March 22, 2023 Show with Josh Buice on “Why We Must Continue to Protest the Roman Catholic Church”

The G3 National Conference and the Sovereignty of God

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 22nd day of March, 2023.

And I am so pumped up about the upcoming G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. We're going to be talking a little bit about that today and letting you know about who's speaking there and the theme and so on.

And we have also to discuss that and a very important topic that everyone in this listening audience needs to hear, a topic why we must continue to protest the Roman Catholic Church. We have here to discuss that a returning guest, one of my favorite guests, and a wonderful friend and brother in Christ, Josh Bice, who is pastor of Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia.

He's also founder and president of G3 Ministries. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Josh Bice.

Yeah, good to be with you, Chris.

And first of all, let our listeners know about Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia.

Yeah, Chris, Praise Mill Baptist Church is a Reformed Baptist church on the west side of Atlanta. It's 181 years old. I have the privilege of serving here as pastor, have been here for 13 years. I grew up in the life of the church with my wife.

We both grew up here as children, met in the life of the church, married, and then in God's providence. After I went away to study at the seminary and then pastored out of state for about seven years, God in His kindness called me back here to serve my home church.

And so it's been a joy and a privilege to be called to this task.

And if anybody wants to find out more about Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia, go to PraiseMill .com, and that's P-R-A-Y-S-Mill .com. And as I was saying at the very beginning of the program, I am so excited, as I always am, about the upcoming G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

I am not exaggerating. I'm not using hyperbole when I say that this event is always the highlight of my year. I cannot even count the number of ways in which the Lord so thoroughly and richly blesses me every time I am there in attendance manning my exhibitors booth for Iron Sharpens Iron.

Radio.

I always, every single time, am approached by many people who tell me that they are so blessed and encouraged and edified and educated by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, people that I have never heard from before who approach me at my exhibitors booth.

And then I also meet for the first time face-to-face people who are regular listeners who do submit questions to our guests on a regular basis here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And I also get to interview some of the speakers and some of the listeners and even have made acquaintances that turned into friendships and even turned into advertisers on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio as a result.

So it's just an all-around blessing for me. And of course, last but not least, to be so edified by the powerful preachers that you always have on the roster, very long roster, just to give our listeners a summary because it would take me probably the rest of the program to list everybody who's speaking at this conference, but we have Vody Baucom, Stephen Lawson, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, James White, Mike Riccardi, Justin Peters, Ken Han, Owen Strand, James Coates, who you may recognize that name.

He was the pastor in Canada that made global news because he refused to shut down his church during the COVID mandates in Canada. Scott Anuel, Virgil Walker, and Daryl Bernard Harrison of the Just Thinking podcast, Scott Brown, Susan Heck, and more.

And I have interviewed most of the folks on this roster, and I have a few coming up to further promote the G3 conference, including Susan Heck, who I've never interviewed before. But if you could continue to describe this wonderful conference.

Sure, Chris, yeah. So G3 conference started in 2013 as a theology conference on the west side of Atlanta here on the campus of Prismo Baptist Church. It was a local church conference and was for the purpose of strengthening and encouraging local churches and pastors.

And what the Lord did with that event has really never ceased to amaze me, even to this.

Very day.

I continue to see the work of G3, and it's astounding to me what God did in that first.

Event.

But from there, basically the church was at capacity year number one. And we had a waiting list for about 30 days or so before the event to, you know, again, just because we lacked space. And so what would end up happening would be that over the next four years, we would continue that process until we eventually moved to the convention center in 2017 for the Reformation 500 conference.

And it was there that we really began to grow astronomically. We went from about 750 for those four years here at capacity at our local church campus to 2 ,517, 2 ,818. We went to 4 ,619, 5 ,620, and 6 ,500 in 2021.

Now, I share those numbers with you not to boast or to brag or to suggest that it was something that I did personally, but because it really does amaze me. And as I look back at this conference, I see that, you know, it was God's plan all along for God to raise up a ministry that would come alongside and encourage local churches.

And so now, you know, G3 is more than just an annual conference. We have a ministry that exists for the strengthening of local churches and the encouragement of pastors. And we have a network of churches that are basically 1689 Reformed Baptist churches that associate together, fellowship together, and seek to partner together in gospel ministry.

So it's been a privilege to watch the Lord build a team here and, of course, to continue to use this ministry. And I'm certainly privileged to serve alongside this team as well.

And this conference, this upcoming national conference, is being held Thursday, September 21st through Saturday, September 23rd. And it's on the theme, The Sovereignty of God. You can't think of a better theme than that.

Any way you'd care to elaborate on that?

Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, again, as you've stated, the theme itself is going to be just a wonderful opportunity for us to unpack the grand truths of God's sovereignty over the course of about three days and to be able to have breakout sessions that are very much practical in nature as well as theologically rich.

But one of the things I would encourage people if they've been to a G3 before and they think, okay, well, we're six months out. I typically register, you know, sometime about, you know, 30 days out or so.

That's been pretty much a non-issue for the last number of years because we've had plenty of space at the Convention Center. But right now, we have seen such an enormous spike in registrations that we're actually, in fact, the past two days, Virgil Walker's been at the Convention Center trying to secure additional space.

We're literally running out of space. And so I would heavily encourage people, if they're listening to this broadcast, that they would register for G3's national conference as soon as possible to secure a place.

We're anticipating upwards of 8 ,000 or more people at this event, which is really unbelievable to me.

That is utterly amazing. But it's not unbelievable to me because of the fact that it's an extraordinary conference. This is not a run-of-the-mill conference. And the roster is—you never have duds speaking at the conferences.

I've never been disappointed by anybody who has spoken at a G3 conference. And folks, I've got to get on your case a little bit here, those of you who are listening. We are having a bit of a friendly competition as far as every media outlet that is promoting the G3 conference.

And I am ranking number seven out of 15 in the group of people or organizations or media outlets that are promoting G3. And I want to move up to number one, but at least I want to move up higher than number seven.

I'm smack dab in the middle. At least I can be comforted in knowing I've even beat out Sermon Audio, which is a pretty impressive task. But please, folks, if you are registering at g3men .org, g3men .org, use the promo code, the discount promo code G3ISIR.

That is the Iron Sharpens Iron radio promo code where you will get 30 percent off of the registration fee. So please remember that, folks, and spread the word about it. That's G3ISIR. And this is one of the reasons that this is an excellent theme.

It's ideal, I think, for bringing people with you, inviting people to join you. You might even consider paying for their registration if they do not believe in the sovereignty of God. The body of Christ is divided over these issues.

So if you have Arminian evangelical friends or Roman Catholic friends or Eastern Orthodox friends, I would strongly urge you to bring them there because the lineup of speakers, you're not going to get better as far as representatives of those who believe in these doctrines known as the doctrines of sovereign grace, also nicknamed reform theology and nicknamed Calvinism.

Not at all based on our hero of the faith, John Calvin, but based on the scriptures. If you want to elaborate on that a little bit more, Pastor Josh.

Yeah, obviously, as you've stated, Chris, I mean, when we study the doctrine of God's sovereignty, we do want to put emphasis on the holistic view of what God has done. And so we move beyond the realm of creation to the wonderful truths of sovereign grace.

And so as we think about the grace of God, we should, in fact, see it through the lens of God's sovereignty. And so we're going to unpack that truth during this event. We're also going to be unpacking other aspects of God's sovereignty.

As I've stated already, the fact that God is the one who is responsible for all of creation and he sustains all of creation even now, according to his power. And so we're going to be looking at various aspects of God's sovereignty.

But yes, you are correct that when we study salvation, the doctrine of salvation, we see that it does not begin with man and his freedom. It begins with man and his bondage. And the spotlight is placed upon God who rescues individuals who are, you know, given over to sin and locked into the dark dungeon of human depravity.

Why Protest the Roman Catholic Church

So remember, folks, it's G3MIN .org, G3MIN .org, and use the promo code G3ISIR, standing for Iron Trump and Zion Radio, G3ISIR, to get 30 off the registration fee. And you're going to be hearing that repeated throughout the program, including in commercials voiced by my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

Today we are discussing a topic that is near and dear to my heart. I already announced it earlier, why we must continue to protest the Roman Catholic Church. I am a former Roman Catholic. There are members of my family who remain in that false religious system.

I have been fully aware of the sad news that over the years it seems that Reformed Christians, especially those in academia, seem to be becoming softer and softer on their opposition to Roman Catholicism than when I was first saved in the 1980s.

I'm not saying that there weren't ecumenists with Rome in the ranks of Reformed Christianity then, but it seems to me that that is increasing in numbers, which is disturbing to me, especially since I know full well that the actual teachings that are dogmatic, the official teachings of the Church of Rome on the gospel, on how we are to be made right with God, they are false and damning and they are lies.

I don't think that I am overstating the case or intentionally being cruel or nasty. It just happens to be the truth. In fact, you probably are aware of this, Josh. For a decade on Long Island, I arranged debates between our mutual friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, a world-renowned Reformed Baptist apologist and Roman Catholic apologist.

Every year for a decade, we had these on Long Island, and I'm looking forward to hopefully continuing that. Now that I'm here in Pennsylvania, reviving the Great Debate Series, as it was called. The reason for that, the reason I had such a passion and a zeal to have these debates, was because of the fact that we are living in a world where the feelings of others are more important than their never-dying souls.

And if you could pick up where I left off there, Josh.

Yeah, absolutely, Chris. So, as you've mentioned, there is a bit of a trend within professing evangelicalism of individuals who are going, quote-unquote, home to Rome. And that's a massive concern for me.

I mean, when you hear of individuals who quote, you know, various different Roman Catholics, and they embrace them as trusted teachers. Of course, what we must understand is that if you're not Roman Catholic, and you are a Christian, we can't conflate the two.

So what we must understand is that we can't treat Roman Catholicism as if it's like the difference between Baptist and Methodist, like it's another denomination within Christianity. It's not. And a growing trend today, which I'm quite certain that many people listening to this conversation today have seen for themselves, is that people in the limelight or, you know, within the Hollywood circles and even within the media circles are continuing to beat that drum of just calling Catholics Christians.

Now, obviously, we need to be able to differentiate when we talk about the creeds of church history, and we talk about, you know, various different statements about the Holy Catholic Church. Little c, Catholic, is a reference to the Universal Church.

It's not a reference to the Roman Catholic Church. And so when we see that, we need to be able to understand the difference. But what we need to see is that Roman Catholicism is not Christianity. And if you look at the history of the Reformation and you see what happened there, if you want to begin with the explosion of the Reformation, say, around 1517 on October 31st with Luther's 95 feces.

Which is where many historians, you know, basically direct our attention. Then what we see soon thereafter is that Luther becomes a Christian, and he began protesting the Roman Catholic Church, and the preaching of the true gospel was central to Luther.

So he moved from this idea of just correcting the indulgences and the sale of indulgences, which is what he was calling out and questioning there by nailing the 95 feces to the castle church door in Wittenberg, which, by the way, was his form of social media to a degree.

He moved beyond that to an actual protest of the Roman Catholic Church, understanding that it would not be an internal movement of correction. It would be an external reformation, and what happened with Luther and his ministry was that he was basically returning the people to the word of God and bringing the Bible to the people.

He would be responsible for translating the Bible into the German language after his defense of justification by faith alone at Worms in 1521. And so as we look back historically, we see that there was a definitive line that was placed in the sand by Luther and the reformers stating that this is true Christianity over here, and the false church of Rome is over there.

And so we need to be able to differentiate between the two.

And, of course, you were using a comparison before saying that the difference between those of us who are theologically reformed Protestants and Roman Catholics is far greater than the difference between us and Methodists.

Well, we have to be clear to identify which Methodists we're talking about, because obviously a great host of Methodists are just as apostate as the Church of Rome, just for different reasons.

Absolutely, absolutely. But it's one thing to say this is a denomination that even historically has been seen as a denomination of true Christians, whereas the Roman Catholic Church is certainly not to be seen or to be conflated with genuine Christianity.

And I know obviously you know the difference between the two, but it is good to clarify.

Yes, and it bears repeating that we are not saying every single person who identifies as a Roman Catholic is damned. There are people who are born again who actually believe in the true gospel, who put their total and complete trust on the finished work of Jesus Christ on Calvary alone for their salvation, who still for some reason or another continue to identify as Roman Catholic.

We're not talking about that. We're talking about those that are enslaved to a false religious system within Rome, both the false system that has been declared dogmatically at the Council of Trent, which was a response to the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, but also the deformed version, if you will, of Roman Catholicism that exists today where you have the most left-wing Pope in that religion's history who not only defies historic Roman Catholic teaching, but obviously defies the scriptures as well.

So you have a bizarre situation there when people wrongly think that because Roman Catholicism, even in their modern catechism, is much softer on Protestants than they used to be when they used to burn them alive, it's much softer on Protestants.

But the teachings of modern Rome, even coming from the lips and writing of Pope Francis, are not dogma. These are not things that must be believed by the faithful Roman Catholic. Am I making sense there, Pastor Josh?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And to your point, again, you referenced the Council of Trent, which I think it would be important for us to talk about. Some of the statements of anathema that were, again, handed down there at the Council of Trent.

In fact, could you do that when we return from our first break? Because we've got to go to our first break right now.

Absolutely.

Yeah, and we'll go into the anathemas, which are very important. And your average Roman Catholic doesn't even know anything about these anathemas, what they mean. And even those that are apologists seem to have redefined what those anathemas mean.

But if you have a question for Josh Bice, send it to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you are a Roman Catholic and you are starting to question your beliefs, your long-held cherished beliefs, and you don't want to identify yourself publicly on this yet.

Well, I understand that. You want to remain anonymous. But whatever the reason, if it's personal and private, involves a loved one or what have you, we can understand you remaining anonymous. But if it's just a general question, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

We'll be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

The Council of Trent, Anathemas, and Justification by Faith Alone

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference.

That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd. On a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries. And there's more great news. Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron radio can get you a 30 discount off the registration fee.

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That's royaldiadem .com, royaldiadem .com. Mention Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with our guest today, Pastor Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia, and also founder and president of G3 Ministries, who is hosting the upcoming 2023 G3 National Conference.

We are discussing why we must continue to protest the Roman Catholic Church. Our email address is ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

Right before the break, Pastor Josh, you are about to enter into the discussion of the anathemas that were laid out dogmatically at the Council of Trent. And perhaps you could even start with defining that, because in the 21st century, most of the modern Roman Catholic apologists, even if they're very conservative, they do not want to give the idea, promote the idea, that the anathemas are intended to curse Protestants to hell.

They try to put a different friendly, warm, and fuzzy spin on it, that it just means they can't be official members of the Roman Catholic denomination if they believe in these things that are being anathematized.

But if you could shed some light on the reality here.

Yeah, I think it would be good to give some biblical context. I mean, if you look at Galatians 1, you see where Paul is warning the church of the invasion of heresy and heretical teaching there in Galatia.

And he says in the opening words in chapter 1 that if anyone comes preaching any other gospel than that which he has preached unto the church, then let that one, even if it be an angel from heaven, he says, let that one be anathematized or anathema.

And so the actual term there means to be damned to hell. Now, again, to go back to the historical context that we were discussing earlier with the Reformation, with Luther and the Reformers, when they were basically making a firm distinction between Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church, there was a response to the bold Reformation.

And again, the Reformation, we call ourselves Protestants, Chris, and what that means is that we are protesting something. We are standing against the perversion of the gospel. And as we consider that, we again see that historically the Roman Catholic Church, they provided their own protest against the Reformation at the Council of Trent in the 1500s.

And that council still to this very day has basically the official teachings on justification by the Roman Catholic Church, and they offered up some 33 different canons and statements of anathema there just under the doctrine of justification.

So again, the Christians, the Protestants were suggesting that the Bible teaches that we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone for the remission of sins, and that the Roman Catholic Church teaches a false view of the gospel that we actually cooperate with Jesus through works, which basically earns our salvation.

And so in the Reformation, there were five solas that were statements that sort of gave way to an explanation of historic Christianity, and one of those is sola fide, which means that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone.

So that's how we receive our salvation. That's how we are justified. And so the Roman Catholic Church says, no, that's not the case. In fact, at the Council of Trent under the heading of justification, Canon 9 of the 33 canons, these statements stated the following.

I'm just going to read it here. It says, quote, If anyone saith that by faith alone the impious is justified in such wise as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining the grace of justification and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will, let him be anathema.

Now, end quote. So to your question, Chris, here's the point. Modern Roman Catholics may try to water down the statement of anathema to mean, well, it just means that you're excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

But if you understand the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, if you're outside of, quote, unquote, the church, which is always in reference to the Roman Catholic Church, then you're damned. So basically what they're stating is if you believe in sola fide, we are excommunicating you from the Roman Catholic Church.

And as a result of that, you're damned. So again, it does mean what it means. And to try to suggest otherwise would be foolish. You connect it all the way to Galatians 1 and historically, what does anathema mean?

So basically the Roman Catholic Church is stating that they are damning everyone outside of the church because they refuse to embrace the false gospel of the Roman Catholic Church.

Amen.

And one thing we have to make clear, because I've had conversations with Roman Catholics who when we are trying to hash out what one another believe about how man is made right with God, I have had Roman Catholics say that they agree with me when I say that good works, good deeds, are only the evidence and the fruit of saving faith.

They in no way cooperate with saving faith to justify or save a sinner. There is no merit in them. There is nothing that a human can possibly do to merit the favor of God. They're just evidences that you are truly saved as even James spells out in his epistle that faith without works is dead.

So these are signs of a living faith. And I've had Roman Catholics actually say, well, I agree with that. And I say, well, your church doesn't. Some Catholics seem to be confused about this. They don't even really understand that the anathemas of Trent are making it clear that the deeds of humans cooperate with the finished work of Christ on Calvary in order to save them.

Am I right?

Absolutely, you're right. And see, that goes back to the point you made earlier, that we're not suggesting that anyone who is a Roman Catholic is just as a result of them being Roman Catholic, or maybe they grew up a Roman Catholic, that we're suggesting that they're damned.