Do Not Fraternize with Rome

2 Thessalonians 2, I will read verses 1 -12 for context. Please stand when you have that.

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you brothers not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the

Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called

God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be

God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now, so that he may be revealed in his time, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.

Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed whom the

Lord Jesus will kill with a breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness, amen.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you today for your word. We ask that you would protect us from error. We ask that you would guide us into all truth.

In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Well, if you were here last week, you know that the message was on discerning the

Antichrist, the importance of doing that, given Paul's instruction to the Thessalonians that they not be deceived.

They had likely received a letter claiming to be from Paul saying that the day of the

Lord had already come. The measure of protection that he offers to them in order that they not be deceived is that they be on the lookout for the man of lawlessness, otherwise known as the

Antichrist because the day of the Lord cannot come until the man of lawlessness is revealed.

So this is something that we are to discern. We're not to be agnostic about it as many people are saying that, well, there are many different Antichrists and so you can't know who the

Antichrist is. No, as John says, there is one who is coming even though there are many.

And as Paul says, we are called to look for him. So there is a mystery of godliness that 1

Timothy 3, 16 tells us of and that is Christ revealed. And there is also a mystery of lawlessness that the very next verse, 1

Timothy 4, 1 tells us of where at the later times, people will depart from the faith.

And Paul speaks here of that mystery of lawlessness. Now, this is an important truth that is rarely talked about, rarely preached, and there are many implications from that.

So the shape of this series of sermons is basically that first sermon arguing for discerning the

Antichrist, knowing who he is, in order that you be able to operate upon that truth.

Then this sermon and the next two, Lord willing, will be applications from that truth.

Now, I'll go back to some of these things to reinforce the main point that the man of lawlessness has been revealed and that indeed it is the

Pope, the office of the Pope, who is the Antichrist. But if you do not have that foundation, then accepting many of these applications will be difficult.

If you end up watching this sermon online, go back to the previous week, watch the previous one.

I also have handouts that have an overview of the sermon last week, just to make the most salient points clear of why the early

Protestants universally agreed upon the truth, that the Pope is the Antichrist, that the man of lawlessness has been revealed.

Second Thessalonians 2 has been fulfilled in our own times, most especially in the early 1500s.

That has a number of implications. The implications that we'll look at next week is that that means there's a special posture that you should have toward the

Reformation. In history classes that I had growing up, the Reformation was always talked about the greatest event in modern history, or not modern history, but history basically since the arrival of Christ.

And even secular folks recognize the significance of that event, but I am saying that you should believe that there's even a religious significance.

Beyond God's normal providence for his church, there's a very special significance of what happened during the

Reformation. Week after that, we're going to talk about, we're going to look at this truth that we should be anticipating the coming of the

Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul speaks of here. But today, the simple application is that if the man of lawlessness has been revealed, and if the great apostasy, the great rebellion that's described in this passage is

Roman Catholicism, then you should not fraternize with Rome. Now hopefully you can accept that even if you've not come to the understanding that the

Pope is the Antichrist. But this truth is especially heightened if you realize that 2

Thessalonians 2 speaks of him and speaks of Roman Catholicism as being this great rebellion from the truth.

So I'd encourage you to go back and get that foundation if it is needed. Considering the trajectory of what is described in 2

Thessalonians 2, verse eight it says, and then the lawless one will be revealed, and the

Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

So what will happen? The lawless one will be revealed, then he will be killed with the breath of Christ, and then he will be destroyed at his coming.

The coming of Jesus Christ, that is the final end, that is the return. The man of lawlessness will be revealed at a certain time.

He exists at Paul's time. He says he's already at work, that mystery's already at work, and the man of lawlessness is being restrained.

So he already exists in some sense at Paul's time, but he will grow until he appears, then he will be killed with the breath of Christ.

That's essentially describing the Reformation, the advancement of the gospel in a more clear way than it had been previously, and then he'll be destroyed at his coming.

So that killing with his breath, destruction at his coming are two different events. You should expect that Rome, having lost its primary power, will decline in power, yet at the same time it will retain a great measure of it until that final day.

And so we should be prepared to respond to this reality that Rome, though decreasing in power, has a great power and will until that day.

Fact that you should be aware of just from statistics. I wrote this on the handout.

50 % of people who claim the name of Christ are Roman Catholic. 50 % of people who claim the name of Christ are

Roman Catholic. If that does not describe a great apostasy of many people ostensibly within the church, leaving the church,

I don't know what does. Now, in this passage, it continues on, and it says, the coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

There is a great and strong delusion, as the next verse describes. There is a wicked deception, and it comes with all power and false signs and wonders.

This is what Rome has. It has many false signs. Now, some of those false signs are false in that they have no reality to them at all.

They are simply either patterns that people are making too much of, like Mary and a piece of toast, or they are things that are probably orchestrated by men, like statues crying, or maybe that was just due, or some may even be truly supernatural, but through evil powers.

On that last statement, he'll say, did we not do miracles in your name? Is it not possible that Satan, being a spiritual being, has capacity to make false wonders of even a greater power than just the kind of illusions that an earthly magician would be able to do for you?

These various things exist, and those false signs come with false revelations.

What is Rome known for, other than its tradition? All these kinds of ideas that do not come from the word of God claim to be from tradition passed down from Peter to the popes onward, things about Mary being born without original sin, things about, more things about Mary, lots of things about Mary, all kinds of weird traditions that do not come from the word of God.

So there's false revelation. You know in our confession, the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith in paragraph 1 .1,

it ends by speaking of those former ways of God having revealed himself having ceased.

Now many people today, when they read that, their mind immediately goes to modern -day charismaticism or Pentecostalism, like oh, this is addressing that.

Those things did not exist, at least not in that way at that time. What the

Reformers were addressing were the errors of Rome. God is not revealing himself with words, through visions, to give you new truths.

None of this is the case. Rather, we are to go to his word. Sola Scriptura.

Scripture alone is the sole infallible rule for all saving faith and practice.

And then from that false revelation comes a false gospel. The true gospel is that Christ has come and died because we are sinners who are incapable of in any measure saving ourselves, not even in the least amount.

We are dead in our sins. We cannot desire what is good. We cannot choose what is good. There is no one who seeks good, as Romans 3 says, as the

Old Testament says. We are like the leopard or the Ethiopian.

The Ethiopian cannot change his skin. The leopard cannot change his spots. So you cannot choose to do good.

You who are accustomed to do evil. We are dead in our sins. And so Christ died for us, crediting all his righteousness to us so that it's not through our own merits or work or any kind of goodness within us that we would reach out to God or that we would grasp his hand as he reaches out to us, apart from his power in us transforming us to respond to him.

This is a false gospel of Rome, the idea that man would in any measure, whether it be meritorious or non -meritorious, whether it be works or man's even capacity of humility to turn to the

Lord, any of these things are false gospels. Now, beyond that false gospel, then there comes false worship.

What do you have in Roman Catholicism from their false worship? Not false gospel, but false worship. The kind of works that are required in Roman Catholicism end up leading to all sorts of penance that where you're praying the rosary, you're praying to Mary, you're engaging in idolatry, there's the bowing to the

Eucharist, Eucharist being their word for the Lord's Supper, all kinds of things.

So false signs lead to false revelations, lead to false gospel, lead to false worship. All this must be rejected.

And I think a good paradigm or a good framework for us to think about these things in is in the context of love and hate, that we should love certain things and we should hate certain things.

And that love should be, first of all, informed by God's love. We should love the things that God loves, we should hate the things that he hates.

You're likely familiar with Matthew 5, 44 to 45, that says, but I say to you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends his reign on the just and the unjust.

So because God gives a measure of love to the unbelievers, to the evil, you should also have a measure of love to the evil.

But now that does not mean that you should absolutely love all evil or even all evil people.

Psalm 5, 5 says that the boastful shall not stand before your eyes, you hate all evildoers.

So on one hand, the Bible says that we should love the evil people, we should love evil people because God in some sense loves them, but then elsewhere it talks about him hating them.

And maybe you know other passages too, like Jacob I loved, Esau I hated, et cetera. There are a number of passages of God hating evil people.

So how do you understand the kind of love that we're supposed to have? Well, the answer in part is found by realizing that hate, as I've mentioned in a few other sermons recently, is a privation of love.

Okay, hate is not something that's different or diametrically opposed, it is a privation of love.

So as you cease to love something, or as you withhold love, that is in essence a hate.

So God loves all his creation in a certain way in that he gives a measure of his kindness to them, but there are certain ways that he also hates those things that are evil.

There are certain kindnesses that he withholds. And likewise, we are to love in the sense in which

God loves, and we are to hate in the sense in which God hates, in the degree to which he has revealed his purposes for us that we know where his loves are and where his hates are.

And love necessarily entails hate if you've never thought about that. If you love your child, and there is something trying to attack that child, you hate that thing.

Now, you might nitpick over the exact degree of personal animosity toward the thing itself versus the action.

You know, this is what many people say, is love the sinner, hate the sin. That's not really the distinction that the

Bible describes. So the Bible describes a distinction between the kinds of love you would give and the kinds of hate you would give, not whether it be directed at the person or the action.

Because in part, your own love is defined not so much by feelings, so that's part of it, but by the action.

If a dog were attacking your child, you would hate the dog. Now, what kind of emotions you're feeling is one question, but you would attempt to restrain the dog with all violence necessary, right?

And that would be at least outwardly, if not also inwardly, an act of hatred. And it would be right in some measure to have even an inward disposition towards things that are evil with a kind of hatred.

Now, the other thing that's important to realize is that love comes in different kinds. For example, when I say that I love you,

I do not mean the same thing as when I say that to my wife. Okay, spousal love is different than brotherly love, and brotherly love toward another believer is different than the evangelical love that you should have toward a non -believer.

We are supposed to specially love our brothers and sisters. He also calls us to love the evil, but he means something different by that.

So this is, just keep all these things in mind as we go through this passage, and I give you some applications because it's important to understand that God has called us to love as he loves and to hate as he hates.

Now, I'm going to give you two loves and one hate, excuse me, two hates and one love that you should have, two hates and one love.

Okay, the first hatred, so you should hate Roman Catholicism. All right, you should hate Roman Catholicism.

Roman Catholicism is a false doctrine that should be utterly abhorred.

It is described here in these absolute terms. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with the wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

It is a wicked deception. It deserves to be hated completely.

Now, a lot of people will develop sympathies for Rome for different reasons. One of them is frequently just the narrative that's given.

The narrative that's given is you have Roman Catholicism all these years, and then Protestants departed from it.

And this is usually the reason that people will be sympathetic with Rome is, ah, that was the thing, and then we departed from it.

So it's reasonable that people would want to stay part of Rome. Is this what

Scripture describes? It is not. Verse three says, "'Let no one deceive you in any way, "'for that day will not come "'unless the rebellion comes first.'"

What is that word for rebellion? Apostasia. Okay, it's apostasy. It is breaking off.

First Timothy 4 .1. Now, the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith. Okay, this is mystery of lawlessness versus mystery of godliness.

That later time, some will depart from the faith. That word, again, the verb form of apostasia.

It's the verb form of apostasy. This is a rebellion. It is not we who have broken off from them.

It is they who have broken off from us. Now, what would give you the impression otherwise is the hierarchical structure that you have in Rome.

If you really believe that there's some meaning to that hierarchical institution, then you would be inclined to understand it as a breaking off.

But if you understand the nature of the church, that wherever two or three are gathered, there are Christ's among them, which implies an independency above churches.

Above a local church, the only authority is Christ. He is the head of the church. There's not a hierarchy that goes beyond that.

Then any kind of additional hierarchy is a false idea, and that includes the kind of hierarchies that exist in other true churches.

You know, there are a lot of true denominations that have some other kind of hierarchy, too. But what the Bible describes is an independence.

But if you believe that there is a reality to that hierarchy, you'll be inclined to think that, well, we were the ones who broke off.

They were the ones that broke off. This is what the Bible describes. They are the apostasy. There was no, there's no reality to that hierarchy in Christ's church, and so it is an illusion to get you to think that we are the apostates.

We are not the apostates. They are the apostates. There's a rhetorical question that many people ask.

Is the Pope Catholic? Now, that is a question that was laughed at a lot over the past 10 years or so.

How long was Francis the Pope? Because he had such liberal opinions that the answer did not seem to be yes anymore.

The answer seemed to be no. He doesn't seem to agree with a lot of Catholic doctrine. However, the word

Catholic refers to the universal church. You should be able to, as a

Protestant, answer that question no, not out of any kind of irony, about Francis or whoever the

Pope is, okay? You should be able to answer that, no, he's not.

We are the true Catholics. Our confession describes the Catholic church in chapter 26 being the universal church.

We are the true Catholics. Their claim to Catholicism is part of the illusion that they are trying to give to reverse the situation so that we are the apostates, not they.

So do not be deceived, as Paul says. Do not be deceived. That apostasy is indeed an apostasy.

It is the rebellion. Do not be fooled either by the hierarchical structure that would suggest otherwise.

Now, what should you hate about Roman Catholicism? There's both the doctrine and the practice.

Here, the doctrine and the practice. The doctrine, there are all kinds of false doctrine. I could sit here all day and talk about all kinds of things, and so I don't know if that would be the most beneficial thing, but just to go through a few things.

There are the prayers to the dead, prayers to Mary, prayers to saints. This is described in Deuteronomy 18, speaking to the dead, as necromancy.

This is something that is an abomination to the Lord. Okay, the fascination with the dead, even relics of the dead and things like that are things that we should see as unclean.

Not unclean because being around the dead is unclean in the Old Testament sense anymore, but just because it is full of all kinds of wickedness.

There's the Roman Catholic confessional that you must, in order to get absolution, to get forgiveness to God, not go through directly through Jesus being part of a high priesthood where you have that kind of access, but rather to go through them, that they keep the people away from God.

When there is only one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. There's the false gospel of works.

And I know that many modern Roman Catholics will deny that they believe that their works have any part in their salvation, which is the most fascinating thing.

Many of them will say that they believe that they are saved by faith alone, which is a Reformation doctrine in contrast to Rome.

But if you speak to these people in practice, you know it is not true. They believe the rightness before God comes from being on the treadmill of works.

Even if they believe that that treadmill is only the small thing of showing up on Christmas and Easter, it's still some measure of faithfulness that makes them right with God.

So you have the false gospel. You have all the Mariolatry, all the worship of Mary, and then you have all the idolatry in general.

All kinds of false things. Why is it important for you to hate that? It's important for you to hate that because if you do not hate lies, you will not love the truth.

It says, therefore, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who do not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

It says in verse 10, they refuse to love the truth and be saved. In order to love the truth, you must hate lies.

So in 119, 163 says, I hate and abhor all falsehood, but I love your law.

Okay, these are necessary things. They cannot go together. You cannot be ambivalent towards lies and love truth.

Loving truth means hating lies. This is in part why people find it uncomfortable to be around those who are more mature and more holy in a lot of ways because as those people are cultivating certain loves, they are also cultivating certain hatreds, and that can be uncomfortable for the person who has not cultivated the same hatreds.

They might even be fine with some of the loves, but some of the hatreds are more uncomfortable. Now also the practice, and that practice is primarily found in the

Mass. Okay, if you are not familiar with what the Mass is, the Mass is the ceremony by which the, in some sense it refers to just a general worship service, but it's the ceremony by which the priest, upon giving his particular blessing, transforms the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus.

They do not believe that it's a ceremony where it is truly blood and truly wine, but it ceases to be bread and wine and becomes body and blood.

This is not like the Lutheran idea either. Lutherans believe that Jesus is physically present, his body and his blood are present in the bread and wine physically, but they would not deny that there is still bread and wine there, and that the substance that you're touching is bread and wine.

Roman Catholics deny this altogether, and they say it ceases to be bread and wine. All the properties stay the same, all the external accidents, to use the

Aristotelian term, but the substance of it, the essence of it, and that's why it's called transubstantiation is because the substance of it is changing, has become body and blood of Jesus.

Now, this is not only contrary to Scripture, but also to reason. It doesn't matter even if Scripture were to say something like that.

It could not be true. That's like Scripture saying that circles are squares, or that God can make a rock so big that he can't lift it, that kind of thing.

It's like if I were to go out to my car and say, by the power invested in me, this is now a horse.

Okay, it does not cease to be, you can't look at the tires, et cetera, and say, oh, this is a horse. It has all the properties of car, but now is a horse.

Okay, this is, as far as false signs go, this is the craziest false sign. This is the biggest false sign, and it is the most absurd false sign because it is so contrary to reason.

This is not even Mary on a piece of toast impressive. Okay, this is just say some words, and everybody pretend that what we said is true, and let's embrace mystery.

Mystery to them, not meaning something hidden, later revealed like it does in the Bible, but mystery meaning something that can't be true, but we're gonna believe it is because that's what faith demands of us.

You should, this is, the Mass is idolatrous. Because it becomes Jesus' body and blood, they adore the

Eucharist, the Eucharist being the bread and wine. If you don't know the ways that they do this, they bow to it, all kinds of idolatry.

Even as they clean up afterward, they make sure that none of it is disposed.

The priest has to drink all the wine. There are anecdotes about priests becoming drunk because they accidentally poured too much and didn't realize how much was going to be needed.

At the end, when it is all drunk, because there are drops in the cup, it has to be cleansed in a certain kind of sink so that it doesn't go into the sewage system with everybody else, and all kinds of people drink something holy, so they make sure it gets washed off directly into the ground.

This is how seriously they take this. This is how idolatrous it is. You should hate the

Mass. There are many people, and I myself am guilty of this in earlier years, of thinking out of some kind of friendship or evangelism that I would join my friend in witnessing one of the events, and they come to my service, that kind of thing.

Do not do this. Simply refuse to participate in any kind of false worship. Now, I would say beyond that, any kind of wedding or funeral that's run by a

Roman Catholic priest, these things occasionally involve Masses, but even if they don't,

I would argue that you should simply avoid these things to not give any kind of legitimacy to that false priest.

This is not to say that remembering the dead is not a good thing. This is not to say that that you can't celebrate that marriage between two

Roman Catholics. You should be able to celebrate the marriage between two Roman Catholics. Marriage among all kinds of people is good, but it is to say that you do not want to lend any kind of legitimacy to a

Roman Catholic service. Second John, verse 10, says that if you were to shake hands with, or even if you were to greet someone who is a false teacher, you are taking part in their wicked works.

How much more are you legitimizing their activity when you are present for it? And I would say, even in some measure, that you should be very concerned about even legitimizing the idolatry in other ways.

A lot of people will go on tours of cathedrals. Once again, I'm not claiming any kind of innocence in this, but it is something that you should take with all seriousness, that if you're going to go to a place that's covered in images of Jesus Christ, he who cannot be imaged because he is

God, this is something that needs to be rejected. I would not take that lightly to visit

Roman Catholic architecture, knowing what will be present. And then, beyond that, people may object.

People may say, well, what about all my friends and family? If I don't go to their wedding, they would be upset at this, and they might get the wrong idea.

They might think that I'm saying that I don't celebrate their marriage, that I don't think they should be married, or something like that.

Yes, people are going to misunderstand you. This is just part of the Christian faith. People are going to misunderstand you. James 4 .4

says that friendship with the world is enmity with God. Jesus himself said that he came not to bring peace, but a sword.

This is what is going to happen in families. Your first objective is loyalty to Jesus Christ. There's not peace in your family.

Now, okay, so that was the first hatred. Your first hatred should be towards Roman Catholicism, towards its doctrine, towards its practices.

Now, the next hatred should be, and that was an absolute hatred towards Roman Catholicism.

Your next hatred should be an evangelical hatred toward the Pope. Now, what

I mean by that, let me explain that. An evangelical, what is an evangelical love?

An evangelical love is different than a brotherly love, right? You love your brother in a particular way. How do you love the unbeliever?

You love them most particularly in sharing the gospel with them, in desiring their salvation, in wanting them to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Is this something that should be extended to the

Pope? Consider what it says in verse three. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless a rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.

If you ever, do you recognize that term, son of destruction? In some translations, it's the son of perdition.

There's someone else this is used for. And it's ironic that the Pope considers himself a successor of Jesus, or excuse me, of Peter, because it is not

Peter that he follows after, but Judas. John 17, 12, while I was with them,

I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I've guarded them, and not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

So what is he saying? He's saying that in his capacity, as this high priest, he is caring for every last one of his sheep.

He is not losing any of them, except the son of destruction, except one who has been appointed for destruction.

And so what is 2 Thessalonians 2 saying when it describes the man of lawlessness as the son of destruction?

It is not describing someone that we should hold out a hope for. God has given us instructions.

He's given us revelation of what kind of hopes we should have for people. Of those who may be saved, we should hope for their salvation.

Of those who are saved, we should hope for their preservation. Of those who it has been revealed they cannot be saved, whether because they died in a state of manifest unbelief, that would be one example.

This is why we don't pray for the dead as Roman Catholics do. If they have committed what is known as full apostasy, which is the unforgivable, the unpardonable sin that Jesus describes, that is the having experienced the faith and the work of the

Spirit and having rejected it, like Hebrews 6 describes, these are the same thing at this point.

And then 1 John 5, 16 says, the one who has committed a sin unto death, I do not say that you should pray for such a one.

Okay, so there is something, there are some people that you should pray for according to John 5.

If someone sins, you should pray for him and maybe you can save him from his error. But it says there is a sin unto death,

I do not say that you should pray for that. James is telling you that God has made revelation of some people that you should not pray for their salvation, you should not hope for it.

Just as it would be an immature prayer, as I prayed when I was much younger, that God would save everybody everywhere, that is an immature prayer because he has already revealed he is not going to save everybody everywhere.

It is also an immature prayer to pray for someone that he has manifestly revealed is not among his elect.

And that is the case with the son of perdition, with the son of destruction. He goes forward to destruction as it says here, in 2

Thessalonians 2 as it says in Revelation 17, he goes forward to destruction.

And so the only proper thing to pray for him is imprecatory prayers for his destruction.

Now that does not mean, now remember this is an evangelical hatred, so that does not mean if you ever met him that the only posture is rudeness.

Does not mean if you ever met him that you should exhibit any kind of violence toward him.

Okay, this is not a military hatred. This is not, there are lots of hatreds that I'm not speaking about.

I'm speaking of an evangelical hatred where you do not hope for his salvation or do any of the things that would speak of such hope.

There are all kinds of things that people do. People make statements of solidarity. It was not too long ago that I remember a video of Rick Warren taking a tour of the

Vatican. I think he was in the Vatican with the Pope and he talked about our Pope, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Statements of solidarity like that where you act like he's one of us, oh that is not according with 2

Thessalonians 2. Statements of well wishes.

Now this is frequent from those who otherwise understand this truth. They understand that the

Pope is not a saved man but they will make statements of well wishes saying that, well

I hope this next Pope is more conservative, right? I hope this next Pope is a better influence on society or embraces more of God's truth, et cetera, et cetera.

The Bible says that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Would it be a reasonable prayer to say,

Lord I ask that Satan's next manifestation be one of greater light? That would be foolishness.

But this is essentially what people are praying when they pray for the next Pope to be more conservative, more in line with God's truth, et cetera.

It's hard to know how to pray given that God's providence is really what's going to make this happen.

If he is more outwardly wicked he will drive more people astray in one way.

If he's more outwardly righteous he deceives more people in a different way. There's really no good way to pray about this matter, about what the

Lord would do apart from destroying him. Do not pray for Satan's next manifestation to be one of more light.

Do not pray for the next Pope to be more conservative or more God honoring. Pray instead the imprecatory prayers that David prays.

If you ever wonder, well how am I supposed to pray these prayers? This doesn't seem like something I'm allowed to pray about anybody.

Here is your opportunity to resolve all that cognitive dissonance you've been experiencing as you read the

Psalms. Here is someone that you are permitted to pray those prayers of David about. Now, next, a love.

So two hates and a love, right? Hate Roman Catholicism, absolutely. Hate the

Pope evangelically. You should have an evangelical love for Roman Catholics.

An evangelical love for Roman Catholics. I've explained what evangelical love is. That is a hope for their salvation, is a desire for them to be saved.

It is a willingness to share the gospel with them. There are two reasons why you wouldn't share the gospel with them.

One, you hate them and don't want them to be saved. You're like Jonah who wants to run away from Nineveh out to Tarshish, right?

The other is that you think they're already saved and they don't need help. Okay, those are the only two reasons that you would withhold that evangelical love.

Now, many people will give Rome a quote -unquote charitable assessment. Almost every, and this is true of a lot of Reformed theologians too, they'll be asked whether or not

Roman Catholics are saved and they'll kind of hem and haul about it and say that, well, many Roman Catholics do believe the true gospel and so are saved, but the official teachings of Rome, if they believe those, then they are not.

I wouldn't say, I wouldn't make any kind of quote -unquote charitable judgment about Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses.

I wouldn't say, well, some Mormons, you know, they believe the real gospel and they're saved. Some Jehovah's Witnesses, the whole system's broken, but some of them believe the gospel and they're saved.

And you might say, well, that's because they don't believe in the Trinity and Rome does. I think this is one of the most deceptive things about Roman Catholicism, that they get to hold onto that core thing and make that the shining badge of, see, we're true because we've got this one thing right.

Consider other groups. Campbellites, that's like the Church of Christ, if you see churches that say whatever, or Church of Christ of Sunnyvale or something like that, that believe, they have a lot of false beliefs, but one of them is that baptism is necessary for salvation, right, so they're trusting in their own works.

I wouldn't say that they're saved. I wouldn't say that some of them are. I wouldn't say that about a lot of groups.

And I'm saying that because I don't think that you would either. So why would we make that assessment for Roman Catholics?

I do not understand the felt need for some kind of supposed charity. Now, I keep putting charity in quotes because is that really out of love that someone would make a false assessment?

Okay, it's giving the benefit of the doubt is not love when there is no reason for doubt. And what does this passage say?

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion so they may believe what is false and or they may be condemned who do not, did not believe the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness.

Now, the reason for charity, the reason for the benefit of the doubt is because you know that you don't know their heart.

And so you don't wanna make assessments about their heart. But when scripture tells you what their heart is, you must believe what it says.

They do not have pleasure in the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness. This is why they do not want to leave.

My own grandfather, before he died, he came around to affirm with me that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone.

But when I pointed out his attending the mass, his idols that he still kept in the house, this was part of his heritage.

He could not leave that. And so he told me, this is, these are my people, this is my thing.

I can't leave any of this behind. What does that, what does that say? What does this passage say?

Okay, there's not a love of the truth. That is a refusal to love the truth.

Remember, you cannot love the truth without hating the lie. Those two have to go hand in hand. Someone who claims that they love the truth, but they're not hating the lie is not someone who is loving the truth.

This is not a charitable assessment to say that many of them are saved. Okay, it is one of evangelical hatred, because you are not extending the gospel to them as you ought.

These are people who have pleasure in unrighteousness. They must be told the truth.

They must be drawn out of that. Speak evangelistically to them. Share the gospel to them. Do not, do not kind of muddy the water so that they think we're all brothers.

If they speak of you as a brother, correct it. Once again, that might feel too hostile, but it is most needed.

People end up falling away into Rome's errors because they want to trust man rather than God.

They want to trust princes and horses rather than trusting the

Lord Almighty. Some of them may be very intelligent and understand the truth very well, but they find more solace in other things, and so they run to that.

Do not allow that illusion to stand. There are a couple of very practical ways that you can do this.

One is by talking about the treadmill of works they are on, how you are made right with Jesus.

Now, like I said, I have found in my own personal conversations that most modern

American Roman Catholics would not speak of their salvation as coming by works.

Even in part, they will deny it. Okay, they will say that we're saved by grace alone through faith alone.

For some reason, they will say this. But when it comes to practice, you will find that that's where their comfort is in their standing before God.

So I would encourage you, if you do attack that heart of their rightness before God, that you don't come at it with an academic tone where you bring out the

Council of Trent or something like that to show them what they're supposed to believe, because I've found that they're not interested in that, and they're believing some different evolution of the lie today, and it is one that is more manifest in practice than it is in formal beliefs.

One thing that I have found most helpful to approach this that's the least, there's the least amount of wiggle room to deny it is the praying to saints, the praying to the dead, the speaking to the dead.

The Deuteronomy 18 calls that an abomination, and this is their expression of trust in something other than the

Lord. Why would you call out to the Lord? Because he is all -powerful and able to save.

Why would you call to something else? Because you don't trust completely in the Lord. Now, they will say that it's just like reaching out to a friend and asking them to pray for you, but once again,

Deuteronomy 18 says praying for the dead is an abomination. So there's no reason to, that's not even the point.

The point isn't that, oh, there's some capacity where you could talk to another and it wouldn't really be prayer.

Why do they call it prayer if it's not prayer? And why are they talking to the dead if Scripture says not to speak to the dead?

There's so many angles there that are very fruitful for discussion that I think most Roman Catholics have not had pricked before.

Currently, that is my own approach, and I hope that is helpful for you as well. But speak with an evangelical love toward Roman Catholics.

So in summary, hate Roman Catholicism, absolutely. Hate the

Pope evangelically. Love Roman Catholics evangelically. As I said earlier, 50%, over 50 % of those who claim the name of Christ are under the power of the

Antichrist. In order to love Christ, you must hate the Antichrist and his whole

Antichrist system. Do not think that this is a small threat, though it will decline in power over time.

It is a major threat, and it sucks in many people. It is a great rebellion, and it is defined by a lack of love for the truth, otherwise known as hatred for the truth.

We have a good gospel that must be promoted. Christ has died for us who are wretches, who have no means of salvation apart from him.

He is our perfect high priest. We can go to him without going to another man to bring us to God.

He has given us worship that is in spirit and in truth, not in false idolatry. These are good truths to love because they are the only true comfort for the soul.

And as you love those, you are to have the right loves and hatreds that those imply.

I would encourage you to develop your love for the gospel of Jesus Christ, for the mystery of godliness that has been revealed in him that will develop in you the right kind of hatred for the mystery of lawlessness.

Amen. Please turn to hymn number 430.

Excuse me, let me pray for us first. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. I ask that we would be able to put into practice these difficult truths.

I ask that you would give us the right kind of love and the right kind of hate, that we might be sons of our

Father who is in heaven, you, God Almighty, who loves and hates perfectly because you are absolute.

You are not measured by some external standard of love or hate. You are love itself. And everything that you love is right to love.