that you'll read your Bibles.

Celibacy, Clergy Marriage, and the First Problem with Roman Catholic Practice

Now, last time we talked about, I didn't think we got very far, the idea of celibacy, the sinful idea that people who want to have relations, normal, good, and regular relations within a marriage, and that would either be nuns, female, or a priest, male, that they cannot do that because of what the Roman Catholic Church has sinfully told them to do.

And we looked at all kinds of Scriptures in 1 Timothy 3, 1 Corinthians 9, 1 Corinthians 7, that it's fine to do. Peter, their so-called first pope, of course he had a wife. The text says he has a wife.

So we want to come to the second issue today, dealing with what does the Scripture say so you know? It's good for you to know the truth. I can just hear people putting their fingers in their ears going la-la-la-la-la-la-la, I don't want to know.

Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance can cause you future damnation. And if there's no such thing as purgatory, things are even more serious. It's time for a wake-up call. It's time for those Roman Catholic priests who say they're really born-again Christians to open up the Bible and say, this is what the truth really says.

Church Discipline, Clergy Sin, and the Failure to Obey Matthew 18

My second problem, in no particular order, is not just with celibacy, but it has to do with the way the Roman Catholic Church deals with sin. Back in the old days, back in the Reformation time, when the churches were trying to figure out what constitutes a church.

I mean, do you have a Bible study? Sit around the circle, kind of Oprah-style, saying kumbaya, and tell me about how there's, you know, a Goliath in your life, and you're gonna cast them out with certain stones of faith.

Is that a church? Well, it might be good to sit around and talk about the Bible if you're looking at authorial intent, but it's not a church. The church needs the real preaching of the Word of God, so the Word of God has to be central.

You have to have the right administration of the sacraments or ordinances, baptism and communion of the Lord's Supper, and you need to have discipline. You have to have discipline. For what reason? For the purity of the church.

And for the second, more important reason, because that's what Jesus says. So my question, especially back in 2001, 2002, 2003, why did the church not discipline and obey Jesus when they had priests who were caught in some kind of horrible compromising situation with some young boy?

Why did they simply transfer the priest? That's sinful. Why did they simply, people remained a priest in the ministry? Why did they pay people off? God is clear in His Word. When clergy sins, or when clergy are in a state of unrepentant sin, what do you do?

The answer is clear. You go to Matthew 18 and 1 Timothy 5. If the church would deal, Roman Catholic church would deal with sin, it wouldn't have ever had this problem. Oh yes, the problems are greater than that, but when there's sin in a church, it has to be dealt with, or it's no church.

And frankly, I don't think the Roman Catholic church is a real church. It's not built by Jesus Christ. You can call it a church for tax reasons if all you want, but it is not a Christian church because it doesn't do what Christ says.

Don't tell me you're a Christian church if you won't obey Jesus. Here's what Jesus says. If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you and transfer them to the next precinct for the next group of vulnerable boys.

No, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. Quoting basically Deuteronomy 19, verse 15. Unified testimony of witnesses. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

If he refuses to listen even to the church, pay off people. No. Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax gatherer. Kick him out of the church. While I might not agree with other points of doctrine with the Roman Catholic Church, I wish the Pope would have stood up and said, these men are in unrepentant sin and they're defrocked, defamed, de-whatever, decommissioned, and they're kicked out.

They're no longer Catholics. They cannot receive communion in a Catholic church. Nor will they receive last rites. I would have been the first to clap. That's what Jesus is saying here. That is exactly what Jesus is saying.

Did you know 1 Timothy 5 says, do not receive an accusation against another elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. People can run around scurriously saying things about elders because they don't like them and they wanna kick them out.

And then they say to somebody else, have you found something wrong with this elder too? And off we go. No, we have to have witnesses because anybody can make an accusation. Elders need to be above approach and that doesn't mean accusation-less.

Accusations that don't stick. That's what above approach means. And so here, if there is an accusation wrongly, you reject it. Even if that elder is in actually some sin, God will find that out. God will bring that to light.

Verse 20 of 1 Timothy 5, excuse me, those who continue in sin, these elders, these leaders in a church, overseers, pastors, call them priests if you will, rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest also may be fearful of sinning.

You defrock people and defame and kick them out. Some of the other people, some other parish or precinct would have said, you know what, they're after me next. In the presence of all, in front of all the elders, in front of the congregation, kick them out.

Rebuke them so other people can come and say, stop it. 1 Timothy 3 says, if you're gonna be a leader of the church, you must have a good reputation with those outside the church so that he may not fall into the reproach and the snare of the devil.

There's everything in the scriptures talking about how we deal with sin in the church. Are people perfect? No. Are Catholics perfect? No. Protestants perfect? No. So what do you do when there's sin in the church?

Well, we know what to do. If you don't cover the sin, you have to deal with it. And in leadership, this ongoing sin needs to be dealt with. Those who continue in sin, you deal with it because it gives a bad reputation with those outside the church.

And so that's exactly what the Catholic church has earned rightfully. Even by Roman Catholics, they'll say, this is all messed up. This is horrible that it's giving this kind of blight upon the church.

These people are no longer above reproach. They are disqualified from ministry. So go ahead and kick them out. Yes, Bernard Law should have resigned, but I think he should have stood up and did all this other stuff.

And Pope should have done this to him. Instead, are the people who are under him. Stop taking away from things of scripture. Stop adding to scripture. What's worse? Both are just as bad. So if you say to yourself, well, sin's dealt with at the Catholic church.

I wanna know how is it dealt with? The way you deal with sin at the Catholic church is the next mass where you again slay Jesus. The way Jesus said to take care of sin in a local church is by telling people that if they keep in their sin, they're gonna be kicked out of the local church because righteous people act righteously.

New creations in Christ act like new creations in Christ. Old things are gone. The whole new things have come. What they used to love, they hate. And what they used to hate, they love. So there's a big problem.

The Sufficiency of Scripture Against Tradition and the Magisterium

Let's go to the third issue. The third issue probably gives us all the other problems. This is the fountain. This is the foundation to all the problems in the Roman Catholic church. And it's the third issue that we'll talk about today and the rest of our time, maybe, I don't know.

It just depends on what's in my notes. The Roman Catholic church's denial of the sufficiency of Scripture. They do not believe in Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone. They're not hiding that, to their credit.

They don't sneak around. Some people say, oh yeah, you know, we believe in baptismal regeneration, but we just don't wanna tell anybody. Oh, we've got some amazing Bible facts and we answer questions, but we're really Seventh-day Adventists, but we just don't tell people.

I have no respect for those kind of folks. I only have respect for people who say, you know, this is what we believe. If you believe something, well, then I respect you for saying, this is what we believe, and then you promote that.

You don't kind of slip people a little Mickey, a theological Mickey, and say, you know, well, we're just kind of covering that up. If you believe something, you should be proud of that and take ownership and declare it and to advertise it and to promote it.

And so the Catholic church, to their credit, not to their credit, but to their credit, takes ownership to the fact that they deny the sufficiency and authority of the Word of God. They believe that tradition is equal to the scriptures.

If you could see me, I have both of my hands up and they're kind of, all my fingers are together, and you take your right hand and that's the Bible, your left hand, that's tradition, and for everyone else who is biblical, you take the Bible, your right hand, and you put it over your left hand and you say the Bible rules.

It trumps everything. It is alone sufficient. It is alone inspired. It is alone inerrant. It is alone infallible. It alone is authoritative. It alone does its work of sanctification. But what happens is you've got tradition that comes up exactly equal to, equidistant to, no, no, just equal to the Bible.

If you look at what the Roman Catholic church teaches, let me quote you some of their things. Sacred tradition and sacred scripture then are bound closely together. Now that should be enough, shouldn't it?

We've got man's wisdom, a collection of men's wisdom and the Bible written by the Holy Spirit through men, covering up any kind of error or heresy. And those things are equal? They're bound closely together?

No, you've got the scripture, raise your hand up to the ceiling and then your right hand, then your left hand all the way down to the ground. There's a huge, gaping, grand, canyon-like crevasse in between the Bible and tradition.

The Roman Catholic church says, no, they're bound closely together and communicate with one another. How does that happen? I always wanna know. How does it communicate with one another? Tradition in the Bible, we're talking back and forth on some kind of walkie-talkie.

I'll get to channel 19 and kind of communicate back and forth. I don't know if that's Morse code or what happens. As a result, the church to whom the transmission and interpretation of revelation is entrusted does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the Holy Scriptures alone.

Both scripture and tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence. My head is going to explode. First of all, they're equal. We've gotta honor both. And then now we have to give both devotion and both reverence.

I think not. I think not, especially when you think of some of the horrible, immoral things that the Roman Catholic priests have done over the centuries. See, listen to what I said last show about some of the popes and concubines and fathers and sons that they have made some of their offspring.

The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, here comes the Catholic Catechism 85, whether it is in written form or its form of tradition, so the Word of God, it can be found in tradition, has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church alone, Roman Catholic Church, that is.

This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome. Now, lots I could say there, but one thing I'll say is, if you're a Catholic lady, it's not up for you to interpret the Bible.

You better not just read it, look for authorial intent, hermeneutics, the art and science of biblical interpretation, looking for verbs, looking for context, seeing flow, looking immediate context, seeing the purpose of the book.

That's not for you. That's for bishops to do, and they'll tell you. That's probably my sinful nature, but when people do that to me, I wanna rise up. You don't tell me, I can read the Bible. I can read the Bible.

People back in the days of Ephesus, these people, some of them couldn't even read. Do you think everybody had a Harvard degree at Philippi and at Ephesus and at Smyrna and at some of these, at Corinth?

I'm not saying that none of them could read, but I'm saying a large portion of aggregarian culture and society could not read. And so they never were said, Peter, dumb them down, we'll tell you tradition rules and tradition ranks.

Not at all. CCC 100, the task of interpreting the word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the magisterium of the church, that is to the pope and to the bishops in communion with him. That means not you.

Not you, lay person. Well, the Catholic church is encouraging us to read the Bible. That may be true. Catholic church has encouraged you to say Hail Marys as well and some kind of other vain repetition, but they're not encouraging you to interpret the Bible because if you do, you'll leave the church.

It's as simple as that. There's an atom bomb in the Bible that will explode all works righteousness systems. And so people have to be afraid of that. That's why the Catholic church many centuries ago said, it's a sin to read the Bible.

That's why the Catholic church killed Tyndale because Tyndale wanted the Bible and got the Bible in English so the lay people could read for themselves. That's why Huss was killed among other reasons.

That's why they were after Luther, the general language of the people needed to be a good, the translation of the Bible needed to be in the general language of the people so they could interpret and understand.

What are you gonna do? Just read it without interpretation? Without understanding? Don't tell me you need the Pope to read something and translate what it says because what the Pope's going to do is take faith alone and turn it into faith.

To take grace alone and turn it into grace. I'm not going to bet my eternal salvation on that. You have the 66 books for the Catholics that say, well, this is the word of God. You've also got tradition.

You've got the Apographa, the other books in the Bible that they needed to add to get purgatory in and other things, we'll talk about that later. You've got the Pope when he sits on his seat, ex-cathedra from the chair, also giving authority.

And if you just say, to me, none of this is true, well, I want you to write me, info at No Compromise Radio. Now, you can be wise about it and say, I disagree and you quoted Catholic Catechism 82, it should have been 83, how dare you?

Fine, if you want to just write me an email that says Catholic Basher, I guess you can. If you want to write V &E and say, how can you have this Catholic Basher on there? This is for your own good. I want you to learn from the Bible.

If you're right, convince me. But the convincing won't be, I'm a Catholic Basher. If you try to say to me with integrity and with honesty, Mike, I really think you're wrong and here you miss this and we're concerned for your soul, I would never say, you're a Protestant Basher.

I'd never say that because you want to tell me and you want to teach me. This can be a dialogue, this can be a back and forth, it's not a matter of shouting people down or doing ad hominem, what does the truth say?

Vatican Council too, sacred tradition and sacred scripture then are bound closely together. It's exactly what they say. And tradition transmits in its entirety, the word of God, which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit.

It transmits to the successors of the apostles so that enlightened by the spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching. Vatican Council too, page 755 to 756 goes on to say, it is clear therefore that in the supremely wise arrangement of God's sacred scripture, sacred tradition and the magisterium of the church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others.

Did you get that? Working together each in its own way under the action of one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls. That is a lie. That is a bald faced lie. Why? Because the scriptures are sufficient.

Second Peter chapter one, one to three talks about everything we need pertaining to life and godliness is found in the scriptures. We don't need the Roman Catholic Church's view of things and tradition and what these popes have told us because I'll go with what Jesus says.

You know, that story reminds me, that reminds me of a story where the Pharisees acted the same way. Adding all kinds of rules about hand washing, observing the traditions of the elders, cleansing things and washing cups and pitchers and copper pots in Mark chapter seven.

In verse five, and the Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat their bread with impure hands? They're your disciples. Come on, Jesus.

And here comes that scud from Jesus. And he said to them, rightly Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, this people honors me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. But their heart is far away from me.

It's a heart issue, not an external issue. Rightly, he says, well, this is an ironical zinger. This one hurts. You guys are the hypocrites of the ages. Literally, you, the hypocrites. You play actors.

You are wrong. In vain do they worship me, verse seven, Jesus says, teaching, here it is, teaching as doctrines, teaching as the Bible, the precepts of men. He says, you're a hypocrite of the ages if you run around saying that this doctrine that we came up with, this passage, I mean, this tradition that we came up with, this is really the Bible.

Yeah, the Bible's over here, but we've got other things too. He says, you neglect, verse eight, the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men. Now, friends, you don't have to be a scholar to figure out that's exactly what the Roman Catholic Church does.

They set aside, they nicely set it aside, commendably. Do you see the sarcasm? Do you see the biting sarcasm that Jesus has? This is horrible. You cannot sidestep this issue with Jesus. You might try to give me all your rationale and explanations, but when it comes before God, it's going to give you a pierced, he's going to give you a pierced dagger into your side.

You say one thing, the Bible says another, and you're going to make that equal, and they communicate together? No, no, no, don't do that. And the pattern is sadly seen. First you neglect the word, verse eight, then you reject the word, verse nine, and off you go.

No, we need to make sure we don't invalidate the word of God, verse 13, by your tradition, which you have handed down. That's exactly what the Roman Catholic Church does. If you're a Roman Catholic, I love you.

I love you enough to tell you the truth. I want you to abandon the idea that tradition tells you you've got to be baptized before you go to heaven. You don't have to be baptized before you go to heaven.

If you want to believe and be baptized, I'll be glad for that, but the thief on the cross was never baptized. He went straight to heaven by words of Christ Jesus alone. You are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ Jesus' perfect life and death alone.

He was raised from the dead, and you must repent and believe. You must turn away from every kind of man-made system in addition to salvation, because additions to salvation are really subtractions. We don't slay Christ again on the altar.

Jesus Christ was once forever slain, and I would trust that you'd open your Bibles to Hebrews and listen. This is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. You want to email me, info at nocompromiseradio .com with your questions, comments, or concerns, and we will talk next time in our ongoing series, what does the Bible say about Roman Catholics, and what do we need to do as evangelicals to evangelize them, nocompromiseradio .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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