The Errors of Roman Catholic Theology (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

This is Mike Abendroth, I'm your host. I have the privilege of being the senior pastor, preaching pastor at Bethlehem Bible Church just north of the reservoir, just north of Worcester, Massachusetts. I almost said Worcester, California.

I've been thinking about the Shepherd's Conference in California and was just transported back there miraculously. I'd like to talk today about the gospel and Roman Catholicism, the gospel and Roman Catholicism.

Now, some people I know listen are Roman Catholics, and when I say something that they take as a slam against the Roman Catholic Church, they call that Catholic bashing. I know there are some Christians who don't want anyone ever to say anything negative about some other religion.

Excuse me today. And there are some that maybe want to bash people every single day. And so we've got a variety of different listeners. My topic format is usually always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

This will be biblical today, it also will be provocative. If I lived in Salt Lake City, a good majority of the time, I would make references to what? To whom? The Mormon Church, because if you live there and most of the people were Mormons, then you need to know what the Mormon Church teaches, you need to know how to evangelize Mormons.

We would just take that as par for the course. Why is it here in New England, where you have 80 of the people who would call themselves Catholics, most aren't practicing, as Mormons who don't practice are called Jack Mormons, Roman Catholics who don't practice, I don't know if they're Jack Catholics or what they are.

But most of the people here aren't religious Catholics. They're not what we would call good Catholics. They would go to church once in a while, but not very often. And so I want to talk and begin to talk today in this first segment about Roman Catholicism.

If you are weak-kneed, faint of heart, a coward, a man-fearer, this is probably not a good show for you. I have had many family members, including grandparents who have been Roman Catholics, and it has nothing to do with hatred.

Why could Luther and Erasmus debate back and forth over these things without some kind of vitriol, and if you disagree, it means you hate and loathe the people. I don't loathe Roman Catholics. I love Roman Catholics, and that's why I'm going to tell you the truth.

We both can't be right. As I talk to my chiropractor, I tell him, hey, Mike, we both can't be right. You're a Roman Catholic, I'm a Protestant. We both might be wrong, but we both can't be right. In this pluralistic age, everybody can just have their own, and if it works for you, fine.

No, there is one truth, and we can't have two truths. According to Francis Schaeffer, what we're looking for is true truth. And so when it comes to dealing with this topic, it needs to be talked about because it is so relevant.

It is so, actually, so easy to walk through the issues of difference. The difficulty comes when you have a Roman Catholic and they realize that they've been wrong their whole lives, and that means their grandmother was wrong and grandfather was wrong and uncles are wrong and mom's wrong and daughter's wrong.

And so that kind of family relationship will choke out, lots of times, any kind of faith because the implications are so many. The complications are huge when you realize what I've been taught isn't according to the Bible.

I'd also like to make another disclaimer. I don't know why I'm making disclaimers. It's no compromise radio. But my other disclaimer is this. There are some Catholics who call themselves Catholics who are actually born again.

But as we'll see today in the next few shows, they're not born again because of what the Catholic Church teaches. They're born again in spite of the Roman Catholic Church. If you'd like to go to heaven, you can't be a good Catholic and go.

Bad Catholics can go because good Catholics adhere to the Roman Catholic Church and system and belief system, and bad Catholics don't. They might agree with what the Bible teaches about being born again by faith alone, through grace alone, to the glory of God alone, through Christ alone, through Scripture alone.

And so if you say to me, oh, all Catholics don't believe that, well, duh, all Catholics of course don't believe that. Don't try to prove your point to me by just saying, I know a friend and I've got a friend of a friend, or I am a person who does this and who does that, who believes this and who doesn't believe that.

That all may be true. But when you look at any organization, any ministry, any business, you look at the leadership. Because some person at the register at Walmart does one thing or thinks one thing, they may or may not be carrying out the commands and the demands and the orders of the brass back in the Midwest at Walmart headquarters.

And so if you want to know about the philosophy of Walmart, don't go down to the gun store clerk in the local Walmart, call up Walmart headquarters. I don't even know where that is, St. Louis or something, Kansas City, I don't know, it's someplace probably in the Midwest.

And so same thing is true here when it comes to Roman Catholic Church. What does the Roman Catholic Church teach? James Stewart of Edinburgh said, there's no sense in declaring that you're not ashamed of something unless you've been tempted to feel ashamed of it.

And I don't want to ever be ashamed of the gospel. I want to proclaim the gospel to the 80 of the people who are in this region that need to know the truth, that need to be free from the lie, that need to be freed from the blinding of Satan to somehow think that it is Christ's great work plus, that you have to slay Christ again every mass.

No, I don't want to do that. We want to deal with this issue. How can I keep quiet? It's like Moby Dick's Father Mapple, woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale.

And there's a gale here. Back in New England years ago when the Pilgrim's Crank came over, Roman Catholicism was a minority. Now it's a majority. And so what do we do when it comes to this topic? Certainly in the last five years especially, the Roman Catholic Church has been in a crisis, at least visibly, a moral crisis, a spiritual crisis with all the abuse cases and all the cover-ups and all the transferring people around.

We've got back in 2002, the Pope accepts Polish Archbishop's resignation. Release of papers puts pressure on Cardinal in Boston. Catholic Church is now counting the cost of the revelations of sexual abuse by priests.

Boston Cardinal, pressure to resign. Pennsylvania priest transferred after homily. And the list goes on and on and on. There is a crisis in the Church. It's gone underground a little bit. We won't see it rear its head for a little while.

But we need to ask ourselves the question, what do we do with some of the issues that separate the Roman Catholic Church and evangelicals? When I grew up, I grew up as a Lutheran across the street from a Roman Catholic Church.

And I thought we were the same. And I thought we did things the same except for a few minor differences. I had no idea what those differences were. I didn't know how major they were. I didn't know that what happens is you have two basic different religions.

And so, if I'm wrong, I'd like to be proven from the Scripture. But if you think you're wrong, don't try to tell me that I'm just a Catholic basher. That doesn't deal with the issue. Don't try to say, well, I'm mean-spirited.

That doesn't deal with the facts. I'm trying to be nice about it. I'm trying to be kind about it. But I'm trying to be direct. I've learned that some Roman Catholics listen to this show. I'm glad they do.

And I hope you listen just to see what you disagree with next. It's a free country. At least it's free for the moment. Let's just deal with a variety of different things, no particular order. One, the issue of celibacy for priests.

Why Priestly Celibacy Is Unbiblical

What does the Bible say about that? And you say, well, that's not that big a deal. I don't think they should be either. Again, I'm talking about what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. What does the Bible teach about celibacy?

Many priests may not break their vows physically. Many priests may not do horrible things to those that they can take advantage of. But the issue here is what happens in the mind of someone, what happens in the heart of someone when they are forbidden to do what God has given them to do in marriage, and that is enjoy sexual intimacy.

Did you know forbidding of priests and nuns to marry was introduced in 1079, and I think it has led to all kinds of immorality. Let me tell you a little bit why celibacy is wrong, according to the Scriptures.

First of all, to lead a church, to be a bishop or an overseer, an episcopus, 1 Timothy 3, verse two, an overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife. Now, celibacy is gone right there.

Celibacy is out the window. I can give you another reason why I think celibacy is a farce, it's a hoax, it's a lie. It's a lie basically back in the old days so you can keep the people's property within the Roman Catholic system and not have to give them to the offspring and split up the priest's fields and clothes and tools.

The Catholic Church can keep them all. Mark 1, verse 30. Now Simon, this is of course Peter, this is the one that the Roman Catholics would think to be the first pope, an overseer must be above reproach, husband of one wife.

Now we move to Mark 1. Now Simon, mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever and immediately spoke to her about him. Peter was married. Peter was married before he even began to follow Christ. Peter's wife came along with him at certain apostolic trips.

Third reason why I think the Roman Catholic Church is completely wrong when it comes to celibacy for their priests and for their nuns, 1 Corinthians 9 .5. Do we not have a right, Paul says, to take along a believing wife even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas are Peter?

Peter had a wife. It's okay to have a believing wife. It's okay to have a wife. 1 Corinthians 7, verse one. I'd like to say now that God has given hormones to people. He's given them hormones for lots of different reasons.

One of the reasons he's given hormones to people is so they'll have a desire for intimacy, so they'll have a desire for procreation. So now God gives these desires to Adam and Eve. They are torqued and tweaked and affected by the fall, certainly.

There can be negative desires that spin out of that. But the sex drive is not a bad thing. It's only a bad thing when it's directed into the wrong place, that is, in every place that's outside of the marriage bed, Hebrews 13.

Within the marriage bed, that is the proper, that is the God-ordained, that pleases God, that glorifies God when a husband and wife can come together literally, physically, sexually. Those hormones are good and right and proper.

God did not make a mistake in giving people hormones for that reason. So now you have the hormones for that reason, and you have a desire to have sexual relations, and then you can't because the Roman Catholic Church says you can't.

Well, you'll either burn on the inside, or as we've seen here locally, and we've seen across the world, you'll find someone who is, you're able to dominate and you're able to take advantage of, and you will force them to do things that ought not to be even spoken of in public.

And so here we have in 1 Corinthians 7, verse one, now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. This is a Jewish way, a metaphorical way to talk about sexual intimacy.

It's the sexual touch. It's the sexual act. But because of immoralities, let each man have his own wife and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband fulfill his duty to his wife sexually, and likewise also the wife to her husband sexually.

If you're single and not married, celibacy is what you should be practicing. But if you're married, you ought not to be celibate. Short of some kind of physical reason, you're not to be together, you can't be together rather.

It is a sin for consistent celibacy to go on in the marriage. And it's a sin for sexual activity to go on in a single person's life. And so Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, four, the wife does not have authority over her own body sexually, but the husband does.

And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, the wife does. The wife has rights over the husband's body, an exclusive right, an exclusive claim. If I was in the Midwest, we would say she has dibs on that body.

Paul says, stop depriving one another except for agreement for a time that you may devote yourselves to prayer and come together again lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control. There's this tempting from Satan because you are given hormones that have this endpoint, this desire to have sexual relations.

And again, it's pure and right and holy to have those in marriage. And by the way, if you're a single person now and you have those desires, here's what those desires are telling you. If you're somewhere between, I don't know, 18 and 35 years old and you're listening, you say, I have those desires and I'm not married, what are those desires telling me?

Those desires are not telling you to stay at home and play Wii all night long. Those desires are not say, go out with the buddies every night and go candle pin bowling. Those desires are not telling you to stay at work all day, all night and make money and make it your God.

Those desires are telling you this, go get a wife, get a move on. That should be a propulsion to you, a motivation to you. It is time to go find a wife. I have desires. It's a good thing to have desires.

It's just bad when those desires torque down towards the sinful, towards pornography, towards internet pornography, towards all kinds of other things that are not within God's ordained realm of blessing for sexual activity.

That is marriage between a husband and a wife. I shouldn't even have to add that, but here in Massachusetts, I have to add that. Well, number five, the fifth reason why there's no celibacy in the Bible for people who call themselves church leaders or priests.

I don't even want to call them priests. I don't want to call the Pope a father. Those are two wrong words to use according to the Bible, but that's getting ahead of myself. The Spirit explicitly says, 1 Timothy 4, that in latter times, we are in the latter times, post-resurrection times in between the ascension of Christ and the second coming of Christ, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.

Some people will, we have the English word, apostatize. Some will fall off the wagon of faith. Some will spiral away from the truth like planets, showing that they never were believers. Some will pay attention to doctrines of demons.

Now, this is not demonology. Demons are spirits. Demons are fallen angels. Demons can't repent. Demons try to do the will of Satan, although they really do the will of God. That's not a doctrine of demons.

Doctrine of demons is some bad teaching, some false teaching, some air-filled teaching that is taught by a demon. That is to say, it originates from a demon. It has its source in a demon, and these demons use people to promote what they say, and that's found in verse two.

By means, this is all done through people, by means of the hypocrisy of liars, literally hypocritical lie speakers. They speak falsely and in error, in hypocrisy. They know better, and just like Satan used a serpent, here these demons use these minions, and so they say the wrong thing.

They are seared, the text says, in their own conscience as with a branding iron. And Paul now lists these hypocritical lie speakers, demon-possessed, as it were, demon-energized, is probably a better word, topic.

What do they teach? Show me a person that teaches these things, and I'll show you someone who is teaching demon theology. It has its origin in demon theology, not God's theology, not God's generous, good theology, but in demon theology.

Here's what demon-driven men teach. Men who forbid marriage. Men who forbid marriage. If you are of age, and you are of different sexes, and you are standing before God, and say, I have a desire to be with you for lots of reasons, including an intimacy issue, then I can see fully that we should not forbid that, even if you're a priest.

This is categorical. Men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods. I won't get to fish Fridays yet, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

That's what was happening at Ephesus when Paul wrote this to Timothy. And there's just enough truth in the lie from the demons that it sounds almost right. Remember, back in the garden, God said, I've given you every plant-yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, and the fruit, and all those things, and it's good.

Everything about it is good. Marriage is good. Sex is good. Animals are good. Plants are good. Everything you made, God made, was good. And so if God has given you a desire to get married, and you're calling yourself a priest, you have no biblical warrant to say that you're married to the church.

What happens is the Catholic Church has told you, you can't get married. Now, there are some people who disagree with that, and there are little offshoots and crazy people that say, oh, that's true. But no, this is not correct.

Scripture commends singleness, that's certain. But when you have a desire to get married, and you don't have the gift of celibacy, when you say to yourself, I do care about physical intimacy, I would like that, then you don't have the gift of singleness.

You ought to go find a wife. And so don't let anyone forbid people marrying, because for everything, 1 Timothy 4, verse four, created by God, is good, including marriage. And nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude.

Oh God, thank you for my wife. And let's get married, my wife to be. The Catholic Church says, let's go to Matthew 19, and that will help us when it comes to supporting celibacy. Not all men can accept the statement Jesus said, but only those to whom it has been given.

For there are eunuchs who are born that way from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who are made eunuchs by men, and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

He was able to accept this, let him accept it. I accept it, I believe it. Jesus is exactly right when he says those things. But what does that have to do with the Roman Catholic Church telling priests they can't marry?

1994 Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, page 395, number 1579. All ordained ministers of the Latin Church, with the exception of permanent deacons, are normally chosen from among men of faith who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

Celibacy is a sign of this new life to the service of which the church's minister is consecrated, accepted with a joyful heart, celibacy radiantly proclaims the reign of God, end quote. No, false. And by the way, I won't prove this pragmatically, but as an aside, if that was true, there'd be no priests sleeping with nuns.

There'd be no priests abusing young boys because they would have a celibate life. When God gives a celibate life, there's no desire for that. There's no desire for improper, illegal, criminal, sinful things.

No, the person says, and I've met people before who said, I don't have any desire for intimacy with a woman, I'm just gonna live my life and serve the Lord, and that's fine. But you can't tell me that that is for pastors, for priests, for the Pope.

Pope Boniface VIII talked about the Catholic Encyclopedia. Scarcely any possible crime was omitted. Heresy, gross, and unnatural immorality. The Bible says celibacy is good. Forcing people to take the vow of celibacy is wrong.

Pope John Paul XXIII, accused by 37 clergy witnesses of fornication, adult incest, sodomy, theft, and murder. It was said that he kept a legion of witnesses. It was proved by a legion of witnesses, rather.

He had seduced and violated 300 nuns. He had a harem at Boulogne, I don't know how to pronounce French words, of 200 girls. Pope Pius II fathered many illegitimate children. Pope Paul II, this is back in the 1400s, had a whole house of concubines.

Pope Innocent VII, 1484 to 1492, 16 illegitimate children. Now the list could go on, I mean that. The list could go on. So we've got Pope Boniface with all these crimes and these other people. If you have the gift of celibacy given by God, then you're not going to want to have a harem.

First of all, you're gonna act righteously. Second of all, you're not gonna have any desire for that kind of thing. Pope Paul III in 1534 to 1549, as a cardinal, fathered three sons and a daughter and sought advice from astrologers.

We didn't get very far today, but we didn't need to get very far. Why can't priests marry? Answer, the Church, Roman Catholic Church says they can't. Should priests be able to marry? The Bible says they ought to be married.

They ought to be married if they have a desire to be married. They have a desire to be married, they should. It's a good thing. It's proper, it's holy. You can't serve the Lord any better as a single person who's pining away for testosterone levels to do what they are built to do.

No, we don't do that. Celibacy given by God is righteous. Celibacy mandated on people through the Roman Catholic Church is sinful and popes can't even control themselves. So what does that teach us? My name is Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry.

Scripture Alone Versus Roman Catholic Tradition

We're talking today about celibacy in our extended new series on Roman Catholicism. I don't hate Catholics, I love Catholics. I love them enough to tell them the truth. Why won't you abandon tradition and stick to the Bible?

Get rid of what the Church says, get rid of what the pope says, get rid of what the magisterium says and say, I'll believe what the Bible says. But if you do recognize this, you're going to leave the Catholic Church because these two things cannot agree.

Tradition and the Church and the Bible, all three don't agree. You've got to pick one. I'd pick the Bible. I wouldn't pick men who did this. God bless you.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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