Our Pope, Rick Warren?

I saw another video of Rick Warren doing obeisance to the papacy recently and I wanted to respond to it and I'm going to try to get this done before the electricity goes out.

Again, here I'm in Ukraine, they're having major energy problems here and yesterday it was a blessing.

We only had two hours of energy blackout, the day before was six, so I think that's how it works.

You do the six and then everybody's okay with the two, I think that's how it works.

Anyway, I figure I've actually got, hopefully, about 90 minutes before the first predicted blackout hits, so we'll see.

Obviously if it hits before then, you'll never see this anyways, so I'm wasting my time. Anyhow, a brief video clip was put up by a ministry,

I don't even know the date of this, but obviously Rick Warren is talking to a Roman Catholic videographer organization sometime in the recent past.

He talks about our Pope and he talks about how Francis is doing everything perfectly.

Once again, I've said many times before, the vast majority of non -Roman

Catholics are non -Roman Catholics of convenience and taste, not of conviction.

There are actually very few convictionally assured and convinced non -Catholics today.

That is, people who know what the issues are, know that it's the very gospel that is at stake, and hence do not think about this in an emotional fashion, are not impressed by display and pomp, but instead recognize there are fundamental issues at stake here.

Let's take a look at what Rick Warren said and then let's respond to it. Authenticity, humility,

Pope Francis is the perfect example of this. He is doing everything right.

You see, people will listen to what we say if they like what they see. As our new

Pope, he was very, very symbolic in his first mass with people of AIDS, his kissing of the disformed man, his loving the children, this authenticity, this humility, the caring for the poor.

This is what the whole world expects us Christians to do. When they go, oh, that's what a

Christian does. In fact, there was a headline here in Orange County, and I love the headline, I saved it. It said, if you love

Pope Francis, you'll love Jesus. That was the headline? That was the headline. It was the headline.

I saved it. I showed it to a group of priests I was speaking to a while back. I suppose first thing

I would say when you were speaking to that group of priests, Pastor Warren, did you call them to faith in Christ?

Did you rebuke the audacious arrogance of the

Roman priesthood in claiming to be able to render Christ, body, soul, blood, and divinity present upon an altar by their sacramental authority?

Did you rebuke their ordination vows in which they are called an alter Christus, another Christ? The audacity that they claim to be able to sacramentally forgive sins, not through the gospel of Jesus Christ, but through their own authority and the authority of the church.

I have a feeling you didn't address any of those things, did you? That's what this is all about, folks.

This isn't some personal thing. I had somebody on Twitter yesterday saying that I had sinned because I hadn't personally talked to Rick Warren, completely misunderstanding

Matthew 18. The reality is this is a gospel issue. This is a fundamental issue.

It's really a question of whether you love people, because if you love people, then you're going to love the gospel, because the gospel is their only hope.

What did you say to those priests, Rick? Were you chumming around with them, just sort of letting them go their way?

Well, then that means you don't really believe what you say you believe as an alleged Southern Baptist.

You don't really believe that there's only one way of salvation, because they're not walking that path.

Now, obviously, the big issues are what come before. He says that our new

Pope, Pastor Warren, not only is that an utter capitulation to an organization and an office that has so much blood on its hands of Christian martyrs down through the centuries, and has yet to confess that it was directly responsible for the murder of God's people.

But you don't seem to understand that by saying that, you are giving legitimacy to an office that fundamentally, once again, compromises the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You're talking about a man who is called Holy Father. You've even called him Holy Father. It's a title of deity.

You're talking about a man who's called the Vicar of Christ on Earth. These are grossly unbiblical perspectives, grossly unbiblical claims, and by using them, you're demonstrating that you really don't care what happened in the

Reformation. You really don't care what the Bible has to say about these things. It's all a matter of us all getting along now.

We have higher priorities. We have higher priorities. That is a sellout to, of course, the heritage that you at least once made claim to.

Maybe you don't make claim to it anymore. Maybe you've recognized that, well, we need to do away with the

Reformation. It's over with. It was a mistake. Let's get back to Mama Rome, possibly. It certainly sounds like it, the way you're talking.

Anybody who could talk about my Pope, amazing. But then you said, he's doing everything just right.

You see, the whole reason I respond to this is because of this line specifically.

He's doing everything right. You talked about the first Mass, you said, with AIDS victims. You see, the world listens to that, and so many people in your church, because they follow your lead, listen to that, and they go, oh, yeah, that's wonderful.

No, it's not. Why not? Because the Mass is a blasphemy against the finished work of Christ.

That's why. Oh, that's just all that theology stuff. The only hope for an

AIDS victim is the finished, perfect, complete work of Jesus Christ.

And so you will rejoice in the blaspheming of their only hope, just because it makes for a great photo op?

I know you represent the majority these days. I know that I'm but a small voice speaking to a small constituency.

But the fact remains that when you really think historically, biblically, theologically about what you're doing, you can't possibly believe that the finished work of Jesus Christ, the once -for -all sacrifice, the whole argument at the end of Hebrews 9, the beginning of Hebrews 10, the perfection that comes from that one time offering, not re -presented over and over again.

You can't really believe that's all that important, because you can celebrate the blaspheming of it for photo ops.

I don't even know what to say. If you love Pope Francis, you'll love

Jesus. And you rejoice in that. I simply seek to warn those who have ears to hear that these siren voices are going to become more and more prevalent.

And if you do not think through what it is the Christian faith is actually proclaiming, you will end up being deceived by those who, well, what's the biblical terminology?

Deceiving and being deceived. Here is someone who is deceived and is deceiving others.

There is one thing I forgot to mention when I first recorded this particular video, and I wanted to add it in here as I was putting it together and editing.

Rick Warren repeated a secular, pious platitude.

That's the only way I can describe it. It's a pious platitude of secularism. And that is, he said, people will listen to what you say when they like what they see.

Where do you get that? Oh, I know the psychology and advertising and all the rest of that stuff.

But biblically, from the Bible, where do you get that? What's the world's relationship to those who faithfully proclaim and live out the gospel?

Does the world like to see people living out the gospel? Seriously?

I mean, really? Have you noticed what's going on recently? If you live out the gospel, if you dare, for example, show the appropriateness and supremacy of heterosexual, monogamous, lifelong marriage?

Oh, yeah. The world's going to listen to what you have to say because they like what they see. It's a level of self -deception that's really, really difficult to imagine.

It really is. If any of you actually have

Rick Warren's ear, you might want to try talking to him. You might want to ask him, what are you doing?

What are you doing? How can you say one thing to your people and then do this? I don't understand it, but I can certainly see it when

I recognize it. When I see it, I recognize it. This is not something that a

Christian minister who professes to even believe what the

Baptist faith and message says on the subject of justification or any of these things. This is a complete capitulation, a complete sellout.

And just as we're seeing a tsunami of capitulation on the Bible's teaching on the subject of human sexuality, so too, even more so, on what it says about how we are made right with God.