Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 1

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your faithful work today. We thank you,

Lord, for gracious kindness toward your church and people. We ask, Lord, that you would guide our conversations,

Lord, and give us the illumination of the Holy Spirit to teach us the least of all truth, that we would be free from the error of sin and dogma and errors of false teaching of the

Lord. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

They're non -church attenders. Typically, in Silicon Valley, you have a higher rate of agnosticism, atheism.

When you look at the religious demographics, and you look at what churches are being attended, or what people identify as,

Roman Catholicism is number one in this area. That's not to be surprised. Roman Catholicism is the largest church in the world, with about 1 .6

million adherents. Huge! Massive! Roman Catholicism is also very popular in predominantly

Latino communities, Latino countries. Mexico, for instance, is a predominantly super -Catholic majority.

Mexico is going to be a mission field for us, too, because this is where we're putting so much focus in, as we're partnering with a church in Atlanta.

Roman Catholicism is on our radar because it is the largest false

Christian group in the world. That's a strong statement.

Notice what I said. It's a false Christian church. In the world that we're living in today, in Evangelicalism, when you take the mainline

Christian denominations, for the last about 50 years, there's been a shift in the way

Evangelicalism approaches Roman Catholicism. What have you observed, maybe in your experience, has the shift or change or culture from Evangelicalism towards Catholicism, has it become friendlier, or has it become more hostile?

It's become more ecumenical, friendlier. Explain that word you just said.

Ecumenical, there's a good sense of the word, and there's a bad sense of the word. Technically, in Nicea, it was ecumenical council, but it wasn't a good sense of the word.

In a bad sense of the word, basically, you're mixing religions. If you look at the trend, especially the last 30 years in particular,

Evangelicals have come to embrace Roman Catholicism in ways that are really unheard of.

So much so that you've actually had a lot of interfaith events between major Evangelical leaders, like Kenneth Copeland, and Roman Catholic bishops, even the

Pope himself appeared on a major Evangelical program.

And espoused the need for a church that was needed, and how a church should unite, and when he said that, he meant the

Protestant church and the Roman Catholic church, how basically we should come back home to our home, and that we should all be under one family, under one umbrella.

What's interesting is that in 1990, something interesting started happening from Roman Catholic communities here in the

United States, and in the Latino community as well. You have what's called kind of like a...

The Roman Catholic... I'm going to re -revisit this one for a minute. Yeah. Roman Catholic temples, where essentially, you have

Roman Catholic churches and groups that were starting to have these very incredible religious experiences, similar to what you see in Kenneth Copeland's communities.

And it starts to sweep through Roman Catholicism. He had this almost like mini -revival of Roman Catholicism, and one of the things that started happening was people started talking to us, speaking in tongues.

People started prophesying. People started to do all these things that you wouldn't normally associate with Roman Catholicism.

But it was very much Roman Catholic. Roman Catholic was a charismatic and Protestant laborer. And you start to see a bleeding between Roman Catholicism and Pentecostalism.

Very interesting. I have some friends, actually, that were part of that Roman Catholic, and then became kind of a charismatic

Roman Catholic. They're still charismatic Roman Catholics. Very interesting. But the focus of today's lesson is going to be a discussion, more so about what our confession says concerning Rome, concerning the church.

And in particular, what the claims are of Roman Catholicism. And why it's important that we focus on Roman Catholicism in the weeks and months to come.

As we learn more about Roman Catholicism, so that we can better give an answer to Roman Catholic dangers, and also as we prepare to go to the

Mission Field in Mexico to reach Roman Catholics with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, another reason why this is an interesting discussion, and I'll talk about this next week, is that there seems to be a trajectory in the culture that I both really am excited about, but also kind of terrified about.

Anyone here has heard of Andrew Tate? Yeah. Andrew Tate is kind of become this famous influencer on social media.

He says some pretty bold things, pretty disgusting things about men and women, particularly about women.

But he says a lot of things that make sense, that's what helps me become kind of popular for the horizon. But one of the things that he has recently done is that he has become a

Muslim. And what's interesting is that there seems to be an embrace on the part of a lot of young people of a yearning to return to some form of tradition.

And how this manifests itself is that there are some young people who are now looking to Islam or Roman Catholicism as a way to go back to your roots, to embrace some form of traditionalism, some form of cultural stability, which is not being found in the cultures they exist in.

They disintegrate before our very eyes. So there's a tendency of a lot of young people wanting to embrace some form of hierarchy and tradition to bring order to their lives.

And one of the ways that I've seen this person as a friend, where I went to high school, and she was a pagan.

And she's been absolutely pagan. And when I say pagan, I always mean a lifestyle hobby. She worships

Jupiter. She has altars of different goddesses and gods.

She does all these spells and incantations. And she recently converted to Catholicism.

I've been following her social media posts on this. I'm just fascinated by it. And how she makes these connections between what she learned in paganism and how it was such a natural fit for her to go from paganism to Catholicism.

And how she's like, oh my goodness, the Virgin Mary is this person over here.

It fits perfectly with this mythos of this Greek understanding.

Or it fits perfectly, you know, the saints are really just, you know, these spiritual beings who are represented by the mythos in the

Persian ethos. And how this really fascinating version of her, she basically feels very comfortable going from paganism to Catholicism.

And I think that's actually the reason for that. There's a reason why there are certain people who convert from paganism into Catholicism.

And they feel very comfortable. Because the group of Catholicism is a pagan religion. So what you won't hear from our teaching in regard to our group of Catholicism is that we're not going to be teaching you.

We should all just get along. We should all just embrace each other and just, you know, major, major, minor, minor, you know, we have some big, big things in common, which is true, actually.

We do have some big things in common, such as the doctrine of Trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

These are some of the major things that we hold in common from Catholicism. But the errors of Rome are far too great to overlook.

The errors of Rome and Catholicism is not to be overlooked.

Some of the claims that Rome makes in regard to itself and regarding its authority comes from their understanding of what is called papal order, papal succession.

And one of the things I want to focus on is what our confession actually teaches on this subject.

And so in chapter 26 of the Confession of the

Church, and I'm going to get our hidden notes and we have a copy of the

Confession, so you can look at that live. But in chapter 26 of the Confession, I want to start with paragraph one.

Now, how many of you guys are familiar with the Nicene Creed? The Nicene Creed, very important creed of faith, and it talks about, you know, we believe in the what?

In the one Catholic church. One universal

Catholic church. Notice where the Confession says, in paragraph one of chapter 26, paragraph one, the

Catholic or universal church, which with respect to the internal birth, birth, birth, birth, birth, birth, birth, birth, birth, may be called invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect that have been born or shall be gathered into one under Christ, and head thereof.

It is the spouse, the body, the wholeness of Him that fills all in all. Curious, isn't it?

In 1689, these brothers came together and they formulated this Confession and they used the term

Catholic. Why did they use the term Catholic? It means universal. So what does the word

Catholic mean? Universal. Why universal? Why is that important?

Free to use. Why universal? What is that trying to encompass?

Notice the language of the Confession. It's trying to encompass all the people of God.

All the people of God. So you can't get bigger than that. Universal.

It's as big as it gets. Universal. It means all encompassing, essentially.

And so the reason why those who put the Confession together used this term was twofold, actually.

One, to obviously speak of the breath of God's people from all ages, from all time, into eternity.

But also to reclaim a perfectly good word that expresses a truth about God's people and reclaims it from the era of Roman Catholicism.

So they're reclaiming it. Now one of the things that Christians do sometimes, which I don't like, is that when a false group starts using a term or word, we tend to shy away from them.

An example of this would be how in the most predominant...

The two biggest translations in turn of the 20th century were the King James Version of English and the

American Standard Version, both of which used the term or name Jehovah.

So Jehovah appeared seven times in the King James Bible. In the A .J. which was the popular

Bible in the turn of the century was also used the name Jehovah for 6 ,000 times.

But something curious happened in the 1930s, 1930s and 1950s. There's a little group called Bible Students who then in 1931 changed their name to Jehovah's Witnesses.

And Jehovah's Witnesses from 1931 to 1951 grew exponentially. And in 1952 they published their own

Bible in the Hebrew translation where they used the term Jehovah even more prominently.

So what you begin to see is that in 1952 you have what's called the RSV which was the revised version of the

ASV and that translation actually took out the name Jehovah from the translation.

We can see this trend in the 1970s as more translations come out, as the NIV comes out.

There was a letter that was sent to the Poshiny of the NIV asking them why they didn't translate the fine name of the

Trembleton who involved the YHWH as Yahweh or Jehovah. And they said we invested $2 .1

million in this translation and we would not have recouped that as if we had inserted it in Psalm 23

Yahweh is my shepherd rather than Lord is my shepherd. It was purely out of profit motive because the

Lord wants us to use the term Lord rather than Yahweh. So profit motive and also the fact that a whole religious group began using this term very prominently.

We see that a lot of Christians are too moved away from using the name Jehovah or Yahweh. I think in recent times we're moving away from that error and we're re -embracing the divine name as we see from major translations such as the

LSB that just recently came out and uses the name Yahweh. The legacy standard

Bible. LSB. That's from the folks at the John MacArthur seminary.

But I say this because oftentimes Christians move away from perfectly good terms because a false group has been hijacked.

And what the reformers are doing here in this discussion is a special statement. They're saying no, we are the

Catholic church. We are the universal church. And what is that universal church?

It consists of all members visible and invisible of the elect meaning those who have gone before us who are in glory and those also who are now and those who are yet to come in the future.

God knows who are his elect. And the church, the universal church encompasses the full breadth of God's people throughout the cosmos, throughout the ages.

And so we are the true Catholic church. There's no reason to...

Here's a fun thing I do with Jehovah's Witnesses. Anytime I see a Jehovah's Witness I tell them, hey, you're a

Jehovah's Witness? Me too. I'm a JW. I'm just a different kind of JW.

Because I am a Jehovah's Witness. Not the same as you are. I'm a JW. I'm a true

JW. I do the same thing with Catholics. It's great that you're Catholic. I'm also Catholic. But a little bit different.

Not only Catholic. Just Catholic. I believe in the scriptures. I'm part of the universal church.

It's an interesting discussion here, guys. Their view of the church is actually far different from our view of the church.

If a Catholic knows this stuff, it will lead to an interesting conversation. Any questions so far? Just a quick comment.

When you're talking about Catholic and recovering, it's like today, somebody says, how are you doing? You better not say you're gay today.

I'm in a carefree, happy mood. But the word's been absconded. And so I dare not use it.

How are you doing? I'm doing well. I can't say, well, I'm in a gay mood. I don't know why.

No one says that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's totally different today. Yeah.

But we've let them take the word away. That's right. It's very much like you said, I'm Catholic.

Back when you said at the beginning about the errors in Catholicism, they hold the doctrine of Jesus' atoning death, his burial, and his resurrection, which are really, really important, of course.

They hold them as doctrines. With their errors, can we call that true faith? In other words, the church as a whole teaches these things, but they don't practice them in a way that gives reality to them.

So can we use that? So are you asking whether a person in Roman Catholic may be saved?

Is that the essential question? Yeah. Yeah, I think most reformers understood that, yes, a person can be in the

Roman Catholic system and be a Christian. But there are Christians that are a great error.

And that's why, if you look at the early history of the reformers, they really saw themselves as, again, what were they trying to reform?

They weren't trying to make something new. They were trying to reform an already existing structure, which was

Roman Catholicism. What it ends up becoming is Protestantism, protesting.

We were protesting the errors of Rome. And obviously, Rome didn't reform, but the church reformed.

So Rome didn't reform. The church reformed. There's a difference. So the early reformers tried to reform the institution.

They were successful in that. They were successful in reforming the church, because those who were true to their faith would have come out.

So the early reformers saw themselves as those who were calling people out of darkness. And they used that term often, quoting 1

Peter 2, being called out of darkness into the Lord's light. So they saw themselves as people who were treacherous.

All people using words like Revelation 18 .4, referring to Babylon.

Get out of her, my people. This was the call of reformers. Get out of her, should you not share in her calamity and her sins.

But yes, a person can be a Catholic and be saved, but they are in grave danger.

And it's not as common as you would think. It's not like you get 1 .6 billion people who we assume are saved.

That would be a wrong assumption. That would be a grave assumption to make.

However, we ought to know and recognize that there are people, and I know at least two

Roman Catholics who actually sure know Jesus. But boy, they're an error. And they'll usually admit the errors.

And say, yeah, that's not true. That's not the Bible teaches. But here's my research thing.

And so it's always really interesting when I talk to Roman Catholics who are like that. There's a little bit of what

I would call cognitive dissonance that's involved in that. But yes, a person can be a

Roman Catholic in grave error, but embrace the gospel. But those are very far between.

And I would say, for the majority of them, God usually calls them out of Roman Catholicism.

So they're Roman Catholics or gathering Catholics. And eventually they'll get out.

So that's the way I look at it. Yes. I understand what you were saying.

I am also a Roman, I'm also a Catholic. But I think it's giving them a little too much to say they are

Catholics. No, I'm the real Catholic. That's a good distinction. But saying that that way is kind of a little offensive.

I like to point them between. Because then they'll ask. You're a

Roman Catholic. I'm just Catholic. Because we think about what that means.

Roman universal. Just for folks in Rome, that's not very universal, is it?

If Rome is the center, is Rome the center of the universe then? So I kind of bring them in that way in those terms.

To help ground the conversation. Try to bring a distinction between Catholicism and Roman Catholicism.

Which is exactly what this first paragraph is teaching us here. It is distinguishing the difference between the

Catholic, the universal church, and then the Roman church. The Roman institution of the church.

Just to continue along in paragraph 26. I mean in chapter 26 of our confession.

I want us to look at the fourth paragraph. And notice what it says.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the church, imbued by the Holy Spirit of the Father, in all power, with all might, institution, order, of the government of the church, as it is best that it be supreme and sovereign in manner.

Neither can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof. But it is that Antichrist, a minister of sin, the son of perdition, that exalts himself in the church against Christ, in all that is called

God, whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. Okay.

Now this is one of our controversial statements in our confession. And it is not all that controversial, actually.

This was the standard position of many Roman Catholic enforcers in regard to the men and women of all nations.

Now let me break some of this down for us. In the culture today, in Christianity, in American Christianity in particular, there's been hundreds of books, hundreds of documentaries, made about this incoming man into the mold of the

Antichrist. And the way that modern Evangelicalism approaches the subject is they're looking for a liberal leader, probably

Russia, maybe the Middle East, maybe it's in Rome, who's going to collapse nations, bring a peace deal to Israel, and then without that peace deal, he's going to break it, and all hell's going to break out, and there's going to be a seven -year, three -and -a -half -year tribulation period, and we're waiting for this menacing figure of history to come on the world stage.

Some people even say it's Satan incarnate. If you watch some of the sensational documentaries on History Channel, for instance, they'll say it's

Satan incarnate, and they'll quote some liberal professor from the Jesus Seminary, and it's just terrible stuff.

But let me tell you that that's not what we're looking for. That whole scheme that I just presented to you has not been whatsoever.

Now, one of the reasons why this part is controversial is because it says that the

Pope is who? Or what? Antichrist. Is he just an antichrist, or is he that antichrist?

It says in the Proclamation that the Pope of Rome is that antichrist, the man of sin, the son of tradition.

Now, that term comes from 2 Thessalonians 2. What's your term there? 2

Thessalonians 2.

2 Thessalonians 2. Starting with verse 1.

Now concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the gathering together to Him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarm either by spirit or a spoken word, but let our speaking be from us to the effect that the

Lord has come. Let's break that down for a second, too. Let's see how this, how the doctrine has infiltrated the

Church today. At any time, if there's something they can use, what do most American evangelicals run to immediately?

What's that? Revelation. It's like, oh, let's look at Revelation today. You know, the pandemic. You know,

I had a joke during the pandemic. My pandemic started, and I said, you know, let's listen.

Because most of our Church at times, let's just say, has been laid into this end -time nonsense craziness.

But I started to say, okay, you know, I started to say, you guys are making me a little bit nervous.

I'm looking at all the stuff that's happening to me. Maybe, maybe, maybe you're right on something. But, of course, as time progresses, you see that, oh, well, here we are, 2023, the pandemic's essentially over, and the world sort of has come back to business as usual.

The antichrist didn't come. You know, Joe Biden, you know, Trump's not the antichrist. Trump's not the antichrist.

As far as we know, probably they are antichrist, but they're not the antichrist. And so it's really easy to become sensational.

And Paul's warning the Christians to that effect, saying, don't become sensational over this topic.

Don't be alarmed, which is what Christians tend to do. They see something you use, and they alarm.

And I used it against so many Christians. You know, I always sort of praise you guys. I don't get this question from you guys. I kind of miss it, to be honest.

But I'm glad I don't get it as often. I say it to those of you, people from my church, when we speak, pastors, what does it mean?

And if they want me to interpret times and seasons and dreams and visions, it's like, stick to the scriptures.

Stick to the word. You don't need to make everything sensational. You know, I remember when

I was myself, criminal ideals, dispensational, bleeding, there was a news article written that there was a red heifer born in Israel.

All right. Why is that newsworthy? Because red heifers is a requirement, a purebred red heifer with no blemish is a requirement that was sacrificed.

And so finally they were able to breed one that was perfectly blemish. It was so incredible, so newsworthy.

What does that mean? It means that finally we can start rebuilding the temple, and finally we're going to start having sacrifices again, and the antichrist is going to show up because they need that temple in order for the antichrist to come.

They need a third physical temple, and a resuming of sacrifices in order for them to get that scheme right.

When Sue and I were in Israel many years ago, we went to a shop, and it wasn't Christian. It was a very conservative

Jewish place that was breeding that heifer. They hadn't quite got there. They kept having white heirs.

That's right. White heirs, black heirs, gray heirs. It needs to be completely unblemished. No imperfection on the coat.

We met the guys who were Jewish. We met the guys who were working on that. Isn't that cool? And so when

I said that at that time, I was like, yes! The covenant of the Lord is coming soon. We're going to succeed.

We're going to be raptured out of here soon. But brothers and sisters, it's not true.

As you talk about antichrists, in 2 John, he says that he who denies that Jesus is coming in the flesh is the antichrist.

And he uses the article. He says that's the antichrist. That's different than Paul speaking in 2

Thessalonians. It seems like Paul is using an actual prophetic voice, and John is using more of a descriptive voice.

Is that fair? So Paul never uses the term antichrist. Term antichrist is not found in the

Book of Revelation. It's found in all places of scripture, 1 John and 2

John. 1 John and 2 John. 1 and 2 John are places where antichrists is mentioned.

And it's not, again, he says there are many antichrists. It's not like we're waiting for someone.

As a matter of fact, when John was writing this, he had particular people in mind. He had specific people in mind as he was writing this.

It was a doctrine that when Gnosticism began to take root, Gnostics denied the physicality of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and they started to teach falsehoods around this.

So when John has specific people and groups in mind as he's teaching this and saying that whoever denies that Jesus came in the flesh, this is the antichrist.

Antichrist meaning opposed to. So if you teach that Christ didn't come in the flesh, you are opposed to Christ.

Antichrist means opposed to. But what's being taught here in our confession is really important.

It's actually, look at our website. We have some addendums made to the confession that we hold to.

We say that we don't particularly hold on to this part of our confession, which

I'd like to change in the future because I wholeheartedly agree to this, and I'm going to make my case for it, why it is true that the

Pope wrote is that antichrist in particular. Let's continue reading 2

Thessalonians 2. He says in verse 3, Let no one deceive you in any way.

For that day, that day meaning what we spoke about in verse 1, he's referring to the coming of the

Lord Jesus Christ, not being gathered together with him. So he's referring to that day will not come unless the rebellion or apostasy comes first.

And the man of law is revealed, the son of destruction. So notice one has to perceive the coming of the

Lord Jesus Christ. There needs to be a rebellion. That word rebellion is used as the word apostasy.

Apostasy meaning turning away from. The word rebellion or apostasy means turning away from.

And so he says that this day will not come until the rebellion, the apostasy comes first, and the man of law, as this is revealed, the son of destruction.

Notice what the trait of this man of destruction is in verse 4. Who opposes, exalts himself against every soul of God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be

God. Very important here. Let's break this down even more.

He opposes and exalts himself against every soul of God. Remember the temple he goes to now. I'd love to see this in the future.

But if you, you know, Paul's actually, he's harkening back to Daniel chapter 9, which is what he's doing here.

In Daniel chapter 9 you have this incredible prophecy concerning this beast.

This incredible beast. All interpreters agree it's wrong. This is unlike all the other beasts

I've covered before. The other beasts have reminiscences of a bear, reminiscences of a lion, of a leopard.

But this one, this beast is unspeakable. It has forms. And out of this beast comes what's called the little boy.

And he speaks words of blasphemy. He exalts himself against everybody to change times and seasons.

So we know that this final beast in Daniel 9 is wrong. Every commentator agrees on that.

Premillennial, sensational, auto -millennial, post -millennial, everyone agrees this beast is wrong.

Even the Jehovah's Witnesses agree that it's wrong. Everyone, since it's universal, no one disagrees with that.

Out of that beast appears the little boy. He speaks blasphemous words.

What comes out of the shadow of the Roman Empire? The Holy Roman Catholic Empire.

With a, which is actually a head word, Vatican. Vatican being the ancient site of the ancient power of Rome.

When you see St. Peter's Basilica, you know St. Peter's Basilica, there's a new pope that's elected.

Everyone's gathered in front of it every Sunday. They have communion. They have services out from there. There's an obelisk that stands there.

You know, that obelisk was erected by Nero. Pretty impressive.

It's this ancient power of the Roman Empire, of the ancient Roman Empire. The Vatican itself is actually the smallest recognized country in the world.

It's the smallest recognized country in the world. Small, but speaks words of blasphemy, of foreign and changed times and seasons.

We are in the year 2003, using a calendar that was instituted by the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Gregory.

We're using what's called the glory calendar, changing times and seasons. Okay. Someone have a hand over here?

So, you see how the Roman Catholic Church took over the

Empire of Rome section. And it's continued since. And so, that beast of Danube I, that's referred to and talked about, and out of that beast comes this little horn that speaks words of blasphemy.

That's the, that's some of the traditions that stand by Christ. And it's exactly what Paul is pointing to, is the use of his language.

He's not quoting from the native, but he's using words that allude back to Danube I. He says in verse four, who opposes himself, and who opposes and exalts himself against every son of God or daughter of God for worship.

So, he takes his seat in the temple of God and makes himself to be God. That's exactly what Danube I talks about.

Pretty incredible stuff here. So, I'd love to go more in depth in the future, but the correlation is actually conservative.

And I'm fairly convinced that the Lord, in Daniel 7 -9, is a reference to what

Paul refers to as the Roman Catholic Church, which in turn is, in fact, the Roman Catholic Pope of Rome.

So, any questions so far? That's a good question.

I don't know what the Roman Catholic Church of Rome is, but I'm going to look into that now. That's my curiosity. I have, by the way, in front of me, the

Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. This is the official Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church.

I'm going to read some of the things they say here regarding the office of Pope. Just to make sure that we're not making a spiritual point, there's some bad stuff here.

That whole book is the Catechism? This is the Catechism. A little bigger than ours.

But you see why there's so many extra -biblical things that you have to count for.

The rabbis only found 613 rules. It's a little bit different here.

One of the things I want to point out to you that is referenced here in the

Roman Catholic Catechism regarding the Pope. Notice what it says. The Pope, the

Bishop of Rome, and Peter's successor is the perpetual and invisible source and foundation of the unity of both the

Bishop and the whole company of the faithful. Did you hear that?

The Pope is the foundation of the unity of the

Church. Who is the foundation of the Church according to Ephesians 2, verse 17 onward?

It's Christ. Jesus is the foundation. What is the

Pope trying to do? He's taking over Jesus' position. Which is interesting because when you look at other

Roman Catholic Catechisms, particularly what we see with the understanding of Mary and her theology, is that Mary essentially takes on roles that belong to Jesus.

And the Pope also takes on roles that belong to Jesus. What they do is they take the second person of the Trinity, God the

Son, and they make him lesser than by the way that they allow others to take functional responsibilities and roles that belong to Christ.

They confess the Trinity, they confess the deity of Christ, they make him less of Christ by the way they strip him of his divine titles, his divine prerogatives, and assume those roles because he's a very critical

Pope. So it's very interesting to do. I want to continue reading what the

Roman Catholic Catechism says regarding the Pope. It says, For the Roman Pope, by reasons of his own, as victor of Christ.

I don't know what the word victor means. Victor of Christ. It's representative.

It has more to do, not just with representative, I'm your lawyer representing you.

It has to do more with a physical representation. So victor has a connotation of having a fleshly representation.

So the Pope is a fleshly representation of Christ. He's not just a representation by virtue of some type of relationship, relational representation.

Rather, the Pope is himself according to another part of the

Roman Catholic Catechism, is Christ the only flesh? Is Christ the only flesh?

So the victor is representative. And he says, As the pastor of the entire church, brothers and sisters, the pastor of the church,

Christ, Christ is the only one who can be called the true pastor of the universal church.

Imagine if one of us came up here and said, we're pastors. We're not just your pastors.

We're everyone's pastors. That's pretty bad stuff. And here the

Roman Catholic Church is teaching that the pontiff, or in this case the

Bishop of Rome, is the pastor of the entire church. And it says it has full, supreme, and universal power for the whole church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.

I'm not making this up. I'm bringing this from their own Catechism, their own teaching, their own dogma. How more blasphemous can it get?

Who can say other than Christ that has full, supreme, universal power for the whole church?

That belongs only to Christ. Colossians 1, Paul makes a beautiful argument.

He, Christ, is the image of the Episcopal God, the first world organization for by all things created, and he is himself the head of the church, and the fullness thereof.

And yet what does the Pope of Rome do and assume? He assumes what belongs only to Christ.

He exalts himself, thereby exalting himself over God, exalting himself over Christ.

They must have some doctrine that explains a delegated authority. They're not saying that the

Pope is Jesus, but as Vicar, don't they have a doctrine of that authority being delegated to him?

And therefore he has that authority, but it has to be given to him somehow, right?

Because he's the successor of Peter. Yes, so in their view, and I'll read this in a second.

In their view, they believe, of course, that... Here's another thing that Catechism teaches, the

Lord made Saint Peter the physical foundation of the church. He entrusted the keys of the church to him.

Very different from what we believe. We believe the keys of the kingdom were entrusted to believers, which is why we have a congregation of all government that can come together in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ to exercise that priesthood authority. There it is in our midst. But they believe that only

Peter was given the keys of the kingdom. Only Peter has this priesthood authority.

Therefore they teach that only the successor of Peter has that right and true authority to exercise the authority of the church.

And it says, The Bishop of Rome, successor of Saint Peter, is the head of the College of Bishops of Bickervice and the pastor of the

Universal Church on Earth. And so notice what he goes on to say. The Pope enjoys by direct institution supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls.

So, boy. And who's the coordinator? Who's the shepherd who overseers our souls?

Jesus Christ. Not the Pope. And so this is why this is such a dangerous belief system.

It's because it is truly anti -Christ at its core. It opposes the truth of Jesus Christ.

And it exalts itself over the one true living God. Over Jesus Christ.

And so do you see why the reformers took this view and wrote down a requestion that the

Pope is that anti -Christ? Is that a man of lawlessness? Is that a son of tradition?

Notice again what the text of Scripture says in 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.

And verse 4 again. Who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called god or prophet or person and takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be

God. So there's two criteria there that this anti -Christ man of lawlessness has to make.

One is that, or two really, or three. He opposes himself and exalts himself over God.

And he has to take his seat in the temple of God. And he has to proclaim himself to be

God. Does the Pope fit that role? I would contend that he absolutely does.

And I will tell you how. How does he exalt himself? We just read from the source, right here from the

Catechism, that he exalts himself as the one who has full, sovereign, universal rights over the church.

If that's the way he exalts himself, then he should have gotten out of it instant. Because obviously, the text of Scripture says only

God has the divine authority to write, through the person of Jesus Christ. He takes his seat in the temple of God.

Here's the problem in modern day, end time interpretations. Everyone's waiting for this physical third temple.

There's only one glaring problem that added to the text of Scripture. Paul, in his writings, in his epistles, always used the term, temple of God, as a reference to what?

To the church. There's no other reference that Paul gives in his epistles where he refers to the temple of Jerusalem as the temple.

It's not there. You're going to have to make an argument that, well, this is the exception. If that's the exception, you're going to have to make a really good argument for it.

Either linguistically, textually, historically, and none of that adds up.

A lot of Christians today are expecting this third temple of Jerusalem because it's sex.

They need a physical temple in order to fit that end time scheme that they've placed over Scripture.

There's not exegesis. It's writing into the text instead of pulling from the text.

I would submit to you that the text of Scripture is actually very clear here. The temple of God is always a reference to the people of God, to God's people.

What does the Pope do? He sits in the midst of Rome, in the midst of the

Holy See, and he sits essentially on a counterfeit throne and claims to be sovereign over God's people.

According to the Catechism, again, this is a term in reference to the

Pompe of Rome. It says, the vicar of Christ pastors the entire church against full, supreme, universal power of the whole church, which he exercises unhindered.

Incredible. He makes himself the one who exalts himself to God, takes a seat in the temple of God, sits in the people of God, and claims to be the vicar of Christ.

He doesn't claim to be the vicar of Muhammad. He doesn't claim to be the vicar of some other god or religion.

He's claiming to be the vicar of Christ, seated amongst the people of God, saying,

I am the vicar of Christ. I am the representation of Christ. I am God of Christ.

Yes. It just seems very incongruous that this man with all this authority and all this power and Jesus' prerogatives taken upon himself.

He's voted into office, isn't he? Both the cardinals. And all of a sudden, this common man, all the cardinals, they decide amongst all these candidates, okay, this is the one.

All of a sudden, he's got all this power. It just doesn't make sense.

Obviously, as Baptists, we would say that, but I don't see how anybody could logically follow that line of reasoning.

That's right. Spirit of delusion. That's right. The reason why...

And that's a common argument. It's a common argument. They all have this sacred unity that's based upon conformity.

And I would say that conformity is not always a good indicator of unity. And yes, it's true.

I would say that we have an ungodly amount of disunity in church that dishonors the

Lord. That the Lord is not pleased with. Yet, I think the

Lord is working obviously through his church. When I say church, I mean the universal church. Not just the

Baptist church. Not just the Apostle church. Not just the Methodist church. But what is the church?

Not just in Scripture, but in our Catechism or in our

Confession. That the church is the universal body of Christ, the elect.

And so, the Pope, though he claims to be the unifier of the church, I don't think that's what they're saying.

The Bible teaches us something different. In Ephesians chapter 2. The unity of the body is not through the office of the man, or the office of the bishop, or the office of the pastor, but rather the office of Christ.

Christ is the unifier of God's people. So that when we encounter brothers and sisters who are either of apostatistic labor or of Presbyterian labor, for instance.

Because there's a lot of similarities there. Do we look at them and say, you're not a Christian.

Generally, we want to assume and rejoice with other brothers and sisters who are in their other denominations.

Whether it be, you know, Presbyterian. Whether it be, you know,

Southern Baptist. The unity that unites us is not the denominations.

Which is the word denomination. Because we don't use just in a religious sense.

There's denominations of money. There's denominations of music. Denomination is a term which means denomination.

It means to name in the Greek. To name. It just means to put a label on something.

So anytime you put a label on something, you are denominated. You are. You have a denomination. We have lots of names.

Paul says this about the church in 1st Corinthians 12. He says, the church of many parts to name many parts not all to toes, not all as the hand, not all as the eye yet are all one body in Christ.

Not in the Pope, but in Christ. Does that make sense? Does that help? So our unity isn't based upon conformity to the man or office of the

Pope, but rather our unity is based on our unity in Christ. Whether we know

Jesus or not. I have the James White book, one of the first few chapters he addresses that question.

And he asserts that it's not even true. Like a Catholic church in Argentina compared to a

Catholic church down the street here. There's no unity as far as the issues of homosexuality.

There's much less unity than they pretend. We live in the house of a priest.

If you're a Jesuit priest, you have... Jesuit priests were always kind of like the outliers. They were always going to be outcasts in terms of their acceptance into Roman Catholic mainstream.

And for the first time by the Pope that we have today, Pope Francis Pope Francis is the first Jesuit priest who became a

Pope. And so he had a lot of vision and vigor in that sense too.

I mentioned earlier as soon as you guys were here for it. There was kind of a revival in the 80s and 90s within Roman Catholicism which became known as kind of like the

Pentecostal Catholics. And that certainly diverges from the

Orthodox teaching overall. In that they're accepted into the mainstream. As a matter of fact, even our Pope now or not our

Pope, my Pope. But the Pope now has actually kind of embraced that movement into the church and kind of making it mainstream.

And so there's lots of issues with Roman Catholicism. That day refers to verse 1 of the coming of Christ.

The coming of... If the Pope is the man, is that man of lawlessness, then does that mean...

I mean, we're not predators. We don't think that Christ has come already. But if the

Pope is that, what is missing for Christ to return?

Perfect question. It's a great question. So whoever has perceived the revealing of the man of lawlessness is the apostasy.

Which I would say started around the 4th to 5th century. Which is when you can see a divergence within the institution of the church away from the

Morphodoxy. And the embrace of the Valkyrie. It coincides with the fall of Rome in the 6th century as well.

You have the Visigoths and you have Barbarians coming and kind of not destroying

Rome but fundamentally changing Rome so that it grows from a little bit lower to now just half -high.

And the motive to go for that was essentially to lose the Emperor. And he just became a religious refigure.

It was a footnote. To answer your question, do you not remember that I was still with him through these things?

And do you know what is shrinking him down so that he may be able to use his time? For the mystery of lawlessness is already out.

So Paul has his right to say this stuff is already out. It's already in motion. It's already at work.

The apostasy was already at work. This is what in Acts chapter 20 Paul warns the church.

He says be overseers of the church because wolves are coming. Rabbits will come in and they will not destroy the law.

And that's reference to the false teaching of apostasy. He says only he who now restrains will do so until he is out of the way.

And so only he who now restrains will do so until he is out of the way.

Many commentators have come to the conclusion that the restrainer is like the Holy Spirit.

Some people have said it was the apostles. I don't think that's what

Paul is referring to. He's referring to the apostles as the one who were restraining.

It seems to be an indication that it's either Christ or God. Remember God had to do the restraining here.

And so basically it's God's appointment time. And so when that appointment time is complete he'll allow this manifestation to go forward.

And it says the laws will be revealed whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nobody who hears his coming.

The coming of the laws was by the activity of Satan, all power and all signs and wonders. Although we can accept that those who are perishing have refused to love the truth and so be saved.

Therefore God sends them a strong delusion that they may not believe what is false and or that they may all be condemned who do not believe the truth and have pleasure in righteousness.

So if Paul is the antichrist and let me be clear about this. The position of the reformers here is not that the antichrist is one person.

We're not waiting for a particular person. Rather we're looking at the institution of the potpourri as that particular man of the law who exalts himself over time.

You can almost use this kind of even -jelly term. It's kind of like a spirit of the age.

There's a spirit that's particularly at work in that office of the pope that is antichrist, that is that center position.

And so why then has the crisis recurred? Because Christ even now is still at work in restraining this error.

He's still at work in restraining this through the cross -formation. The cross -formation is evident that God is still restraining this falsehood.

And so but the time will come when the Lord will allow their duty to be a great realm of deception.

And the coming of the law will be by the activity of Satan, all power, all signs, and wonders. Now that, verse 9,

There's so much I want to teach you guys on this. I just don't have time today to do so. Go ahead,

Pastor. Isn't it fairly mainstream also that what was taken out of the way was the

Roman government and when Alaric sacked Rome, I think it was mid -5th century,

Rome, as a restrainer of this roaming apostasy, was no longer there.

And that's when the pope took... Is that fairly mainstream also? The restraining was the power of Rome as a government.

I don't think that's true. I don't think that's necessarily the implication of the text of Scripture.

I think the text of Scripture is pointing to something far greater than that. I just want to point out that when it says

Will slay with the breath of his mouth, the LSB points out that it's all in caps, and digitally

I was able to see that it's quoting Isaiah 114. Which is Messianic prophecy.

Probably. We'll let Isaiah know it's Messianic. It's a stump in the room. So... I don't have time for this.

No, no, this is great. I don't have time for this. I really want to go through this but I don't have time.

The... Chapter 20. People have miscalculated the antithesis. Everyone assumes in Revelation that the antithesis is the

Beast of Revelation 13. That's where we get number 666. Everyone assumes that's the antithesis.

It's not. It's actually a reference to Nero. It's a clear reference to Nero. But it's not in the

Manifestation. That's not what we're looking at in Revelation 13. The Manifestation is actually revealed in the

Unholy Trinity of Revelation. Do you remember what the Unholy Trinity of Revelation is? The Red Dragon, the

False Prophet, and the Beast. And the what? And the Beast? No. And the Harlot.

Oh, Abbot. That's the three Unholy Trinities of Revelation.

It's Satan, the Dragon, it's the False Prophet, and it's the Woman. Or the

Beast. The Beast is referenced, but the Woman, those are the three

Unholy Trinities. Now, what's interesting about that is that the Antichrist is likely the

False Prophet. It's the False Prophet. Now, who's the greatest

False Prophet today? I would say it's the Pope of Rome. So, lots of stuff to go into.

There's a lot of things to go into. But time does not permit. So, what

I'd like you to do is to read the first chapter of this book. We have still a few out there,

I think. And if not, please do find your own personal copy. And we're going to go through this.

The first chapter is quite a good read. And it gives us a good sense for what we're going to be encountering.

It's only a few pages, so if you're patient enough, you should be able to read it all. And what we'll do is we'll have a discussion based on it next week, and we'll also do a lot of teaching similar to what we did today so we can go more in -depth as well to the topics that are being touched on in this book.

Just kind of just throwing it out as a random idea, I mean, if you want to cover more territory, would you be open to starting 30 minutes earlier?

No. I would be more interested in getting where we got here on time. That would be good.

So, let's pray. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for the lesson. We thank you for the breadth of information that you've made available to us by means of word, through faith, through agents, part of the

Universalist Church. We pray, God, that you help us, Father, to see clearly the errors of wrong and see clearly the errors that we may have and a greater sense of our expectations that may not be biblical.

Father, we pray that you lead us, lead our time together in these weeks and months. In Jesus' name, amen.