Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy - Part3

Marvelous Sovereign Lord, we thank you for coming before you. True God, the Creator of all things. One whom and two whom are all things.

We bless you this morning as we gather to receive education and instruction from thy word.

We pray, Lord, that you help us also to use this material life as a weapon against Roman Catholics to bash them, but instead,

Lord, to love them and reach them with the life -saving gospel of Jesus Christ so that they too may hear these words of great joy and be saved by faith in Jesus Christ, by grace alone.

We pray, Lord, that you would work in our hearts that which is pleasing your sight for the betterment of your kingdom and the advancement of your gospel.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right. So this week we ask that you read

Chapter 2 of the book, The Roman Catholic Controversy.

And so cutting through the fall, any initial thoughts or questions from the reading this week? Yeah, I was really,

I like the way you said, we don't want to bash them, but when he was talking about how what the pure gospel is, and we know it, that they don't have the peace that we have.

It's in perspective what our job is to explain the true gospel so that we can have peace.

Anyone else have any initial thoughts or questions? I appreciate you.

We have to take them for what they actually say. They actually do not mean to judge us, they just mean to pray for us.

They say it's about the strong and the poor, and they actually seem to understand their doctrines seem to be true against what is actually true.

I think what's kind of the heart of the chapter is you can't represent

Christ's gospel well if we're misrepresenting this particular group, which again doesn't mean that you need to be an expert in any given group that you're administering to.

You don't have to be an expert on Jehovah's Witnesses to administer to a Jehovah's Witness. You don't have to be an expert on Mormons to administer to a

Mormon. But it's important that even in the book that I wrote, Can I Get a Witness? How to Understand Set Free Jehovah's Witnesses, the tactic that I implored there is similar to what

James White is proposing here, which is when you're engaging any cult or any cult's religion, that the best way of reaching them is not by pure apologetic and just going there and saying,

Oh, you got this wrong, you got that wrong. I remember I spoke to a pastor's wife who told me once,

Oh, I have a Jehovah's Witness at my door. And I told him, I'm John LeBlanc, and I said, If you don't believe this, you're going to go to hell.

She said, How did I do? And I said, Terrible. I said, Terrible? That's the worst way you can go about it.

Because you're just going to dismiss it right off the bat. You just made a lot of noise, but you didn't win anyone over.

And what I have found in my experience is that asking the right question is usually more important, at least initially, than giving them the right response.

Now, administering doesn't mean that you don't give them the right response. But in asking the right questions, that will almost always usually lead to having an opportunity to give the right response.

And so the way that we ask questions is often very important, probably the most important thing that we can do in our apologetics when we're talking to a group of people, is asking them the right question.

Especially if we generally don't know, we generally don't understand. So I'll give you Jehovah's Witness, because that's my background, as an example.

Maybe when you're interacting with Jehovah's Witness and you want to talk about Jesus, one thing that I always encourage people to say is,

Hey, I've heard it somewhere that you believe Jesus is Michael the Archangel.

Is that true? Right there, you're asking them a fair question. Yes, we do believe it's true, and we'll show you why.

You'll start going through your Bible and say, Great, I just wanted to clarify that. I just have a question, if you don't mind me asking.

Where in the Bible does it say that Jesus is Michael? Or you can take them even better yet, to a scripture like Hebrews 4, or Hebrews chapter 1, where God says,

To which of the angels did God ever say, If you are my son today, be God with you? Because if Jesus is

Michael, Michael's an angel, even if he's a chief angel, he's still an angel. Where did

God say in his Word that he declares an angel to be his son? It's clear in Hebrews 1 that we see otherwise.

And so you take them to the question which leads to the right answer. And the same thing is what

James White is employing here with his tactic of reaching Roman Catholics. We have to ask the right questions, and we want to genuinely understand where Roman Catholics are coming from.

Anyone else have any other impression to read from the book yet? Yeah, I think it's great that you can slam

Roman Catholics. That's a great point because Roman Catholicism has well over a billion people.

I think it's about 1 .3 billion adherents. And there's a large spectrum, mostly nominal

Catholics who just know the bare minimum. They may know the liturgy, the ups and downs of the mass, but they don't really know doctrine too well.

Versus those who are really informed, and I've met some Catholics who are really smart, really intellectual.

And they're kind of in the modern front of the modern conservative movement in America. So if you look at like the

Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire, he's a Roman Catholic. What's the other guy?

Michael Knowles. Michael Knowles. Yeah, Michael Knowles. He's also a Roman Catholic. You've got all these guys who are very influential in the conservative movement today, and they are predominantly

Roman Catholic. And then you have, of course, Ben Shapiro who's Jewish, of all things.

And so you're seeing this kind of alignment, or realignment in a sense, in the

West with people who are looking for conservative values. Aligning themselves with conservative, or historically conservative institutions, because one could ponder whether or not

Rome is actually conservative when you look at its practices and doctrines over the past 50 years. It's become more and more non -conservative.

But nonetheless, the institution, these institutions that have lasted centuries, are becoming very appealing to our conservatives.

Which again gives us an end as well, because we are a church with modern, with historical roots and Reformation.

You know, we adhere to the 1689 Confessions. That gives us some historicity and background and a spiritual lineage that goes well past or beyond, you know, past our time and into the past.

Those are good points. Anyone else have any good points from the readings before we go full -fledged? Let's examine some of the things that were said in Chapter 2.

Now, one of the things that James White opens up in the first page of the second chapter, or second paragraph, is we've lost something.

What has been lost in modern education? What's been lost? That's right.

Not only the ability to debate, but the ability to reason. The ability to reason has been lost. How so?

How has that happened? You know, when

I was in high school, it's gotten really bad now, I have to admit. When I was in high school,

I remember having a conversation in my civics class. We didn't have a debate class, that's like really old.

We had a civics class, and we were talking about abortion, even then it was prohibited. And I remember one of the administrators was there for this teaching, for this conversation.

And she was really giddy because she saw that I had a pro -life perspective, and most of the students had a pro -choice perspective.

And she wanted to say, you know, we should set up a debate. We should set up a thing, because she was really fascinated by the conversation we were having.

No debate ever materialized, and that was essentially the extent of that conversation.

And I always look at that memory fondly, because it was the only time in high school where I actually felt like there was a debate, interchange of ideas that was of any meaningful substance.

But modern education does not focus on the ability to reason. It tells you essentially how you should feel and how you should think, instead of the actual process of thinking.

And so here's the conclusions that the school system wants you to come to.

And I think that that's a terrible dilemma, essentially, for kids growing up in the school system today.

There's no teaching on reasoning. There's no teaching on debate. And one of the things that is so common today in the culture when we see debates around politics or culture or religion is essentially the rise of straw man arguments, or the rise of personal vendettas and attacks in debates.

So what they do is they'll say, well, you're a bigot. So once you're labeled, what does that do for a conversation?

It's over. It poisons the well. What's that? It poisons the well. It poisons the well. Well, because now you're interacting with a bigot.

That's not someone who has a different perspective than you. This person is now your enemy, because how could you be in the presence of a bigot?

How could you be in the presence of someone who holds these racist, misogynistic ideologies?

And so at that point, it's no longer debate. Now it's war. Now it's a conflict.

And so the same happens in the realm of religion just as it happens in the realm of culture and politics.

When we look at religious debate, we have to be careful not to— And a lot of folks in the very conservative

Baptist churches, for instance, are very quick to say heretic, or very quick to label anyone or anything that's not as Calvinistic as we are or as conservative as we are and label them in a way that really doesn't help reach that person.

Because once you've labeled them, that's it. Same goes for us, vice versa.

Should they label us, the conversation is essentially over. We need to be critical thinkers. We need to be able to critically examine things, critically examine dogmas, doctrines, even our own, in order to properly witness to people groups outside of our own.

Any questions on that so far? As he says, the fog of argument has been lost.

Everything gets lost in the fog of argument. And what are some of the fogs that he points to in Roman Catholicism?

What's the fog that he's referring to?

So he looks at the fog, and he's basically saying the fog is the stuff that gets in the way of seeing what is actually there.

Not that long ago, I was driving somewhere around here in the morning, and it was just a dense fog.

It was really amazing, the fog that we get in this area sometimes. So dense that I cannot see probably 20 feet in front of me as I'm driving.

And the fog obscures things. What James White is saying is that there are certain things that obscure what we're actually trying to accomplish, and what we should be trying to accomplish.

What's at the heart of what we're trying to accomplish? The Gospel. It's the

Gospel. It's sharing the Gospel from Catholics. Getting to the heart of the Gospel from Catholics.

And there's a lot of things that are just fog or noise, as we would call it today, that would distract us from getting to the actual heart of the issue.

Some of those things being, for instance, I never get this right, the cross symbol.

Is it like this, starting here, or something like that? Is that how you do it? What is it?

General. I don't know how to do it. I've never been one to practice that.

All I've seen them is in the movies. So that cross sign. Is that an essential issue?

Are there Protestants who do that sign as well? Mostly in the

Episcopalian side of things. I've seen it, yeah, definitely the Episcopalians, I think

I've seen them do it. So there are some Protestant groups that practice this symbol.

Yes? It's okay to use two fingers, but those who use three fingers are absolutely wrong.

So it's two fingers, this, it's like a Boy Scout thing, I'm guessing. No, Capscout's two,

Three's Boy Scout. Oh yeah, Three's Boy Scout. So I don't, yeah, is this a

Gospel issue? Is this something that affects someone's salvation? Not particularly.

Now James White does bring up the fact that this is not necessarily a non -issue. There are those who do this symbol out of superstition.

And that's what I think, especially in the Baptist circles, we get allergic reactions to superstition.

We do not like superstition, rightfully so. But I also know that, for instance, as a

Jehovah's Witness, I think we're even more, more allergic to superstition.

So much so that everything is superstition. So for instance, if someone sneezes, if you ever sneeze in front of Jehovah's Witnesses, don't expect to hear

God bless you. Because that's superstition. You know, birthdays, superstition.

Giving a Pledge of Allegiance, superstition. We don't do those things. And so very small little things like that are just, everything is, it kind of becomes superstitious in that you become paranoid.

And I think that isn't healthy. I don't think that's right. They don't toast at weddings because it's superstition.

There's so many things they don't do to appeal to their sensibilities of trying to be pure from superstitious worship.

And the same can be said of us and some of our traditions and our lack of traditions at times too.

We tend to avoid things that look superstitious. But we also have to realize that we are not masters of everyone's conscience.

Right? And maybe there are those brethren who do signs and we may look at that as superstitious.

But they have a pure intent in their heart and that's how they perceive it and practice it. And it might be an opportunity for good conversation with brothers and sisters who may practice some of these things that we may not fully understand.

And it opens an opportunity for dialogue and conversation. That was just one example of fog.

Any other examples of fog from the chapter? Candles.

Candles, literally, right? What's up with candles? Who here has candles of any sort in their home?

Most of us do, right? Well, bad news. We're going to hell. We can look at these things as superstitious or we can look at these things as created for a particular purpose.

I think, of course, it is wrong to use candles in a religious setting for worship.

That would go against the regular principle. When we use an object to enhance our worship, in a sense,

I think that would be incorrect. But we do use objects for worship today in a sense. Microphones, right?

These are objects that we use to enhance, in a sense, or to bring forth our worship.

We use podiums to hold our materials. We have pews.

You know, Jesus did not have a nice 16th century organ playing in the background when he was on the Sermon Mount.

These are all things that were not native, maybe, to the earlier church.

But using candles, it leads to – the

Roman Catholic dogma has a real connection to candles because it brings forth the idea, the notion, of the incense to the saints coming to the throne of God.

And so this is a physical representation of what they think is happening spiritually. That our prayers are worshipped with incense that rises to God's nostrils.

In a sense, there is some truth to that. There is some spiritual validity to seeing this in ancient temple worship, where the sacrifices that would be made in the temple were sweeping over the

Roman Yahweh. And Yahweh was pleased, or displeased, with your sacrifices.

We've seen this throughout Scripture. At times at funerary festivals, Yahweh was not pleased with your sacrifices.

He was not pleased with the incense that was coming to the rising of heaven. Where are some other examples of fall from the chapter?

Now we talked a little bit about energy last week. And what does energy mean? Yeah, it's actually a form of worship.

It's the way that the service is organized. So every church has its energy. Just in the order of how things go.

We have a pretty well -defined energy here. Now there are differences between what's usually referred to as a high energy, or a high church, and a low church.

What do you think is the difference? Or how would you define a high church and a low church? High church is super basic.

If you go to a church where the pastor or the priest is gardened in a robe and he has a little collar.

Maybe there are people on the stage as well. There are servants, deacons, or priests who are all decked out in robes as well.

Sometimes there are chalices that are used. Sometimes there's incense. Sometimes there's just a variety of things that are used as representations of the gospel.

So this is also kind of common in some Lutheran churches. There are

Protestant churches that are also used as high churches. Versus low churches being more like us, essentially.

We are only referred to as a low church, which means that we have very little showing display of tradition.

So for instance, if you come to our sanctuary, you'll notice no paintings. No stained glass with St.

Peter on it or Jesus on it. There is nothing that is necessarily adorning the space of worship.

No candles. There's a lot of things that have to be considered for the low church in that we do not prioritize those high church traditions.

Yes? Doesn't high church also have the same order of worship?

Churches are all on the same page in terms of what scripture they're in and how they should be.

I don't know that that's necessarily a homework of the high church. Because even for Roman Catholicism, there is flexibility in the particular liturgy of what each parish is going to teach.

But that is true for every Sunday they're worshiping, using the same music.

They have the same watchtower. They're using it for every cremation around the world.

It's not that flexible. So the sermon is flexible. But the scripture that's read is set by a book for every single year on a four -year cycle.

It's very specific across all the churches. At risk of skipping one more time, is high church strictly talking about the aesthetics of a worship service?

Or is it also usually talking about the formality? In a way, compared to two songs, a 30 -minute sermon, and two more songs, our worship service might be considered more high church.

Is that true? Or is it just because our aesthetics are very simple, we're still considered high church?

Aesthetics play a high role in that. Especially in the case of high church and low church.

Now we have a more defined liturgy. So I like to call it evangelicalism.

Because everything is just evangelical. It's so flexible. Hey, we can bring up the whole thing because everybody can do so.

And so there's so much flexibility with evangelicalism. Whereas we would be more wired in terms of the outlining of the liturgy.

In that we are very organized and very succinct in how we do things.

But we would still be considered low end of things in terms of the high church culture.

Because of the aesthetics and also it's important where we derive the practices.

Whereas high churches derive from tradition, we derive from scripture. And so we believe

Christian worship to be fairly simplistic. And so it's not difficult. There's music. There's prayer.

And then there is the reading and the teaching of the word. And that's what we also encourage. There's reading and there's a small section of teaching.

And so Christian worship is pretty simple. So we would have still kind of low view.

That's a great point though. So evangelicalism would be like low, low, low church.

Where does Latin fall in all that? Would all the high churches do their services in Latin?

Roman Catholicism is very common, of course. Now, that's not necessarily a has to be all of the high church.

Because it's great to have Lutheran churches that are high churches that don't speak

English. Maybe they'll speak German for some reason. But other than that, it's not a necessary hallmark.

But you do have an additional debate. Roman Catholicism is a definition of high church.

So there is the standard. And then you have strictly Protestant churches and denominations that all derive a lot of their high church liturgy from,

I like to call them, Lutheran Catholicism. Because it's essentially what most of them are,

Lutheran Catholic. Anyone have any thoughts or questions? I guess it's worth noting that high church liturgy, the way we use it, is arbitrary.

In Anglicanism, they're a little more formal. Because it really appears like there's a hard cast distinction between Anglican Catholics or Lutheran Catholics.

But outside of that, it's all very spectrum oriented.

So to use an example of the Church of England, we just have the crowning of the king.

Very high church. So you have the king sitting on his asset. Asking his anointing as king.

They put the crown together. You have the archbishop of the Church of England. Now the head of the

Church of England is who? King Charles. But the archbishop takes the crown.

And there's a lot of high church liturgy. And here's where the high church people say that they have the upper hand in that.

For instance, a friend of mine who was Lutheran said, Our liturgy is designed intentionally to display the gospel at every single turn.

Everything we do is intentional. And it's essentially a play on the gospel.

We are using our bodies as ministers. We're using the name and the order of worship to really magnify the gospel.

And so you see, for instance, the king. As he's inaugurated. He's given two setters.

Do you know who the two setters are? It's the government and the church.

And now, of course, the set of scriptures from the side will have two setters. Right? He's put a crown on his head in which he is anointed as king.

Very messianic. It's very straight out of the Bible. But it's with King Charles.

And now Jesus. And Jesus is the rightful king. And he's the head of the church. So, again, people have also theorized there is a movement within some extreme baptist resources who actually think that the

Church of England and the head of the Church of England, that that's the actual Church of England. So they have a kind of an upside -down view of how we would view

Catholicism as a whole. But they would attribute that to the Church of England, to King Charles.

So it's very interesting. I have a friend who really believes that. And we have a very interesting church.

But, yes, that would be an example of high church. The portrayal of biblical themes in the liturgy of the services.

Any other questions? I was raised a Episcopal. I was amazed that I went through all the truly shocking when

I found out that the Lord was coming back. Wow.

Amen. Now that leads us to the next part of our discussion. This is the gospel. Right, right.

And so when we cut through the fog of all these things that may have some significance, these are not things that are monumental, of course.

But they are monumental. These are things that are basically rabbit trails that kind of lead us away from the main topic at hand, and that's the gospel.

Now, I believe, and James Whiteside is going to point this out in the upcoming chapters as well, that we truly do have a gospel difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism and Catholicism, or historic

Protestantism and Catholicism. If I were to ask you, what is the gospel, what would be your response?

Don't tell me that's not a question. What is the gospel? We're going to find out if you have a better term than that or not.

Anyone? We're sinners, we can't. I mean, we're not right with God.

And the Lord Jesus died as a propitiation for our sins, and faith in Him causes us to be forgiven.

That's right. And what mechanism in particular? Faith. Faith? And then beyond that, what has

God done in His Son to grant us everlasting life? Justification. Okay.

Look at three things. Justification. Those are all good. I'll close with this one particular accusation.

Okay, that's part of it. Look at three things. Atonement. First Corinthians 15,

I give you these things of first importance. First, Christ died according to the scriptures, was buried, and on the third day

He was resurrected. This is the gospel by which we're saved. Romans 1, 15, 15, 1, 1, 4, 4.

Death, death, burial, resurrection, resurrection. That is the gospel. That's the gospel. Now, justification.

Close with that. All things related to salvation. Close with that. But this act, death, death of Christ, burial, resurrection.

This is the heart of the gospel. That's the Christian gospel. So, when we look at the

Roman Apostles, you know what they'll say? They'll say the same thing. They'll say the same thing.

I'm going to read this to you. Anyone know, gosh, what's this guy's name?

Baron. Is that the guy's name? Baron? That famous priest? Bishop Baron. Bishop Baron.

Very popular priest. He has a show called Word on Fire.

And he had a blog post a couple years ago on what is the gospel, what precisely is the gospel.

And this is what he wrote in regard to that. This is probably one of the most, this is probably the most famous bishop in the

United States. Now, here's what he says about the gospel.

For most evangelicals, the gospel is some version of justification by grace or saving.

So, I've heard that, which is, you know, it's true. Most Christians will rightfully focus on justification by grace or saving.

And that we are sinners, fools, and tables facing ourselves, or any culture of our own. But Jesus says our sins and our trust in him will find eternal salvation.

That's his description of the evangelical description of the gospel. Some refer to the Roman Romans, which is a series of textual faults in the

Romans that sum up this character. The clarity and simplicity of this is to allow evangelicals responding confidently to yes when asked, are you saved?

Or even to give a specific date when asked, when were you saved? I believe that most

Catholics would start heaving in awe when asked those same questions. Now, here's how he defines the gospel.

In my judgment, it's not all that bad. Catholics hold that the gospel can either be introduced in the panics of justification, or to state it differently, that justification is a richer and denser reality than most have thought.

And now here's his definition. The basic meaning of the good news of the gospel is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Whoa, that's pretty good. Roman Catholic bishops say, when summing up the gospel, that the good news is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

When the first Christians announced evangelion, that's what they meant.

You feel that what God brings is the basic form of charismatic preaching.

What this entails is that God's love is more powerful than sin and death, more powerful than anything in the world.

On fire, with this good news, St. Paul could say, Jesus Christ, Jesus is

Lord, as opposed to Kaiser Christ, Caesar is Lord. The good news is that you have won such a victory, and now it's time to join his army.

Very, very important. Here is really, on the surface, this sounds great.

Doesn't it? This sounds fantastic. This is the gospel, and it's after the resurrection of Christ.

Where do we differ? Where do we differ on the gospel? From Roman Catholicism?

It was very subtle, I don't know what people thought about that. To join his army?

He said the gospel is the resurrection. Yeah, yeah. Does the Eucharist before the resurrection have the life, and then the death, the atoning death, and then the resurrection?

That's right. That's right. Maybe we're church people here, maybe that's what he meant.

Clearly, it's not just the resurrection, it's not just the cross. It's the cross, it's the burial, it's the resurrection.

St. Paul is the first Christian to be baptized. I think he generously said maybe that's what he meant.

Yeah, yeah. We're not legalists to kick your earring like that, but we would never say that the gospel is the resurrection alone.

We would never just put that out in plain without the other, even in canon conversation.

We would say the gospel is the resurrection, and the resurrection is preceded by something as important as.

So we look at the whole Roman Christ as Protestants. We won't look at the whole

Roman Christ. Now, Roman Catholics will have an argument for this as well. But I think what's interesting is here, the good news he says is that you, nothing king, have won this life of victory.

Amen, and I love you. That is true. And now it's time to join our victory. What he's saying is now that this victory is won, now that we know that Jesus is

Lord, now we have to join one church. And there's only one church to be established, and that's the church that was established by St.

Peter. It was the gates of the keys of his kingdom. Keys of his kingdom.

Yeah, keys of his kingdom. And so he can finally lose his daughter, and that's the problem.

And that's why you have to get a Roman Catholic. So very quickly, we went from good news to bad news. Good news, you support.

Bad news, you support. You have to get a Catholic. So, do you have anything to add? Yeah, well, it makes you think of, there's an interplay between how the gospel is almost,

I would say, just like Paul says in Galatians, right? When he's talking about another gospel, he's defining it almost in those terms of how it applies in just Galatians 2.

And so for the Roman Catholic to affirm all those things about what Jesus has done, that sounds so, at a highlight level, true.

But then when you see how it actually applies, the definition of how it's applied to the individual actually goes back and changes what is actually meant by what

Jesus did, right? Like, they don't actually mean he did a thing. What did he actually accomplish becomes diminished by how it's applied.

And so those two things are actually very tightly knit together. So, the reformers had a very important phrase.

Christ, Christ alone. Right? Notice the next sentence here from this

Catholic missionary here. All the Catholic reading, this implies that one should become a member of the mystical body of the

Church. So, now that's a different word. To the reformer,

Christ means resurrection. Death by resurrection. So, this implies, the implication is clear. You have to become a part of our mystical body.

Yes, this is the gospel. What he doesn't talk about is how those benefits, again, apply to it.

So, let's look a little bit at the implications of how Roman Catholics read the gospel. This is again from Bishop Jerry.

He goes on to talk about the gospel. He says, But this means that the dimensions of Jesus' victory are extremely outward.

As the God -man, Jesus represents and affects the deification of humanity.

Very interesting language. Jesus is God's final and definitive rescuing of the human project.

As the Church of College put it over and over again, He puts a Latin phrase, which means,

God became human. That humans might become God. In point of fact, what

Patricia got at was my response to Carl Sagan many years ago. Long before Confirmation, the brightest

Christians in the world have summed up the good news with this ecstatic declaration of deification.

And he says, essentially, he goes on to say, essentially, he goes on to say that in order for us to fully grasp this gospel, what he's saying is that the gospel is what leads to deification in the divine nature, in the divine family of God.

Very similar to the Eastern Orthodox view of deification. They're very similar. But essentially, it's something that we don't.

And that's the reason why we don't. So, in practice, they say the gospel is the resurrection of Christ.

But what we're really made of by that is the resurrection is what opens the way for us to have membership to the

Roman Catholic Institution of Church. And then, through the liturgy, the piety, all the things that have to be done in keeping with that Catholic Institution, then we regain our gain, not just in the glorification of the process, but deification.

Now, that's a significant difference. Glorification is the Bible teaches that we'll receive. You've been justified.

And your justification is leading to sanctification, sanctification is now leading to glorification.

That's what they're saying. But what the Roman Catholic teaches is a little bit different. That ultimately what leads to the end of the gospel's road, so to speak, is deification.

Why is that? Why is that a more important statement? Why is that a more important place? I think that's a reasonable implication.

I'm not sure that that's exactly how Rome was spelled out. But I think that's certainly a reasonable implication, especially when you look at the deification of the first barrier, how

Christianity is deified, how Satanism is deified. These are all things that certainly are an outlier to the

Roman Catholic. So, Rome mainly is an outlandish statement concerning salvation, concerning the deification of humans and deification of saints.

And it's no wonder then why people start worshiping him. Right, right. Aren't they saying that Christ didn't pay for our sins?

I mean, he didn't pay sufficiently that we still have to enjoy everything.

Any time you introduce verses to the doctrines of grace, you are making

Christ sacrifice a little bit. You may be low, but sacrifice

Christ. When it's Christ's hand, whatever, Christ's hand that you use,

Christ's hand in the church, Christ's hand. You know, the reformers were very clear. It's Christ alone. It's Christ alone.

That's the big difference between the Roman Catholic understanding of the gospel and the

Christian understanding of the gospel. It's that ours centers around Christ alone as being the center point of our salvation.

Nothing can be added. Nothing can be taken. Christ's salvation. Christ's glory.

That's the big difference. That's the gospel difference between the Roman Catholic and the

Roman Catholic. Any other questions on this? Yes, yes.

So they – oh, I'm sorry. Oh, go ahead. Well, you know, the blog you read about them, but then, you know, they will venerate her.

You know, it just seems like there's like such a –

I mean, understandably, she gave birth to Jesus Christ, but there's such a focus on –

So they would say these things about Christ, but then they would turn and they would venerate her. That's right. But then they would also deny that they don't worship her.

That's right. That's right. You know, it's interesting if you – Bishop Berrier makes a really interesting statement here in reference to the gospel where he says that it was because of Christ's resurrection that early

Christians would say, Jesus is Kurios, which is Jesus is Lord, versus Chizos is

Kurios. Caesar is Lord. And if you were to ask a Roman Catholic who followed that line of reasoning, you'd say, were people who were saying

Caesar is Lord, were they worshiping Caesar? They'd probably say yes, because they were associating it with Jesus being

Lord. That's right. Worshiping Jesus. Worshiping Jesus. And so if that is worship, the statement of saying

Caesar is Lord, then how can it not be a Roman Catholic standing for idols, standing for Mary, praying for saints.

How is that not worship? They'll say all day to you, it's not worship. Well, let's call it what it is.

It's worship. So this is part of the fall of Roman Catholicism that James White and Mike Luce did.

They have such – they have uploaded their own messaging, their own teaching so much with the aroma of man -made doctrines and teachings that sometimes they just can't get on to the right -right conclusion and the right -right system.

It's again the fall of false teaching, the fall of mysticism, the fall of false worship.

These are all things which come under the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. So there is a theological difference between Roman Catholicism and the

West Coast Church of Egypt. And that's important because the temptation today, especially if we're looking to conserve circles and movements in this present day, is to try to align ourselves with people who are like -minded in social issues.

Right? So because we have so close ties with Roman Catholicism, the issue is wide -eyed.

You know, when we go out ministering to the abortion clinics at our church, the only other group that's usually out there consistently is either the other

Baptist church or Roman Catholic Church. So you've got to give your prayer on the social front of things.

But that's – the social front of things is also just a fall. Because the social issues are not a fall.

Right? So it's so easy to align ourselves with these groups on certain things. And I think living things are helpful things.

But we have to remember that just because we agree on the issues of life does not mean that they are our brothers. That's really important.

We do not have spiritual brotherhood with Rome. That would be incorrect.

That would be false. We have no spiritual ties to Rome. In terms of them being an authentic Christian movement.

Does that make sense? Any questions on that? Don't they also say that they –

Mary and the saints are mediators? It says that there's only one mediator.

Yes. The issues of leadership and Roman Catholicism make sense all the way down to the view of Eucharist priests.

Priests are also types of mediators. That's why they can forgive sin. It extends far beyond just the view of saints and the view of Mary.

It extends all the way to Dr. Priests. So, yeah, we'll definitely be getting more into those important issues.

Kevin, do you have a hand up? Yes. So, I have a question. I guess my question is what is the main thing to get to the heart of the issue?

Because what I usually say, or the mainline thing I usually say is that – because even the

Apostle Trent, he says they believe that justification and sanctification is part of the same process.

Justification is not a remission of sins merely, but sanctification and renewal of the inner man through the voluntary reception of grace.

And that's on justification in the Apostle Trent. And also, one says that my faith alone, in his, is justified.

It's a perfect remedy. I don't have to know. But even as I present that,

I feel like all my Catholic friends are still like, oh, we're still one in the same.

We're still serving the same God. And then I don't know how to move on from that.

You know, I think that one of the greatest dangers of Rome is that for the most part – and I have to give this caveat because I do think there are actually some substantial differences between our views of the

Godhead. But for the most part, on the surface, we have the same view of the Godhead.

Fathers of the Holy Spirit are our children. And so it can be tempting to say, well, on the surface, we have the same view of the

Church. And I think that's what makes Rome probably the most dangerous religion in the world.

Every other religion departs from this issue. Islam, Christians, Mormons.

Every religion departs from authentic Christianity in their view of the Godhead. Roman Catholicism is the one major false religion that has at least the same resemblance of the

Godhead as we do. And so I think that's what makes Rome all the more dangerous and all the more – this disease of the

Godhead. It's that they have, for the most part, a right understanding of the Godhead, and yet they misrepresent that Godhead at every turn.

So I think that's one of the social changes. So I would contend that, though they may have, on the surface, a right understanding of the

Church, they are greatly displeased by God in their faith in Christ Jesus.

And so that makes them all the more likely to hate Christ Jesus. In terms of their view of justification as well, obviously, the

Protestants historically have used justification as a declaratory word for God to say, I have declared this person righteous by the blood of Jesus.

Then that person is sanctified in the Spirit, leading to their glorification, which is our joy in working with Christ in any resurrection.

So that's the implication. Whereas the Roman Catholic, along with the Eastern Orthodox view of the

Church or view of justification, has it a little bit more akin to an amalgamation of sanctification and glorification kind of all mixed in in a blended way.

And so the Roman Catholic is saying that justification is not just the declaration of God upon His people, that they've been declared righteous, which is what the word justification means, declared righteous.

That it's not just a legal declaration of righteousness. But it is an infusing of divine –

I'm not sure what actually should be the right word. What would be the right word when you're doing grace? What's that? Yeah, it's an importation of divine grace, of sorts, that now it's just really weird.

It's hard to explain. They distinguish between some of these things in ways that I don't totally understand.

But the Catholic Catechism, paragraph 210 of the Catholic Catechism, says no one can merit justification.

However, you can merit for yourself eternal life. So they distinguish between justification and eternal life.

We would say if someone's justified, they have eternal life. They would say that person is on track for eternal life, and now they've got to merit the eternal life.

So I don't know how they're distinguishing these, but they do. They do, and it's only because of the church.

It's not like they're looking at the text and saying, oh, look, there's this. Now, one of the things that the Eastern Orthodox Church has done well, when

I look at their argumentations on justification, is that they look at the word justification, and we as Catholics bring out that idea.

The word basically means to be declared righteous. So actually, the right translation for justification would be to be declared righteous.

But when you look at the word, it doesn't just mean declared righteous, that there's a declaration, and then that person is just on the surface righteous.

But rather, they become righteous, is the Eastern Orthodox Church. So not only are you being declared righteous, but you are actually now made righteous intrinsically.

And that would be more akin also to what the Catholic Catechism says. You are made righteous and kept righteous by your adherence to Roman Catholic practices.

So that's the difference between the Christian justification and the Roman Catholic justification.

So righteousness can be lost. What's that? Righteousness can be lost. Yes. It can be.

That's right. Anyone else?

I have a comment on the deification thing. This is really complicated and hard to explain, but there's a controversy among Reformed churches that this relates to.

And so I kind of want to let you all know, for the two or three of you that may be aware of these controversies.

So there's controversy in that there are a lot of different theologians who have been embracing what's been called theological mutualism.

Basically that God adopts properties of man to be able to relate to man.

So, for example, he steps into time, and not just that his actions are in time, but he actually becomes subject to time itself.

And he has emotions like men and things like that. These are otherwise good theologians that are doing this.

A lot of those in the Reformed community have rightly gone against that.

But it's been by embracing a lot of Roman Catholic theology, specifically from Thomas Aquinas, because he was very clear on a lot of these things in a very good way.

But one of those ways is this whole nature -grace distinction. Where that comes in, this whole deification thing, they believe that Adam was created with knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, like we believe.

But naturally, he was without that extra righteousness or without that extra holiness that's needed to be able to commune with God.

That's something in addition to nature. That's grace. And so since that's been lost in the fall, what's needed is that deification.

So it's this difference between what one theologian has called backdoor mutualism and frontdoor mutualism.

So one party's got this idea that God has to become like man and subject to creation in order to commune with man.

And the traditional Roman Catholic view implies that man has to become like God in order to commune with him.

And so, yeah, it's important to embrace the idea that man was created naturally able to commune with God without God becoming man or without man becoming

God. Anyway, this is a debate that's going on right now. Yeah.

11th century theologian, Roman Catholic theologian. Yeah. And so there are some things that Thomas Aquinas touches on that are good apologetics.

But there is a, when I went to Rome last year, James White White had a really, really great sermon on this issue.

The reliance upon one of the most reformed individuals. There's kind of an in -house as well in the reform camp on the right way to use them.

But I would say that I would tend to be on the conservative side of these things and not want to associate our understanding of Christianity with Roman Catholic theologian doctrines and teachings.

What's interesting is that this guy that I played earlier, Bishop Charon, there's a lot of things that I've heard him talk. I've heard his podcasts at times.

I've been interviewed by major newsgroups and groups that I really, really like. There are a lot of things

I can say. I affirm that. But I also have to direct you guys to realize that we're talking, we're still talking about a false teacher here.

Thomas Aquinas is a false teacher. Bishop Charon is a false teacher. Take certain things with a grain of salt and understand that this is coming from a bad source, from a

Roman Catholic source. Now, some would say that Thomas Aquinas is not a false teacher. That's because he avoided a lot of the major baggage of Maryology and all the things that really do keep people on the pipeline a little bit after his time.

But that would be a discussion for another day. So I'm going to close on this time. I'm going to quickly pray a prayer.

I'm going to pray for service. Father, we do come before you. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness. Thank you, Lord, that you have given us great, great teachings through your gospel.

And that you have given us, in your word, a right tool to understand, to abide, truth, and to bring forth this message of light to our

Roman Catholic neighbors and friends. We ask that you grant us more wisdom, more strength, more understanding in our own times.

Through these teachings and more and more. I pray that you would love us. I pray, God, that you would help us to have a right way of these things.

To love our neighbor, love our Roman Catholic neighbor, love our neighbor's first Corinthians, love our neighbor's first Roman Corinthians, love our neighbor's first Mormon.

And by loving them, not just in word, but also in speed, by sharing this incredible gospel with you, in Jesus' name.