Adult Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy Part2

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The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 2 Date: April 23, 2023, Morning Teacher: Pastor Brian Garcia

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Good morning brothers and sisters. Good morning. It's good to be here, good to have you here to study
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God's Word and to study an important topic. I think it would be appropriate for us to sing this morning, considering that we will be touching a subject on a false religion, and the gospel difference between this false religion and the true religion of Christ.
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And we praise an immortal, invisible God. So if you could turn to page 35 of your hymn book and sing with us this hymn of the faith.
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Immortal, invisible, God only wise, enlightened, accessible, hid from our eyes.
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Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days.
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Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise.
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Unresting, unhastening, and silent as light.
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Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might.
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Thy justice like mountains high soaring above.
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Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.
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Great Father of glory, pure Father of light.
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Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight.
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All praise we would render, O help us to see.
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Tis only the splendor of Thy mighty feet.
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Father, thank you for the time that you've given us. We pray Lord your blessing over our worship this morning, both in the time we're spending now in the study, and also
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Lord later on in our 11 a .m. and then of course our 2 p .m. We ask
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God that your anointing would be strong in this place. Lead us and guide us into all truth by means of your spirit. In Jesus name, amen.
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Alright, well last week we had a short kind of introduction to kind of Roman Catholicism 101, and we're going to be using this book.
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One of the main differences between Roman Catholicism and also
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Orthodox Christian evangelical faith, and one of the things that we brought up in today's discussion is the question, is there a fundamental difference between Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity?
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Not Orthodox Christianity in the Eastern sense, but Orthodox in that, what is the
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Orthodox teaching of scripture? And so we ask that you read the first chapter, and hopefully you get to do some of that.
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If you didn't, we'll be recapping most of what's in this chapter. But I want to start off with a quick discussion on what was read and what was presented in the first chapter.
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And there was a dialogue that I'm pretty sure was kind of a made up dialogue that James might use for the purpose of teaching and opening up the discussion on the difference between Roman Catholicism and evangelicalism.
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One of the things that I find interesting is that what is proposed in this book is actually rather old.
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I think it's at least 30 years old, if not more. Yeah, it's just about 30 years old.
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And so the contents of this I think are probably more relevant now than when he wrote that, as there's been a major trend in the spiritual landscape of America where people are reverting back.
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And I think some of this is actually kind of a good thing, at least culturally and morally. But there seems to be a movement of people who are moving back to the traditional.
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People are yearning for something that's traditional. People are yearning for something that's established. People are yearning for something that is a return to normality.
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Why? Because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the world is evolving more and more and more.
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All you have to do is turn the music on, and what are you going to see? Norms of the world are being flipped upside down.
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Gender roles, societal norms, all these things are being flipped right over their heads.
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And so no wonder there are people in the culture, people in the world, who are yearning to go back to something that's well -established and that's traditional, something that is time -tested and proven to some degree.
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And so there's been a major kind of – I'm not sure if revival would be the right word, but there's a resurgence of sorts to an embrace of traditional values and traditional religious institutions.
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It's not something that's happening in the hundreds of thousands, but it certainly is happening in the tens of thousands in this country.
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And so it's not something that we should overlook. The conversation that was brought up in the first chapter of this book is something that I myself have encountered even not that long ago.
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Our church in Wisconsin is a non -denominational church, pretty mainline evangelical, kind of soft in some areas, which is why
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I had some issues there. But we had a gentleman there who left our church, and without any indication that he was going to leave.
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He just one day stopped coming, and months later, after trying to reach out to him, he ended up withdrawing.
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And then I found out a little later, from Lutheranism to Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox.
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And I remember just finally convincing him to have lunch with me, and then I asked him,
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I asked him, like, what's the transition? I mean, you go to hardcore Calvinism, you go to Lutheran, and then
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Eastern Orthodox. Like, that transition just doesn't seem to make sense to me. And I said, you know, you're just now a stone's throw away from Rome.
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You know, you're just in the cup of being a Roman Catholic. And so, that conversation with him was really interesting.
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One of the things that was illuminating in that conversation I had with this gentleman was the fact that he was yearning for something more traditional.
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He was yearning for something that was more established, and had a traceable historicity in the overall narrative of Christianity.
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Now, Roman Catholics have a great claim on this. Whether it's
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Valerian, we can go into that in the future, but the claim is certainly there. What is one of the major claims of Roman Catholicism when it comes to their historical basis?
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Jesus started it. That's a pretty big deal, right? Like, don't you want to be part of the church that Jesus started?
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Don't you want to be part of that same movement that Christ set? This rock
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I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall have to go against it. That's a pretty big deal. How do they make that claim specifically, though?
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Ascendancy directly from Peter. Say that again? Ascendancy directly from Peter. And how does that manifest in Roman dogma?
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He was, first of all, a complete saint. That's right. And then, they can connect it from Peter. In Francis today, they say they can connect
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Roman Catholicism to Peter. That's right. So, one of the major claims of Roman Catholicism is that they claim to have their basis, their roots, stretching all the way back, not just to the first century, not just to the second century, but to Jesus Christ himself as the one who established the church.
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And when you look at the church really more as an institution, and the church, according to our understanding of the biblical course, is an institution, but they go a little bit further in that this is an organization that has a human principal head and this human principal head is, indeed, according to their understanding of the
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Bible, is the vicar of Christ. And we went a little bit into that last week. Where are some of the titles for the pope?
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You told us last week what vicar actually means. Yeah, vicar means like visible representation.
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It's a, it's not just representative of a, kind of in a legislative sense that we represent, this is a more tangible representation.
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And so, if we were Roman Catholic dogma, the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, according to Roman Catholicism, is that the pope is
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Christ mailed in flesh. Yes? When Jesus' word became flesh, are they saying the pope is
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Jesus became flesh? Certainly, that's not what they would say. It feels that way.
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So, here's the challenge that we're going to encounter today in our teaching, is that one can get some pretty clear statements from Roman Catholicism, in their teachings, in their catechism, in the statements of previous popes, and then you have, there's supposed interpretations of those statements.
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For instance, one of the things that we'll examine deeply is the veneration of Mary. And they'll say, well, we don't worship
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Mary, we just venerate her. Does anyone know what the word venerate means?
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Essentially, it's a form of worship. What do you think? So, they say, well, we don't worship
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Mary, we just venerate Mary. And when you look at what the word venerate means, it means to prostrate, it's a religious sense of veneration, meaning to worship.
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There's no tangible distinction, really, when we're talking about veneration. And they'll say, well, there's no difference between, for instance, one would, for instance, you treat a flag, right?
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So, you would treat a flag, an American flag, with great respect. You wouldn't put it on the floor, you would fold it a certain way, you would give it a certain amount of respect.
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That's essentially what we are doing with the Virgin Mary and other saints.
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We're just treating it with a certain level of dignity and respect. But nowhere in Scripture are we commanded to give a certain level of dignity and respect that amounts to us bowing down, praying to, interceding with or for such individuals.
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And so, really what it comes down to is Roman Catholicism makes these certain claims that are actually pretty clear, cut on their own dogma.
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But then when it comes to their interpretation of it, they're very loose with it because they know they have some serious problems to compend with.
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Any questions so far on this issue? And I don't want this to be also, just to put it out there, I don't want this to become
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Catholic bashing, right? We're not here to bash Catholics. We're actually here to truly try to understand
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Catholic teaching, dogma, understanding, in light of Scripture. Because again,
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Roman Catholicism is the largest religion in the world. So essentially, you've got to think of it this way, it's our largest mission field.
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Roman Catholicism is our largest mission field. So we want to have a right understanding of it.
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And it's also our largest mission field here in the Bay Area. It's the largest religion in the
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Bay Area. So those who are practicing a religion, that's the largest religion here. We have a very interesting shrine.
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What's the name of it? Our Lady of Peace. Every time I go to the
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In -N -Out over there, all nuns there. I don't know how they keep their garments clean after eating a burger there.
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Where's that one? Yeah, it's pretty close. Do you know where In -N -Out
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Burger is? That little marketplace there? Yeah, it's down the street. Great American Parkway. And it's a huge deal.
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I've seen lots of people packing up that church and coming and going from there.
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Is there a significance to the location? Like they saw an image of Mary there? That's a great question. I have no idea.
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Does anyone know the answer to that? I know there was a little chapel like that back in El Doro County where I lived in Wisconsin.
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It was a tiny little shrine. I think that one was important because someone had seen a certain vision of a certain saint there.
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What an interesting concept. That statue is probably one of the five stories higher.
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Oh, it's huge. That's another thing as well. The issue of idolatry is clearly linked to Catholic Catholicism.
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So they have clear practices. Everyone can see. Everyone knows.
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But then they interpret it to be a little different. This is what Catholic apologists tend to do. They will try to change the meaning of what you see.
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So here's one thing. You bow down before an image. Clearly condemned in scripture. I say, well, really what's happening is not worship.
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Rather, it's just a visible representation of a spiritual truth. And it's not the image that we're bowing down to.
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Really, in our hearts, we're bowing down to Jesus, which the image represents. That's a word salad for idolatry.
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You can flip it. You can interpret it however you want. But the clear action is idolatrous.
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That sounds very like the orthodox justification for the antichrist. Don't they say much of the same thing?
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Absolutely. There's essentially no major difference in practice between the iconography of worship as orthodox and Catholic.
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So to be happy, we'll turn to the first chapter. I'm just going to highlight a couple things here that I think are relevant.
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I'm not going to read through it all. I do ask that you try to read at least a chapter a week.
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We're going to try to cover as much as we can. Some weeks may take longer to read through a chapter just based upon the material and the conversations that we have here on Sunday morning.
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But I want to ask you the question, what is so attractive about Roman Catholicism, according to the first chapter?
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As a matter of fact, the first page, too. What are some things that are attractive about Roman Catholicism?
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There's a word I'm looking for. It starts with the letter L. Say it again,
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Pastor. Liturgy. Anyone know what the word liturgy means? Worship?
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Worship? More specifically, order of worship. All right. Okay. So the liturgy, it's the worship of order of worship.
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What's interesting about that concept is that most evangelicals don't really have a well -defined liturgy.
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Right. Right? And so, you know, distinct from us, actually, because as a Performed Church, we have a very well -defined view of worship as to what liturgy is.
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But if you ask any mainline denomination or any mainline evangelical what worship is, they'll say, well, everything is worship.
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Right? Right? So, you know, walking your dog down the street, that's worship. You know, singing, you know, a metal song is worship.
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Anything and everything is kind of worship. And that's actually a pretty pagan view of worship. And so when you go from evangelicals and it says anything and everything is worship to something like Roman Catholicism, which says no, there's well -defined orders of worship.
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This is worship. This is how we do it. This is when we stand up. This is when we sit down. This is when the scriptures read.
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This is why we do it. Because there's an order to it that's very attractive to people who are looking for order in their lives.
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Anyone here ever heard of Jordan Peterson? No? Jordan Peterson wrote a book,
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Twelve Rules for Life. And what kind of made him a rock star in today's world, especially online, is that he proposes a sort of order for men to live by.
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It's very attractive. It's very attractive. There's a lot of good things that he says and things I don't agree with, obviously.
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He's a believer. But what Jordan Peterson is selling is an order for men to live by.
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Rules, order. These are all things that in a world that is losing order, in a world that is losing rules, that the rule of law is being trampled on, that norms are being trampled on.
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There are a lot of people who are looking at these orders, these rules, this liturgy, and they find it very attractive.
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Any questions so far? So when we look at Roman Catholicism and what makes it attractive to men,
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I really do believe the liturgy has a huge role in it. I follow some people on social media who are kind of like these young conservatives who in large numbers are turning to Roman Catholicism.
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In large numbers. And it's their way of making a statement culturally to a secular world.
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We want to return to some order. Again, the rules are becoming less and less orderly.
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There are those who are going to fight back against that by turning to an orderly religion.
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And Roman Catholicism is a very orderly religion. Has anyone ever attended a Roman Catholic service before?
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No. It's very orderly. There's rites and rituals. There's a liturgy that is followed wherever you go in the world that is practiced universally by the church.
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So that's very attractive. I'll give you another example that's a little different, but the
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Jehovah's Witnesses also have a very tight liturgy. They don't use that term, but a very tight liturgy.
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Matter of fact, today, every Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall that meets will be studying the same
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Watchtower magazine regardless of whether they're here in California or in Bangladesh.
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Every Kingdom Hall, every place of worship for Jehovah's Witnesses will be singing the same songs or will be hearing the same instruction.
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That's impressive. That's very orderly. In fact, Jehovah's Witnesses say this is a proof of them being the true religion because no one, no other religion is as orderly as they are.
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They're claiming liturgy, orderliness as a facet of true religion.
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Are you in very tight? Why is that not sufficient though?
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Who agrees with that? I actually think liturgy is very important. That's important.
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Amen. Consistency is important.
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When we're consistently wrong, we'll go to that consistency. That's all it comes down to.
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Who do you say Christ is? Who is Jesus? I was thinking,
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I mean, the aesthetics is not what's important. The aesthetics don't have to be ancient, but the teaching actually does have to be ancient.
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You're claiming there needs to be this direct lineage to ancient teaching or understanding?
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Well, I mean, that's how we reform Baptists, because we kind of tie ourselves to history. Historical claim.
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I know you're not saying this is a bad thing. We work very hard to work out our order of service here.
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That's what we call it.
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We make an order of it so that we kind of know what to expect. We're not sauntering out.
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That's right. I would say the same flaws that these individuals are seeing in evangelicalism are the same flaws that we point out as a reformed community.
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It's also one of the strengths that we have in the greater evangelical community.
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We can make similar claims. Paul says, do all things decently and in order.
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Paul laid out the liturgy. Paul laid out what worship is in Scripture, in 1 Corinthians. So we can go to the basis of the authority of Scripture and say, hey, we have a pretty good claim here as well.
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And ultimately, that's what it comes down to, is the authority of Scripture to define liturgy.
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I showed you guys last week, I don't know if it went off. The Roman Catholic Catechism is about this big.
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It's a set of teaching, and they're very in -depth. Maybe you're seeing our
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Catechism that we use is pretty nice as well. But, man, the
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Roman Catholic thing is just worse. The reason why is because they have to define every single article.
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Not just of their claim, but of their practice. And if you know anything about Roman Catholicism, the practice almost outweighs the beliefs.
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And so they have to justify and meticulously lay out every order of practice in Roman Catholicism.
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And I think one of the appealing things about Roman Catholicism as well, apart from the liturgy, is the familiarity of Roman Catholicism that it brings.
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Because it has been the dominant religion over the past millennia. It's been the most religious religion in the world.
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So somewhere in your family, family members, ancestors, who were
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Roman Catholic. Especially if you come from European descent or Latino descent.
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You probably have the old family members and ancestors who worshipped God according to a
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Roman Catholic understanding. And so those things are really appealing. For a lot of people, it's like a return to roots.
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But the liturgy in itself is not sufficient to establish the truth of religion.
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Rather, it's the authority. And the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Would it be fair to say it's not the
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Bible? I think that's fair to say. Why would that be fair to say? Why would you think that would be fair to say?
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What is the authority? The authority of the Roman Catholic Church is not the
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Bible. Is that fair? Because what overrides that?
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That's right. As manifested in the potpourri. Certainly the traditions.
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One of the things that we saw from this conversation between Bill and Scott. Which is a kind of mock discussion that James White puts in the first chapter of the book.
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Is that this gentleman who converts to Roman Catholicism. He starts to say essentially.
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Well, the evangelical starts to say. How could you convert to Roman Catholicism?
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There's so many things in there that even if we talked about beforehand. It was blatantly false.
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And do you remember what was the Roman Catholic's rebuttal to the evangelical in the conversation?
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It's what I misunderstood. Or we never really learned it. That's right. Essentially is.
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Well, the truth of the matter is. I didn't really understand Roman Catholicism. And clearly neither do you.
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Has anyone ever encountered a really well versed Roman Catholic? I have.
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It's a rare thing. It's rare. Most Roman Catholics are not well versed. I heard a joke that was shared in this chapter below.
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How do you know. How can you tell the difference between a Roman Catholic and a Protestant? The Protestant will have the
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Bible. The Roman Catholic won't. Have you ever seen movies where there's a
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Roman Catholic priest doing a marriage maybe. And he closes the Bible. That's what comes out of the
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Bible. Right? And it's just. It's this idea. They don't really go to the Bible. And most
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Roman Catholics. And I see this. Having lived around in Roman Catholic communities. People coming out of church.
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No one has a Bible in hand. And so Roman Catholics. Don't really have the
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Bible very well versed. But the ones that do. Are really impressive. Most of you know my faith background.
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I used to be one of the Jehovah's Witnesses. And at the age of 13. I started to do this.
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Online forum discussion. On a website. And I posted a blog.
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Essentially promoting Jehovah's Witnesses. And one of the first responses
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I got. Was from a young Roman Catholic named Andy. I'll never forget this name. And my encounter with Roman Catholics were all pretty much the same.
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As a Jehovah's Witness. Knocking on their doors. Most Roman Catholics didn't know the Bible. And couldn't tell you what the
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Bible taught. So I knew that Roman Catholics by and large. Were not very well versed in scripture.
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But this one Roman Catholic, Andy. Was just demolishing my arguments.
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And he was just a little bit older than me at the time. And I was really impressed. That this young guy knew his
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Bible so well. And he was so smart and witty. And he obviously went to Roman Catholic school.
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Obviously very smart. Well versed. And he just. Usually the
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Jehovah's Witnesses are the ones able to make a pretzel. Out of the average Christian. But this guy really put me on some precarious theological ground.
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When he was talking about the Trinity for instance. And just going to sermons around me.
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You know, in regards to Trinity. Other important teachings as well. This is a smart
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Catholic. And I actually credit him to some degree. For helping me eventually come to faith in Jesus Christ.
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Because he was the first person outside of my own frame. To really challenge me in any meaningful way.
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And so there are those Roman Catholics who really know their thing. And one of the things that you will often find from Roman Catholic apologists.
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Especially on YouTube and other places. Is that you will find that they are quick to say. You have a superficial knowledge of Roman Catholicism.
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You have a broad view of Roman Catholicism. We don't worship Mary. We don't pray to the dead.
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We don't believe in works salvation. They will be quick to really go to all these lengths.
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To try to credit what you have as your preconceived notions.
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And to some degree. They have some credence in that as Protestants by and large.
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We don't actually have a full knowledge of understanding Roman Catholicism. Which is why we are going.
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And so I do want to challenge you with this. Maybe you do have some preconceived notions about Roman Catholicism.
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That are actually 100%. And so it's only fair to examine as best as we can.
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What are the claims and teachings of Roman Catholicism. So that we can better witness them. Just as we would do with any
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Jehovah's Witness or Mormon. Or even an Atheist who is trying to bring their worldview to us. We have to allow people to share their worldview.
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Their frame of reference with us. So that we can best effectively reach the person. Because what's the worst thing that we can do.
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Is misrepresent someone or something. If Christians were to be truth tellers. And so what this doesn't mean however.
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Is that we have to know the inside and out of the world religion. We don't need to be historians when it comes to world religion.
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In order to be able to speak truth in regard to Roman Catholicism or even religion.
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Anyone here knows what agency government deals with fraudulent money?
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It's the Secret Service. The Secret Service deals with fraudulent money. And through which book it was.
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It was written by someone who worked in the Secret Service. Who was a Christian. And wrote a great book.
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I can't remember the name of it. Anyone know that book? I can't think of it right now. But he essentially started off his book by saying this.
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In defense of the Gospel. In defense of the faith. It says in the Secret Service.
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He learned how to identify false bills.
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By first examining what a true bill is supposed to look like. And by knowing what the true genuine artifact looks like.
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Then we can deduce and rule out other counterfeits. This doesn't mean we have to study every counterfeit.
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But rather if we truly know what is a true bill. What is a true genuine article. Then we can go backwards and say this is wrong.
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This doesn't match up with this. And so I think that's a great analogy for us to work on.
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In regards to how we should examine other religions. What this book is going to help us do is really examine the
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Gospel. That's the heart of the issue. The Gospel. The good news of Jesus Christ. His death, burial, and resurrection.
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Is at the heart of Christian orthodoxy. And how does Roman Catholicism ultimately divert from that?
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Because I believe, as James Weitzman will point out in future chapters. That Roman Catholicism does indeed diverge from the
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Gospel. That's a very strong statement. And I made this statement last week as well. Roman Catholicism is not reflective of Biblical and true
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Christianity. And so there are those in the UNO community. Especially over the last 30 years.
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Who have tried to kind of pose the empty role. We should not be a part of those efforts.
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To try to integrate true worship with that which is blatantly false.
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One of the reasons we did so. We examined last week what our confession says about the Roman Catholic Church.
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In particular, what it says about the Pope. And as important as you are in understanding who is the Pope. He's the
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Antichrist. Specifically the man of all of this. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. And I think last week we made a pretty good case for that.
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And in the coming weeks we'll need to examine that a little more in depth. I'm not sure that that will be the same argument that James White will now take.
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I think he loosely at this point when he was writing this. Adhered to the Second London Baptist Confession.
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I'm not sure where he's at with that now. But I don't know. He loosely associated with that confession.
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So I don't know what his stance would be on that aspect of the confession. But I think that that is a valid point of view.
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And I think it's the true point of view in regards to the matter. Any questions so far?
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Alright. Let's examine a little bit of this conversation. I want to highlight to you something that was brought up in page 22.
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Now at the very top of it, Scott is a Roman Catholic. And he says, I believe everything the
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Church teaches. Though you aren't very accurate in your understanding of what the Church does teach.
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Neither was I. I can assure you. Look, Bill. I had all the same ideas you have now.
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But I looked into what Rome really teaches. I discovered that not only did I have a lot of misconception about the theology of the
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Roman Catholic Church. But I found out they have a tremendous foundation for their own beliefs in the Bible. And what really convinced me,
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Bill, was that I couldn't defend what I had always believed against the objections raised by the Apostolic Church.
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Now this is something you'll see common. Not just among Catholics, but with anyone who kind of deconverts or converts to another religion.
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Is that you have kind of this coming to light moment.
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Where there's an aha moment. Like, hmm. I looked into something. And lo and behold, my misconceptions were actually wrong.
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Now, go figure. A lot of times our misconceptions can be wrong. It doesn't necessarily mean that that given thing is true.
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It just means that we were wrong about what we perceived about that given thing or religion. Make sense?
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It doesn't necessarily verify the veracity of the claim being made. Rather, that we had a misunderstanding.
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And so that in itself isn't enough. What's interesting of all, what I would call deconversions. Which is something that is kind of a thing that's happening a lot in evangelicalism today.
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We have like these prominent people in Christian culture. What's that Christian rapper or singer?
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Matt Crockett. Matt Crockett. Matt Crockett. Not with one of the copies. Lecrae? Lecrae.
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Yeah, Lecrae. Lecrae was kind of a, you know, ten years ago, really a fascinating character who did
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Christian music. He was associated with guys like John Piper and, you know, other pretty solid guys.
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And now he's going through something called deconversion where he's deconstructing his Christian faith.
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And this is becoming more and more prevalent in evangelicalism. Again, we have to remember what the
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Bible teaches about deconversion. Deconversion is not actually a thing. It's just called apostasy.
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You know, when someone leads the faith to deconversion. But I use that phrase because it does describe the unraveling of a process.
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Right? And so when someone deconverts from evangelicalism into a faith like Roman Catholicism, what ends up inevitably happening is that there's this process in place in which there's this misconception.
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Misconception is proven to be incorrect or inaccurate. Therefore, that person begins to tumble even deeper into the theology or mythology of that given faith and starts to say, well, okay, well,
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I was wrong about this. Well, this is actually really interesting. And if I was wrong about this, what was I wrong about? That question is really, really important.
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Because if you were wrong about one thing, the brain automatically goes into a place of injury and starts to say, what else was
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I wrong about? This is actually kind of a good thing in a lot of cases because it's good for the brain to go through a process of critical thinking analysis.
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Right? This happened to me as a journalist's witness. As a journalist's witness, I examined the history of my faith and the doctrines of the
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Watchtower. And I saw, ooh, well, I've been lied to about a lot of things.
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And I'm looking at the information. I was lied to about this. What else was I lied about?
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What else is not true? And so that's actually a really good thing to go through. And I encourage that process.
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But, again, what is the foundation and basis of the authority of Scripture? Okay? Not just the claims.
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Because what's intriguing about all the clauses in the Eastern Orthodox Church is that they make some pretty heavy claims.
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But are they active by Scripture? Now, this character here, Scott, is going to show where some of the deconversion talking points came from.
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So he'll ask questions like what? Well, like believing, Scott says, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, that everything has to be spelled out in the
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Bible or it's not to be believed. Is that a fair, accurate assessment of Sola Scriptura?
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No. So it looks like Scott has a misconception about Sola Scriptura.
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He's confusing it with Sola Scriptura. But not Sola Scriptura. Anyone know the difference between Sola Scriptura and Sola Scriptura?
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Yeah. Sola Scriptura. Yes. Say what? Sola Scriptura is
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Scripture only? I'm sorry.
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Does Sola Scriptura throw out important creeds or confessions of the
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Christian faith? No. I mean, if we believe in Sola Scriptura, we don't throw out the creeds and confessions of the
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Church. Right? We subscribe to the creeds. We subscribe to historic confessions such as the
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Second Lenten Baptist Confession. So we don't throw out these important creeds or things of history.
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Rather, we look at them through the lens of the authority of Scripture. So the
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Bible is the foundational document. Versus Sola Scriptura would say, no, we throw out anything that's not in the
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Bible. We don't subscribe to any creed. Anytime anyone says we don't have any creeds but the Bible or no creeds or Jesus is a popular phrase, that's a creed.
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So. Yeah, do you have another question? Yes. Isn't there actually a danger if we throw out the creeds?
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Because then are we denying that Jesus has been building his Church? Yeah, it's very true.
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We can't. We don't make the claim. We're not making the claim as evangelicals or as reformed community that we have no link to the early
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Church. We certainly have a link to the early Church. We certainly have a link to the movement that Jesus started in the first century.
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And the creeds help identify us as part of that same lineage of faith,
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Christerity. And so the fact that we hold on to the creeds, the fact that we hold on to biblical confessions is proof of our lineage going all the way back to the first century.
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You know, the cross -crushing of the Bible. So Scott has a misconception here. We'll gloss over that.
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He says, where does the Bible teach Sola Scriptura, Bill? You and I always assumed the Bible was sole rule of faith.
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Well, where does the Bible teach that? If you can't support that from the Bible, then you have a self that you can believe, don't you?
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And then Bill came out as most good evangelicals. He gave a very good response.
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And he says, yes, that's correct. But if you look at the passage carefully, Jesus said to reject human traditions, not divine traditions.
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So Bill's trying to quote. This is going to say somewhere, Matthew, that Jesus has not ignored the word of God, but the traditions of men.
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And Scott says, as a good apologist, he says, to reject human traditions, not divine traditions.
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This is something that Roman Catholics are really good at doing, the ones who know their doctrine well. They're very good at pointing out, well, kind of like what works out.
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Jesus was talking about human traditions, the pharisaical traditions. He wasn't talking about traditions that were passed down from Jesus.
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He wasn't talking about traditions that were passed down by the apostles. And he says, Scott says here, he himself held men accountable to extramarital traditions.
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For example, in Matthew 23 .2, he told people they need to obey the person who sat in the seat of Moses.
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Now, where in the Old Testament do you find a teaching about Moses' seat? Bill says, well, I have to look it up, but I can't think of any place.
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Scott says, I looked, it isn't there. And what a false command to the disciples. Hold fast to the traditions we pass on to you, whether by word or mouth, or by epistle.
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I have never heard any discussion of holding fast to traditions that have been passed on orally, or any
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Bible study you and I have ever attended, did you? So he goes, and he says, look, the Scripture itself teaches that we're to hold fast to the traditions.
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That's all we're doing. We're actually following the Bible. That's what really happens. That we're following the traditions we believe people would have or would have passed down from generation to generation.
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That's a pretty good argument. You know, to a person who doesn't know the Bible, or Christian faith, or history of the
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Christian faith, that might be pretty good grounds to maybe concede to this person who is in these apologetic remarks here.
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Where does Scott belong, though? Where does he belong in regard to the traditions, and his rebuttal to the words of Christ that make no more of the word of God but the tradition of man?
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Where does Scott belong? I would say that the passage from Timothy is descriptive, not prescriptive, and they call it
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St. Timothy. That's not a command for all. Sure. I mean, just think about critically that statement, or that line of thinking you've taken.
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Okay? Well, there are traditions that are recorded in Scripture, but they were passed down. Then how?
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How, then, were they passed down? If it wasn't in Scripture, how were these traditions that we're to keep passed down?
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Was it verbally? How do we know that? Who's a reliable source of authority for that?
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If it's not Scripture that's the authority, ultimately, for the passing down of things, then where do we go?
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If you go through your church fathers, the early church fathers, and I always say this, the pre -Nazi fathers, it's almost like a
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YouTube comment section. You have every single thought and idea floating around in the early church.
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You have constantly infighting and various different weird theological things that would be shared in the early church.
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And so are they the authority? Which is actually the case of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church sees the pre -Nazi fathers as very authoritative, and they trace fatherly things back to them.
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Is the early church fathers sufficient enough to kind of get this lineage or this tradition?
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I don't think so. One of the misunderstandings about tradition is,
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I think it's kind of what Sarah was saying, but we don't know what that tradition is that Paul is referring to.
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The dual beating would sit on the church fathers, but it really depends on the historical situation. When they had time on their hands, they went off into never, never land.
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When there was a controversy, when the gospels were stated, you have to know what they're writing and what was going on at the time.
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You know, Bill brings up a good question, though, at the end of page 22. At the very end, he asks the question, do you really think you can work through it?
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Because we have the understanding that Ruth Paulson teaches a verse -based salvation, which they do. But notice what
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Scott says in your book. He says, no, of course not. And here's any informed
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Roman Catholic. The Catholic Church doesn't teach that you can work your way to heaven.
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Bill, that's a Protestant myth. It's a strong statement. It's a strong rebuttal.
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In fact, one of the turning points of my journey to Rome was when I discovered that the Council of Trent had condemned anyone who said you could work your way to heaven.
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The very first canon of justification from Trent says, if anyone says that man can be justified before God by his own works, whether done by his own natural powers or through the teaching of the law, without defying grace through Jesus Christ, let him be anathemized.
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So they say, look, Trent was the authoritative council of the Roman Catholic Church. They anathemized, which means to curse or cut off, anyone who would teach that you can be saved or justified before God by his own works.
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That was pretty convincing. Yes. And so here's where we're going to break this down a little more.
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Why is this an interesting statement? Why would a Roman Catholic appeal to the statement of Trent? What's of interest here is the issue that's come up is the issue of justification.
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Now, between Protestants, Catholics, Atheists, or Orthodox, we all have a very different view of the implication of justification and what the justification means.
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So the Roman Catholic looks at this and approaches justification, and they can quote from Trent and say, if anyone says he can be justified before God by his own works, whether by his own natural powers or through the teaching of the law, this is the key part, without defying grace, through Jesus Christ.
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Defying grace. Now, the Roman Catholic Church defines defying grace. They're not talking about the defying grace that we as Protestants would think of.
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What would be the defying grace that we would think of? We don't use that term typically, but what would you think of if you heard the term defying grace preached from the pulpit?
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Salvation? Ephesians 2 .8. Say it again. Ephesians 2 .8. What does Ephesians 2 .8 say?
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For grace you have to save your faith, and this is not your own doing, but it's a gift of God. That's right. So when we would think of defying grace, we would say, well, clearly that has to be being saved by grace or faith.
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This is out of our own works. This is out of our own efforts. I don't have any votes, but this is God's worksmanship that would be created in Christ Jesus for these people, that God apportioned
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Christ the Lord beforehand. And so that would be the Protestant inclination, but the
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Roman Catholic religion is not to go there. Instead, defying grace means the graces of the
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Church, the institutions of the Church, the rites, rituals, sacraments of the
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Church. These are the defying grace through which Jesus Christ applies justification to the believer.
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So again, even an appeal to Trent, it's actually pretty disingenuous to claim that Roman Catholics certainly believe in a works -based religion.
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They just shroud it in the mystery of the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. They believe that you're saved by Christ and His suffering.
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There's a penal substitution idea. Yeah, yeah. But is it a mixing of categories?
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Because don't they say that you then have to work on building up your righteousness? Is that the difference between going to heaven or purgatory?
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Yeah. So in the Roman Catholic understanding, when you're born, you're born with a ritual sin, that baptism as a baby washes your ritual sin until you become, you know, at whatever gender age, you become another, you know, a little sinner.
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And you start to go down this path of sin. Then you have to go through confirmation. That kind of cleans you up.
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Again, you go up the ladder of justification, identification again. And then as you continue to, as you go through confirmation, you confirm in the
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Roman Catholic Church, you can take the sacraments. And then as you take the sacraments, but you continue to sin, your status goes down again.
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But then you have penance. And you can go to the priest. You can do your rosaries.
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You can do your intercession. And that will kind of bring you up again. And it's kind of an up and down journey. And hopefully, when you get to the end, you've done just enough to get by, so you don't have to go to purgatory.
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When you go to purgatory, you have to, there's indulgences for your family to partake in so that you can pray for you to get out of purgatory.
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And so really, the salvation in Roman Catholicism is totally worse ways.
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But the divine graces that they teach and that they appeal to isn't the grace of God that has been manifested through Jesus Christ for the salvation of all men.
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But instead, it is the grace of the institution of the Church and its rites, rituals, sacraments, by which you can be justified and sanctified in the eyes of Christ.
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Does that make sense? That's where they diverge greatly. Yes. I was wondering,
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I remember when we went to Sacramento to hear Ian from Ligonier. He said that Calvin quoted a statement saying that there's no salvation outside of the
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Church. And he said that Calvin quoted that quite approvingly. What did he mean by that? Well, obviously, the
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Church and Calvin understand what you did in Roman Catholicism. I think Martin Luther also had a similar statement where Roman Catholic Church clearly thought that there's no salvation outside of the
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Church. Martin Luther said there's no salvation outside of Christ. And obviously, all those who are in Christ are in his
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Church, his universal Church, the true Catholic Church. So in a sense, the statement is true.
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But if you're having in mind the institution of one particular denomination or organization, such as Rome, or such as the claims of Mormonism, such as the claims of John's Witnesses, all claim to be true
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Churches, true religions, that there's no salvation outside of associating with that particular organization, that would be false.
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But then aren't there some Baptists out there that go as far as they claim to be the true denomination that they won't accept baptism outside their denomination?
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If you weren't baptized as a Baptist, you got to get re -baptized. Yeah, they're wrong. They're wrong just like Roman would be wrong.
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Yeah, it's not a denomination. Denominations will not save you. Jesus is the only one that's there.
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And so one thing that is to be noted as well, I think in this chapter as well, is that we have to remember that God alone can save Roman Catholics.
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God alone can save John's Witnesses. God alone can save Mormon. God alone can save the sinner.
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And there are people who I've been called who got saved in order to trust
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Him. For instance, Martin Luther. He was a Roman Catholic. God saved him in the
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Roman Catholic Church even with all of his theological errors. God saved this man and eventually used him for the purpose of his performation.
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And so God alone is the author of salvation in this. And in regard to statement about justification of works for a
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Mormon, I just wish that most religions were as honest as the Mormon Church. And I say that because the
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Second Nephi, the Book of Mormon, the Book of Mormon says very clear -cut, this most clear -cut statement on works and grace, but after all, it would be a false religion.
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But it says, you are saved by grace after all that you can do. I appreciate that.
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Honestly, I'm glad it's in there, because you can't have a greater contrast than the Bible teaches. And it's essentially what every other works -based religion teaches, that grace is in there somewhere, but it's after all you can do.
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That's right. So essentially, you do your best, and then God does the rest. Versus the reformed biblical understanding of the scriptures.
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It says, you had no work or save or mention in salvation.
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Why? Because you were dead in your trespasses and sins in the way you used to walk, the fruits of poverty here. But God, being rich in mercy, made you alive through Christ, and seated you, raised you up through Christ.
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And so you were dead. There was no movement. There was no part. There was no halfway.
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It was God raising you from the dead, which brought you to spiritual life.
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Yes, sir? No, you go to the front. I know. That's good. And so we hold to the scripture as the authority, understanding that salvation is not by works, justification is not by anything we can do.
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And it's not even through the divine graces of the church, or rather through the divine grace of Jesus Christ and his finished work on the cross.
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That's enough. Jesus says it's finished on the cross. He's accomplished all that he had purpose to do for the salvation, justification, sanctification of his people.
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And he was raised on the third day, showing divine approval of his sacrifice and work, and opening a way for us to be raised like unto his own.
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And so this is the good news, brothers and sisters. And in the coming chapter, we're going to examine why there's a major difference between the good news of the
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Bible and the good news that's proposed in the biblical system. And so any questions on this week's reading and teaching?
54:48
Go for it. Yeah. When did purgatory come into play? Was it
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St. Athanasius? Yeah. Well, Athanasius, I don't think, was a huge proponent of this.
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I mean, I know some people have tried to link and hold to this, but I don't think that's a fair thing. What's interesting in early church history, primarily around the fourth to sixth century, is that this conversation about the intermediate states started to take form.
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And there was a lot of confusion about the intermediate state. Intermediate state being, OK, is there a distinction between Geo -Hades,
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Gehenna, Carverus, all these biblical terms that are used in the scriptures? And if so, what are the implications of it?
55:29
And so one of the ways that that actually evolved was into the concept of purgatory, which really shows up more prominently sixth, seventh century as a major theological contender in early
55:42
Catholic church. But it didn't fully take shape until probably around the 10th or 11th century, I'd like to say. And that's when you really begin to see the
55:49
Roman Catholic church sell indulgences, which ultimately culminates with the reformers just being outraged as far as Luther being outraged with the concept of indulgences, and nailing its antithesis to the doors of the
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Roman Catholic church. But that's a short answer to that complex question.
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But essentially, it took centuries for that idea of purgatory to really take shape. Did the
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Eastern Orthodox Church also take that belief? No, they haven't.
56:25
I think that would be the dividing line between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox is that they have a different view of the intermediate state.
56:33
It's really, if you look at historically, the Protestants, Catholics, and the Orthodox all kind of have the same views about what's commonly referred to as the intermediate state, which is a reference to where did that go between the cessation of Christ's resurrection and the future resurrection of death.
56:55
It's clear in the scriptures, in the other books.
57:04
Apocryphal. Apocryphal, yeah. Yeah, and that's where, again, the Roman Catholic Church didn't embrace apocryphal until, which council was that?
57:14
I think it was Trent. I think it was Trent. It was around the 14s, 15s, right? The active record.
57:21
That's post -Reformation. Post -Reformation. That's right. So that wasn't, again, that wasn't even adopted until after the fact.
57:29
But the understanding of purgatory really serves as a stick shift between the 7th to 10th century.
57:37
Any other questions? And we're going to talk a lot about purgatory in the weeks to come. Yeah. My uncle came home and took it out of his purgatory.
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Only it was that easy. Yeah. I don't know.
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But it certifies that he.
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I'm just waiting for the Pope to be so merciful that he just empties purgatory. He has a divine right for it, too.
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God forbid. Just to put it in a bigger umbrella to stay on the gospel,
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I think if we define grace as unmerited favor, we did not merit for God to give us these traditions for us to then come to be handed and humble yourself under the authority of grace.
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So that grace is in some way defined still as unmerited favor through the church.
59:12
I think something that resonates with a lot of Roman Catholics is the idea, and I think one of the appeals to these higher religions in terms of Islam, or Catholicism, or Orthodoxism, is this idea of pilgrimage.
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And that there's a faith journey where you are actively doing something.
59:32
And I think that we can use some of that to our advantage. But coming at it from the perspective of the
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Bible, saying, really centering back to the simplicity of the gospel, as Michael says, the gospel is simple.
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The simplicity of Christ, the simplicity of the gospel. And just going back to what
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Scripture says, for by grace you can say it through faith, not through the sacraments, not through the church, not through all these other hoops and loops, but rather grace through faith in Christ.
01:00:06
That's the simplicity. And so just bringing it back to that, to that in my own pilgrimage, my own faith journey, this is what has changed my life fundamentally, where my relationship is in Christ, in the church, but by grace through faith.
01:00:22
So that I'm not working for God's approval, I'm not working for the approval of Sam of Rome, but rather I'm in a sense healed by the
01:00:30
Spirit of God and I have a deposit in me. So that personal testimony is really important too. Because most Roman Catholics don't have a personal testimony.
01:00:36
You notice that. They don't. They talk about the church, they talk about this, they talk about that. We don't want to be
01:00:42
Mormons either. We're Mormons. All they have is a personal testimony of the Word and the Philistine. But Revelation 12 says that we overcome by the power of our
01:00:49
Word and the glory of our testimony. And so the testimony aspect to this is very important.
01:00:55
So Roman Catholics really like the idea of pilgrimages, which is why they have certain pilgrimages, why they have these statues and these places where they come and do these pilgrims so they can venerate.
01:01:06
And rather point to the fact that there's a pilgrimage of heart that leads to the cross.
01:01:12
And that's where we find true grace. Any other thoughts or questions?
01:01:21
Well, let me close this in prayer and then we can get ready for services. Father, we thank you for your goodness.
01:01:27
We thank you Lord for the instruction you've given us. We praise you for the knowledge of your Son, Jesus Christ, who leads to eternal life.
01:01:34
That apart from him there is no salvation. And apart from this grace that you have manifested in these last days through the appearing of your
01:01:42
Son, our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, that all men must confess him and him alone for the salvation of their souls.
01:01:49
And Lord, we thank you that you've given us your Word, the Scriptures, as a sure promise, as a sure guarantee of what it is that you have manifested for our own good and for the good of your people.
01:02:00
We ask, Father, that you bless this time as we ready ourselves and ready our hearts for worship.
01:02:06
And that our leadership, that our order of worship will be pleasing to you for the glory of your name.