The Heresy Of The Papacy

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Colossians chapter 1.
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We have been going through an exposition of the book of Acts.
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So if you were expecting to be in Acts 13 this week, so was I.
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The first three days of the week are the days I normally reserve for preparing my messages.
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And I had prepared all the way to Wednesday afternoon a message from Acts 13.
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And then I began to make note of what was happening all around us in regard to the visit of the Pope, the papal visit.
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And it was, I was moved in my heart that I needed to say something regarding this.
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And so I took back to the study and decided to go a different direction this week, prayerfully by the Lord's direction.
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We will be back in Acts 13 next week, though, Lord willing.
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So don't get too upset if you're coming all excited about that.
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I imagine if any of you have access to a television or the internet, you're already well aware that America has had a very high profile visitor this week.
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Jorge Mario Bergoglia, otherwise known as Pope Francis, has come to America.
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He has been welcomed by throngs of people hoping to catch a glimpse of the one that they refer to as Holy Father.
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He's been exalted in the news, had a meeting with the President, and has even spoken in front of several groups, including our very own Congress.
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He has great influence with world leaders and is immensely popular, even with some unbelievers, many of which see him as a champion of social issues, which he is.
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In fact, if you listen to his speech to Congress, you'll notice that these are some of the things that he mentioned.
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He mentioned climate change, income redistribution, social justice, and open immigration.
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That was sort of the focus of his lesson, or speech, or whatever.
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You'll also notice, if you listen to his speech, some things that he did not mention.
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He did not mention the name of Jesus Christ, the Bible, the Gospel, how to be saved, or the persecution of Christians all around the world.
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Those things were very absent from his speech.
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Beloved, I am sure it comes as no surprise to you as a teacher in the Reformed tradition and a Bible-believing Christian that I am no fan of the Pope.
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But you also know it is not my custom to come into this pulpit and voice my personal convictions.
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It's not my business to do so.
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I'm called to preach God's Word, not my opinion.
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So my being a fan of the Pope is no consequence.
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Doesn't matter what I think.
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What matters is what God has spoken.
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Because of the visit of the Pope and my concern that many of you do not understand the danger he presents to the church, I want to share with you a message entitled, The Heresy of the Papacy.
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With a title like that, there should be no doubt as to where we will be headed.
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And you might say, well, why would you do this? I remember years ago, I've been in this church for a very long time.
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This is my tenth year as the pastor.
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Before that, I was the associate pastor, and before that, I was youth pastor.
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So I've been here for a long, long time.
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And back before I was the pastor, John Paul II died.
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He actually died on my birthday, 2005.
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And I remember overhearing people who were claiming his goodness in my church.
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They were proclaiming how good of a Christian he was and how heaven was opening for him.
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And I was saying, how sad.
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How sad that we would proclaim a man so lost to be so righteous.
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Now I know we've come a long way as a church in the last ten years.
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We've changed our name.
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We've changed a lot of things.
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But I fear there is still an attitude of indifference regarding Roman Catholicism.
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I think many of us would just be happy to proclaim all Roman Catholics saved.
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And I think the reason is this.
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Then we don't have to evangelize them.
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It alleviates our conscience.
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If we just think they're all saved, then we don't have to give them the gospel.
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So there's a whole bunch of people now.
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I don't even have to tell about Jesus because they're already saved.
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As we open our message this morning, I want to read a section from Colossians on the person of Jesus Christ.
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This beautiful section of Scripture is a powerful and poetic section.
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It's so powerful, so poetic, that many scholars believe that it was actually a hymn that was recited in the early church.
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And as we read this section of text, I want you to take note.
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Who is the true head of the church? Let's stand together and read.
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Colossians 1, verses 15 to 20.
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Speaking of Jesus Christ, it says in verse 15, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
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And that word firstborn doesn't mean He has created Himself, but rather it means simply that He is the first place of all creation.
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He is the one who is preeminent over all creation.
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Keep that in mind.
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For by Him all things were created.
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See, He is the Creator.
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In heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him.
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And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
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And He is the head of the body, the church.
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He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent.
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For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
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And through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on heaven or on earth, making peace by the blood of His cross.
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Father in heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for its truth.
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I pray that as I seek to preach the truth this morning, that You would keep me from error.
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As I certainly am a fallible man and capable of preaching error.
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I pray also, Lord, that You would speak by Your Spirit to the hearts of Your people and open hearts where You see fit.
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And I pray, Lord, for the unbelievers among us, as there always are in groups this size, those who have not come to faith in Christ, that You would use this to draw them to Yourself today by the power of Your Holy Spirit.
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And through Jesus Christ we pray.
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Amen.
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In 1689, a group of Baptists in London produced the Statement of Faith which would go on to have a profound impact over the entire Christian community.
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It was modeled after the Westminster Confession of Faith which was produced just a few decades earlier.
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It was so influential that the first Baptist confession in America is modeled after the 1689 confession almost word for word.
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When you read the confession, you come to the portion about the church and it says the following.
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This is the Second Lenten Confession, chapter 26, part 4.
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The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the church.
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In Him, by the appointment of the Father, is vested in a supreme and sovereign manner all power for calling, institution, order, and government of the church.
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The Pope of Rome cannot in any sense be the head of the church, but He is that Antichrist, that man of sin, the son of perdition who exalts himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God, who the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.
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End quote.
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Well, tell us how you really feel.
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No mincing of words there.
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Last week at seminary, I'm auditing a Greek class right now to sort of bone up on my vocabulary.
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So as I'm going through the Greek course with the rest of the students, many of them, this is the first time they've taken Greek.
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It's an interesting opportunity to sit in and learn with them.
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I asked the teacher, I said, what do you think of the Pope's visit? And we were kind of talking back and forth before class.
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I said, do you mind if I read from the very first Baptist confession? I go to a Baptist seminary.
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So I said, do you mind if I read from the very first Baptist confession what they said about the Pope? And he said, oh yeah, great.
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He had never read it.
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I said, Jesus Christ, head of the church, amen.
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Pope can't be the head of the church, amen.
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Pope is Antichrist.
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I thought the press was going to faint.
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He kind of, thank you.
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Sit down.
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We're not accustomed to speaking so boldly today.
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We have been so informed by the political correctness police that we won't speak simple truth.
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Understand that the confession is not calling the Pope the Antichrist, capital A, the man of lawlessness who will come at the end of the age.
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He's not speaking of that.
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But he's speaking as in 1 John 2.18 where John tells us that many Antichrists have come into the world.
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Who is an Antichrist? Anyone who opposes Christ and would lead people away by his teaching from the true and living God.
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That is an Antichrist.
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And so the Pope fully qualifies.
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And I share with you the confession simply not because confessions are binding on our soul even though we do believe there are important ways to express the teaching of Scripture.
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The Bible is what's binding on our soul.
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But I share with you the confession just to show you that this particular sermon is not out of line with historic Reformed teaching.
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In fact, from the beginning, it is demonstrable from the beginning of the Reformation from the 16th century to the 20th century, regardless of the denomination, every Reformed teacher believed that the Pope was the spirit of Antichrist.
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I mean, Martin Luther, he says, We here are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist.
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Personally, I declare that I owe no Pope no obedience than that I would owe Antichrist.
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He said, I don't owe the Pope any more than I would owe Antichrist.
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That's Martin Luther.
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John Wesley, who is not a Calvinist, he's an Arminian, he's a Wesleyan.
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But this is what he had to say.
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He said, speaking of the papacy, he says, He is in an emphatic sense the man of sin, as he increases all manner of sin above measure.
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And he is too properly styled the son of perdition, and he has caused the death of numberless multitudes, both of his oppressors and followers.
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He it is that exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, claiming the highest power, the highest honor, claiming the prerogatives which belong to God alone.
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That's Wesley.
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We disagree with him on quite a bit, but you know what? We'd be right in line on that.
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Charles Spurgeon, that great prince of preachers in the 18th century, said this.
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He says, It is the bounded duty of every Christian to pray against Antichrist.
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And as to what Antichrist is, no sane man ought to raise a question.
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He said, Nobody should wonder who it is.
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If it be not the popery in the church of Rome, there is nothing in the world that can be called by that name.
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He said, If it is not the Pope, what could it be? That's Spurgeon speaking.
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And he goes on to say this.
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He says, It wounds Christ, because it robs Christ of His glory, because it puts sacramental efficacy in the place of His atonement, and lifts a piece of bread into the place of the Savior, and a few drops of water into the place of the Holy Spirit, puts a mere fallible man like ourselves up as the vicar of Christ on earth.
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If we pray against it, because it is against Him, we shall love the persons, though we hate their errors.
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We shall love their souls, though we loathe and detest their dogmas.
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And so the breadth of our prayers will be sweetened, because we turn our faces towards Christ when we pray.
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What's Charles Spurgeon saying? He's saying, We love these people, but we hate what they're teaching.
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We love their souls, but we hate their dogmas, because their dogmas are condemning them in their idolatry.
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This is what Spurgeon is saying.
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It's not we're going around condemning Catholics.
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We're condemning the false teaching.
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And we're calling men to repent.
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That's what we're doing.
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We do not need the words of the Reformers, though, for the very words of the Pope are enough to condemn themselves.
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Pope Boniface VIII in the 1300s wrote this.
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And I want you to listen closely.
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This is actually from a papal bull called the Unum Sanctum, which essentially means the unification of the faith, or the solidarity of the faith.
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Listen to what he says.
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The Roman Pontiff, that is the Pope, judges all men, but is judged by none.
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We declare, assert, define, and pronounce to be subject to the Roman Pontiff is to every human creature altogether necessary for salvation.
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That which was spoken of Christ, thou hast subdued all things under his feet, may very well seem verified in me.
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Speaking of himself, he said, I have the authority of the king of kings.
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I am all in all and above all, so that God himself and I, the vicar of God, have but one consistory, and I am able to do almost all that God can do.
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What, therefore, can you make of me but God? This is an official pronouncement of the Pope in a written letter.
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A papal bull was a document that was given the papal seal.
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And he says, what can you call me except God? Pope Leo VIII, speaking of himself and the popes that preceded him, he said, we hold upon this earth the very place of God Almighty.
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And Pope Pius X, who was the Pope at the turn of the 20th century, he said this, he said, the Pope is not simply the representative of Jesus Christ.
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On the contrary, he is Jesus Christ himself under the veil of the flesh.
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I don't just represent Jesus, I am Jesus.
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What did Jesus say? Many will come to you in my name saying, I am he.
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One might ask, well, what does all this matter? These are just the words of popes.
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Who cares what the pope thinks? Well, it matters because of the power which is invested in him in the church, the Roman Catholic Church.
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The first Vatican Council, which went on between 1869 and 1870, so not terribly long ago, said this, if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the Lord himself, that is to say by divine law, that blessed Peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole church, or that the Roman pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in that primacy, let him be anathema.
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Let me define anathema for you.
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Let him be cursed.
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Let him be damned.
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The official pronouncement of Vatican I was if you deny that the priest who calls himself the pope is in fact the successor of the apostle Peter and has authority over your soul, you are damned.
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One might argue, and I know I'm going to hear this later, so let me go ahead and answer it now.
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One might say, well, I know Catholics who don't agree with those things about the pope's authority.
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What do you say to that? Well, you're right.
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A lot of Catholics don't believe what the Catholic Church teaches.
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In fact, one poll indicated that 93% of Catholics surveyed believed that they could disagree with the pope and still be good Catholics.
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But herein lies the problem.
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They can't.
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Not according to the Church.
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The Roman Catholic Church says it doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what we teach, and what we teach is dogmatic.
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Some people call it cafeteria Catholicism.
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I'll take this, won't take that.
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I'll take the stuff about Mary, but I won't take the stuff about the pope, or I won't take the stuff about Mary, but I will take the stuff about transubstantiation.
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I'll be my own kind of Catholic, cafeteria style.
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I'll take what I want.
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On the website Catholic Answers, which is put out by the Roman Catholic Church in an attempt to answer questions people have about Catholicism, that question was answered.
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What do you think about cafeteria Catholics? This was the answer.
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Quote, Catholics are not free to choose which teachings on faith and morals to obey.
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Even when the Church has not spoken on a matter of faith and morals definitely or infallibly, the faithful must give a religious submission of the intellect and will to its teachings.
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It's not up to you.
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If you're a Roman Catholic, a good Roman Catholic, you don't get to decide whether or not you're going to accept that Mary was never a sinner, that Mary was assumed into heaven, she didn't die and go into a grave, that Mary herself was a perpetual virgin, even during and after the birth of Jesus Christ.
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You don't get to decide which of those you believe, because those are emphatic pronouncements of the Church, and you must accept them, even though they're unbiblical and illogical.
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John Paul II, one of the most popular popes of recent history, said this, It is sometimes reported that a large number of Catholics today do not adhere to the teaching of the Catholic Church on a number of questions, notably sexual and conjugal morality, divorce and remarriage.
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Some are reported as not accepting the clear position on abortion.
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It has to be noted that there is a tendency on the part of some Catholics to be selective in their adherence to the Church's moral teachings.
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It's sometimes claimed that dissent from the magisterium is totally compatible with being a good Catholic, and poses no obstacle to the reception of the sacraments.
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This is a grave error, and challenges the teaching of the bishops in the United States and elsewhere.
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So what is John Paul II saying? If you think that you can be a cafeteria Christian, you are wrong and are in grave error.
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So the next time somebody says, Well, I'm a Catholic, but I don't believe all that the Church teaches, be very honest with them and ask, How are you a good Catholic when your church tells you you're not? The reality is that a Catholic must believe what the Church says about the Pope, and what the Church says about the Pope is contrary to Scripture, so the Catholic must believe what is contrary to Scripture.
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Thus, an acceptance of the Pope is a denial of biblical Christianity.
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Essentially, a good Roman Catholic is not a Christian.
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I'm sorry if that offends you, because it does.
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Take it up with the Word of God, because that's where I'm going to point you if you come talk to me.
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Somebody says, Well, what if they call themselves Catholics, but they don't believe all that stuff, but they just want to be called a Catholic? Here's my question about that.
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I want to be very, very clear.
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I want to ask you this question.
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I thought about this a lot this week.
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I put a lot of thought into this.
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Let's say, and just for illustrative purposes only, let's say there's a church down the street where they have a statue of Baal set up in the middle of the church.
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And during worship, by the way, Baal is an Old Testament false god.
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In case you're not familiar with Old Testament history, that's fine.
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They have a statue of Baal set up in the middle of the church.
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During worship, every Sunday, they come down and bow before the statue.
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It's part of worship.
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They call themselves Christians, but worshiping Baal is part of the service.
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Okay? Now, there's a few people in the congregation who don't come and bow.
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What would you ask them? Why are you still there? If you're not willing to bow down to that godforsaken statue, if you're not willing to bow down to the blasphemy, why are you still in that church? Isn't that a simple question? Isn't that a simple illustration? That's a very basic illustration.
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Every Catholic...
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I've done a lot of funerals.
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I used to work for a funeral home.
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I've been in a lot of Catholic churches.
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I've never been into one that didn't have a picture of the Pope as soon as you walk in because he's the head of the church.
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Now, you might tell me, oh, I know one that doesn't.
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That's fine.
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I know ones that do, so the ones I went to had it.
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I'm not saying that my experience makes all truth.
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I'm just saying it is what it is.
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This is the veneration of the Pope as part of Roman Catholic teaching.
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It is.
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Consider what the Pope is called.
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He is called by the names that are reserved for the Trinity.
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He's called Holy Father, which is a title given only to God in John 17.
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He's called Head of the Church, which is a title given only to Jesus Christ in Colossians 1 and Ephesians 5 and other places.
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He's called Vicar of Christ.
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Vicar means vicarious, one who is in the place of.
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That's what vicarious is, something that's in the place of something else.
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Who is in the place of Jesus Christ in the world? The Holy Spirit of God.
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Jesus said, if I go away, one will come like me, who will be with you forever.
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The Spirit of God is the Vicar of Christ, not the Pope.
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And thus, the Pope has usurped all three titles of the three persons of the Trinity.
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He calls himself Father.
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He calls himself Head of the Church.
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He calls himself Vicar of Christ.
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He calls himself God and it is blasphemy.
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And he accepts the worship that is due only to God when he has people bow before him who kiss him.
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This lady, my wife was telling me a story about this lady.
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She's, I don't know her, I don't know her name, but she was telling me the story about this lady.
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She said the best moment of her life was when she had an opportunity to stand in line to wait and see so that she could kiss the ring of the Pope.
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That was the highlight of her life.
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What puzzles me is when people say, man, this new Pope is so humble.
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He's so humble.
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I'm going to say this and you just let this twirl in your mind a minute.
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No man is humble who will let another man bow to him.
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So don't tell me about the humility of the Pope.
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I don't want to hear it.
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That's silly.
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It's not humility, folks.
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It's a false humility wrapped in religiosity.
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So now, having said all that as an introduction, we're going to actually give an exposition to the text because that's what we need to do.
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I had a lot of quotes I needed to get through, but let's now open the word back to where we were in Colossians 1.
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Understanding all that we have said, I want to now turn to our text which tells us about the nature of Christ, the only one who deserves our worship, the only person in history who is God-made man, the only one at the name of which every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess is the Lord Jesus Christ.
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There is salvation in no other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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And it says, starting here in verse 18, if you have your notes, the back of the bullets and the outline is very simple.
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The first thing is Jesus Christ is Lord of the earth.
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Verses 15 through 17, He is Lord of the earth.
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Look at verse 15.
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He is the image of the invisible God.
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I mentioned this earlier.
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When it says the firstborn of all creation, that means the preeminent one, Mano Ganei.
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He is the firstborn.
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He is the preeminent one of all creation.
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Actually, that's not Mano Ganei.
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I don't think Mano Ganei is only begotten.
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I had to look that up.
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But He is the preeminent one of all creation, for by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
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All things were created through Him and for Him.
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And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
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You know, we often don't think of Jesus Christ as the creator of the world.
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We think of God the Father as the creator of the world.
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But what we have to understand is there is interrelation within the Trinity.
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The Bible teaches that God is one in essence.
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And we know that because Deuteronomy tells us, Hero Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one God.
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There is only one God.
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But that one essence of God is shared by three persons, and those three persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who have always existed, who have always been in relationship with one another.
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This is why Jesus, in John 17, when He's praying to God, He's praying to the Father.
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He says, glorify me with that glory that we shared before the world was made.
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What's He talking about? See, some people argue that Jesus was brought into creation at the same time the world was created.
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Other people believe He was brought into creation at Bethlehem.
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But Jesus said, I had glory with the Father that I shared with the Father before the world was created.
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Jesus Christ is eternal.
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In fact, in John 1.1, my favorite passage in all the Bible when it comes to giving acts to Jesus, because all those people who come to my house at 8 o'clock on Saturday morning and want to talk about Jehovah and His witnesses, this is one of the passages they have a lot of difficulty with.
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In the Greek, it's in Archaea and Halagos.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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All things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made that was made.
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All things were made through Him, and nothing that was made was made without Him.
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He is the Creator.
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And the Pope claims that authority.
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He claims the authority of being the Lord of the Earth for Himself.
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Now, he doesn't claim to be the Creator.
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Don't get me wrong, the Pope isn't going around calling himself the Creator of the world.
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But he assumes the same authority as the Creator.
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When the coronation of the Pope happens, the Pope is given a crown.
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And this is what is said when the crown goes on his head.
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Take thou the tiara, adorned with the triple crown, and know that thou art the father of princes and kings and the governor of the world.
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End quote.
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Take thou this triple crown, and know that you are now the sovereign of the Earth.
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The Pope blasphemes Christ by claiming to have the divine authority over this world.
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Number two.
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Jesus Christ is Lord of the Church.
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I'm kind of going quickly now.
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Sorry to rush, but I want to make sure we hear this.
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Jesus Christ is Lord of the Church.
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Verse 18.
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And He is the head of the body, the Church.
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He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent.
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Christ has set up a very simple authoritative structure within the Church.
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In the beginning, there were the apostles and the prophets.
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And eventually, that leadership was given over to the elders, and the service of the Church to the deacons.
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And their roles and their qualifications are expressed to us in 1 Timothy chapter 3.
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But all of these roles, whether it's apostle, prophet, elder, or deacon, all of these roles have one very important thing that they all understood.
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None of them were the head.
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None of them were the head of the Church.
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They are all servants doulos.
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That means the Greek word for servant.
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They are all servants of Christ.
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Every time we have a new members class, and I have my dry erase board, I always draw a little illustration.
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I always have one up here now, but I don't.
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I always say, this is how our church government is structured.
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Very simple.
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Christ is the head of the Church.
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He governs through His Word.
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The Word is applied and taught by the elders.
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The ministry of the Church is supplied by the deacons.
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And the gifting of every individual in the body is what makes up the ministry that happens within the Church.
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But ultimately, Christ is the head, and the Word is sufficient for government.
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That is whereby we govern.
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The Word of God, which comes from God Himself.
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It is called theanoustos.
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God-breathed Scripture.
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I remember years ago, I had a professor in seminary.
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He went to a church.
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He was an interim.
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An interim pastor is a guy who kind of takes the place of two pastors.
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If there are in-between pastors, he goes in as an interim pastor.
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And he walks in, and there is a deacon there.
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And the deacon walked up to him and introduced himself.
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He said, Hi, I'm deacon so-and-so.
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I want you to know I'm the head of this church.
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And the pastor, he said, Well, I'm glad.
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I thought it was Jesus, but it's good to know.
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Kind of sassy little seminary guy.
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But that's what we think.
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The elders are not the head of this church.
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Jesus Christ is the head of this church.
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That's important to understand.
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I am not, as the pastor of this church, as a fellow elder with two other men.
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They're not the head.
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I'm not the head.
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We're not the head.
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Now, it's our job to teach.
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It's our job to understand the Scripture so that we can keep things going in the direction that God would have us go.
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But we are certainly not an authority over Christ.
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And we certainly don't have the authority to make dogma or doctrine.
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Scripture is wherein we find our doctrine, not our own opinions.
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The pope blasphemes Christ when he claims divine authority over the church because he claims an ecclesiastical authority that allows him to make divine proclamations of doctrine that are binding on the souls of all Catholics everywhere.
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When he makes a statement, ex cathedra, that means from the seat.
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That's what the term means.
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It means it's a pronouncement which is infallible and must be believed.
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Finally, Jesus Christ is Lord of salvation.
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Verses 19 and 20.
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Jesus Christ is Lord of salvation.
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For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
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I could spend three weeks preaching verse 19 alone, but we'll leave it there.
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Verse 19.
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For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
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That's again a reference to the Trinity.
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And through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.
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Beloved, listen to me.
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And if you're a visitor with us and you've never heard the Gospel, let me just explain it to you very simply.
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When a man is justified before God, it is based solely on the reconciling work of Jesus Christ.
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There is no work that can be done to increase your justification.
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Neither is there any person who can declare you justified.
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Salvation is in and through Christ alone.
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The Roman system gives the authority of salvation to the Pope and by extension to clergy.
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This is why a person must go to a priest to have his sins forgiven.
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He cannot go to God through Christ alone.
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He must go through the church.
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In reformed theology, which is what we teach obviously, we're a reformed church, we have five solas.
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Most of you know them.
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Sola, what? What's the first one? Sola gratia, we're saved by grace alone.
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Sola fide, through faith alone.
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Solus Christus, in Christ alone.
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Sola scriptura, according to Scripture alone.
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And soli Deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.
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That's the five solas.
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It's a tradition which came out of the reformed teaching and it's something we believe in very strongly as a church.
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In Roman Catholicism, there is but one sola.
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And while they would never hang it on a banner or they would never put it on a placard, there is one sola in Roman Catholicism.
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Sola ecclesia, salvation is through the church alone.
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Let me read this to you from the Council of Trent, Session 7, Canon 4.
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Quote, if anyone shall say that the sacraments of the new law are not necessary unto salvation, and I'll stop there and say this, the church is the only one who can administer these sacraments.
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If anyone is to say that the sacraments of the new law are not necessary unto salvation, but superfluous, and that without them and without the desire thereof, men through faith alone obtain of God the grace of justification, though all the sacraments be not necessary for every individual, let him be anathema.
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What is that saying? If you have believed that you can be justified outside of the sacraments of the church, even though you don't have to have all seven because there's marriage and marriage isn't a required sacrament and others, but if you believe you can have justification for God outside of the Roman Catholic Church, you are damned.
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Don't tell me I'm too hard on Rome.
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Please.
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And at the top of this hierarchical system sits the Pope.
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The Pope blasphemes Christ by claiming that he has divine authority over the souls of men.
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So we see the blasphemy of the Pope in regard to Christ as creator, Christ as head of the church, and Christ as the Lord of salvation.
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Now, I hope that it has been clear why I was moved to preach this message.
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And I want to end now, begin to wrap up with some very clear finishing statements.
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The Pope is not another type of Christian.
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The Pope is not another type of Christian.
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The Pope preaches a gospel that is different than the one in Scripture.
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And this is what the Apostle Paul says about that in Galatians 1.
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He says, Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be anathema.
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And that's Paul.
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Yeah, they didn't get that language out of thin air.
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They got it from Scripture.
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But Paul's anathema was very clear.
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We have preached a very simple gospel, and if anyone comes to you with a gospel that is different than the one we preached, let him be anathema.
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Why am I so passionate about this? Why does this matter so much? Well, first, because the papacy robs my Savior of the glory that He alone deserves.
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That's enough.
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That's enough that should get me up speaking.
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But there's a second reason, and maybe this one's a little more personal, but I think it's just something that we need to consider.
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Because obviously robbing Christ of His glory is the primary reason.
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But there's a secondary reason that I think also matters.
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The papacy has destroyed the lives of many of my brethren.
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And who am I talking about? By my Reformed ancestors.
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My fathers and brothers of the faith who came before me, who stood against the Pope and gave their lives.
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How dare I now stand with him as some ecumenical fool? Foxe's Book of Martyrs, if you've never read it, I encourage you to.
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It talks about the martyrdom through history going all the way back to the early church.
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But in chapter 4 of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, it is entitled this.
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This is the title of the chapter.
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Papal Persecutions.
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That means the persecutions which came from the Pope.
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And I want to read to you the opening of the chapter.
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Quote, Thus far our history of persecution has been confined principally to the pagan world.
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We come now to a period when persecution under the guise of Christianity committed more enormities than ever disgraced the annals of paganism.
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Disregarding the maxims of the spirit of the gospel, the papal church, arming herself with the power of the sword, vexed the church of God and wasted it for several centuries, a period most appropriately termed in history, the Dark Ages.
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End quote.
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Foxe's Book of Martyrs also goes on to say this.
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It says, On the death of Leo X in 1521, Adrian, the Inquisitor General, was elected Pope.
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He had laid the foundation of his papal celebrity in Spain.
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It appears, according to the most moderate calculation, that during the five years of the ministry of Adrian, 24,025 persons were condemned by the Inquisition of whom 1,620 were burned alive.
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That is twice as many people that died on 9-11.
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6,000 people were burned alive under papal persecution under Adrian alone.
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And we can recount story after story after story of these faithful saints whose lives were destroyed because they dare question the Bishop of Rome.
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John Hus burned at the stake.
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Michael Sattler burned at the stake and then his wife was drowned.
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William Tyndale burned at the stake.
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William Gardiner was not burned but roasted, held over the fire just far enough to where the flames couldn't touch him but enough to where he would melt from the inside and increase his torture.
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Do not for a moment ever tell me I exaggerate about the dangers of the papal system.
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History is my greatest witness.
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Years ago, a group of Catholics and Evangelicals got together and signed a document called ECT.
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ECT stands for Evangelicals and Catholics Together.
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In it they said they were able to bridge the 400-year gap of division which stood between Protestants and Catholics.
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And the problem with the document is that the Evangelicals had to essentially give up the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
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The article Martin Luther said which the church either stands or falls on, they had to give it up to make the document work.
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Furthermore, there was still a desire on the part of Catholics to venerate the false teacher known as the Pope.
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It really was not a unification because it was a unification in error.
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And we cannot unify in error.
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It is rumored right now that the current Pope in the years to come is going to make another attempt to bridge the divide between Catholics and Protestants.
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It is said that there is a document that he is going to try to produce which seeks to bring back in the Protestants into the Roman Catholic Church.
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My response to that is this.
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No thanks.
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No thanks.
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I will never be united in any way, shape, or form to the unholy man who exalts himself as the vicar of Christ.
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I pray with all my heart that you would hold the same line.
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For such a thing is blasphemy.
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And if you are today united with him, I pray you would repent.
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Whether it be physically, emotionally, and intellectually, I don't care.
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Turn from him and turn to Christ.
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Let us pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the attentiveness of this people who has come to hear Your Word.
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I pray that I have been fair to history.
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And most of all, fair to the text of Scripture, which is so clear that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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And there is no glory to be given except that which is given to You.
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And those who usurp the name of Christ and those who claim the glory for themselves, I pray, Lord, that You would shut their mouths and that You would bring them to repentance.
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We pray for the Pope.
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We pray he would repent of his blasphemy and that we would see in Roman Catholicism a revival and a reformation.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.