Pope Francis vs Paul the Apostle, Are people essentially good, or do they need a savior? | Ep. 22

Well, I was gonna say, here's what Paul says about those who preach another gospel. Galatians 1, 6 -9.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ, and are turning to a different gospel.

Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we are an angel from heaven, or a pope... And welcome to Tearin' Down High Places.

My name is Average Joe. I've got the team here. Pastor Jeff Kluwer. Howdy, sir. Greetings.

Greetings. Pastor Tim Robinson, how are you? Hey, hey, hey. Happy to be here.

Doing great. Feeling blessed, never stressed, despite all this mess. There is a lot of mess.

There's so much mess. We were talking right before the show. Do we want to talk about the pope's mess?

Or do we want to attack one of 50 other messes out there? The depravity is consistent, if you can't say anything else, right?

That's it. It's consistently getting worse. Jeff, what's that devolution you like to say?

Yes. I don't believe in evolution. I believe in devolution. Devolution. Caused by inconsistent philosophy that is consistently being arbitrary.

How about that? And the gene pool is getting more and more corrupt.

Not better and better. Adam and Eve would have had perfect DNA. Oh, man.

Yeah. I'll tell you what. I only learned science from a Darwinian evolution perspective, so I'm not very good on science.

I dare not quote anything. I don't know how true it is, but our friend

Dominic told us that the average, I guess it's

Gen Z -er, has the same testosterone as a 65 -year -old man nowadays.

But then Jeff said that's probably because of all the video games they play, instead of running around outside and doing manly stuff.

Borrow some taxes and build something. Crazy, crazy stuff.

Speaking of depravity, a couple weeks ago we mentioned to the audience that we were going to talk about a significant comment by the

Pope. Now, this Pope makes a lot of significant comments. We're going to focus in on one specifically.

Which one of you guys wants to tell us about the Pope's comment on goodness, and who's good, and why that's a problem?

I think we should hear it from the horse's mouth. Okay. Let's do that.

Because I don't remember exactly what he said. All right. Roll that clip. Here we go.

Ah, you can see it now. Yes. All right. Here we go. What gives you hope?

Everything. You see tragedies, but you also see so many beautiful things.

You see heroic mothers, heroic men, men who have hopes and dreams, women who look to the future.

That gives me a lot of hope. People want to live.

People forge ahead. And people are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good.

Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good. All right.

I'm going to take the Pope off here. So, guys, what's the deal?

What's the deal with him saying people are fundamentally good, and how does that line up with Romans 3 .10?

That's a false gospel, brother. Why is that a problem? Why can't we think everybody's just good? Why can't

I just look at my fellow man? How can I love my neighbor if he's not good?

First of all, sorry, this was a big failure, because he got asked what gives him hope.

That's a perfect opportunity to glorify Jesus and say, Jesus Christ is the one that gives me hope.

But he said his hope is in humanity, and he sees how good the world is. But the

Bible says that none are righteous, not even one. But he's basically saying all are righteous, not even none, including the nones.

He's saying the complete opposite of the Bible. And then he goes on to say that even the heart is good when the

Bible says, no, the heart is deceitfully wicked. No one can even know it. But he claims to know it and say it's the wrong thing that God says it is.

So I had a lot going on wrong with that. And then also the hope of Jesus Christ is the one that we need.

And he's basically saying, you're okay. You don't even need Jesus because you're already good, which is not the road you want to lead people on.

That's a great point. I mean, why do we need Jesus if we're all good, nothing's wrong, there's no problems.

No one's a sinner. I mean, he said there's some sinners. So I guess only a few people need Jesus. This is anti -gospel, like Tim said.

When he said, yeah, there are some rogues and sinners out there, but people are fundamentally good.

That is absolutely the opposite of the gospel message. So I don't think our most popular videos are the ones where we go hard against Roman Catholicism.

People don't seem to love that. I've noticed when I preach about that, it's not something that people like to hear.

Nobody puts a thumbs up on those videos. But people don't like to hear the truth and hard truths, especially.

One of the hardest truths that you have to deliver to a person in order for them to be saved is that any hope that they put in themselves in their own goodness is vain and will fail them, and they'll end up in hell, right?

That's the hardest thing you can say to somebody is that they're a sinner, and that's why they need a Savior. But without the message of the bad news, you can't have the good news.

The Roman Catholic Church does not have the good news of the gospel. They have vain religion, doing certain rituals that are meant to justify you before God because the assumption is, look,

I might be a bit of a sinner, but I'm not a rogue, and I'm not that kind of sinner.

Can we just read what Paul says? Because you can't have the pope who is the spokesman for the

Roman Catholic Church. That's the whole point of being Roman Catholic is that you have this guy in Rome who is supposedly the head, right?

And we reject that. So let's hear what the Bible says. And Joe, do you want to pull it up?

I mean, you mentioned it, Romans chapter 3. Romans 3, verses 10 to 18.

There it is. Popped it up. Can't beat that. Let's go. As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one.

No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave.

They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. That's a short episode.

We can be done now. This is what the Bible says. That's what the Pope says. Drop mic.

Drop mic. And this is Paul quoting from the

Old Testament. This is nothing new. He says the first thing that you said was, as it is written.

Yeah. Total depravity should be nothing new. Psalm 14,

Psalm 59, Jeremiah 5, 16. He cites Psalm 140, Psalm 10,

Proverbs 116. It's the whole Old Testament establishing our need for a

Savior. And if you undermine the entire Old Testament and the words of Paul, there is only one word to describe you.

False. That's it. You're a false prophet. You're a false teacher. You're a false pope. You're a false leader.

You are a deceiver. Well, I was going to say, here's what Paul says about those who preach another gospel.

Galatians 1, 6 -9. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven or a pope should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed, as we have said before.

So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you receive, let him be accursed.

Paul could not have been any stronger in his language there. Yeah. Well, I'm so glad that you do talk about Roman Catholicism a lot.

I mean, especially I think in New Jersey, Roman Catholicism is very, very popular.

And the type of Roman Catholicism that we have today is different than a decade ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 500 years ago.

And we need to understand how to witness to our friends and family.

I mean, almost my entire family's Roman Catholic. So I don't want to preach.

I don't want to I don't want them to think that I think they're OK just because I'm kind to them. Right. Or, you know,

I get along with them. I don't hammer them with the Bible nonstop, although they would say I do, but I really don't.

So, you know, but this pope right now,

I think we have an opportunity to get people to wake up because I don't think he is in line with Catholic doctrine.

When he says this, the Catholic doctrine would say you have to follow the

Bible. It's you know, as you pointed out in our previous episode, it's one of the three stools that Roman Catholicism stands on is the doctrine of God, the

Bible. Right. Yeah. I would say the turning point where Roman Catholicism really lost the gospel and denied the authority of Scripture alone would be the

Council of Trent from 1545 on. And that's the thing, like even when they would make changes like Vatican II made things so much more open.

And, you know, we're now separated brethren rather than anathema. But they couldn't undo what the

Council of Trent said. So the pope or any council can't go back on what a previous pope said ex cathedra from his seat when when authoritative declarations are made because they hold the three legged stool.

That's tradition, Scripture and the papacy. When he speaks ex cathedra, they can't go back on something that was already put in writing.

So, yeah, from that point on, from the Council of Trent, when they anathematized the gospel, there was no coming back from that, sadly.

So what do people, Jeff? So I think you need to explain to people what does it mean to be anathema, to be anathemized from the

Council of Trent? Yeah, that word comes from the Greek in Galatians 1, 6 to 9, and it means let him be accursed.

It's condemning someone to hell. It's saying, you know, unless they repent and God forgives them, that this kind of false gospel is damnable.

And what contradictions does Catholic doctrine have that you see regarding Protestants or anyone who says by faith alone in Christ alone, five solas with other doctrines that have come up?

Give me an example of what you mean. I mean, I think in Roman Catholicism, in a later doctrine, they've said that as long as you believe something with faithfulness, you can believe a false religion like Hinduism or Islam.

But Protestantism, no, unless I think you're Lutheran, maybe. Yeah, since Vatican II, that's the kind of language you'll hear.

In fact, Mother Teresa said that she doesn't seek to convert people to Christianity.

She teaches Buddhists to be better Buddhists, Muslims to be better Muslims or Christians to be better Christians.

But she doesn't seek to convert anybody. Wow. Because in her worldview, people are just like this

Pope thinks. Good, good enough. And if you follow the path of your conscience and your convictions and what you think is right, as long as you're sincere in doing that and trying your best, that it's going to be good enough.

God's going to accept that as an alternate path. And ultimately, they think they are going through Christ without even knowing it.

Wow. They're deceived and deceiving others. And it really is.

Sorry, the verse that we read from 18, there is no fear of God before their eyes.

And without the fear of God, they're not going to be able to see the danger in preaching another gospel will lead to hell and then leading other people to hell.

That's serious, serious wrath they're going to be up against. Yeah. I think a lot of a lot of Catholics I know they live a life of deism or deist like deists where God's not really involved in the life.

I mean, I don't know a lot of rosary bead praying Catholics like my grandmother would have been right.

You know, the rosary multiple times a day. And I don't know how many times she did it. But I mean, it was just a nonstop kind of thing, holding it in your hand and going through it.

Lots of rote memorization stuff. But today, I think your average Catholic, if they go to church on Sunday, I mean, a lot of them are just wearing a

T -shirt. And it's I've been very frustrated just trying to get Catholics to read some scripture that I can point to, you know.

Isaiah chapter 66, the last chapter of the book of Isaiah, verses one and two.

Thus says the Lord, Heaven is my home. Heaven is my throne, it says.

And the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me? And what is the place of my rest?

All these things my hand has made. And so all these things came to be, declares the

Lord. So he begins with himself and who God is. Now, listen, but this is the one to whom

I will look. He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

The only ones who will ever come to the Holy God, who's the creator of heaven and earth, are those who are humble and would tremble at his word.

Who would take what God says over what they might think, their own philosophy, or what another man says, or any vain hope in self -righteousness.

The person who thinks they're going to earn it will be condemned in their pride.

What verse is that again? This is Isaiah 66 and verse two is where we were going with it.

Isaiah 66, one and two. So fear of the Lord, that means to tremble before his word, that what

God says makes you tremble. That you will heed the word of the Lord, not just take your own vain philosophy.

And that's all the Pope did. That was vain philosophy to encourage people to believe that they're basically good.

You know, you're not a rogue or a sinner. People are fundamentally good. A person in that state cannot come to the

Savior. Wow, I think I'm going to... Hey, good preaching though, Jeff. That should be in our short, what you just said.

Isaiah 66, tremble at his word. Well, that's really the dividing line. I think the

Roman Catholic view is it just doesn't believe in Scripture alone. It puts these other things, and that's the fundamental difference.

How about the verse that says, work out your salvation in fear and trembling? That's a great one.

And you can't trust the Pope just because he's the Pope that he'll work out your salvation. You have to work out your own and start with the

Bible and see what God says. And if you're not sure that's God's word, but a lot of people are telling you it's

God's word, it's up to you to work that out in your own mind to either believe or not believe.

And you better make sure you have salvation and find out if the Bible is true or not.

Right. Amen. And all you got to do is look at Melchizedek to figure out if it's true. What a great guy.

Genesis 14, Psalm 110, Hebrews 7. Read those three chapters and your faith has every basis that's needed to stand.

Well, this is just such a great topic. I mean, it's so important, right? Just because I mean, when we think about geography wise, like who are the big false religions in our neighborhood, right?

I mean, it's the Catholics, it's the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses.

And then it's, I guess the biggest one, secular humanists. But I'm going to say like the

Catholics, most of them are really secular humanists. They might not even know that term.

That's what they function as philosophically, right? And what is basically good and that's really the issue.

If you compare humans with other humans, you think, okay, those rogues and sinners over there are really bad.

But most people are doing pretty good. But that's humanism. If you have a

God -centered worldview, then you see the purity and the holiness of God. And you look at your own filthy sinfulness and unrighteousness.

And all you can do is say, God, have mercy on me, the sinner. Humanism says, oh, humanity is the pinnacle of all things.

And therefore, humanity is good. So the pope is a secular humanist.

Right. And you know what? People put their trust, even people who go to church, they put their trust in other people.

And then they're let down by the church or people in the church. And they use that as an excuse to say, you know what?

I'll go on my own. I don't want to go back to church. But their faith and what they're looking at is the wrong thing.

They're looking at people who will at times let you down. And that's why you need to be looking at Christ and trusting in Christ.

Not use other people as an excuse on I'm better than that person. I'm better than that church.

I'll do what I want to do. You can't have that high view of humanity. You need to have the right and proper view of God and Him saying that humanity is sinful.

And I do believe the devolution of the world is getting worse and worse. So you're looking at humans that are getting worse and worse and comparing yourself with something that's worse and worse each year.

And that's when sin creeps in more and more and more and more. And that's why we need the Bible that that's eternal.

What is good in there and what is good in God is the same yesterday, today and forever. Do you guys do you guys think?

Listen, folks, Pope Francis is no dummy. He's well read. You don't get to where he is without being well read, knowing the history of the

Catholic Church. I mean, if he's pulling this secular humanist doctrine, what does he really believe?

Where is he going? I'd like to believe what you just said is true, Joe. And then you also look at Joe Biden, who

I don't think is the most read, the most smartest and the most comprehending guy in the world.

But he's running our nation. So I can't say that the pope is this amazingly smart guy that is in the position.

But you can say that God put him in that position for a reason. And if he's a spiritual leader, he should be rebuked by others.

I mean, Jesus rebuked a lot of spiritual leaders. So one day Jesus isn't going to be afraid to rebuke him and condemn him because just because he's the pope doesn't excuse him.

It actually ups that even more. Yeah, the pope is probably very well read in Latin American liberation theology.

Gustavo Gutierrez and well, he was Protestant, I think, but all of that liberation theology that came out of Latin America.

And when they were looking for a replacement, they wanted to shore up Latin America and to diversify.

You know, they hadn't had a Latin American pope. And he was the popular figure. Was he Argentina? Was he

Argentinian? Wherever he was, they recruited him to that.

He worked his way up through the ranks. But it was because of that diversity movement that they wanted.

I don't think he was necessarily the most competent. I think people think that the guy before him,

Ratzinger, was supposedly a scholar, you know, probably was scholarly.

He wrote a lot. Yeah, but I don't think that this particular pope was ever regarded as a scholar.

Not at all. He might not even have realized it. And he's probably been so far away from the Scripture for so long, you know, that he probably didn't realize that he was contradicting the apostle

Paul to the very word. Like he was using Paul's language and negating it.

You know, so what that forces me to ask is, is this the way we talk to our

Catholic friends? Do we say, look, you have a pope that rejects his own doctrine.

You have a Catholic church that is no longer the Catholic church. Right. I mean, and we can say that going back probably to the 7th century.

Right. And I'm not sure when. I mean, you know, you say that, you know, 1535 or 15, whatever

Council Trent was, that was like a really big thing. But I mean, even before that, they're boiling for a long time.

Right. So, I mean, you know, but Catholics don't what

I see with Catholics is like that tradition thing, man. They don't want to go against tradition. They don't want to go against their parents.

They don't want to think, oh, my gosh. Well, if if I'm in a false religion, my parents believe the false religion and my parents.

If I if there's possibility that this is not the right path, then my parents are doomed. And I think

I see a lot of that. What would you say to someone who says, well,

I just have to follow the faith of my father's. How do you know that your father on his deathbed didn't call out to Christ alone for salvation and maybe had heard the true gospel all of those years?

So we're not the ones that know who ends up in heaven or hell. So, you know, the thief on the cross, he got it at the last possible moment.

In fact, on my my wife's side, the grandparents on both sides, both sets of grandparents got saved like near near the very end out of Roman Catholicism.

And also another really close relative was so strongly Catholic. Hey, Martin Luther.

And then got saved just months before he died unexpectedly. So you don't know that God might not have saved them.

So don't put your hope in a false religion thinking, well, that's what my parents believe. Maybe they did get saved.

And your only hope of ever seeing them again is to leave the very Catholic church that they taught you. So there's a lot of deception.

The only way to know the truth is to go to Jesus Christ. He says you will know the truth. The truth will set you free.

God's word is true. That's a great answer. And I think such an encouragement to people who might be afraid to consistently witness to their

Catholic friends and family. Yeah. Because you just it just after a while you've just been

I know after a while you just you feel like, oh, if I do this again, I'm getting kicked out of Thanksgiving again.

So so my old my old Catholic church, St. Charles Borromeo, one of the deacons came to visit our church because his grandson was going here.

But little did he know, another deacon or leader in that church was coming here after service there.

And they saw each other at our church and they looked at each other like they were, you know, at a strip club.

Like they're seeing each other on a Saturday night. And then they they approach each other and said, what are you doing here?

He's like, well, my grandson goes here. So I wanted to see what was up with this church. And the other guy said,

I come to this church to learn the Bible. Wow.

Wow. Well, it's true. It's true. Hey, look, you know, my first year in in a

Protestant church, I said, well, I'm a Catholic, but I'm here because these guys know their Bible. I'm going to hang out and make me a better me because I was

I was very influenced by Terrell Owen. Oh, yeah. And I want to push up in the driveway.

Sit ups. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, Tim, you got a lot of friends from that.

You said it was St. Charles Borromeo. Yeah. Yeah. They ever talk about faith with you or anything like that?

Yeah. Well, the guy we met, the guy, Brian. Yes. Who I've known since I was a kid, who

I love. And I really believe he's a born again Christian. But I'm waiting for him to finally bring his family out of there and start coming to Cornerstone full time.

Hoping that happens. And he was the guy that talked to us afterwards and told us. Yeah. All the

Protestant doctrine. Yeah. He was still. I believe he's the real deal.

And I believe he's he's born again. I just really want to see him step out in faith and and leave what he's held on to for a long time.

I know a Catholic guy. You also know him. But he he knows that this pope is illegitimate, but he considers it like as an aberration and that eventually the church will overcome that.

And it may even get to the point where like these holy warrior crusaders from around the world, genuine

Catholics who are who do believe the doctrines of the Catholic Church will go and forcibly remove the current pope and like reestablish

Catholicism or something like that. Yeah. That is the hope. Because that already happened.

It was called the Protestant Reformation when people made that stand. Yep. Yep. And they wait for a

Martin Luther that already came. Yes. Yeah. Yep. And Jan Hus even prophetically said that a swan would rise.

The Catholic Church was burning Jan Hus at the stake.

And he said, hey, you can burn this goose because Hus means goose in the

Bohemian language. You can burn this goose. But in 100 years, a swan will rise that you will not be able to stop.

And they tried to stop Martin Luther. 100 years after Hus comes Luther. Man, it makes me think that that devolution is true again, because like people back then were writing and prophesying all these amazing things that would come true.

And you read their writings and you can tell that they were highly intellectual and highly spiritual and even probably more advanced than most people walking around on earth.

Oh, so true. So true. The intellect of the Protestant reformers, the best of them is just off the charts.

Or someone like Jonathan Edwards a couple of generations later. I think just the mind.

Yeah. I don't know if we have any mind like that in America right now. Well, we have Jeff Cleaver. That's a far cry.

We have so -called average Joe. I think all the brilliant guys are named

Jeff. Is there another brilliant Jeff? Yeah, there's that guy in Arizona.

Oh, Jeff Durbin. Yeah, he's smart. He's a bit of a preterist though, isn't he? I know,

I know. I need some better influences in my life. I'm sorry. Hey, you know what? He's on the right side of everything that really, really matters.

He's only a partial preterist too. Right. Well, if he was a full preterist, they don't even believe the second coming of Christ, right?

Well, preterists would be a heretic. I think some people that want a slander partial preterist call them full preterists.

I don't know how it goes. But yeah, I'm more convicted of those secondary and tertiary issues don't really matter because we have so many primary issues that are getting ignored.

Right. I'm all about getting us to 90 % Christian and then we can argue tertiary issues.

Until then, we'll tear down the high places. Let's tear them down, tear down the high places. So, Jeff, I don't know.

You guys were chatting. I was off and I'm back. Obviously, my 5G went to 2G really quick and now it's back.

What was that Isaiah verse that you said? Because I want to put that up here as a link at the end of the video for anybody that wants to watch it.

Isaiah 66, verse 2. Yeah, so you preached through the whole book of Isaiah recently or in a

Bible study. So I'm going to add that Isaiah 66 chapter there because I think that would be really helpful to share with our

Catholic friends and family. Yeah, you got to tremble at the word and to put a Pope or tradition.

A lot of people become Catholic if they leave Protestantism to become a Catholic. It's usually because they started reading the church fathers.

And there's some Catholic -ish doctrine. In fact, you could prove almost anything from the church fathers. James White does a great job kind of showing that it doesn't actually line up with what they say.

But the point is you should never put anything at the level of the very word of God.

He says my church father will beat up your church father. Yeah, right. Hey, it's like when you read the

Old Testament and you read the Jewish guys, you don't shrink back into Judaism. You know, you can't shrink back into Catholicism either.

Right, right. So, but I think a lot of I think you're pointing out it's just it's idolatry.

I think I think people I doubt most of the people I know, they've gone into Roman Catholicism from another faith or from from Orthodox faith.

It's because of a relationship. Right. They're getting married to somebody who's a

Catholic. And they want the kids to be brought up in the same false doctrine.

So I've heard many stories about that. Yeah. Yeah, that's the common way. Now, if you have like a scholarly

Protestant, say like I just heard about a Presbyterian pastor kind of guy that he converted to he swam the

Tiber River. But what what happened with him is he got so disillusioned with Protestant like smoke machines and like strobe lights and celebrity pastors and stuff like that.

It just didn't look and he was longing for tradition, something that was rooted in the past.

And so he ran to Rome. Right. But that's just from one folly to another.

Yeah, crazy. So what do you guys think? Did we did we did we get everything we need to talk about this

Pope and encourage people to go out and preach against the heresy of Roman Catholicism? The Pope has been torn down thoroughly, kicked around, thrown in the mud.

All right, then. Well, you know what we got to do? If you see it, if you see a brother down, lift him up.