Rick Warren’s Capitulation to the Claims of Rome, Plus a Deep Fractal

Well, greetings, welcome to the Dividing Line. It's a Thursday afternoon, and some of you are probably wondering,

I've got to keep the volume down. I'm doing better. Boy, Accordance is throwing me a curve all of a sudden.

I just updated it, and now it's lost one of my resources, and it keeps throwing this thing up, saying,

I can't find it. And I'm like, okay, and then a couple seconds later, I can't find it. So I'm just going to put this box down there and just hope it stops telling me

I can't find it until we can find it for it. Not sure what happened there. Anyway, that's the live by technology, die by technology.

Some of you are probably wondering, when we got back from Kiev and Berlin, the first program we did was not on a subject that I addressed while I was in Kiev and Berlin.

And that was, he says, as he realizes he has his phone in here and puts it,

I'm still going to put it on vibrate because, you know, I forget. And then the wife calls and gets all upset three hours later because you've got to turn it back on.

Everybody knows this stuff. I know. Um, I addressed, uh, three times while in Kiev, the subject of the

Rick Warren capitulation, uh, to Rome. And to be honest with you, until this very moment,

I completely forgot that. And I don't, since he doesn't know about the dividing line or didn't know about the dividing line,

I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to track this guy back down because it was a Facebook, uh, connection, but there was a, uh,

Anglican on Facebook that said he would be willing to come on the program.

And, uh, Jeff Durbin was talking to him. Maybe Jeff would remember what his name was and how to contact him or something.

But, uh, we, we need to, uh, not before the, not before Christmas, but afterwards schedule a time when, um, we can, uh,

Skype with this fellow and, uh, have the discussion that we had talked about having relating to Rick Warren, because, uh, he was saying that I was sinning and, uh, the, the sin of divisiveness and all the rest of this stuff by saying what

I said in regards to, um, to Rick Warren, of course, since he's not a Roman Catholic, I'm not sure how he avoids the sin of divisiveness, but, um, that's another issue that maybe we can, we can talk about, but I posted three

ScreenFlow videos on the subject of Rick Warren's, uh, statements, but I realized for some reason, um, that our audience, well, our audience is divided too.

And there are those who follow the blog and follow stuff that I post on Facebook and on Twitter.

And then there are others that only follow the RSS feed for, um, for the dividing line and just don't pay attention to any of the rest of that stuff.

And that's perfectly fine. But what that means is, uh, what I said on those

ScreenFlow videos might not even be familiar to some people on the program. And of course I was being fairly brief because especially in the first one,

I wasn't sure what kind of upload speeds I'd be able to get wirelessly in Kyiv, especially since we were having so many problems with electricity there, uh, turns out, turns out

I got better, uh, FaceTime connections and upload speeds in Ukraine, uh, than I get here, uh, which is really interesting.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It took me almost no time at all to upload those videos, uh, in Ukraine.

So I'm not sure what that's all about, but, um, uh, anyway, um, so I, I want to look again, um, and, uh, address this issue of the, the fact that the vast majority of Protestants aren't, um, just as the vast majority of Roman Catholics aren't.

I mean, uh, Dr. Moeller was talking about a, a, um, survey recently that said some long lines of, what was it?

78 % of young Roman Catholics, um, reject

Rome's teaching in regards to homosexuality. And, you know, it's been, it's been a given for a long, long time that the large portion of Roman Catholic, uh, those who call themselves

Roman Catholics, uh, you know, go to mass once a year and, uh, don't, don't obviously take their, their faith very seriously at all.

And that is also the case when it comes sadly to those who call themselves

Protestants. Large portion of non -Catholic, non -Orthodox, so non -Roman

Catholic and not Eastern Orthodox. Then of course, outside of, you know, you put those two groups over there, um, you've got quite a mixture at that point, a huge mixture of, of things, depending on how you even count denominations or what is

Christian, what is not. But of those who attend at least churches that have some type of historical mainline, uh, commitment or statement of faith or something, the vast majority of them are no longer

Protestants in the sense of having a conviction that Roman Catholicism is wrong on a fundamental theological level.

That's actually important to know about. So in other words, most non -Roman

Catholics and non -Orthodox are out of tradition, taste, comfort, uh, convenience, um, and not out of conviction.

It's not, oh, there is something wrong with that. It's, I don't know. You know, I prefer a praise band and, uh, skinny jeans, uh, and Rob Bell glasses, uh, to the dude in the dress, uh, or the guy with the funny hat.

Um, not really into candles, you know, I suppose they're okay, but you know, the, the smells and bells and definitely don't like the crucifix type thing and, uh, too many statues.

And, uh, uh, but yeah, you know, other than that, you know, no big deal, not, not, not a, not a real problem.

Well, that kind of non -confessional, non -convictional, uh, perspective really, really is the majority perspective amongst people today.

And so if you are a, a Protestant of conviction, you're a

Protestant because you actually know what you believe, you know what Rome believes, you know what the issues were at the reformation, and you think they're still important.

You're in a small minority today, small minority today. And it's a, it's a small minority that is viewed as unloving intolerant, narrow, and there are unloving intolerant, narrow anti -Catholic bigots in the world, just as they're intolerant, narrow, unloving anti -Protestant

Roman Catholics in the world. I've met them, believe me. Um, if your rejection of Rome is based upon emotion, um, and ignorance, uh, don't call that conviction, not

Christian conviction. Anyways, if, um, if your rejection of Rome is primarily because you read some really bad jack chick comic books a long time ago, um, don't call that Christian conviction because that's just, that's just bigotry, uh, parading as, as zealotry, as righteousness or whatever else.

But if you actually have taken the time to think through what the issues were and the two primary issues at the time of the

Reformation, the material and the formal, um, doctrines, teachings of the

Reformation, the foundations of the Reformation, we all know sola fide justification by faith was what was preached.

It's what reached the heart. It's what changed the, the, the thinking of people. It's what caught the imagination.

It, it, it spoke to a culture that was surrounded by death.

The black plague was still in the recent memory of many people. Um, a third of Europe had disappeared during that time.

It still came back every once in a while. No one knew what it was yet. Only a few inklings were starting to become known.

And as a result, you thought about eternity.

It would not be a shocking thing for you to be traveling down a road and to encounter a dead body along the side of the road.

Entire generations lived in the same household. And so you would see the deaths of grandparents and parents and extended relatives.

You would see them die. You would be exposed to their dead bodies and to their funerals and your, uh, your siblings.

Um, there was a tremendous infant mortality rate. We didn't have antibiotics and things like that.

And so, um, unlike so many today where you don't even actually see death until you're an adult, um, then you knew exactly what death looked like.

You knew, you knew you had been touched by it. And so you knew your own mortality.

And because you knew your own mortality, you thought about eternity. You thought about your relationship to God.

You thought about, um, the life that comes after this. And as a result, that preaching of justification by faith, that, that, that, that wiping away of the, well, centuries of, of dead, dusty scholasticism and tradition that had had encrusted, uh, the faith with its falsehoods and its works, righteousness, and it's sacramentalism.

All of that was, well, most of that enough of that was blown away, uh, in the reformation to allow that beautiful message to once again, very clearly echo in the hearts and minds of people, but to defend

Sola Fide, uh, the, the material, um, there had to be a formal, there had to be a, there had to be a ground and a foundation because as soon as Luther came to understand the truth of justification by faith, what was the first attack against him?

Well, you're contradicting the authority of the church. You're contradicting what the Pope has said.

And so Sola Scriptura, the sufficiency of the scriptures as the sole infallible rule of faith of the church, um, became the absolutely necessary foundation for maintaining this freedom.

Because just as in Galatia, man had snuck in to spy out the freedom, which we have in Christ Jesus to try to enslave us to false gospels.

Uh, Rome wasn't about to give up its, its control over the lives, uh, of, of millions of people, uh, under its, uh, under its authority.

And so those two great doctrines remained in the foremost of the thought of people for centuries.

And really only with the enlightenment, uh, the, uh, the collapse in having a high view of, of scripture and, and divine revelation, uh, do you have people moving away from those particular things?

So we come to our day and the vast majority of people today have no meaningful connection to church history.

Uh, church history is a, a dry and boring subject for the mass, that mass of people.

And certainly the vast majority of, of what would be broadly called evangelical Christians, which

I guess is a term that just means Christians who actually pretend to take their, um, their faith seriously.

Um, most people have no passion for it. Most people feel no connection, uh, especially to the early church fathers because, well, they were just so different than us.

And weren't they all just a bunch of Catholics anyways? Well, not Roman Catholics. Um, and actually if you allow them to be interpreted in the context in which they actually existed, um, uh, a tremendous testimony against the claims, the

Roman Catholic church, but that's another issue. But even the time of the reformation, uh, man, it just seems so long ago.

And now today in a, in a society where people are so hesitant to say anything that might be offensive.

If they, if someone does read Luther, uh, Luther, uh, you know, if you, if you mistakenly read some of the table talk, um, or, um, read some of his debates, some of the things that he said to, um, said to Erasmus, for example, you'll, uh, you'll discover it was a different day.

It was a different, um, a different time. And as such, people just don't feel the connection because they don't know what the context was.

And it just seems like a different time. And we've moved on from all this. Can't we, can't we all just get along seems to be the attitude that many people have.

And certainly today in our sanitized Western culture, where you almost never see death when it's presented on the screen, it's sanitized.

Uh, we hide our children from it. Um, we, we don't talk about it even within the church, the way that we should.

Um, as a result, the vast majority of us don't think about eternity. We don't think about our own mortality.

We do not seriously consider the fact that this could be the last day of our lives.

We certainly rarely live that way. We leave so many of our relationships, um, in such a, such a way that if we were to pass away, um, there would be such regret on the parts of others or things unsaid, undone.

Uh, we don't think about these things. We just don't, we don't consider these things. And if we don't think about eternity, then we don't think about our relationship to God.

And as a result, doctrines like justification, they do not,

I keep borrowing the words of, um, I think it was Dr. Murray. Um, they don't ring the bells that the doctrine doesn't ring the bells of men's heart any longer because they, we don't see death.

We don't think about eternity. And as a result, we have a view of God that, you know, well, if you were brought into some kind of mega evangelical church with the kind of idea that, well,

God's just really lucky to have you. And he's just so happy that you, you're willing to tip your hat toward him for a few minutes a week.

Um, if, if that's the kind of garbage that you've been fed, then why should you really worry about your relationship to God?

Because I mean, he is, he'll work it all out. I mean, it doesn't really matter. You know, I mean, he's just, he's just happy that, that every once in a while you sing some songs and maybe drop a 20 in the plate and, and, and all as well.

And so when we think about those things, it's not surprising.

I'm, people think, well, why, why would you be surprised that Rick Warren is collapsing on Rome? I'm not, I'm not,

I'm not surprised. Uh, it doesn't make it any less troubling to me, uh, to, to recognize that, that the, the pastor of the, the largest

Southern Baptist church in the United States, um, is either abysmally ignorant of the issues of the reformation or grossly deceived concerning the teachings of the

Roman Catholic church or a combination thereof. I don't know. I don't know. Um, the things that he said are just unbelievable, unbelievable.

So let's take a look. Let's remind you, you may have seen the screen flow videos, maybe not.

I don't know, but let's take a look. Uh, let's start with the older one. This was from a, this is a less than a minute.

Actually, I'm going to, I'm going to send you a different one. I'm going to do them in the other. Okay. Got that one now.

Well, it's black right now. Um, but, um, listen to what

Warren says here, uh, in how he addresses, uh, the subject of Pope Francis.

And then I'll play I believe the later one that came from when he went over to Rome and they used him as a pawn over there.

So here we go. Authenticity, humility, Pope Francis is the perfect example of this.

He is, he's doing everything right. You see, people will listen to what we say if they like what they see.

And as, as our new Pope, he was very, very symbolic in, you know, his first mass with people of AIDS, uh, his is a kissing of, uh, of the disformed man, his loving the children, this authenticity, this humility, the caring for the poor.

This is what the whole world expects us Christians to do. And when we, when they go, Oh, that's what a

Christian does. In fact, there was a headline here in Orange County and I love the headline. I saved it. It said, if you love

Pope Francis, you'll love Jesus. That was the headline. It was a headline.

I saved it. I showed it to a group of priests that was, uh, speaking to a while back. Okay. So, um, um,

Rick Warren talks to groups of priests. And of course, what I asked him in the video I posted was, did you call them to repentance?

And of course, from his perspective, he wouldn't have to their fellow believers, but let's, let's take that, uh, piece by piece.

Authenticity, humility. Pope Francis is the perfect example of this.

He is, uh, he's doing everything right. You see, people will listen to what we say, if they like what they see.

That is a, a wonderful humanistic concept, uh, that has absolutely positively nothing to do with biblical

Christianity. That's what you get out of self help books. That's Oprah speaking. Um, look around the world.

Is that true when it comes to the proclamation of the gospel? Um, no. Um, but once you become a pile of ecumenical goo, um, then that sounds good.

And as, as our new Pope, he was very, very uh, our, our new

Pope, you call him Papa. He's the head of your church.

It's interesting in the next video. One of the things I didn't mention in the videos, and I, I don't know why

I didn't, but wanted to just kept forgetting. Uh, he's going to talk about our church.

One little problem, according to Rome, uh, Saddleback isn't a church. Not, uh, you, you may be a separated brother, whatever that means.

And there's all sorts of different understandings of how that, how that's supposed to work out. And obviously the modern

Roman Catholic view is very different from the historic Roman Catholic view on that. But be that as it may, um, that's not a church.

Even under John Paul, uh, was it? Was that, was that the name of the off top of my head?

Memory's not what used to be, but I think that was the papal encyclical, encyclical, papal encyclical, um, that made it very clear that there are only certain groups outside of Rome that are identified as a true church based upon their having valid sacramental orders.

And, uh, Saddleback would not be one of those churches would not know.

That's not a church from their perspective. Uh, they don't believe in the sacramental presence of Jesus in the

Lord's supper and don't believe in transubstantiation and so on and so forth. So does he not know that?

I don't know. I don't know the man, never met the man, never met the man and don't have access to him.

Um, but maybe somebody who watches this does and might want to, might want to ask. I don't know.

But, um, just find that interesting. Our Pope, um, he is not my

Pope. He cannot be my Pope. Uh, I don't have a Pope Christians do not have a

Pope. Uh, Christians do have a Holy father. That's called God the father. Um, we, we do have, um, the vicar of Christ that's called the

Holy spirit. And we do not have an alter Christus, another Christ, uh, because we have the real

Christ. And so that's, that's what Christians believe. And therefore they don't have, uh, any desire to call this anyone, this man or anyone else, no matter how nice a man personally, he might be.

Uh, it matters not when you take on the names of the Trinity for yourself and you'd not repudiate them.

Uh, that's called blasphemy. And that's called partaking of the spirit of antichrist, which is opposing

Christ. And given that he continues to teach a gospel that includes indulgences and, um, all of the sacramental system of Rome that is opposing

Christ. And that's what antichrist is, is all about. And you know, his first mass with people of AIDS, uh, his is okay.

His first mass for people with AIDS. One of my real concerns is that so many of those who would watch this or would see this picture would immediately go, man,

I'll tell you that. Yeah, that's, that's, that's really cool.

You know, saying, saying mass for people with AIDS, what should be the

Christian response to that? I honestly doubt that more than a, a small percentage of people who saw this or heard this had what

I would believe to be the, the absolutely necessary Christian response.

And that is the mass is a blasphemy. How can it be a good thing to perform a blasphemy of the finished work of Christ for anybody, especially for people who need the sacrifice of Christ more than anybody else.

But that's not how people think not anymore. Partly ignorance, partly, oh, the mass is just their version of the

Lord's supper. Isn't it? No, no, it's not.

Um, it is allegedly a propitiatory sacrifice that perfects no one. It is allegedly the priest by his sacramental power, rendering

Christ present body, soul, blood, and divinity upon the altar in an unbloody sacrifice.

It is what flows from Rome's fundamental denial of the finished work of Christ.

And as such, it is a blasphemy. As such, it is why

I don't believe you can ever go, um, you know, I've gone to observe in the sense of study so as to be able to refute, but ever go in the sense of friendly observation, participation, uh, to weddings, things like that, where the mass is going to be said, it is a blasphemy.

And if you cannot, if you, you cannot put yourself in a position of not being able to identify blasphemy as blasphemy, but most people just today, well, you know,

I've got my belief, but, but they've got theirs. And it really, really seems like you're being just really, you know, really narrow.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, because if there is any way of righteousness apart from the finished work of Christ, then he died needlessly.

That's what Paul said. And if I can stand before God clothed in a, in a, a multicolored robe made up of the righteousness of Christ, Mary, the saints, my own suffering and purgatory, et cetera, et cetera.

Then Christ died needlessly. Yeah. So yeah,

I think we need to be narrow on that because, um, the truth is pretty much narrow when it comes to, well, it was

Jesus said something about the narrow way and the Broadway and Broadway led to destruction and so on and so forth.

So yeah, I'm yeah. Kissing of, uh, of the disformed man, his loving the children, this authenticity, this humility, the caring for the poor.

This is what the whole world expects us Christians to do. And when we, when they go, oh, that's what a

Christian does. In fact, there was a headline here in Orange County and I loved that line. I saved it and said, if you love

Pope Francis, you'll love Jesus. That was the headline. It was the headline.

I saved it. I showed it to a group of priests. I was, uh, speaking to a while back. Uh, wow.

Well, I, let me put it this way. Um, Catholic answers and the Catholic apologists know they don't have anything to worry about from, um,

Rick Warren, anybody under his ministry, not, not anything at all. And I think it was this other video, uh, that I was told

I didn't see it myself. So I'm going on, uh, I'm going on what somebody else said, but, um,

I was told that one of the first comments under it was from a guy who's been attending Saddleback as a

Roman Catholic and said, oh, I've, I've always felt comfortable at Saddleback. Um, if someone who is trusting in the gospel of Rome can attend your church and feel comfortable there, not see the fundamental error of their ways, um, then something's really missing from the proclamation of your church.

It's something called the gospel. Um, that would just, that's just unbelievable.

So there you've got, uh, Rick Warren talking about our Pope, um, viewing the mass in a positive way.

Uh, just, just buying into the spirit of the world. Just, this is not a man does not have a Christian worldview.

Yeah, I know John Piper invited him to speak. I don't care. It still doesn't have a Christian worldview. That's big. That's plain to see from this, isn't it?

Seems to be, but then he went to Rome as did others, um, and, um, got used.

And, uh, here's, um, now here is where he just simply,

I mean, talk about whitewashing stuff. That's, I don't know how else to describe it. If you've not seen it, you may be,

Oh, you're really being harsh, but watch for yourself. We have far more in common than what divides us.

When you talk about Pentecostals, charismatics, evangelicals, uh, fundamentalists,

Catholics, a Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, on, on and on and on. Well, they would all say, we believe in the

Trinity. We believe in the Bible. We believe in the resurrection. We believe salvation is through Jesus Christ.

These are the big issues. Sometimes Protestants think that Catholics worship

Mary like she's another God, but that's not exactly Catholic doctrine. There's the understanding and people say, well, what are the saints all about?

You know, you're, why are you praying to the saints? And when you understand what they mean by what they're saying, there's a whole lot more commonality.

Now there's still real differences. No, no doubt about that. But the most important thing is if you love

Jesus, we're on the same team. The unity that I think we would see realistically is not a structural unity, but a unity of mission.

And so when it comes to the family, we are coworkers in the field on this for the protection of what we call the sanctity of life, the sanctity of sex and the sanctity of marriage.

So there's a great commonality and there's no division on any of those three. Many times people have been beaten down for taking a biblical stance and they start to feel, well, maybe

I'm out here all by yourself. No, you're not. The church is growing in Latin America.

The church is growing in Asia. The church is growing in Africa. It's not growing in North America or Europe, but it is growing everywhere else.

And so we've seen this feeling that maybe we're not as influential, but we're far more influential than people realize.

We are far more influential than people realize. Who is the we?

Well, oh, stop. Stop. We have four. Cease. Thank you. We are.

We are influential. And what's being pictured at that time? The pope in his pope mobile.

Wow. So much there. Let's let's get to it. I play the whole thing so you can get a sense of what's being said.

I mean, Rome. What would Rome have paid? To get something like this only a few decades ago, and they probably didn't have to pay anything here at all than maybe a plane ticket.

I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just chuckling, just wow.

Did he really just do that? Did he really just say that? Oh, that's awesome. This is great.

He just he just whitewashed the the the hyper veneration of Mary and intercession of saints and angels.

And man, he just chucked the reformation under the bus with a grin and a smile.

And of course, he still did though. Oh, we've got some real differences. That's.

Oh. Yeah, OK, let's look at it. We have far more in common than what divides us when you talk about Pentecostals, charismatics, evangelicals, fundamentalists,

Catholics, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian and on and on and on. Well, they would all say we believe in the

Trinity. We believe in the Bible. We believe in the resurrection. We believe salvation is through Jesus Christ.

These are the big issues. That's it. Oh, man. Salvation is through Jesus Christ.

Yeah, well, the Mormons say that and the Jehovah's Witnesses say that. And I wouldn't want to play three card body with him.

Oh, man. A sleight of hand. Oh, in case you're wondering, what was missing there is this little word called alone.

Solus Christus alone, Christ alone. Yeah, that that part was was sort of missing.

I saw that, you know, first of all, you know, the first few things there was, oh, here comes here comes your standard everyday mere

Christianity. You know, it's the mere Christianity stuff. It's it's, you know, nothing more than we all believe in the

Trinity. We believe in the cross. We believe in resurrection. And that's the the least common denominator type stuff that we're dealing with all the time now.

Dealing with all the time. And for a lot of people, that is definitional enough of Christianity that you can leave the gospel out.

But Warren has to sort of throw a little bit of a gospel spin in there, but in the process, deny the very essence of the

Reformation, because it was not a belief that we are saved by Jesus.

It was the belief that we are saved by Jesus alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.

And that is the gospel. And Warren just said, oh, hey, we got we got a whole lot more in common.

It's OK. They believe we're saved by by Jesus again.

I don't know the man. Is he is he is he ignorant of these issues?

It's hard for me to believe that. It's hard for me to believe that. Is he does he know that he could not in this context say the word alone?

If you put yourself in a position where you can't speak the truth, you're someplace you shouldn't be.

Or if you put yourself there and you know you're not to be able to speak the truth and you know the truth, then you're denying the truth.

You're compromising the truth. You're capitulating. For what reasons? I don't know. I have no idea.

I don't know why he thinks he's getting out of this. But there you have least least common denominator

Christianity, mere Christianity, combined with let's pretend we're saying we all believe we're saved by Jesus.

When the reality is different than that. The reality is different than that.

Where is it? Well, why in the world would

I be missing one of my books in here? I'm supposed to have them all in here.

And Mary, Mary has gone missing.

Uh, might have it in here. Might have it in here. Diddy diddy.

This is music that we provide. I'll bet you it's right toward the front.

Well, no. Oh, you're copy.

Oh, good. Thank you very much. Let's see.

Yeah, we should send some Luguri quotes to him. Oh, those are fun. That's what I'm looking for.

That's what I'm looking for. Um, I don't know if I started the book with this.

Yeah, there we go. Yeah, here it is. Sorry. I'll go probably could have quoted this without having the book.

Nick probably could too. Hi, Nick. I'll have to get

Nick to, uh, cause you know what would sound really cool is have Nick record this for me in Russian.

That would sound particularly nefarious. But, um, German would sound pretty wild too.

I'll have to translate that one myself. That's on Kindle.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I've got it on Kindle. Coolio. I just have to fire, fire up my

Kindle to do all that, but it'd be faster with a, since I'm using it would pop up in front of the video and stuff.

So that's, that's why I didn't do that anyway. Here's a, here's the quote folks.

If you ever, if you ever need to get past this kind of Rick Warren ish fluffy stuff.

Um, a small booklet tucked in the fold of a chair in the corner, caught my eye.

It was sticking out just enough, or I may not have seen it intrigued. I pulled it out. This was in the chapel at the hospital where I was working as a chaplain blue and white cover bore the title devotions in honor of our mother of perpetual help.

I still have this in the other room. I scanned through a few of the prayers and one of them,

I spotted the words, my eternal salvation. So I backed up and started from the beginning and here it is. Oh, mother of perpetual help.

Well, wait a minute. Did I tell the story? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm going to read this whole section because I think it's, I think it's relevant. Oh, mother of perpetual help.

The dispenser of all the goods, which God grants to us, miserable centers. And for this reason, he has made the so powerful, so rich and so bountiful thou mayest help us in our misery.

Thou art the advocate of the most wretched and abandoned centers who have recourse to the come then to my help, dearest mother, where I recommend myself to the, in thy hands,

I place my eternal salvation and to thee, do I entrust my soul. Count me among thy most devoted servants.

Take me under thy protection. And it is enough for me for, if thou protect me, dear mother, I fear nothing, not from my sins, because thou wilt obtain for me, the pardon of them, nor from the devils, because thou art more powerful than all hell together, nor even from Jesus, my judge himself, because by one prayer from thee, he will be appeased.

But one thing I fear, then the hour of temptation, I may neglect to call on thee and thus perish miserably.

Obtain for me then the pardon of my sins, love for Jesus, final perseverance and the grace always to have recourse to thee, oh mother of perpetual help.

Then I continue on. At first, I could not believe what I just read. So I ran back to the last few lines.

Was this prayer really saying that the petitioner did not fear his or her sins, the devils, nor Jesus?

That's what it said. I shook my head in disbelief. A few years later, I found myself in a radio studio in Boston, Massachusetts, doing a radio discussion with a former

Protestant turned Roman Catholic named Jerry Matitix. The topic was Mary and the

Saints. Mr. Matitix and I were scheduled to do two public debates at Boston College over the course of the next week.

But that day we were live on the air taking calls on the subject of prayers to Mary and the Saints. As I packed for the trip,

I found a little blue and white booklet and decided to bring it along. Now I reached into my bag and brought it out. Surely, quoting this prayer, would bring a strong reaction from Mr.

Matitix. Surely he'd deny that such a is proper and that the people who had written it were simply going overboard in their piety.

The talk show host gasped involuntarily as I read the final lines. And as I put down the booklet, I looked across to my opponent waiting for the expected reaction.

The host likewise turned to Mr. Matitix. He was quiet for a moment and then he spoke.

Mr. Whitey began, I can only hope that someday you too will pray that prayer.

I can still see it to this day. I have a picture in my iPhoto library that I took that day of Jerry and I in the,

I guess somebody else took it because I guess you can see both of us, in W -E -Z -E in Boston.

And I honestly expected Jerry to do the, oh, that's just piety.

He didn't. And an understanding Roman Catholic could not say that, could not do, could not use that type of excuse.

The Pope at that time, John Paul, his papal coat of arms, totus tuus, the

Latin totally yours, dedicated to Mary. If Pastor Rick Warren, the pastor of the largest

Southern Baptist church, United States thinks that Rome's excuses for the worship of Mary.

And I know all about hyper veneration and Latria and Dulia. I understand that I've been there, done that.

Go listen to the debate with Patrick Madrid on the subject of veneration of saints and angels. It's on YouTube.

That's right. Watch him jump out of his skin when Bill Shishko uses his gavel.

Aged him 20 years right there. I know all about it. It's unbiblical.

It's indefensible. It is indefensible. And so for the pastor of the largest

Southern Baptist church, United States to sit there in Rome and pander to this kind of lunacy, this idolatry means that his heart is not broken.

When he sees pictures, a little old ladies bowing down and rocking back and forth while lighting candles in front of statues of Mary, he doesn't care that they are lost.

He doesn't care. They have a false hope. How can you take idolatry and do that?

Well, they have their answers. You know, if you just listen to what they say, the reformers listened to what they said and answered all that stuff a long, long, long time ago.

I know that it doesn't end up in the current editions of the most popular books.

I really doubt Joel Osteen talks too much about it. Probably not going to show up on Rob Bell's Oprah program.

And we better press on. Sometimes Protestants think that Catholics worship

Mary like she's another God, but that's not exactly Catholic doctrine.

There's not, not, not exactly. It's not, not, not exactly Catholic doctrine.

Yeah, they don't say it that way, but you know what Pastor Rick?

If you know your Bible, you'll know that to worship and to serve are synonyms.

In fact, the Hebrew term Ahav that is translated that way in the Old Testament is frequently translated by both

Latruo and Duluo in the Greek Septuagint.

And Rome has made a distinction between the two to avoid the reality that when you're lighting candles to someone and you're bowing back and forth and praying to them, that's called worship.

Not quite what they say. Standing and people say, well, what are the saints all about?

You know, you're, why are you praying to the saints? And when you understand what they mean by what they're saying, there's a whole lot more commonality.

Now there's still real. There's still, yeah, I love a good place to stop it.

There's still real differences, but there's a lot of commonality. What commonality? What commonality?

There is one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. There is no one else who has standing before God.

There is no one else who can mediate for me. What common ground? I'm sorry, but this is just full scale collapse.

It's, it is excusing idolatry in the name of unity on what, what is the only meaningful basis of unity?

They shall be one in God's word, in the truth. God's word is truth, not falsehood.

You cannot have unity based upon fundamental falsehood here.

For some reason, I thought that was just a something that, that most, um, mega church pastors might know, but silly meme doubt about that.

But the most important thing is if you love Jesus, we're on the same team, laugh or cry, not sure which to, which to do.

Not sure which to do. I wonder what

Warren would have said to Paul if he had had an opportunity to read the first draft of Galatians.

Yeah. Yeah. I wonder what he says when he reads it now too. Well, those, those Judaizers, they, well, anyway, the unity that I think we would see realistically is not a structural unity, but a unity of mission.

And so when it comes to the family, we are coworkers in the field on this for the protection of what we call the sanctity of life, the sanctity of sex and the sanctity of marriage.

So there's a great commonality and there's no division on any of those three. Why do we believe what we believe about these things?

You know, Pastor Warren, I, I think you might want to listen a little more closely, um, to what, uh,

Brother Moeller says very often he's been addressing this and he's been pointing out that the foundation of Roman Catholic teaching on these subjects, because of the denial of sola scriptura and sola fide is different than the foundation that you and I are supposed to have, but that clearly you don't.

Um, and so you, I wonder what you're going to say if and when

Rome decides to compromise on this. In fact,

I wonder how you're going to stand firm if and when Rome decides to compromise on this. That's an even further question we might consider.

Many times people have been beaten down for taking a biblical stance and they start to feel, well, maybe

I'm, I'm out here all by yourself. No, you're not. The church is growing in Latin America.

The church is growing in Asia. The church is growing in Africa. It's not growing in North America or Europe, but it is growing everywhere else.

And so we've kind of have this feeling that maybe we're not, uh, uh, as, as influential, but we're far more influential than people realize.

I think that's, that's really the essence of it, folks. That's influence, influence.

Um, we're, we're much stronger together than separate. That's, uh, that's what we're being told.

And so it's all a matter of influence. It's all a matter of numbers. I mean,

I guess when you're the pastor of a mega church, numbers are really important. Utter collapse, absolute, complete, utter collapse on the gospel, biblical sufficiency by one of the leading voices in the

Southern Baptist convention. I, uh, I would like to think that some other voices in the

Southern Baptist convention might, um, speak out and say something. Have I missed that?

Have you seen anything? You've heard crickets. Well, there is the, the ultimate dogma of the

Southern Baptist convention. Thou shalt not speak evil of a Southern Baptist in public. I guess that's, anyway, uh,

I'd like to, I'd like to finish the program on a, um, up note today, since that was depressing.

It really was. Um, I have recommended to everybody and I'll recommend again, and I may even try to remember to put it into the, uh, blog article.

If you have not yet watched Dr. Jason Lyles talk on fractals, don't turn me off now and say, guy in his fractals.

Um, everyone I've told to watch it who did went, wow.

I had no idea. I had no idea that there is in the very mathematical fabric of creation itself, this incredible phenomenon of the

Mandelbrot fractal and the fact that it's, it's eternal in the sense that it's, it reduplicates itself forever.

The deeper you go into it, you keep running into it and it keeps recreating itself and going into Julia's and different variations and oh, and the beauty is just astounding.

Well, I ran across a video on YouTube and I want to just show this to you.

I'll link to it as well. This, according to what I saw, um, took 26 hours to render.

No 26 days, 26 days, 26 days to render this. Because when you zoom into the fractal, you're getting into smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller numbers.

And the computing power required to render the result graphically just becomes huge.

That's why most of our personal computers can only go so far in. And then it's just, I'm sorry. They didn't make me to do this.

I'm going to play for you a zoom into the Mandelbrot fractal. I'm only gonna do a few moments, but this just give you an idea.

Uh, because this thing goes for 15 minutes, that backs out for about three minutes, but 26 days of computing power to give you this, go ahead and switch over to it and notice how the

Mandelbrot repeats itself. You go farther and farther in, and then about 23 seconds in, you're going to go in, in, in, and look, what's going to pop back up again.

And you keep zooming in. We're at 10 to the minus 30.

I'm not sure if that shows up on the screen or not. Yep. 10 to the minus 40, but it's behind our bugs.

So, and 10 to the minus 50, if you're getting sick, look away from the screen and coming up on there's minus 70.

I'll take it to a hundred. Ninety and there's 100.

Absolutely. And that's only one minute and 17 seconds in. Notice it's 13 minutes and 42 seconds long.

So if, if let's say the last four minutes is backing out, it keeps going and going.

It went to 10 to the 1006th power. So 10 times farther than we just did in 26 days of rendering the

Mandelbrot fractal. And some of you wonder why I am so absolutely fascinated with the

Mandelbrot fractal. Well, go look up Jason Lyles. I'll put it on the blog article. Go look up Jason Lyles discussion of this and go, wow.

Wow. All right. Um, we're probably go for Tuesday, right?

No, no, not Christmas Eve. No. Tuesday. It is Tuesday. It is Tuesday. We'll see a