Adult Sunday School - Current Events (1/19/2025)

Okay, so this is part two of our new series current events and we're going to look at the new teenage

Saint that has been canonized in the Catholic Church a Mary statue

So to Catholicism stories the California wildfires burned all the homes

But there was a Mary statue that remained and even Fox News reported that it was a miracle

We're gonna see if it's actually a miracle and then like I said, Oklahoma school order to teach the

Bible Is this a good thing? Is this just the way America used to be and we want to go back to that or is this?

the dangerous Christian nationalism that you hear about so Yes Was the

Mary statue made of flammable materials? Yes, see you're you're you're stealing my thunder here.

So as they say But Let's get into the first story so the

Pope said to give Catholic Church its first millennial and digital saint so this young man who died in 2006 at the age of 15.

His name is Carlo I'm not positive how to pronounce his last name

Acutis. So forgive me if I'm mispronouncing that but Carlo Acutis died in 2006

And he was just canonized recently by the Roman Catholic Church And he has been dubbed the patron saint of the

Internet So he died of leukemia But apparently they're claiming the

Catholic Church is claiming that he is working miracles from heaven So people are praying to him and he's healing people and he's working miracles and because of that that claim he has been canonized as a

Saint and as you probably know the Roman Catholic Church They pray to say so that that means there are probably thousands if not

Hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics throughout the world who are now praying to a teenage boy who died in 2006 so We'll read the story

I'll make a few comments and then I'll give you a chance to ask your Questions or give your comments at the end.

So the article says in Just a few months. So this was before it happened.

The world will have its first digital saint Pope Francis on Wednesday announced plans in April to canonize a teenager who is a web designer who

Documented miracles online and sketched his texts or used his tech skills to maintain websites for local

Catholic organizations Carlo Acutis who died of leukemia in Italy in 2006 at age 15 will be canonized during the

Jubilee for adolescents on April 25th through 27th according to Vatican News so I'm not sure.

I think that's this coming April I could be wrong But it says the church has attributed two miracles to Acutis who was born to Italian parents in London and was informally known as God's Influencer, so you've probably heard of people who are social media influencers, well

Catholics called him God's influencer. So he was on Online on social media doing things for the

Catholic Church But then he got leukemia and he died but now he is considered a saint now the first thing

I'd point out And you know, you could turn to just about any epistle and Paul is writing to who?

The Saints so who are the Saints according to the Bible? Yeah, a saint is a

Christian. So Paul was writing to the Saints in Ephesus or to the

Saints in Philippi or Corinth Sometimes he comes right out and says that so a saint is a

Christian. It's not some special person who has been, you know set set apart and exalted as this

Exceptional example of a Christian that's that's sort of the the worldly definition of the word

Saint right someone who is just high and above everybody else, but the biblical definition is a

Saint is a Christian period so Let's turn to Matthew chapter 6 for a moment but my main concern here is that people are already praying to this young man and More and more people are going to pray to him now that he's been canonized as a saint.

So this is my first thought If if people are going to be praying to a young man

First of all, you can make the argument that if you pray to Someone who is deceased if you're trying to contact

Someone who's deceased. What's the word for that? Yeah, necromancy obviously that's not how they see it that's not what they're trying to do

But he's dead and they're trying to contact him. So I mean that is in a sense necromancy.

Yep You can contact Spirits with a

Ouija board I Don't think it's going to be anybody that you knew. I think it's going to be some evil spirit

Impersonating somebody you knew Right, but I hope that we will hit some and probably will hit some scriptures that talk about this sort of thing that it's

Discouraged or forbidden. Yeah, I mean you can look at what Deuteronomy says about Necromancy and witchcraft but the main point not even to address that Who should people pray to?

Okay, according to the Bible according to Jesus. Who should we pray to look at Matthew 6?

verse 9 and I think it's in Luke's gospel. The disciples come to Jesus and they say, you know teach us to pray

Okay, so how should Christians pray? Jesus says in this manner therefore pray

Our Father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done

So the simple point that we are to pray to God, okay, so there there is no example in the

Bible of Anybody praying to anyone other than God You know if Praying to Saints was a biblical or a

Christian practice. You would think that in the New Testament you would have the disciples Praying to Old Testament Saints, right?

Why didn't Peter pray to Elijah? It's not Elijah a saint Yeah, you see zero examples in the

Bible of people praying to deceased believers, so Clearly not a biblical practice, but if you bring this up to a

Catholic they'll say It doesn't matter if it's in the Bible because the church affirms it which is the whole problem

They're going by what the Pope says for what these Catholic teachers say instead of what

Scripture says another Example Exodus chapter 20 verses 4 and 5 you can't see the picture

Maybe some of you can But this is a Catholic Church or Cathedral and you have this massive

Massive painting or picture of this young kid. Can some of you see that? And here he is he's the focal point in the church not

God not Jesus Carlo Acutis is the focal point in the church and all these priests are gathered around this altar

With this picture to him. Basically if you just remove this picture

With a goal and put a golden calf here, I mean that would be similar to what they were doing

In the book of Exodus, so Exodus says you should worship God do not bow down or serve graven images.

This is called Idolatry and obviously if you're praying To a person if you're praying to a man

Prayer is an act of worship itself So, can you imagine okay, so here at this church we've had

We've had people in the past former pastors people that we've loved and appreciated but imagine if Members of this church.

We're praying to former pastors who died years ago or decades ago

What would what would other churches say about us if I encouraged you to pray to our pastors?

Who used to be here? What would what would other churches say about this church? Stay away.

They're a cult. They're they're weird, right? When you think about it, it's really bizarre

But it's it's standard practice within the Catholic Church. This is nothing against Roman Catholic people

I say this because we should love them enough to want to Tell them the truth and hopefully rescue them from this system that has them praying to deceased teenagers the ironic thing the thing that kind of hits me in the face about this if this 15 year old because people again that the reason why he's being canonized is because people prayed to him and Supposedly he healed people from heaven or he interceded on God's behalf and people were healed.

Well The thing that popped into my mind why wasn't he healed then You know, he could he can heal others but He himself wasn't healed or he his own prayers couldn't heal himself

But they can heal others like it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

So this whole ordeal really takes away from the worship of God and It in a sense is glorifying this young man, so You feel bad, you know a teenage kid passing away dying.

It is a sad story Pray for his his family. I mean, yeah, it is sad but for the

Catholic Church to do this It's it is bizarre. So it really proves that they are not following the teachings of Scripture and Now that okay now

I got all that that's all I wanted to say So now you're quite questions first and then comments.

Does anyone have a question? Yeah, I guess I just I would like to know and I don't know if you can answer this or anybody else

But how do they? marry up the

Idea that you pray to all these other Saints but God and you have to go to the priest to get you know your

Sins hurt or whatever it is. Yeah but the Bible teaches to Pray only to God.

How do they marry that? How do they or not even marry it? How do you disregard one thing and say this is what you all do do this

Well, I don't know if there is a verse that says bow shall pray only to God so, you know

They could make that argument They said well, there's no verse that says you can't do this, which really isn't a very good argument

You could justify any behavior with that rationale but like I said that they

We all have the same reaction, well, that's not biblical that's not in the

Bible That's not what the Bible teach teaches, but their response is that doesn't matter

The the Bible doesn't have to teach it the church if the church teaches it that's

Enough, but I mean we just read an exodus where it said Yeah, pray to God.

I am right jealous God, right? Yeah, don't bow down to statues don't bow to graven images do not serve them

They clearly bow down to graven images. They would say well, we're not bowing down to Mary We're not bowing down to the statue of Mary We are bowing to the person of Mary Not the statue the statue just represents, you know gives us a visual so we're bowing to Mary not the statue

But we would still say well, that's still idolatry because Mary's a human being and then they would say well, we're not worshiping her

We're just venerate. So veneration is the word they use to get around this. So we're not worshiping

Mary. We're venerating Mary Now when you look at what veneration is veneration and worship are

Pretty much this it's a distinction without a difference Now you can have a Catholic scholar with his

PhD and I'm sure he could have some clever sounding arguments that might convince some people but Yeah at the end of the day.

They're they're going they're contradicting the Bible But they don't think that matters because if the again the church in a sense is above the

Bible the church has to interpret the Bible and the church has the final say on all matters of doctrine, so Erin you had

Yeah, right No, they do the the Roman cat not all

Catholics worship Mary I will say that there are Roman Catholics who will not bow to statues of Mary But the ones who do they are worshiping her they can say they're not doing it

But they but they are There's just no way around it when you actually look at their practice

Marcus you had something Yes, but it's gone, okay

So I Isn't it important to remember Jesus said no man cometh unto the

Father but by me and when we come to the Father In prayer,

I think it needs to be with more than a subconscious Realization that the only way that we can come to the

Father is because of what Jesus has done which is why sometimes

I I Generally start my prayers father But a lot of times

I just say Lord Lord God the Lord Jesus, right

Well another argument they would make You know, we might point to first Timothy chapter 2 right verse 5 first Timothy 2 5

For there is one God and one mediator between God and men the man

Christ Jesus So we would say there's one mediator. And of course they view Mary as Mary and the

Saints are Mary's immediate tricks They call her and the Saints are also mediators and we might say yeah

But the Bible says there's one mediator and then they would bring you into the Old Testament Where the priest the priests were in a sense?

mediators, okay, you had to go Through the priesthood and they sort of used that Old Testament system and say it's still unaffected

So you need to go through the priests? There were other mediators people who stood between God and man but in the

New Covenant right now Christ is that one mediator? We are not to pray to say but again they say well the church has said that we can and we should and It's a contradiction of what the

Bible says that's my contention, okay one more and then we'll move on People are trying to place any place themselves between God and us

I'm cashing in on it if you do this if you send this money to here then

Then we will see to it that God does this yeah Yes, true like the the

Televangelist like you can't have your miracle. You can't have your blessing unless you send your money into the televangelist

Well, they're acting as a mediator to you really get God's full blessing You have to go through me and give to me and do all these extra things

So Protestants sort of have their own version of that but this is important because again the

Catholic Church, it's obvious they're not following scripture in many of these areas and it's just becoming more and more common for Protestants and evangelicals to just Minimize the differences and say they stop making a big deal about this.

They talk about Jesus. That's good enough and It's not it's there's a reason why for the past 500 years

There's been separation between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Okay, the next story.

This was actually reported on Fox News So it says Fox News California families

Virgin Mary statue survives LA wildfires that destroyed home in Remarkable miracle.

So this is the headline from Fox News. They called it a remarkable miracle

We all know about the wildfires. So this community this neighborhood was totally all the houses burnt down but this family went back and They found that their house is burned down, but this

Mary statue is still standing. I Know it's obvious.

It's I know it's obvious the hold on Here's what the article says

The family said it was remarkable how everything had gotten fried but the statue of the

Virgin Mary and Another statue of st. Joseph were in perfect condition.

Keep that in your mind Perfect condition. They said that Peter Halpin the family patriarch told

Fox and friends weekend on Sunday Obviously the statues were a little singed

But we just took that as an opportunity To pray. Okay. Now, what's the odd the obvious reason why this is not a miracle?

Right stone concrete whatever this thing is made of it Concrete doesn't burn the statue was made out of these these statues of Mary typically are porcelain

Stone concrete something like that. That stuff doesn't burn Yeah And if you looked at there is a few different pictures because I think there was more than one person who is claiming this

And if you look at some of the pictures there was one pick I think it was this family, but they were standing there their house was burnt to the ground in the background

But the stone wall was was still standing there next to them There may have been a chimney stand but yeah, the the

Mary statue was standing there too alongside the brick wall and it's like how like It's it's remarkable that they're calling it a miracle really but Well, you know,

I don't know why did they do that it's a feel -good story, right and I don't know if it

I don't know if I'd point out the obvious if they were my neighbors or not Maybe but it makes people feel good.

They're looking for a story that you know, something positive out of this terrible situation So, I mean

I get that but it's obviously not a miracle. All right, let's turn to Luke chapter 11 and Again this is another problem consistent sort of to the last story of exalting

People exalting This young boy exalting Mary Luke chapter 11 was actually an incident where Some people in the first century approached

Jesus and they wanted to exalt his mother okay, they were looking to exalt

Mary as some sort of Well blessed woman that is high and above everyone else and Jesus actually rebukes them

So if there was any opportunity for Jesus to exalt his mother or to teach on the exalted position of his mother

This would have been it and yet look at what is written Luke 11 starting in verse 27

It says and it happened as he spoke these things That a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to him

Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which nursed you and he said more than that blessed are those who hear the

Word of God and Keep it so you see what's happening here. Who are they talking about?

They're talking about Mary so Blessed is the womb that bore you, you know, basically

Jesus your mother is just the greatest Let's exalt your mother.

That's what they're doing and Jesus says no No, blessed are those who hear the

Word of God and keep it and there's a few other Circumstances remember when

Mary comes to Jesus and they're like Jesus drop everything your mother is here to see you

Now if the Mediatrix of all grace was really there to see you think you would have dropped everything because Mary is just All that what did

Jesus do? He said these are my my brothers and my sisters his disciples

Yeah, who who is my mother who are my? brothers and he

He totally poured cold water on that and pointed them to what?

Well here he's pointing them to the scripture What really matters is the

Word of God and those who keep it and then just one more point along those lines and Luke 1 46 and 47

Mary said this is Mary's prayer the Magnifica She said my soul magnifies the

Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in who? God my

Savior, which I think is proof of what we already knew Mary needed a

Savior Everybody needs a Savior Even Mary but the

Catholic Church as you know teaches she is sinless she's They don't call her a goddess, but they treat her as a goddess sinless perpetual virgin pray to her exalt her build

Cathedrals in her name bow down to statues of her and again. It's idolatry based on Exodus 20 okay now why bring this up now?

It's current events and these were things in the news So that's why I'm bringing it up, but why does this matter is this just?

You know is this an opportunity for pastor grant to you know just bash the Catholics is that my?

You know someone watching online might think that's my motivation that is not my motivation What's my motivation?

My motivation is the same for everybody my desire my goal is to teach people

What the Bible says for us to be? In a relationship with Christ and to grow in our relationship with God and Christ We need to know

God like like Jesus says blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it So I just want to teach everybody including

Catholics what the Bible says and Encourage them to follow it. That's where the real blessing is having a porcelain statue in your yard is not going to protect your yard

They bet there. This is another practice where they take. I don't I don't know if it's a patron saint

Which saint it is but you bury this little statue in your yard And that'll help you sell your home faster, and you'll get more money.

Have you heard of this? Is the st. Joseph so they're actually instructed to bury this little figurine

What? Okay upside down And yeah your house will sell it's it's but it's bizarre we sort of laugh about it, but They're they're being led away the church is say intentionally, but they're leading them away into superstition and If this video has something about Mary or the

Catholic Church Maybe a Catholic will watch it, and I just speak directly to them and say

I I'm for you. I really am but I'm trying to show you what the

Bible teaches that this stuff is not It's not true. Okay. It's not true worse than that it goes against the

Bible in many cases so Last thing to say just reiterate that point Jesus says blessed are those who hear the

Word of God and keep it forget forget this thing about Exalting my mother

Mary was a wonderful woman, but don't exalt her Listen to the

Word of God put it into practice. That's what Jesus says okay any questions or comments on this story

Marcus Yeah, you mentioned good news and Fox News trying to come up with some good news that that is our job

Our job is to preach the gospel the gospel is good news But before you can appreciate any good news

You need to know the bad news and the bad news is That at the end of everyone's life or at the end of this world

There's going to be a fire a lot worse than anything that's going on in California It's called the lake of fire.

It wasn't designed for human beings It was designed for Satan and his angels But rejecting

God's offer of salvation and the good news that we can be forgiven

Based on the fact that he gave what was dearest to him his own son

That's good news, but you've got to believe some bad news first and the bad news is

We we come short. Yeah, we fail. We've broken the law all of them

Yeah, we don't deserve heaven. We don't deserve Forgiveness and you're saved by what grace so you go to heaven you go to heaven based on God's grace in your faith in what

Jesus did I get the temptation. Hey if I can just Take if I can just do something take this statue turn it upside down bury it in my yard there

I've done something or have have this statue in my backyard It's gonna bring me blessings or do this or do that I get the temptation because that's the way people are if I do a you know then

B will be the result, but what Jesus really asked us is to believe on him and Really?

He wants us to follow him and give him our lives And I think just doing this little ritualistic thing is much easier and for some people it just makes more sense

It's something I can sort of touch and sink my teeth into Instead of this ethereal thing of having faith not to say that they don't have faith.

I just think they Place their faith in the wrong things but all right because all of this distracts from Christ in the cross and the gospel

So, all right any more comments or questions on the Mary Mary statue? It would have been a miracle if it was made of wood

But it wasn't okay, all right we got about Let's see.

The Joe Rogan clip is about Ten minutes. So if I play that we're not going to really have any time.

So I'll push that off I don't know.

It was Wes Huff. That's the Wes Huff interview Oh, but I brought it up last

I'm gonna push it off again, but this is another story Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters Ordered schools or he orders schools to teach the

Bible Does anyone know is this happening statewide or is this just one specific?

case One school system. Does anyone know? Okay, I've heard things about Oklahoma how there are

Maybe there may it may be more than just this one guy or one school system like Oklahoma seems to be

You know that that state that if any states gonna do it, it's Oklahoma, but Ryan Walters pictured here at a

Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting He repeatedly tried to expand the role of religion in schools

Let me just say this before I read because there were Christians who were

Upset Christians who were concerned about it and I said, well, it's weird

Why would a Christian be upset about teaching the Bible in schools? Well You know

I can understand why some Christians might be nervous Okay, what version of the

Bible, you know, is this Catholicism you're teaching in school? Is this like if Mormonism was being taught in school like there's a danger

I'll admit that there could be a danger but there's already a danger right now of teaching godlessness, so I'm I'm actually from what

I understand. I don't see this as a bad thing, but I'll read it and we'll talk about it

Yeah, Larry Danger would be unbelievers teaching their version of what the

Bible says, right? Right, usually when I hear something positive like this, it sounds good.

Then when you look into it, you're like, well But let yes one God's Word will not return void

So anything that gets somebody into reading their Bible, then the Holy Spirit does have a chance to speak through his word

Yeah Okay, so it says Oklahoma Will require schools to teach the

Bible and have a copy in every classroom the state's top education official announced on Tuesday or Thursday effective immediately

Oklahoma schools are required To incorporate the Bible as part of the curriculum in grades 5 through 12 according to a memo superintendent of public instruction

Ryan Walter sent to all school districts Schools are instructed to refer to the

Bible and to the Ten Commandments for their substantial influence on our nation's founders and the foundational principles in of our

Constitution Immediate and strict compliance is expected so That's what he's trying to do

More on what Ryan Walters it says since he took office in January 2023 he has fought to quote put

God back in schools Walters publicly vilified an

Oklahoma principal with a side gig as a drag performer Who ultimately resigned?

Okay, so that got people angry at him because he spoke out about that publicly Walters pushed an emergency rule this year to prevent students from changing the genders

Listed on their school files. So you know, but most

Bible believing Christians, I know would be sympathetic to these Studies doing however

Here's what the opponents are saying They say the opponents say this is textbook

Christian nationalism Walters is abusing the power of this public office to impose his religious beliefs on everyone else's children

Okay, so I can I can imagine there's someone being like yeah, he is imposing his beliefs on other people's kids.

That's not right Well, except that they're already imposing their beliefs on our kids right now

They're and they said well, they're not religious beliefs. Well, they're teaching about the origin of the universe

They're teaching about the origin of man Sometimes they teach about who man is that man is instead of being

Sinful or depraved that man is good. Yeah, they are teaching if you don't call it religion.

It's worldview. It's I Call it a religion. It's the secular religion, but they say it's textbook

Christian nationalism We talked about this a few years ago Christian nationalism

Was a term that you know someone coined not alone was 150 years ago But it's sort of been dug up and the first time

I ever heard the term Christian nationalism was in 2020 And it was right after January 6.

Remember the January 6 protest or the other side says insurrection

There was a guy in the crowd who held up a sign that said Jesus saves and people kind of latched on to that And they say see this is

Christian nationalism Christians are trying to take over the government for this big threat and Just my personal belief.

I I think that term Christian nationalism was coined by People who hate

Christianity as sort of like a boogeyman To sort of make paint

Christians as this threat to democracy Now are there Christians who have adopted the label?

Yes. Are there some? Radical people who call themselves Christians that I Look at and they call themselves

Christian nationalists, and I really wouldn't be comfortable. I don't really want them running Yeah, I mean

I there are people who are maybe extreme But it's it's about the definition.

What is Christian nationalism here? Here's the bottom line Who is old enough to remember when you were a kid they were teaching the

Bible in school Okay, several hands several hands Was that Christian nationalism back then?

see nobody called the Christian nationalism back then it was just The United States.

This is just what we did because we're one nation under God and the majority population is

Christian and It was normal, but now They're painting it as this great threat to democracy again there there may be people who identify with this label that are

Dangerous, I mean that there's always that extreme on both sides and every group but If if the

Bible was taught in schools up until 1960s this 1960 whatever whatever the date was

It's hard to convince me that this is a great threat, let's just turn to one passage

Matthew 28 19 some of you know it Okay, so the

Great Commission, this is a verse that any Christian would say yeah, that's

That's true, I believe the Great Commission we should disciple the nations and we should baptize and of course

This is the mission of the church It's not the mission of the governing authorities necessarily

I acknowledge this is the mission of Jesus gave to the church and there there is a potential danger when the when a government

Takes it upon itself to carry out the mission of the in there's a blending there just like back in the early days of Massachusetts Baptist churches were illegal because you know only the

Congregationalists were allowed to exist so if you get the wrong church and power like the Catholic Church was in town

I get it there is a potential problem there, but look at Matthew 28 I just want to think about what this really means

Matthew 28 verse 19 Jesus tells his disciples go therefore and make disciples of who?

All the nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you and lo

I am with you always even to the end of the age Also the book of Revelation there's a couple instances where Jesus is called the king of kings

So my my argument is this if Jesus truly is the king of kings

If we believe that doesn't that mean that Jesus should be or we would say he is the king of The United States of America.

I mean, that's how I view it We don't recognize him as that our leaders sort of give him lip service sometimes

But if he really is the king of kings Then I don't see how it would be a problem for a nation to recognize

Jesus for what for what he is and Like I said, we've already taught the

Bible in public schools for the first Couple hundred years of our existence even before we broke away it was happening

Matter of fact, I think Sunday school was created as a way to educate young people to teach them how to read and You were teaching them how to read the

Bible and this was just everywhere all across the country It was normal, but Jesus says go make disciples of all the nations

So if you convert enough people to Christianity, it would just be natural for this nation to recognize

We're a Christian nation Or we're at least a nation of Christians and we are going to have the

Bible in in school okay, so To me, he's just doing what?

Christians have always done and What we used to do. I don't see how this is a problem.

But obviously if you're If you're secular, you're an atheist you're gonna fight this tooth and nail and that's who these people are for the most part

Marcus a good question might be what do you prefer truth or lies?

Jesus said I am the way the truth. I am true What would you like to have taught in your schools?

right See, it's it's not are you going to teach religion? It's what religion are you going to teach?

Even Pontius Pilate. I doubt he was a Christian, but he said what is true?

Yeah What one quick example if the schools if we made a deal and everyone abided by it that we're just gonna teach math

We're just gonna teach you know that with no bias. We're just gonna focus on You know reading writing and arithmetic and we're not gonna okay

I could live with that but at our at the local high school in our town.

They actually have a class titled how to think and they're teaching kids to Reject the traditional male female distinction and they're teaching they're teaching transgenderism and all the

Progressive worldview stuff so they're already teaching That religion if you will in school, but you have

Yeah Right Yep, and if you want a school that teaches the

Bible send your kids to to the Providence School in Greenfield So in Jesus name, amen.