The Errors of Roman Catholic Theology (Part 4)

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. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Why Roman Catholicism Must Be Examined Biblically

This is Mike Abendroth, I'm your host. And we have a slogan, and that slogan is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. Today, we're going to deal with Roman Catholicism, part four, Roman Catholicism, part four.

Now, certainly, this won't make some of you happy because you don't think anything should be critiqued. I would turn your attention to 1 Thessalonians 5. Examine everything carefully, and that includes the Roman Catholic Church, or any church that says, we are the only truth, we have truth, no other salvation outside of us, like the Roman Catholic Church says.

And we have to realize that when you study the scriptures to see if things are true, that is a commendable thing. The Merians, the Merians, yeah, I've got Mary on the brain. The Bereans were noble-minded.

They were noble because they searched the scriptures to see if the things were true. And so today, we're going to talk about Roman Catholicism. And I'm not doing this show because I want to be popular.

I'm sure the opposite will happen here in Massachusetts. But as Hensley Henson said, I do not care one straw about popularity, for I know that it is generally purchased by a sacrifice of the truth. Did you get that?

I do not care one straw about popularity, for I know that it is generally purchased by a sacrifice of the truth. And so what we could do is we could say we're all one big happy family, me, mom, and daddy, like Joey Ramone might say, or we might say, what does the Bible say?

And if the Bible talks about exclusive salvation, then we must believe that, exclusive in Christ Jesus, Christ alone, through faith alone, through grace alone, through the Bible alone, to the glory of God alone.

And Roman Catholicism has been in the news, of course, lately. This show has, I taped this show, but while I'm thinking about it right now, it's middle of March, and there's a head demon caster, outer exorcist of the Roman Catholic Church saying that there's Satan and Satan's henchmen in the Vatican.

And I would very much agree with that. I just think that we're going to find different objects for that. But I don't want to get too bogged down with that. So we're talking about Roman Catholicism, trying to evaluate it from a biblical perspective.

And we've dealt so far with celibacy, what does the Bible say? Not what Rome teaches. We've talked about sin in the church. What does Rome say? It doesn't deal with sin in the church. It covers it up, it transfers sin, specifically the sexual sin and molestation issues that have come up and always will come up until the clergy is allowed to marry.

Number three, discuss the deeper problem in Roman Catholicism, which is authority, sufficiency of scripture, sola scriptura, what is needed in Roman Catholicism is to abandon their hope and trust in tradition, to abandon the magisterium, to say that the Bible alone is the authority, not equal to tradition, not equal to magisterium, but it supersedes, it is over.

It is Mount Everest, and everything else is a small little plateau. But of course they won't do that because Roman Catholicism would cave in. If you're a Roman Catholic today, I'm going to encourage you to believe on the real Jesus, not the Catholic Jesus, not the one still on the cross, not the one that still needs to be sacrificed in the mass, not the one who somehow needs you to contribute something.

No, Jesus has paid it all. He has declared on Calvary's cross, the debts have been paid, the debt has been paid. And he bore on his body, on Calvary, the sins of all those who would ever believe. And he was raised from the dead.

And he doesn't need to be slain again every week, every day, every Saturday night before you go out and party, every Sunday morning. No, he was slain once. And Jesus said, it is finished. And that's what we believe here at No Compromise Radio Ministry.

And if you don't believe that, then you need to repent and follow Christ Jesus. And if you're a true Christian, if you're born again, and you are a bad Catholic because you don't believe what the Roman Catholic Church teaches, then get out of the Catholic Church.

It's an apostate system. It is not a Christian denomination. And so why are you there? Oh, you might love your friends and think you can change, but if you're not in the Vatican, if you're not a Cardinal or the Pope, you're not changing the Roman Catholic system.

No one has been able to change the system from within the church. You have to go out of it, and then you could probably help out the cause better. Well, the fourth issue that we want to talk about today that I talked about last time in part three a little bit was on the issue of salvation when it comes to the Roman Catholic Church.

Indulgences, Purgatory, and the Roman Catholic View of Salvation

What do they teach about salvation? And we talked about how, according to their catechism, that sacraments were necessary for salvation, including baptism, that they believed in baptismal regeneration.

When the water of baptism is sprinkled on the forehead of the baby, forgiveness of sin is taken care of. Catholic Catechism 1263, all sins are forgiven by baptism. Original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin.

And we talked about that the Catholics believed that they alone have the market on salvation, that they alone as the church can dispense salvation. And so we discussed that in great detail. You can get that on the podcast if you like, or go back in time with your time machine on your Mac, whatever you'd like to do.

Let's talk a little bit about indulgences while we're on the topic of salvation. How can you pay for sin? Well, the Roman Catholic Church has a thing called indulgences, and you can purchase these indulgences with money, or to be fair, you can purchase these indulgences through acts of penance.

You could get an indulgence through an act of charity, or there's some other ways of faith that you could get some of these. And here's the idea. Indulgences stems from this concept or notion that what you do, your good works, earn God's grace, merit God's grace.

And it seems only logical within the false system of Roman Catholicism if Christ's sacrifice was insufficient, because they have to reslay him every week on the altar of the mass, if it was insufficient for all the sins of all those who would ever believe, then you can use some of these acts of piety and some of these acts of charity too.

So indulgences pay for sin, kind of a partial payment for sin. Now, one man said, the efficacy of an indulgence depends upon the merit attributed to it by the church. For example, one may pay to have a mass said for a relative believed to be in purgatory.

The mass will then account for a certain number of days deleted from his purgatorial sentence. So we talk about salvation. Salvation, according to Colossians 2, Jesus died for all our sins, past, present, and future.

So what place do we have for indulgences? Indulgences started off kind of small scale, and then they spread quickly like wildfire throughout the Roman Catholic Church's empire. Vatican Council 2, page 70 says, for God's only begotten son has won a treasure for the militant church.

He has entrusted it to blessed Peter, the King bearer of heaven, and to his successors who are Christ's vicars on earth, so that they may distribute it to the faithful for their salvation. Doesn't that strike you as odd, unbiblical, heretical?

Vatican 2 goes on. They may apply it with mercy for reasonable causes to all who have repented for and have confessed their sins. At times, they may remit completely, and at other times, only partially.

Stop there. If you have the power to remit sins, partially or completely, why on earth would you ever only partially remit sins? If you realize how holy God is, and how bad sin is, and how horrible hell is, if you had the power to remit the sins of Hitler, you probably would if you could see what Hitler is suffering, and then eventually will suffer in the lake of fire.

This all-consuming God, it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a living God. God is a consuming fire. We have no idea the ferocity and the intensity of hell. You might disagree with me on the Hitler issue.

My point is this. Hell is so bad, if you could forgive sins and get somebody out of some kind of punishment, then you would do it, even if it's a temporary kind of purgatorial punishment. We don't believe in purging of the sins someplace else.

Sins were purged at Calvary on Jesus. Because of Jesus, Hebrews 1 makes that clear. He purged us of our sins and from our sins. Vatican II goes on to say, at times, they may remit completely, and at other times, only partially.

The temporal punishment due to sin in a general, as well as in special ways. The merits of the blessed mother of God and of the elect are known to add further to this treasure. So Jesus plus Mary. Now, I haven't even got to Mary yet.

That's a whole show on its own, or on her own. Indulgences, of course, the Roman Catholic Church have said, you know what, there's been abuse, and that's in the past. But what they need to say is this.

Indulgences were made up. They were made up because they were trying to build St. Peter's. They were trying to exact money from the people. It was a big farce, and we no longer stand for such heretical, blasphemous teaching that denigrates and blasphemes Christ's work on Calvary.

We repent. We would ask for your forgiveness. We'll excise all the teachings of indulgences and some kind of works of irrigation, and we'll get rid of all that in all our materials, and we will not teach that any longer.

But sadly, of course, Rome won't change that. They've just said, it's in the past, and it's not that big a deal. Vatican Council too, the Roman Catholic Church teaches and commands that the usage of indulgences, a usage most beneficial to Christians and approved by the authority of the sacred councils, should be kept in the church, and it condemns with anathema, that is damning, damned to hell, cursing.

Those who say that indulgences are useless are that the church does not have power to grant them. I think they're more than useless, and I think the church is sinning by somehow granting them, and it's made up.

It's like a video game, it doesn't exist. It's made up in the minds of people who want to control other folks. And you can get mad as you want if you hear me say that, but that's true. Read Romans 9, read Romans 10, read Hebrews.

I dare you to read those things, and then say, read Colossians 2, read 1 Peter 3. Open the New Testament to any book, and you're not going to find it's Christ plus anything. Matter of fact, Colossians is written for that very reason.

If somebody comes along and says Christ plus something, they're wrong. Galatians is written for that reason too. If an angel from heaven comes and gives you a Christ plus gospel, they are accursed. They're the ones who are damned.

And so you've got to pick and choose. You can't say, well, Protestants or Catholics are in the same boat. No, they're not. The Catholics need to determine who are they going to follow. The Bible, our Roman Catholic church.

You think of Luther back in the day, it was really indulgences that got the goat of Luther. When he was wanting to stay in the Roman Catholic church, he wanted to bring reform, but it was this issue of indulgences, because you see, my friend, follow the money.

And when you follow the money, you can find a lot about a lot of people. You know, while I'm thinking about purgatory, that is also related to this issue of salvation. And when God saves you, does he save you of sins, past, present, future?

Does justification mean that God declares you righteous, that you've lived a perfect life because it's Christ's life that's been given to you, credited to you, is better language than given to you? Purgatory, Catholic Catechism 1030.

All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified are indeed assured by their eternal salvation. But after death, they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

Well, I guess you get kind of partially cleaned up at baptism, but not all the way. And so off to purgatory you go. I think the Pope is probably the most unloving person that I've ever heard of in my entire life, because if he has the power to give indulgences to anyone he chooses, why would he not give indulgences to everybody he thinks is in purgatory?

Why? Why not? It's the same thing with these people who think they can heal. And they have healing services from six to eight on a church down the street, six to 8 p .m. A healing on Saturday. When I read that sign, I just think that's the most unloving thing I've ever heard.

What if I need to get healed at 810? What if I need to get healed on Monday? You'll never see Bible healing like that. These are the two hours. Hope you can come during that. Now you've gotta come during that just like a Benny Hinn deal, because they've gotta whip you up into the right kind of emotional frenzy, physical frenzy, psychosomatic kind of mesmerism, so you'll fall for that.

Some kind of leg lengthening or bad back or something else. Show me organic healings. And if you can do organic healings, then if you're not at the hospital, down at Children's Hospital in Boston, then you are a fraud and a sham.

And if you can give indulgences to people who are in purgatory now, obviously there's no purgatory, but if you think there is because you teach that, you are a fraud and a sham, and you are the most unloving person I've ever considered in my life.

What an atrocity. Just go down to Children's Hospital one day and take a little tour, and just see if you can not cry while you're in there. Just in a lobby in that front playroom over there in Boston.

Or you can go to LA. I've been to Children's Hospital in LA. It's the same kind of thing. So what about the temporal punishment and the pain and the torment that's found in purgatory, and then you can get out, but no, the Catholic Church gets to decide who can and who can't.

Catholic Catechism 1031. The Church gives the name purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on purgatory, especially at the Council of Florence and Trent.

The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire. As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that before the final judgment, there is a purifying fire.

End quote. The Roman Catholics have to believe in indulgences and have to believe in purgatory because they have a faulty view of justification by faith alone. See, follow who Jesus is and follow how he saves people, and then you'll see the errors of other churches.

So if you believe, according to the Roman Catholic Church Council of Trent, Sixth Session, Canon 9, if anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, let him be anathema.

So see, they don't understand that because what they're damning is the truth. Sixth Session, Canon 12, if anyone shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.

Do you see that? Do you see that's exactly opposite of what Paul teaches in Romans 3, Romans 4, Romans 5? Do you understand what's going on here? Sixth Session, Canon 30, if anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification, the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner that no debt of temporal punishment remains, for purgatory they mean, to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema.

Let him be cursed. Let him be damned. When I looked up anathema in Webster's New World Dictionary, it is a formal curse, as in excommunicating a person. And so if you believe in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, it's you offer nothing you can give no good works because you know your works are tainted by your sinful heart.

So you turn from self and rely completely in Christ Jesus, in his word, in his apostles' word, throwing yourself completely on the merit of Christ, his works confirmed by his resurrection, and you believe only like Abraham.

You are damned. Interestingly, Romans 4 says that God is happy to save a person like that, whether you're Abraham or whether you're Rahab, you are saved. So if the Roman Catholic Church denies justification, of course it's going to get lesser things like indulgences and purgatory wrong.

Romans 3 .21, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. We're describing justification, how the just justifies the unjust. Even the righteousness of God through faith, not faith in baptism.

Romans says, oh, you add the word in alone. No, you add in other words, so we have to add in alone, through faith in Jesus Christ. It doesn't give anything else. For all those who believe, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

They've sinned, past tense, maybe this is talking about the fall, and continually, habitually fall short of the glory of God. If I were writing this, I'd probably write Romans 3 .23, for all have sinned and fall short of the law of God.

But here we have something more great than that, the glory of God. They fall short of the glory of God. They lack the glory of God. And so you see in verse 24, being justified as a gift. No cooperation.

Salvation is something done to you, you don't cooperate with. It is monergistic, it is not synergistic. It is God alone working. It is no cooperating grace, because then it'd be no longer grace, Romans 11 .6.

Justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. God legally, like a judge, forensically declares you righteous, based on the work of Christ Jesus. It is like a verdict from a judge.

Pardon from guilt and pardon from the penalty of sin. And in addition to that, an imputation, a declaration of Christ's righteousness put to your spiritual bank account. So you see there's this double imputation.

Your sins credited to Jesus' account, even though he never sinned. Christ's righteousness credited to your account, even though you weren't righteous. Then affirmed by the great resurrection. So Jesus dies a sacrificial death, and he imputes his righteousness to believers, and Christ suffers for the believers' sins.

At the time, it wouldn't be believer's sins, but for the unbelievers, sins. And so then you say to yourself, this is some kind of legal fiction. Well, this is not legal fiction, this is biblical truth.

And you can read Romans 3, and find that very thing out. If you'd like to make it more clear, you might want to continue reading in Romans 4. What then shall we say that Abraham, our fourth father according to the flesh, has found?

Here's a man who is a model of justification by faith alone. For if Abraham was justified by works, that is baptisms, sacraments, anything else, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say?

And Abraham believed God. That goes against the counsel of Trent right there. Here's what Trent would say. Abraham believed God and was damned. And it was reckoned to him, the Bible says, to him as righteousness.

It was imputed. Financially, we use that word. Legally, we use that word. Nine times that word is used in chapter four alone. Abraham didn't do anything to earn this or merit it or somehow please God enough.

No. Verse four, not to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, Rome would say is damned to purgatory.

No. But who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned or declared as righteousness. And then Paul goes on to talk about David. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered.

Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. Faith alone, through grace alone, through Christ alone. And if you believe that, then you want to leave the Roman Catholic Church because they have a faulty view of justification, of salvation, of then the sacraments, then indulgences, and then purgatory.

You have to somehow add things to what Christ has done if you want to believe in the Roman Catholic view of justification. Paragraph 1992, Catholic Catechism, justification is confirmed in baptism, the sacrament of faith.

Now that is a different religion. That is a different religion. The Pocket Catholic Dictionary says justification is the supernatural sanctification and renewal of a person who thus becomes holy and pleasing to God and an heir of heaven.

See, they mix justification and sanctification. They have no idea what the difference is. So here's what we do. We want to tell you that you need to not trust in anything of Rome, anything of yourself, and you ought to just say, Lord, like the tax gatherer, have mercy upon me, the sinner.

Lord, forgive me. Lord, cleanse me. And by the way, if God does anything, he does it the best way, to the nth degree. God doesn't need a two-step salvation, three-step salvation. When God saves, he saves instantaneously, completely.

So if you're listening, we want you to believe in the biblical Jesus, the Romans 3 and 4 Jesus, the Hebrews 9 and 10 Jesus, not the Catholic Jesus who is unable to forgive sins, and you have to add something.

Info at nocompromiseradio .org. To God alone be the glory.

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.

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