Adult Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 21

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The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 21 Date: October 22, 2023 Teacher: Pastor Brian Garcia

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that you've given us grace that is sufficient to bring us to this place this morning.
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We thank you, Lord, for every trial, every blessing of the past week. We know,
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Lord, that you, through such occasions, whether trials, tribulations, or praises, you are building in us and working in us that which is pleasing in your sight, creating in us an eternal weight of glory that cannot be outweighed.
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Lord, in this moment, we pray for clarity. We pray, God, for guidance, for your protection, for your
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Spirit to lead us in all truth. We thank you for this occasion in particular as we finish this book that we started many months ago on the
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Roman Catholic Controversy. Thank you, Lord, for the knowledge and the wisdom you've imparted to us by means of this information, by means of this time together that we spend.
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We pray, Lord, that even now as we conclude this time that you would help us to have in our recollection these important things that were discussed and how this truly is a gospel issue and how we can best share the gospel with those who are stuck in the falsehood of Rome.
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We pray, Lord, that your truth and that your word would be magnified for the glory of your
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Son, Jesus Christ, to whom be glory. Amen. Well, truly, as we conclude the book, the
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Roman Catholic Controversy, chapter 14, we recognize that at the conclusion of all the things that we learned, what's truly at stake here is the gospel itself.
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And this isn't just mere interdenominational doctrinal quarrels or disagreements, but really what's at stake is the doctrinal purity of the gospel itself.
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Now, friends, let me bring to your recollection the fact that there is only one gospel that can save.
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There are not multiple paths to God. There's not multiple gospels that can save. According to Scripture, there's only one gospel that saves, and it's the gospel of Jesus Christ and of the kingdom of God.
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That gospel centers around man's total inability to save himself and around Christ's perfect and sovereign work of salvation, namely his death, burial, his...
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First of all, actually, his incarnation, his perfect obedience, his death, burial, and resurrection, where he now lives and intercedes at the right hand of God the
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Father. The gospel centers around Christ's perfect work. Remember, it is good news.
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And the good news is that though you have a total inability to save yourself,
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God has a total ability to save man. And this is why the writer of Hebrews can rightfully say in Hebrews 7 that Christ's sacrificial work saves us to the uttermost part.
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That's what the writer of Hebrews says, that God's salvation through Christ is up to the most uttermost part.
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It is complete. It is sovereign, and it is sure. And that's what's at stake here in regard to the material that we've been going over for several months now in the
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Roman Catholic controversy. It's the gospel itself. In the last chapter in page 219, I want to ask the question, what was at the heart of Martin Luther's Reformation?
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What doctrine or what Latin phrase is used to describe that which was at the very heart of the
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Reformation? You'll find the answer on page 219 under J .I.
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Packer's quote on the doctrine of justification. It is justification, and in particular, a certain kind of focus on justification.
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And by grace, sola gratia. And there's a particular term here, articulis santis, el candentes esclesiae, which is the article of faith by which decides whether the church is standing or falling.
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And it's particular, the article of sanctifying grace.
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Rome, as we learned throughout this teaching, doesn't believe in sola gratia, doesn't believe sola scriptura, sola
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Christus. It truly believes in sola Roma, which is, Rome alone is the true final authority because the church, with Scripture coupled with tradition, coupled with the edicts of the papacy, has the authority.
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That's where the authority is. It's in the succession of St. Peter's popes. But that's not so in Scripture.
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The authority is Scripture itself. And Scripture tells us that at the heart of the gospel is justification, and it's salvation by grace through faith.
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And so we have the question that we must ask ourselves is this, has Rome changed her doctrine of justification since the days of the
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Reformation? Because when Martin Luther started the Reformation, since then there have been some tangible, actual changes in Rome.
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Does it deal with justification? Has the view of justification changed in Rome? Yes.
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How so? That's right.
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That's right. Anyone else? Has Rome changed their view on justification?
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You know, at the heart of it, it hasn't really changed.
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You know, the same vile doctrines that Martin Luther and the other Reformers rallied against are still at the very heart of modern day
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Roman Catholicism. And what they have done, however, is they have cleaned up the edges.
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And so you don't see such a hyper focus on indulgences as you would have seen down in the days of Martin Luther, where I think
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Luther puts it, you know, you can find at every street corner in Rome, you can find an icon, you know, of Saint Peter or of Jesus.
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Basically, like, you know, every, I think the phrase was like, everyone has, you know, on every corner of Rome, you know, you'll find the nails of Jesus's cross or something to that degree.
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And so you can find, everyone claims to have this icon, everyone claims to have this new thing. And if you only, if you pay this much to come, you know, you will reap the blessing of it.
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And so their focus on indulgences certainly has lessened.
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And that was one of the main gripes of the Reformation was this complete outward rejection of sola fide and sola gratia, which is, you know, having these dependence on these icons, having dependence upon these other extra things in order to make us right with God, in order to get us out of purgatory.
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But at the heart of it, the doctrine has not really changed. In fact, they've only dauntingly embraced it more since the
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Reformation, as Brother Emanuel says, has been formally accepted in the councils of Trent and other places,
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Vatican II among them. But somewhere when Catholics would say, no, hey, look, we've changed.
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Like, we have progressed. And when you hear, in particular, the last couple of Popes, there seems to be almost a sly embrace of certain traditional
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Protestant phrases. Among them is this idea of grace.
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Among them is this idea of faith. If you listen to a lot of modern Roman Catholic apologists, particularly in the
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West, you'll see that there is almost a embrace of more evangelical language that's coming out of Romanism today.
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But I would say that this is very misleading, of course. You know, what is interesting and what's brought out here, according to J .I.
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Packer, is that the Reformers believe that when the truth of justification by faith is neglected, overlaid, or denied, the church enters into a state of spiritual darkness and death.
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And so the question is, has Rome since then renounced those teachings that the Reformers rightly saw as being denials of justification by grace through faith alone?
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And we've learned over the course of this book and this literature is that they have not changed these doctrinal stances.
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Remember that at the heart of the Reformation as well was in the word reform, Reformation, is they wanted to reform the church.
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And so they didn't want to start a new church. Martin Luther wasn't looking for a denomination after his own name. You know, these are not things that they, you know, particularly wanted.
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They wanted to reform the church, but she would not have it. And so, inevitably, you have
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Protestantism. Protestantism comes from the English word to protest.
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And this was a protest, a response to the errors of Roman Catholicism.
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And so we are all here Protestants, because in particular, we embrace the five solos.
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You had your hand up, Emmanuel? Yeah. Why is that?
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And just for people who don't know who's Athanasius. So what is
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Arianism for those who don't know? So it's a denial of the
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Trinity. And Athanasius was a fifth century church father who, you know, defended the doctrines of the
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Trinity. We have what's called the Athanasius Creed. And so, yeah, he's very popular among, you know, other, you know,
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Antinousian fathers like Augustine and others who are very popular, who Rome has really appealed to and canonized them as saints.
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And there is, of course, a kind of a departure from some of those early church fathers.
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I mean, they've been departing since the beginning from the teachings of the early church fathers.
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Let's turn to page 220. Now, in the middle of this paragraph on page 220,
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I just want to highlight this. It says, Rome's official teachings continue to deny justification by faith alone.
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And when other teachings are allowed into the discussion, such as the mass and purgatory, there are fundamental and basic differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics on the central issue of the
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Gospel itself. If a person wishes to deny or in some way, other way, remove himself from the authority of these official statements, we can only applaud him.
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So referring to Roman Catholics who, you know, you get this a lot. Most Roman Catholics are nominal
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Catholics. And so, and most of them are not doctrinally astute.
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However, if you do talk to some Roman Catholics, they'll say to you, well, you know, we don't really believe everything the
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Pope says, we don't really believe all that, you know, because they're cultural Catholics, they're nominal
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Catholics. And if they study the Bible, they'll probably have more or less maybe a
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Protestant mindset on many central issues. But because they haven't really connected adults all the way, they still have, you know, they still believe that Rome is the church that they have to belong to.
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So when we meet such, you know, individuals who kind of divorce themselves from these official teachings and statements of the church, we should applaud them.
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But as it says here, but at the same time, we have to wonder why such a person wishes to remain, maintain the name Roman Catholic while denying the substance of its faith, right?
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So you're find this a lot, guys, if you talk to Roman Catholics, is that you'll have people who embrace the title, name, traditions, but really don't subscribe wholeheartedly to the faith of Roman Catholicism.
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And that is a perplexing thing. And I find this also in my former faith of Jehovah's Witnesses, where I find a lot of, particularly in the ex -Jehovah
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Witness community, people who still agree and think that the
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Jehovah Witnesses, by and large, is this true religion, even though they have a lot of errors.
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And so say, oh, Jehovah Witnesses are wrong on this, on that, but they're still God's organization. And that's the same mindset that I think exists in a lot of Roman Catholics.
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They say, well, the church is wrong about this or that, but it's still God's church. And it's very perplexing because, again, we have to highlight that what's at the center of this is a gospel difference.
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It's not the same gospel. Roman Catholicism does not have the same gospel.
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And what does the gospel of God bring forth? What is the thing that it produces, according to Romans chapter 5, verse 1?
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What does the gospel produce? It produces peace. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
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Paul says, we can enjoy peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
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It produces peace. And Roman Catholics cannot truly know and experience this peace because to them, justification is by the merit of their works and the merits of Rome and not upon the merits of Christ.
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And so in order to have true peace, it's like this. If you're constantly, whether in a relationship, in a marriage, with your parents, if you feel like you constantly have to strive for someone's approval, do you truly have peace with that person in that relationship?
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No. If you feel like you always have to prove yourself and you can't just be yourself, there's not peace.
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You know, true peace is when in a relationship, whether it's with a family member or spouse, whatever it may be, it's when you kind of just let yourself be yourself and that person loves and embraces you even at your best, even at your worst, right?
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And you have peace. You have a security in that relationship. And it's the same thing with the
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Lord Jesus Christ, folks. When you know Jesus and you know Him and you have a relationship with Him, you have peace because you know
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Him and He knows you. And He knows you at your best and He knows you at your worst. And that Jesus offers forgiveness, redemption, and He offers you peace.
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And you can have peace with God through Jesus Christ. And unfortunately, folks,
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Rome does not teach or have that peace with God. So when it comes to the big question, how should we respond to the information that we've been presented with here in this book?
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He says here in page 220, in the second to last paragraph there, it says,
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I believe Christians committed to God's truth must think long and hard on the issues presented by Rome, such things such as the sacrament, the state of grace, the mass, as a propitiatory sacrifice, purgatory, merit, indulgences.
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Should we share the gospel with those who claim to already know it? What do you think?
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Should we share the gospel with Roman Catholics? Amen, we absolutely should.
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Now, if you've been knocking on doors with me here in this community, we've knocked on several
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Roman Catholic doors. And I love it because they make it pretty easy. They usually have a little statue of Mary or something.
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And so when you see that, okay, you're dealing with Roman Catholic. But I always ask the question, well, hey, do you go to church?
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And they say, yes, we go to the Catholic Church. I say, well, that's wonderful. And I say, we're
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Christians and we believe in the Bible. I try to build common ground. You always want to try to build on common ground.
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And so how do you start a conversation with Roman Catholics? Say, hey, there's so many things that we share in common. Hey, we believe in the
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Bible. You know, we believe in Jesus. We believe in the Holy Trinity. These are things that you want to build on.
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But I say, but you know, we do have some differences. And I'd love to talk to you about those differences, right?
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And out there you'll get a yes or no, or maybe something in between. But you want to highlight first what we have in common.
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Because if you don't build common ground with even your enemies, you'll never be able to get your point across.
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You'll never be able to get a word in. And so you have to build some form of connection, some type of bond, some type of understanding that, hey, we know we have some certain things in common and you want to highlight those things.
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Yes. Yeah. Yes, that's where we're going to address that.
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So there's a larger crowd too, even within the reform camp, Jay Packer, Doug Wilson.
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Doug Wilson believes, and if you guys don't know who Doug Wilson is, he's a fairly influential
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Presbyterian, you know, reform preacher out in Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.
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And he is kind of like the spiritual father to guys like even, you know,
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Jeff Durbin, who's a reform Baptist, but has kind of the theonomous views similar to Doug Wilson, and post -millennial views as well in terms of eschatology.
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And you have Doug Wilson who says that Catholics are our brothers because they've been baptized under a Trinitarian formula, right?
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So by virtue of their Trinitarian baptism, and again, he's a paedo -baptist, you know, these folks are brothers.
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Yeah, I totally disagree with that. And I think Jay Packer had a similar view. And I think that's where he was coming from, is because we share a
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Trinitarian godhead, and because we share a Trinitarian baptism, that we should consider them brothers, but who are severely misled.
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I don't think those two things can coexist peacefully. I think you cannot, just because you affirm the
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Trinity, and that's major. I mean, again, those are one of the things that we want to highlight, is that, hey, we affirm some pretty important stuff, you know.
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But when we get into the details, the devil's always in the details, we digress and we disagree on some very, very important central things, things relating to the gospel of our salvation.
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And so, yeah, I would not link hands with Roman anyway. I would take the more historic
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Reformed Baptist view, that again, Roman Catholicism is not just a divergence, but it is the ancient apostasy foretold in Scripture, that the man who sits at the helm of the papacy is himself the son of perdition, and is himself that Antichrist.
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Matter of fact, you know, I forgot that I wanted to do this, and I just reminded myself.
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And so next week, I'm going to do one more class, and I'm going to help bring the point and maybe present to you some compelling evidence why the
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Pope is the Antichrist, okay? So if you want to hear that discussion, make sure you hear sharp 930, so we can get that borrowed, because I'm sure you're going to have lots of questions.
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And so I want to present to you, and it's in accordance with our confession as well, as the 1689
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Second Lenten Baptist Confession, that the Antichrist is that son of perdition. And I'm going to show you some pretty compelling reasons why
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I think that's still the case. Yes, sir? I think so.
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Yeah, yeah. He presents the gospel and preaches the gospel clearly. And so I would say he is wrong, obviously, on some pretty important things, but they're not gospel -related issues.
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You know, one of the people I respect very much in the 20th century was a man,
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Walter, I was going to say Walter White, that's not the guy, Walter Martin.
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And Walter Martin was an apologist, and he was kind of more on the charismatic side in terms of his personal views,
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I think. But he had some things I disagreed with, but he was also very sharp to point out
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Roman Catholicism is not Orthodox Christianity. But he also embraced groups that I was surprised by.
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So he rejected Roman Catholicism, but he embraced the brotherhood of Seventh -day
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Adventists and included them amongst people who he considered to be
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Christian, but who were unorthodox on some pretty important doctrinal issues.
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And I could see how he got there. I'm not sure that I would get there, but certainly
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I've met Seventh -day Adventists who I believe know the Lord. But when you look at the doctrinal stance of the
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SDA church, I think, you know, I would put them pretty close up there to Roman Catholicism in terms of how much they digress from the doctrine of grace.
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But the short answer is yes. I think going to Doug Wilson's church would be fine.
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You know, generally, if there's no good Reformed Baptist church in your area, finding a solid
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Presbyterian church would be probably the next place I would look for and go to.
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And Doug Wilson is solid on most other things, except, you know, probably three pretty important things that I would strongly disagree with.
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But no one has perfect doctrine, not even us in this church. I'm sure Jesus is just looking at us and saying, you guys are so wrong on certain things, but we hope to be right in the best ways that we can, and especially in the major things.
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Yes, John. James White, yeah.
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And they debated, you can find a debate on YouTube between James White and Doug Wilson on the topic, is the
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Roman Catholic my brother? I think it was the topic. Is the Roman Catholic my brother? So look up that later this afternoon.
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It's a really great discussion between James White and Doug Wilson. Yes. If this is too much of an excursus, just tell me.
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We can do it offline. But after going through the book, we always said that Rome is
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Trinitarian, and I always have this problem, and if Mary is the redemptress who brings our prayers to Jesus, that denigrates
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Jesus and his work to a point where I have a hard time actually agreeing. That's a good point.
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So I think here's how I would categorize it. They're confessionally Trinitarian, but they are, yeah, in practice, yeah, they're probably not
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Trinitarian because I think that the exaltation of Mary and her deification would constitute really a deviation from any
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Trinitarian orthodoxy. And you have to understand, how did the doctrine of the
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Trinity develop? And it developed specifically out of a high view for the glory, honor, and worship of the one true
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God of Scripture. And what I mean by that is the early Christians acknowledging that Yahweh is jealous and seeks exclusive devotion had a square.
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Why then does this one true God of the Old Testament, who claims to be the only one worthy of worship, allows other persons to be worshiped alongside him?
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So like John 17, Jesus says, Father, now glorify me with the glory that I had with you before the world was.
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Jesus is worshiped alongside the Father there. How do we square that with the rest of Scripture? And it was really, the doctrine of the
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Trinity is really the preservation of the exclusivity of the worship of the one true God, right?
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Because if we say that, okay, there's the worship of the one true God, but there's these other persons who are deity -like, and they can be worshiped, it really destroys that whole concept.
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And so the Trinity is really a response to understanding the exclusivity of the worship of the one true
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God, because Scripture points out that there are three persons who are worshiped as Yahweh, Father, Son, and Spirit, and therefore the
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Trinity developed formally within church history to say there is one
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God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so it's really a response to protect the exclusivity of God's worship.
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And I think Roman Catholicism deviates from that when they bring in the exaltation and the, remember what we learned last week, there's a lesser kind of worship,
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Latreia, that is implored in regard to the saints, and in particular to Mary, who has the highest form of Latreia worship amongst the saints of the
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Roman Catholic Church. And so to me, that would constitute deviation from Trinitarian orthodoxy, which
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I think pastors write. So they are confessionally Trinitarian, but in practice I think they're probably lower -T
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Trinitarians. Make sense? Any thoughts or questions on that? So what it comes down to is peace with God, as we've been discussing so far.
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Now James White, in page 221 in the middle paragraph, he says,
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I conclude that the official teachings of Rome have compromised the gospel through both addition and subtraction.
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I love that he says that. Because the Church of Rome has added and they've taken away precious truths.
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Not only are the central places of grace and faith replaced with a human -centered concept, but additions are made that likewise violate the spirit of the gospel of grace.
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Does the Roman Catholic gospel save? Yea or nay?
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So I don't believe any
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Protestant says that. I've not met a Protestant that believes that yet. Yeah.
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Okay. You got a thought on that? Yeah. Well, it's written in scripture in Acts chapter 20 and in verse 28, it says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the
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Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
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I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
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And from among yourselves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.
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Therefore be alert. And so even here, Paul recognizes and warns the church after their departure of the apostles that they'll come amongst the people of God, ravenous wolves who will lead
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God's people astray. The apostasy is foretold in scripture that there is an apostasy in which many will be led away.
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And I believe that the Roman Catholic church is the fulfillment of that apostasy. It led people away from true worship.
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It led people to a false gospel. Now, what do we do? In the midst of the darkness that was foretold not only by the
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Lord Jesus Christ, but by his apostles, the truth was is that Jesus was always going to preserve a distinct people for his own name.
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And so Jesus says that on this rock, I will build my church and the gates should not prevail against it.
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In 2 Timothy chapter 2, I believe, Paul writes, in rebuking the false teachers, he says, but in verse 16, but avoid you reverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness.
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And their talk was spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who swerved from the truth saying that the resurrection has already happened.
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They are upsetting the faith of some. So he's talking about apostate heresy and teachings here.
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But notice the promise that he affirms at the end of this. But God's firm foundation stands bearing the seal.
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The Lord knows who are his and that everyone who names the name of the
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Lord depart from iniquity. And so along with apostate heretical teaching is going to be those whom the
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Lord knows are his own. And so I would say throughout church history, Christ has always had his own people.
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And you can clearly, in every century, find such individuals, whether it be
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Wycliffe, who was burned at the stake, whether it be, you know, throughout the medieval ages.
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What's that? So many individuals that you can point to in church history that stood as bulwarks against the false teachings of Rome.
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And though the church may have, the true church may have dwindled greatly in that time, you know,
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God's people and God's truth has always been around. And it has and will always prevail, which is why, you know, should the
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Lord tarry in his coming, we can have confidence that even in the next thousand years, through the ebbs and flows of history,
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Christ's church will still be here. So, yeah. Yeah, you know, we have to be careful with prescribing a metric that was foreign to a particular time, because if we're looking for someone to say that magical word,
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Sola Gratia or Sola Christa, Sola Scriptura, before the terms were actually popularized in the
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Reformation, you know, I think that may not be the correct metric. You know, what
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I look for in terms of true believers are those who would have confessed similarly to the anti -Nicene
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Fathers and the even pre -Nicene Fathers, the Trinitarian faith, and particularly salvation by grace through faith in accordance of Ephesians chapter 2.
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And you'll find that throughout church history. And so, I don't think that I have to, they have to particularly meet every five points of Calvinism or the five
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Solas in order to, you know, incorporate them into God's true church, because the reality is that even genuinely saved individuals today have many doctrinal impurities and falsehoods that they have to contend with.
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And so, I'm not looking for perfect doctrine, but I am looking for people in church history who stood up to the false teachings of Rome, in particular when it comes to salvation.
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So, and I think we have ample evidence of that throughout church history, in particularly the
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Middle Ages. And so, I know that one of the things that Rome points to as a evidence of her truthhood is the continuity of the church.
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So, starting in the, you know, really in the 8th century all the way to today and saying, hey, look, you know, we have successors, we've never, there's never been a time which the church was not.
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And so, to the Protestant, they say, well, basically, you know, started in the 1500s.
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You guys started in, you know, the 16th century. So, you know, you're a new thing. You're not the ancient church.
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Similar claims would be made by the Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox Church. But the reality is that Christ has always had
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His church. Christ's church has always been here. And it may have dwindled greatly during the time of apostasy, but God's truth remains still.
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So, and it's here today. And part of it is that there has been kind of a, just as Revelation and Scripture is progressive, there has been a progressive return to the truth of Scripture, which
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I believe started even before the Reformation, which actually started around the 1300s, when you look at some of the things that were becoming the seeds of the
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Reformation. So, any other thoughts or questions? Does that help answer those two questions?
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Okay. How about for you? The Lord knows we're His. This is the point of that.
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The Lord knows we're His. And whether it be a few hundred, a few thousand, you know,
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Christ has always had a people distinct. And so, yeah,
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I don't, you know, again, one of the allures to Romanism is the fact that, okay, they have great continuity.
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And we grant that. They have had great continuity. And they had a great continuity in error as well.
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And so, just because they've been around a long time does not mean that their claims and their teachings are true.
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Satan has great continuity. His kingdom, his wickedness, his counterfeit message has been there alongside the teachings of the apostles.
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The apostles said, this error is here now and shall persist until the day of the
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Lord. And so, clearly, we're living in such times. And next week, again,
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I want to remind you, I'm going to give you guys my best exposition as to why the Pope is the Antichrist.
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And so, that should be fun. All right. Any other thoughts or questions? So, I would say, again, there is a distinct gospel that Rome teaches and that gospel does not save.
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I don't believe that it can save. Now, does it follow that all
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Roman Catholics are lost? Okay. So, if we're saying that their gospel cannot save, then does that follow that all
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Roman Catholics are lost? And here's what James White says, not unless we believe that all Roman Catholics walk in lockstep with the official teachings of the
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Vatican. I'm thankful that there are those who know the freedom of grace, even while maintaining a relationship with a church that does not give place to that freedom in its official teachings.
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Now, I affirm that, and I agree with that. There's a lot of people, not a lot, but there's,
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I've met at least two or three Roman Catholics who I'm pretty confident know and love the Lord, and they do not make great
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Catholics. And so, they're not very good Catholics, but they love the Lord, they know the
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Lord. And, you know, there was in the 90s, maybe late 80s and the 90s, there was kind of a
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Pentecostal revival within Roman Catholicism. Anyone ever heard of this? Yeah, the charismatic revival in Roman Catholicism.
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And there are so many people who came out of that, you know, essentially non -Roman
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Catholics. And so, I have a friend up in Wisconsin, and he became a member of our church at Crossroads, and he was part of that.
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He was Roman Catholic. He went, and he was part of this revival.
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Really, the Spirit really swept through some, you know, Roman Catholic churches, and so much so that, like, even, like, bishops had to get involved and, like, shut things down, because these folks started becoming essentially evangelical.
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And I thought that was so cool, but many of them still believe, like, hey, no, we're Catholic, and, you know, but we believe this.
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And I respect some of that, and in a sense, it's similar to what Martin Luther was doing, because Martin Luther, again, he was
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Catholic, and he wanted to be Catholic, and he wanted to reform the Catholic church, and he brought in, you know, what we believe to be, you know, a return to right doctrine and true worship.
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But he was trying to do so within the context of the church, and there are those who still do that today, and we see pockets of that, and epochs of that in Roman Catholic history.
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And so, there was a recent one, you know, again, you know, 30 years ago, where you have this sweeping of, kind of, a charismatic revival within Roman Catholicism.
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Now, they embraced certain things that I wouldn't personally embrace as a cessationist, but the fruit of what came out of that,
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I think, is pretty impressive, which is closer to what we believe and confess as evangelicals and as Protestants.
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And so, I think that there are those within Roman Catholicism who consider themselves Roman Catholics, and to some degree, maybe, are trying to reform
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Roman Catholicism from the inside, and I respect that. So, yeah. If you're part of the
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Roman Catholic Church, you can be saved as long as you don't agree with what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. Yeah, you can be a saved bad
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Roman Catholic. You want to maintain the name. Sure. And again, you know, okay, we're
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Catholic. Are we not? We're Catholic. We're not
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Roman Catholic, but we are Catholic in that we are part of the universal Church. And so, we believe as the creeds confess in one holy and apostolic
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Catholic Church, okay? So, you know, that's in total agreement with our creed. Now, again,
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I don't see how one could logically stain
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Roman Catholicism with that knowledge, but again, I respect those who are in it and, to some degree, are trying to reform it.
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Here in California, there's a Roman Catholic Church, I think in SoCal, that in particularly, it's a very influential
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Roman Catholic Church. I forget what city it's in, but it is slowly becoming a
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Protestant Church, in my view. It's a church that I've been reading about, learning about, and man, are they becoming almost like evangelicals.
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Like, they have a worship band. How many Roman Catholic churches have you seen that has a worship band? Yeah, and they're slowly like becoming sort of evangelical in certain pockets.
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And so, you know, we pray for God's grace to penetrate, for the truth of God's Word to penetrate those areas and those churches in particular.
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But yeah, it is really interesting to see. Emmanuel. Absolutely. You know, in Revelation chapter 2,
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I want you to turn there if you can. Jesus, as He speaks to the seven churches in Asia Minor, He gives instruction to the church.
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And in His instruction, there are several rebukes that He gives to several of the churches. And I'll highlight, for instance, in verse 12, and to the angel of the church in Pergamum, write the words of him who has a sharp two -edged sword,
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I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Fun fact, Pergamum was the ancient place of center of Zeus' worship, and Zeus had a temple dedicated to himself in Pergamum.
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Has anyone ever seen like the Disney movie, the cartoon Hercules? Remember the scene where Hercules goes into this temple, and there's a statue of Zeus, and then it becomes animated and Zeus starts talking to Hercules?
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That's the temple of Pergamum. And so, it was this huge statue dedicated to Zeus there.
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And what Jesus is doing here, He's actually equating Zeus with Satan. And so, we know that our ancient foe masquerades as an angel of light, and what the nations sacrifice, they sacrifice unto demons, the
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Scripture says. And so, what Jesus is doing is He's equating the ancient worship of Zeus with the spiritual principality of Satan.
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I would say that today we have the same thing going on, but I would probably say that the deity that's worshipped as Allah under Islam is
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Satan masquerading, because it is, you know, what was the ancient largest deity of false worship at that time was
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Zeus. Today, over a billion people worship Allah as the true
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God, and I would say that that is Satan masquerading, and Satan is the principality behind the worship of Allah today.
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That's just a side note, but yet notice when it goes on the same, verse 13, yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith.
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Even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. He's giving them a strong recommendation.
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He's saying even though you dwell in the center of false worship, even though you dwell in the center where Satan's presence and throne is, you are standing firm.
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But, he says in verse 14, I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold the teachings of Balaam, who taught
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Balak to put stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food, sacrifice to idols, and practice sexual morality.
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So, also you have some who hold the teachings of Nicolaitans. Therefore, repent. If not,
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I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. So, what
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Jesus does here is that he calls out the believers there for holding fast to the false teachings of these sectarian groups.
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I believe that the same warning is for us today, and the same warning is for those who are in Roman Catholicism, who may genuinely know and love the
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Lord, but are still in Rome. You know, the Bible says to remove yourself, to do not touch the unclean thing.
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So, when we encounter Roman Catholics who maybe have a profession of faith in Jesus that may be credible, our instinct should be, come out of her.
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Come out of her. Similar to the decree that's given to those in Babylon in Revelation chapter 18.
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Come out of her, my people, if you do not want to share in her sins and her plagues. You know,
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I believe that Rome and the Vatican will be judged greatly, and I believe there's going to be a judgment, even for those who are
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Christians, who may still yet remain in Rome, who want to associate with Romanism.
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And so, similarly here, the church in Pergamum was both recommended for being steadfast to a degree in the midst of Satan worship, but also was rebuked for tolerating the teachings of the sectarian teachings.
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And we see the same thing to the church in Thyatira in verse 19, where he says, I know your works, your love and faith and service, patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first, but I have this against you, he says, that you tolerate the woman
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Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual morality and to eat food, sacrifice to idols.
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I give her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual morality. And so,
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I will throw her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her, I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works.
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And so, Christ's warning is against false teachers, against sectarianism in the church, and those who would try to lead
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God's people astray, which is why when we look at Rome as a whole, we should have the impulse and the mindset to separate, remove, be distinct from them, because they are as a whole a
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Jezebel church, they are as a whole a sectarian church, a church that has deviated from the pure gospel of grace.
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Any thoughts or questions on that? So, we conclude then this series, really, with the message, the
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Christian gospel of grace. And it says, and I love how he closes this in page 223 in the last part,
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Soleil Gloria. The Christian message is the message of grace. To world deluge in a tidal wave of sin, the
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Christian presents a message of hope based not on what we can do for ourselves, but on what
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God has done for us through Jesus Christ. And this is a message, a gospel, that can produce true and lasting peace, perfect peace, actually, a peace that's purchased on Calvary Street and sealed by the
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Holy Spirit. Now, what does soleil gloria mean? What does it mean?
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Grace alone, which means that God's grace is sufficient to bring about the salvation of His people.
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That's what we confess as Protestants. And we know that God's grace is enough.
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It's powerful. And solo gratia inevitably brings us to a place of soleil gloria, which is to say, because it is by faith alone, grace alone,
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Scripture alone, and Christ alone, then what should follow is that it is all then to the glory of God alone.
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And in Roman Catholicism, the highest exaltation is not that of God, but of man.
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It exalts man in the place of God, which is one of the signs of the son of perdition in Scripture, which is one of the signs of the
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Antichrist, that he exalts himself and puts himself in the place of God, even that wicked
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Pope who says he is Christ veiled in flesh. God's gospel inevitably leads us to a high view of God's glory, of God's person, and that is in stark contrast to Roman Catholicism.
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And so the Christian cannot only sing and say to God, be the glory, but he can truly believe it because we get no part of that glory.
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You know, in Scripture, in Isaiah 42 .8, it says, I am Yahweh, that is my name, and to my glory
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I shall not share with another nor my praise with graven images. I think that verse is one of the starkest rebukes of Roman Catholicism that you could probably use because it highlights
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Yahweh's desire for exclusive devotion, negating the worship of other saints and of Mary, and also a rejection of the idolatrous practices of Rome with image worship.
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And so Jehovah says, I am Jehovah, I am Yahweh, that is my name, and I should not give my glory to another nor will
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I share my praise with graven images. I think it's a stark and strong rebuke of Roman Catholicism, and it comes from the very mouth of God himself.
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And so church, we believe and we confess it is all to the glory of God alone.
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May you know that, may you experience it, may you live it out, may you share it with others, in particular with Roman Catholics who are lost and need to hear this message of peace.
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Any last thoughts or questions on this teaching? Well church, we're done with the book.
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Next week we will come together and I will do one more teaching to kind of put a bow on this, and it will highlight the papacy and her apostate state, and in particular why
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I believe and why so many of their own reformers, in particular in the reformed
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Baptist tradition, believe that the papacy is that ancient son of perdition, the antichrist as foretold in scripture.
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So let me pray. Father, we do thank you for your word which is able to make us strong.
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We thank you, Lord, that you've given us instruction, you've given us wisdom and insight into these things.
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We ask, Lord, now that you would not allow us to be puffed up with pride, but Lord, that this pearl of great price that you've entrusted to us would be a motivating factor to love and preach to those lost in Rome.
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Lord, may we not be puffed up in such a way where we ourselves become conceited and fall to the pride, to the sin of pride, but instead,
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Lord, out of love, out of concern, out of jealousy for your fame and your name and your glory, may we proclaim that which you've entrusted to us, even the gospel of our salvation, that is by grace alone, faith alone, to the glory of God alone, through Christ alone.