More Internet Apologetics from Rome

we were back in the main studio for a couple months, um, uh, gonna be heading up to, um,

Colorado coming, uh, at the end of July, but a lot of stuff going on between now and then, including something called summer in Phoenix.

Hasn't really, isn't it? It's so weird. It was 105 in March and now it's in the middle of 90s at the end of May.

It, it doesn't seem to know what in the world it wants to do, but, um, we will live with it, uh, as it goes.

Got a lot of stuff to get to today. Uh, X provides more than sufficient, uh, fodder for theological reflection and apologetics, um, including, uh,

Father Calvin Robinson of the, uh, of NXR, the new Christian, right?

Um, which is just so arrogant. Anyway, the new Christian, right? Father Calvin Robinson, um, posted on May 22nd, so five days ago, he was, he, video started flooding around of him complimenting

Paula White of all people, uh, Paula White of, you know, the, the woman that I, I, I so distinctly remember, uh, hearing her on a television program on TBN back in the day preaching from Psalm 69 about how you need to donate $69 to her.

Uh, I doubt, I, there aren't enough Psalms for her today, I'm sure. It's, you know, we're going to preach

Psalm 150 twice! 300! Um, I mean, just such an obvious false teacher, and Robinson has zero discernment, just none.

No one knows what, what church he's even a member of right now. Uh, he's been booted out of who knows how many just over the past couple years.

Um, but he's one of the main NXR speakers, and there's been this, uh,

I, I have it saved somewhere, I just didn't want to waste my time today. Some, um, conference coming up in November, uh, with, uh,

JP Sears. That's sad. He, it's, you know, he was really good during COVID, and he's just gone out into NaNa land.

Um, he had Webanon, you know, uh, shilling for him, which, um, is just, uh, just sad to see.

But, uh, hey, money talks. And, uh, so, so Robinson is part of this, uh, well, we will eventually have to look at that upcoming thing, because it's a of this conference.

It's a mixture of all sorts of self -contradictory stuff. And, and I just, I know that other guy involved with NXR, you know, he's not speaking at the conference for some strange reason.

Well, I know why. He can't stand half these people. He, he would not be able to behave.

There's just no way. And it just must be so frustrating for him to have to be, um, even mentioned in the same breath with these folks.

Um, but anyway, hey, you know, that's what you get when you do the things they do.

Anyway, so Calvin Robinson posted, um, on May 22nd, uh, in the

Bible, we see diakonos, deacons, as servant ministers, presbyteros, presbyters slash priests, both capitalized, as ordained teachers who preside over the sacraments, episkopos, bishops who exercise oversight, overseers, and the fullness of holy orders.

Um, in the Bible, you see none of that. You don't see, uh, okay, servant ministers, okay, but presbyteros priests in the

Bible? What Bible is he carrying? Uh, not, not, not the one written in Greek and Hebrew.

Um, and the, uh, the bishops who exercise oversee, oversight, overseers, and the fullness of holy orders.

Yeah, I remember holy orders. That's in Third Hesitation 714, right? I mean, again, um, what do you do with people that, that can just be so flippant in saying, oh, we see this in the

Bible. Okay, you see, you see it through your traditional lenses?

Even then, why, why did you all, okay, you're not Roman Catholic. We don't know what you are.

We thought you were an Anglican, but you weren't. Um, you're, you're whatever you make yourself, whatever day it is.

I mean, if you can stand up there in your clerical garb and praise Paula White, you're loopy.

Okay? The same guy that, that, that agrees with the idea that, uh, the thief on the cross was saved by the intercessory prayers of Mary, is also the guy talking about Paula White as a sister.

And in that same tweet, saying that, that Protestant churches aren't really churches.

They don't have a real pastorate. And so Joel Webbin isn't a pastor from his perspective. Neither is

Doug Wilson. Um, he mentioned those specifically. Uh, and it, it's just sort of like,

I don't know why anybody has him in. It doesn't make a lick of sense to me either. Um, uh, you know, but anyway, so whatever this, whatever you choose, whatever

Calvin Robinson decides is tradition, evidently is the lens through which he looks at the Bible.

But the reality is, um, there's a perfectly good Greek word for priest, and it's never confused with presbyteros.

In fact, as I pointed out in my response, and man, you should have seen the replies I got to my response.

I responded to this, and I pointed out in Acts chapter 20, that Paul calls the presbyteroi from Ephesus and then identifies them as Episcopal.

That's not the only place where he uses the two terms absolutely interchangeably.

So if you want apostolic tradition, okay, here's, here's your apostolic tradition, and this says elders and overseers, presbyteroi and episcopoi, are the same office.

There is your apostolic tradition. These people don't believe in apostolic tradition. They believe in a later tradition that they demand we accept as apostolic, without any connection to the apostles.

That's the nature of the apologetics we have to do with Roman Catholicism, with Eastern Orthodoxy, a different set of traditions, different spin on traditions, but it's the same stuff.

Here's your, here's your apostolic tradition, right there, and it clearly identifies the, the responses.

Scattergunned, never interacting with the text, nobody can touch the text, they can't even, they don't even try.

It's not even, it's amazing to watch. But here's your, here's one of your primary speakers for NXR, confusing elders, presbyteroi, episcopoi, elders, overseers.

I thought the people that supposedly started NXR understood this stuff. You know, my gut feeling would be that Webber would say, oh no, no, he's wrong about that.

Yeah, say that in front of an audience, and then debate him on it. That would be fun. So yeah, and later on he says, so no,

I do not recognize her as a pastor, but then I do not recognize Pastor Doug Wilson as a pastor either, nor any other

Protestant pastors. Okay, so just everybody who's thinking about, for some reason, you're not feeling well, you're dizzy, your mind's not working, you're thinking about doing something with NXR.

Just remember, they'll bring folks in to speak that don't think that your pastor is a pastor.

There you go, just so you know what these folks are all about. It's, it's pretty amazing.

Then we have a guy named Timothy Gordon, and I've never heard of this guy.

Timothy Gordon rules for retrograde show, at Timo Theology on X.

I guess he did a What a Woman Is documentary, which would be a little bit different than What is a

Woman? Pretty close, but that was somebody else. Married father of eight, author of five books.

Okay, he's got 60k followers. All right, I don't have any idea who he is, but he decided to take on Wes Hough.

And I'm not, by the way, Wes and I have not talked since Wes Post. Wes and I have not talked since we had dinner a couple months ago, actually.

So we're not calling each other up and and doing the schmoozy buddy buddy thing. He's busy,

I'm busy. It doesn't mean anything, we haven't talked. We wouldn't have normally talked during that time anyway.

He put out this thing on X about why he's not a

Roman Catholic. And there have been all these responses, and I've responded to a number of them, not because I'm trying to ride shotgun or something like that, but they're relevant.

I mean, they're stuff we've addressed literally, in some cases, for 35 years.

And it's just been a good mechanism for demonstrating the shallowness of Roman Catholic apologetics today online.

These people do not read. They remind me a lot of people like John Shelby Spong and Bart Ehrman, people

I've debated. And when we did those debates, I took the time to study their material, read their books, listen to their classes, listen to their lectures, listen to their previous debates.

And that's why the debates went as well as they did. They don't care. They don't believe the other side has anything worthwhile to say.

So they don't care. Ehrman didn't read a word I had to say. John Shelby Spong didn't read a word

I had to say. And especially with Spong, that came out very clearly over time.

But anyway, they just don't think we have... they don't care.

They don't do their homework. And so I've got two examples today of Roman Catholic apologists on X, right now, in the past 24, 36 hours, spewing stuff that, again, sounds upon first blush to be somewhat relevant.

When the reality is, if they had done their homework, they'd be embarrassed that they're still spouting this stuff.

So the first one made me laugh. This Timothy Gordon, mistaken view on R .C.

slash Pratt, number four. So this is the fourth example that he gave in response to Westhoff.

The previous ones were very weak and, you know, again, I don't need to be defending

West. West can defend himself. He says,

Huff doesn't understand how Matthew 16, 18 is all about the Petrine office. Well, that's because it's not.

Not to anybody who actually exegetes the text in context, anyways. And doesn't seem aware of the other two gospel passages traditionally cited,

Luke 22 and John 21. Well, okay. But Reformed people know all about that stuff and have for hundreds of years.

So here's the Roman Catholic controversy by yours truly.

And guess what? The section on the papacy goes into depth on all three of them and some others along the way.

And you can go online. And in 1993, when the

Pope came to Denver, Colorado, and Rich and I were sitting at a

Winchell's donut shop. Remember back when we used to eat donuts and things like that?

And we were so young, it didn't make any difference. And it was, yeah, it was fun. And I'm looking at the newspaper and I get all excited because the papal treasures exhibits in town and they have one of the pages of P72 and we go look at it.

And I've told that story so many times now, giving my presentation on New Testament Reliability. It's not even funny.

But anyways, during that visit, I debated Gerry Matiticks for seven to seven and a half hours on the papacy.

And we covered Matthew 16, 18, Luke 22, John 21 in depth. Demonstrated the early church did not understand the way that Roman understands it today.

And okay, that was 93. That was a long time ago, 33 years ago now.

But that's irrelevant. That stuff has been dealt with since the Reformation. And I'm not just talking about Chemnitz and people like that.

I'm talking about the original reformers, Calvin, so on and so forth. Do these guys ever read any of that?

No, they don't. They don't have any interest in it. They don't care.

And so even when the Counter -Reformation takes place, Jesuits, all that kind of stuff, you got the

Catholic controversy gets published and that gets promoted and stuff like that.

And you got people like Bellarmine, their best, okay? We read their best.

They don't even know who our best are. They have no idea who wrote responses to Bellarmine.

They've never seen Goode. They've never seen Whitaker. They have no idea and don't care in the slightest.

And most of the leading Catholic apologists are that way too. The professionals, they don't show a lot of evidence.

You know, Jimmy Akin was a Presbyterian and so he'd at least be familiar with some of the names and stuff.

But most of them just, no, that's, why would we spend our time doing that?

We've got other things to be doing. So there's been tremendous amount of work done on Matthew 16, 18 and the whole

Petrine stuff. But this Timothy Gordon just sort of assumes that, well, must not be overly relevant and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Then he says, Hough also semi -favorably cites

Augustine. Now, you ready? Even though Augustine affirmed the papacy, especially as evidenced in Luke 22 and John 21, saying of the

Pelagian heresy, Roma locuta est, causa finita est. Now, Rich is laughing.

He's heard it. Every non -Catholic apologist who deals with Rome is sitting there going, no, not again.

I posted the full article. It's interesting.

It's dated 2000 on the website, but it was before then. I think what happened is it was posted before there was such a, before anyone had even come up with the word blog.

And so when we took old, we used to call them articles or something that we had posted in old

HTML format on the web, we eventually reformatted them and dropped them into the blog software and it just assigned whatever that date was,

I guess. And yeah, because as I recall, I was looking at this morning, there was a 1995 update on it.

So it was probably 94, something like that. Long time ago, right as the net was starting to kick off.

But I wrote a lengthy article on Sermon 131, which it's funny.

These guys will quote this. They have no idea where it came from because they've never bothered to look it up. They just trust whatever they're told.

My apologetic source said this, I'm going to quote it. I'm going to say Augustine said this, and I'm not going to bother to find out what the context was, what the background is, nothing.

And so I linked to that very old article and said, hey, you know, more than a quarter century ago, we addressed this.

In fact, I addressed it in my debate with Father Peter Stravinskis in 2001 on Long Island.

He quoted the same thing, Roma La Cuta Es, Casa Finita Es. I guess it's because it rolls off the tongue.

You sound so smart when you say it, you know, Roma La Cuta Es. You could put that to music, you know, right?

We should get AI to do that. We should get AI to come up with a Roma La Cuta Es, Casa Finita Es song.

That would be a good, that'd be a maraca type thing, you know, a little Spanish thing going on, you know?

Why not? Because everybody knows it, but nobody bothered to look it up. Peter Stravinskis hadn't either.

When I challenged him on that, he's like, what? What do you mean challenged me on that? Everybody knows that Augustine said that.

Well, no, actually he didn't. He didn't actually say that. And what he did say about rescripts having come from Rome is in the context of the fact that the

North African bishops had basically backed Rome down.

Pelagius had gone there, had gotten rehabilitated, and the Roman bishops, the

Roman councils in North Africa, I'm sorry, the African councils in North Africa, told

Rome to stick it in their ear and said, you've been deceived.

You've been misled. We are not accepting him, and we're not listening to what you have to say.

You need to reconsider. And the whole statement that Augustine makes is, look, even

Rome's on our side now, because Rome eventually backed down, you know? And that's what the whole article's about.

And it's lengthy citations from recognized historical sources, impeccable historical sources.

And no one, like I said, if that was in the mid -90s, it's been out for 30 stinking years.

And Roman Catholic apologetics has not refuted it. They can't. It stands on its own.

And so, it's funny, I was reading it this morning, I was looking up the reference, and Scott Windsor had tried to respond to it.

Oh yeah, well, I don't know if you saw this, but I had an exchange with his son.

His son popped up on X and said that his father had debated me several times.

And even Rich is now laughing, because Rich realizes that could never have happened. We had him on the dividing line once, and the description used the term debate, so I guess that's where he got it from.

Once is several times. Yeah, that was what I pointed out, too. And I said, no, we never debated, we didn't have, there wasn't a moderator, there wasn't a thesis statement, none of this, these are what debates are.

But yeah, he popped up and was all mad at me for questioning Scott's great prowess as a

Catholic apologist. And I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry he's gone, okay? You know,

I can think of a couple of people from back then, Mormons, Roman Catholics, from that very time frame.

Yep, you got it. That's the other guy I was thinking of. And they're gone, they've died.

Dying does not change the fact that you were not an apologist, that you did not have the capacity to engage at a meaningful level.

Sorry, it doesn't. So, but I did notice that Scott Windsor had at least, well, the funny thing was,

Scott Windsor re -quoted my entire article on his own website, and I did make note of that. At least he did that, so at least someone can read the whole thing.

So anyway, it's been, this this Roma Lacuta Est, Casa Finita Est, has been refuted by me for decades.

I'm not the first person to point this stuff out. I quote sources. So it's been centuries that this stuff has been refuted, but it just keeps going on and on and on and on.

And that's the nature of Roman Catholic theology. Rome tells you, this is what's always been believed.

Just believe me. Don't question me. Just believe me. And so you just repeat the same falsehoods over and over and over again.

So you can go on X, you can go, if you just search for sermo131 at aomin .org,

it pops right up. First thing it comes up. It's not a short read. There are lengthy citations in the article.

I jokingly said it would not get read by anybody in Ogden, because they're always complaining about how long my tweets are.

But if you're serious about this, if you really want to know what really happened, and see, they're going to say, oh, but you don't believe everything

Augustine believed. No, I don't. I'm honest about that. We let the early church fathers be the early church fathers.

I don't have anybody to tell me that this is what I have to see in the early church. You're the one that has that.

You can't let them be who they were. You can't let sermon 131 actually say what it says.

You are dogmatically forbidden. See, we can do church history.

You do Roman Catholic theology. They are not the same thing, though you're told that they are.

That's where the problem lies. Really does. Really, really does. So then this

Timothy Gordon goes on to say, also Huff seems to believe that the Pope's absence from Nicaea means something against papal primacy.

Huff doesn't seem to know. Notice the way this guy talks. If you agree with Rome, then you know things.

If you disagree with Rome, then you don't know things and you're just ignorant. Okay. Huff doesn't seem to know that the

Pope wasn't in person at any of the other first councils either, but was considered the authority.

Considered the authority? What do you mean was considered the authority? There are a bunch of Eastern Orthodox guys throwing books at the video screen right now.

Um, you assume that, but that's not what they believed at Nicaea.

That's not even what they believed at Nicaea II, and that's 787 for crying out loud. Um, and a much degraded council in comparison to Nicaea I, as far as ecclesiastical authority is concerned.

What I mean by that is, it's called by the Byzantine Empress. It's run by the

Byzantine Empress. Um, there, there was no meaningful discussion of the issue because in the, in the first session, we're going to have to do more about this between now and October.

Um, you know, it's still sitting right there. See, see guys, to, uh, to, to people, uh, like, uh, this guy,

Timothy Gordon and this Dustin guy I'm going to be talking about. See how, see how we on this side do things like, this is, um, this is

Richard Price's, the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea. You know, where it's being read, you know, and marked and studied and stuff like that.

This is called using original sources, stuff like that, uh, rather than, you know, little quote clips from the internet where you just throw the stuff out.

Um, and because some of the people who responded, and when I responded to this that I'm talking about right now, you know what they did?

They quote clipped it and included Romeo Locutus Causa Finitas in their reply.

You could tell they had not even thought about reading what had been linked, doing the homework, doing any serious thinking.

It's just, it's so sad, uh, to see that kind of self -deception and that shallowness.

It's just, it's all over the place. Um, but anyway, uh, so the, the assumption here is, well, they, they thought that was the authority.

No, they didn't. That is something that developed over time, primarily in the

West, not in the East. Uh, it was one of the reasons you have the division in 1054.

Um, so, so whoever this guy is, I, I am,

I did mention I was gonna be responding to it and I'll, I'll try to, try to remember if I have time to do it, to put a link in, uh, so that, you know, maybe he can start doing some study for himself.

Cause right now it's very clearly, he's not doing a whole lot of study. I have actually, we're halfway through the program.

Well, I'm gonna tell you,

I told you last time, uh, when

I was in the RV, I've come up with this incredible combination, isopure protein with, uh,

Ultima electrolytes with fizzy water. You know, I've got one of those things, you put the CO2 cartridge in it and you, you fizz your water.

Um, no calories. Well, there's calories in that because you have the protein in it. Right now,

I don't have a protein in this. Why? Cause I'm fasting today. Um, which is weird cause

I'm talking fast. I thought my energy levels would be a little bit lower today. I'm doing probably only a 35 hour fast this time.

Normally do 36, but I got started a little bit late. To be honest with you, I just forgot to start the timer and I was like, oh, idiot.

Um, but I might push it to 36. 36 is a nice, you know, it's a day and a half. So you only eat five and a half days a week.

Um, it is, it is amazing the impact that it has. Your body just automatically goes, oh, it's that day, huh?

And the hunger just pretty much shuts down. There's a bag of pistachios over there that's mocking me. Um, you know, and I do have to ask my wife, please don't cook, um, donuts or brownies or cakes or stuff like that on fast days.

Cause you know, that makes the house a little bit of a tortured place. Um, but so right now that's just fizzy water, ice and a grape

Ultima, uh, electrolyte stuff. And it's so good. And, um, no calories, no calories.

We will see what, uh, we will see what weigh -in tomorrow morning will, uh, will bring us. But, um, a few people have commented, there's a lot less of me on the screen than there used to be.

Um, then we have a guy named Dustin Ashe, A -S -H -E, at Dustin Ashe writes,

Catholic convert from Presbyterianism, just like Jimmy Akin, mother of God apologetics, mother of God conversion memoir incoming.

Well, that can tell you, that'll tell you a few things. And he, you know, this is longer than most of my tweets, but you see, when you're an adult, you can read long tweets because you read books.

And you have the attention span a little bit longer than that of a flea. Um, and so I don't mind long tweets.

Uh, but this was just such an excellent, um, example of a convert.

Okay, here's someone, now I don't, don't know what kind of Presbyterian it was, don't know anything about his conversion story. I didn't bother to take the time to look it up.

I didn't have the time to take look it up. As Rich knows, I started driving down here and my truck's going,

Hey, um, one of your tires is over 20 pounds low. And, um, around here, everybody knows that means you ate, uh, you ate a nail.

And, uh, so I had forgotten we have a tire place, um, not too far from here.

Uh, I've never used it before, but, uh, Rich came over and grabbed me and I dropped it off and hopefully they can pick the thing up.

They said they could, um, that this truck that, that I pull the fifth wheel with weighs 8 ,500 pounds.

I've, I've gone to places that they're like, we, our max is like six, something like that, you know, 8 ,500 too much.

Um, you know, they can use a floor jack if they have to. Uh, but anyways, that's, that took up a little bit of our time, uh, as we were coming here.

So, um, and if you hear a phone ringing pretty soon, it'll probably be them calling my phone that I left in the other room.

So here's this Dustin Ashe, and I don't know what kind of, uh, convert he was or what kind of Presbyterian he was, but, um, he says, this is

Calvinist James Whitey, preaches against the finished work of Christ present in the Catholic mass. That's because there is no finished work of Christ present in the

Catholic mass. If there was, then the mass would not have to be, A, an unbloody sacrifice, and B, represented over and over again, and C, allow a person to approach that mass 20 ,000 times in their life, still die impure, and go to purgatory, or even go to hell.

So, yeah, that's true. Now, of course, have

I discussed all this in published works? Yes. Does Dustin Ashe have any idea what those published works are? No.

Is that just another example of what you have in, in our modern context?

Yep. There you go. Um, watch how we quote five

Bible verses proving James White wrong yet again. Catholics only.

You will want to bookmark this. I mean, even before we get started, you'll want to bookmark this as you read to the end, because you can use it to preach the gospel to your separated

Protestant brethren. Well, you know, I appreciate the Vatican II language. It does, it is ironic that the

Counter -Reformation had none of that, and had a completely different perspective on that, and the separated

Protestant brethren were burned to the stake back in those days. Uh, but hey, things have changed, right?

All apostolic tradition. All right, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14.

So, let me go ahead and pop this up here, and I put all these in, so I should be able to, uh, go back to them fairly quickly.

There we go. So, uh, and Rich has new toys to play with in the other room.

He's, he's been looking a little sad and bored. Um, I'm sorry? You're, you're being very careful here?

Okay. Um, now I thought you were going to, uh, do the, you know, put stuff inside stuff, and you were telling me you're doing all this cool, neat stuff, and now you're just doing, um, yeah.

I mean, I don't know if I were at home. I mean, I can literally read the

Greek on that screen, and it's, um, what, five feet away from me? Well, okay, yeah, that's 4k.

Um, it's, it's pretty clear. Um, you know, we didn't really have to have the two windows overlapping, but maybe you're just doing it for stylistic reasons.

I don't know. That's the default. Oh, well, I figured after all the time you spent with this thing, it would be completely modified to your own.

No, no, no, because now the Greek's all messed up. So you got to go back to it.

See, now you've, okay, there you go. All right. All right. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14, for by he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

And the comment that he makes is

James White says the mass quote, does not perfect anyone for whom it is made end quote.

That is a fact. I just point out that it's a fact. And let me,

I mean, this is not in dispute. It doesn't perfect anyone for whom it's made.

If it did, then you'd believe in the perseverance of the saints. But you know, and I asked a, there was a, there was a

Roman Catholic recently on X that talked about how important I was in their conversion to Roman Catholicism. And so I said, oh, okay.

So, you know, one of my main arguments has always been that in Romans chapter eight, those who are justified are also glorified.

So in Roman Catholicism, can, is it true that everyone who's justified by baptism will also be glorified?

No, no, because they believe you can be justified and you can lose the grace of justification.

You have to be re -justified. You lose grace justification by committing a mortal sin. But there'll be people who, there'll be all sorts of Catholics who are baptized as infants, who never show the slightest interest in religion at all.

I mean, this is the story of Europe today. And in traditional

Roman Catholic theology, we'll go to hell. Like I said, I think the majority of the magisterium today are universalists.

Don't worry about me bouncing around, folks. That's, that's, that's Rich playing games on the other side of the window. And so, you know, we're talking about historic, teaching,

Council of Trent. That can all change. Now, now that Newman, you know, once you've got development, you can change all of it.

And that's what they're going to be doing. That's how the sexual revolution gets done. That's how marriage gets done.

That's how ecumenical stuff gets done. I think we just,

I think we saw a few months ago the real strong possibility that the filioque will be up for grabs and made a historical thing, a you can, you don't have to type thing.

That's how you start getting the East and West back together again. I think that's probably, you know, 2033, got a few years to wait.

But we'll see. It could be very, very interesting. Anyway, traditional

Roman Catholic teaching is that you can be justified and lost. So you don't have a finished work because the finished work is what causes your holiness, your sanctification.

And so there is no finished work. It is ongoing.

Now, of course, we can't look at the new, we can't look to the New Testament for this. There is no priesthood. There is no sacramental priesthood.

There is no concept of transubstantiation. Real presence is not transubstantiation. These are all later developments.

And once you buy into, we can have developments that the apostles never dreamed of, then you're off on your own.

You can build whatever religion you want. But what is being said in Hebrews 10, the contrast in Hebrews 10 is between the repetitive sacrifices of the old system and the one sacrifice of the new.

And which one marks Roman Catholicism? How many unbloody offerings of Jesus have taken place today around the world?

Just an estimate. A million? Maybe? I mean,

I don't know. I don't know how many Roman Catholic churches there are. I don't know how many masses are offered each day around the world.

I'm not sure that information is even available. That'd be interesting to ask one of the AIs. Is that information even out there?

But each one of them is supposedly that, the offering. This says,

Mia. Okay? See right here? Mia, single. One.

And if the mass is a prosphora, a notice the definition even includes

Eucharist, an offering. One offering.

He has perfected. He. Not us. He. He has done this.

Okay. Go back into Hebrews chapter 10. And where is it starting here?

Hebrews chapter 10. For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually, year by year, make perfect those drawn near.

Wait, wait a minute. Perfect? Oh, it's the same term. Not the same form.

It's the same root. The same term. So the author is saying repetitive sacrifices cannot perfect, but Christ perfects by a single sacrifice.

Oh. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered because the worshipers having once been cleansed would no longer have consciousness of sins.

But in those sacrifices, what kind of sacrifices are those? Repetitive ones. Ones that are offered over and over again.

There is a reminder of sins year by year. So a repetitive sacrifice is a reminder of sin.

Singular sacrifice removes sin. Which do you have in Roman Catholicism?

Why is confession considered part of the sacramental system? What are you seeking?

And do you receive complete forgiveness of sin at each mass?

Or is it not dependent upon the attitude you bring to it?

The perfection of your penitence, etc. Again, you'll get different answers to these things depending on who you talk to.

Priests will give you answers all over the board. But historically, we do understand that Roman Catholicism does not have that finished work.

It has an ongoing work being represented in an unbloody fashion in a sacramental system with priests unknown to the

New Testament. Those are not presbyteral. So, he says, who do you trust?

The Bible, right? Perfective, for all time, already done, being sanctified, right now, ongoing. One verse, finished work, and ongoing application.

The mass is how the finished work reaches you in time. Now notice, he completely skips my intention, my argument.

It's hard for me to understand how a person who was once a

Presbyterian could be so deaf to the real issue.

But, man, converts. It is astonishing what conversion does to one's knowledge of what one once allegedly believed.

And, when he says, perfected, for all time, already done, who?

Who? Do you believe in the elect? Are you a

Thomist? Are you a Dominican? A Franciscan? I mean, you guys have had lots of arguments about that over the years.

And maybe you haven't gotten into that yet, you know, being a convert and all. You skip over all the disputations and things like that.

Um, but then, you seemingly are basing your entire response on the fact that you have a present participle.

Maybe you haven't looked at hagiadzo in Hebrews? Maybe you haven't considered what it means?

You are assuming that that's some kind of, um, sanctification, like, well, you know,

I'm being sanctified by being made patient today because I've gone through this trial. That's not how Hebrews is using it.

That's not how Hebrews use hagiadzo at all. Maybe you're assuming that, but here's the problem.

Um, you can't deal with the Bible, sir. Why? Because only

Rome can interpret it infallibly. And the problem is, Rome has never interpreted any of these verses infallibly, and is loathe to do so.

In fact, you might be shocked at how many on the papal biblical commission would probably agree with me about this stuff, not with you.

But you see, theology and biblical exegesis have long been divorced, ever since Vatican II, and the divides getting wider and wider between the two within Roman Catholicism.

That's the inevitable impact. Of leftism. And you folks are led by a leftist.

Yes, Leo's a leftist. Francis had two left wings. Leo has two left wings.

You, you can't avoid it. You, you guys like to pretend that you have a conservative view of scripture, but your leaders don't.

That's the problem. That's a problem for you. So he says, the mass is how the finished work reaches you in time.

Oh, it's a finished work, but it reaches you piecemeal?

And if you commit a mortal sin, it's no longer a finished work? Do you have any idea how utterly incoherent this response was?

I mean, either this demonstrates that as a Presbyterian, you didn't have a clue what you believed. Which, which is not unusual.

Okay. Or the possibility really exists, and I've encountered this many times, of people who did know what they believe, and now they're just more than happy to misrepresent it.

Whatever. Um, okay. Hebrews 725, because there's five verses, and I've only got 14 minutes.

Uh, Hebrews 725, therefore, he is able,

Dunati, to save, to save forever, or save to the uttermost.

Panteles can have, in this context, either meaning, those who draw near to God through him.

Why? Because, Pantateison aesta entum canine huper auton, because he always lives to make intercession for them.

Please notice, the them is specific. Yes, it's those who draw near to God through him.

But it's not the unspecific, well, it's just a vague thing, and whoever decides to do this type thing.

No, he's making intercession for a specific people. You go back to, go back to Leviticus chapter 16.

When the high priest offers the sacrifice in the holy place, it's for a specific people.

It's not for a generic, that you can just, I'm gonna write my name in today to be part of the specific people.

No, it's a specific people. And since the writer of Hebrews uses

Leviticus, draws from Leviticus, you have to go there.

All right? So, Christ has the ability to save forever, because he ever lives to make intercession.

So, his intercession is what makes that possible. See, Romanists, sadly,

Synergists, Arminians, instead of hearing the overwhelming drumbeat of Hebrews 7 .25,

Christ's power, Christ's ability. Instead of hearing that, he is able to save to the uttermost, because he ever lives to make intercession for them.

That all gets washed away, and instead, well, but you need to draw near to God.

There's your free will. Instead of this simply being a descriptor of those who are saved by Christ, it becomes the overwhelming definition.

All to be able to maintain the great myth of man's free will. Or, in the case of Roman Catholicism, the great myth of the sacramental system.

So, he says, James White says ongoing intercessory work means the work isn't finished.

No, I've never said anything like that at all. I don't even know what he's talking about there. My gut feeling is, he's identifying the ongoing intercessory work as the sacramental system.

Priests and stuff like that. The intercessory work is the finished work of Christ.

He sat down at the right hand of the Father. He's not standing doing another work. He's the

Lamb standing as if slain, as Revelation describes it. Who do you trust?

The Bible, right? Always, present tense, forever. Ongoing intercessory work is what the finished work does.

What? What? Is that supposed to actually say something?

What does that mean? You don't even bother to explain it. Ongoing intercessory work is what the finished work does.

What's the nature of this ongoing intercessory work? Are we talking the priesthood here? Are we talking

Roman Catholic priests? What are we even talking about? I mean, it's hard to take this seriously, but I'm trying to take it seriously.

I'm trying to understand it. The guy obviously thinks this is an answer. It's not, but he thinks it is.

I'd like to say more there, but he just didn't give enough to even bother responding to. 1

Corinthians 11 26, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. James White says the mass fails to proclaim what

Christ accomplished on the cross. Yeah, it does.

Why? Because you have to come back next week. In fact, you could die that night and not be a friend of God and not be justified.

So yeah, I agree with myself, definitely.

The Bible says, as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So what he's saying is, oh, but you do proclaim the death of Christ in the mass, assuming that the supper is the mass, which, of course, he's told to believe that.

There's nothing in 1 Corinthians 11 about priests, and I keep hammering on that, because when you read, again, when you do what we do, when you actually read

Roman Catholic stuff from centuries ago, where they actually still believed that they were the one true church and, you know, papal syllabus of errors type stuff, when you read pre -Vatican

II stuff, you find out that in Roman Catholic theology, there is an intimate connection between the sacerdotal priesthood and the offering of Christ.

You cannot separate them. One gives rise to the other. And so, yeah, when you actually do serious study, when you don't do the surface level

X stuff. So who do you trust?

The Bible, right? The mass is the proclamation, every mass until he comes back. But the mass is proclaiming that the death of the

Lord is being re -presented. And since you have to come back again and again and again, this is what this fellow,

Mr. Ash, and this is the tragedy. He would have learned this from Calvin or from any decent

Presbyterian theologian. The real tragedy here is that he doesn't have that finished work.

It's not made specifically for the elect. And so, you have this strange situation where you can approach the mass over and over and over again.

I know people who go to mass every day. Every day. And yet, they do not have confidence.

Why? Because that will not perfect them. That death makes available grace, but it does not perfect the one for whom it's made.

Okay? Every mass until he comes back. It's not every mass. It's every Lord's Supper. They're not the same thing. The Lord's Supper is the people of God remembering not their sins.

That's what a repetitive sacrifice does, but their sin -bearer. I've said it many, many times before.

In 1 Corinthians 11, Jesus is described as our anamnesis. Anamnesis.

Our sin -bearer. We do a memorial of him. We are remembering our sin -bearer. He's our anamnesis.

In Roman Catholicism, you have an anamnesis of sin because you have to keep coming back. In Biblical Christianity, you have anamnesis of the sin -bearer.

And so, the memorial is of him, not of your sins. That's the massive difference.

Interestingly enough, the very first book I ever wrote, The Fatal Flaw, that was its thesis. That was what it was fundamentally communicating.

Which is, as Rich wants to remind you on Kindle, Romans 8 24, James White mocks a priest for saying,

I hope to be the blessed man of Romans 4. And I'm not sure why, you know, again, if you want to see this, he's talking about Peter Stravinskas.

And this entire exchange is available for you to watch for yourself.

And I highly recommend that you do so. And what happened is,

I asked him who the blessed man of Romans 4 8 is. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

And his response was, at first, Jesus. And I'm like, okay, this demonstrates he's never thought about this one before.

So, I gave him another chance to think about it. And he said, well, I hope to be. I hope to be the blessed man.

The point is, any meaningful exegesis of Romans 4 is going to tell you that Paul's talking about all believers.

That's the foundation of their peace with God, Romans 5 1, is that the

Lord does not impute sin to those who have the faith that's been described, starting in Romans chapter 4 verse 4.

This is allowing the text to speak for itself. Evidently, Mr. Ash really can't talk about it because he doesn't have an infallible interpretation of this text, so maybe he should just leave it alone.

But Stravinskis did not say that he was the blessed man.

And the Roman Catholic can't say that. That's the sin of presumption, which only shows that Rome's guilty of the sin of changing scripture.

So, he says, the Bible says, Romans 8 24. So, Romans 8 24. For in hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes what he already sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we eagerly wait for it. So, this is talking about the ministry of the

Spirit in the church. It's not talking about justification. It's not even the context here. But the phrase is, for in hope we were saved.

So, he says, the Bible says, for in hope we were saved. Who do you trust? The Bible, right? The priest quoted Paul in Romans to the

Romans. So, he's saying that when Stravinskis says, well,

I hope to be the blessed man, that that's what's going on here. So, he jumps from Romans 4.

He can't deal with Romans 4. He can't deal with it in context. Has probably never tried. He jumps to Romans 8 in a different context and says, well, that's what he's talking about, is in hope we were saved.

Notice this, we were saved, not we hope to be saved. There's a difference, big difference.

This guy was either a horrible Presbyterian, or he went to a horrible

Presbyterian church where he never had anyone show him how to do exegesis. Or now he's a convert and converts do whatever converts need to do.

But this is some of the worst type of argumentation I've ever seen. And he's telling people to bookmark this? Okay.

All right. Last one. First Corinthians 927. I'm going to go a little bit long here, but right.

I haven't gotten the call that the truck's ready yet. Anyways. First Corinthians 927. But I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I've preached to others,

I myself will not be disqualified. Ad hocimus. James White demands certainty no faithful Catholic will claim.

No. What I do say, what he's confusing with certainty, is peace.

Romans 5 .1. Therefore, having been justified, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And I understand this.

Again, it's sad that a person who claims to have once been a Presbyterian could be this ignorant of his past faith.

But again, it happens every convert I ever talk to. But yes, a believer should have peace because they've been justified.

And I'm not going to go through the whole thing with Mitch Pacwar right now. The conversation we had in that debate, it's available online.

But it is very difficult for a Roman Catholic to explain why they have peace now in light of the fact that they could be the enemy of God by the time they go to sleep tonight.

People come up with different answers. But, and again, given that I think a large majority of the

Roman Catholic magisterium is minimally inclusivist and probably universalist, this whole topic is sort of outside their purview these days.

So he quotes this text. Who do you trust? The Bible, right? Paul, the man who wrote Romans 4, refusing the certainty white demands.

Didn't demand any certainty, I was talking about peace. So he can't deal with the text I brought up. He can just run to others and misapply them.

Change the context, say, oh well, but over here, without ever even thinking, actually,

I need to be able to make the connection between the two, or I'm just simply twisting scripture. Catholic converts twist scripture.

And here was a good example, provided today, up to date, of a

Catholic convert twisting scripture. So he says, White's test for assurance disqualifies the apostle who wrote the chapter.

It didn't. So his conclusion is, five verses, one Bible, his.

Mine? What do you mean mine? I don't know. The finished work of Christ is present on every

Catholic altar on earth right now. That's a self -contradiction that makes no sense.

Because it's going to be represented over and over and over again, therefore it's not finished. I mean, that's such, that's logic 101, but Roman logic is not logical.

Pick one evangelical friend, one you actually love, pick one of these five verses, the one that hit you hardest, send it to them gently, no fight, no tone, just the verse and a sentence about what it shows you.

Then invite them to mass, tell them you want them to hear the gospel proclaimed the way Paul described it in 1 Corinthians 11 -26.

Take this, take the refutation, and do that with your Roman Catholic friend. Because, remember, in the

United States, it's eight to one. Every one person joining, eight people are leaving. Those eight people need to hear about a finished work and justification and peace with God.

Eight to one. They can pretend that it's a lot better than that. It's not. It's bring them home.

It's always bring them. See, for us, we want to bring them to Christ. Roman Catholic wants to bring them to the church.

Oh, but it's the church of Christ. Well, you can say that. But the reality is, you talk about the church, conversion to the church.

We talk about conversion to Christ. And that is not disputable.

That is very, very obvious and very, very clear. Really is. All right. Oh, look at that.

Okay, hold on. Hold on a second. So, Chris Honholtz, we love old

Chris up there. You do realize that that Ultraman figure in the office,

Chris gave me in the grand design. So it's been in four RVs so far. No, I don't think that was retaliation for Buddy.

I'm not sure Buddy has started yet. I don't think it had. And the reality is that he likes

Ultraman. So he wouldn't use Ultraman as retaliation for anything. So, but I've sent a picture to Chris.

Rich put this stuff up in the office, in the RV. And I had him over on this side, sort of had him taped there.

He didn't want to stay there. I found a better place for him because there's just enough stuff there that I think he can sort of hold on. But he pretty much stays in one place.

And that's, of all the places in that RV, that's the one that's going to move the most, is it's at the very end. It's all the way at the...

Yeah. Yeah. Boing da boing da boing da. So yes, good old

Chris. We love Chris. But Chris got responded to by Dan McClellan.

Whoa. I'm going to have to look this up. This is a minority interpretation invented by John Calvin that this person can't competently defend.

Oh, I just, I just love the... Dan McClellan strikes me. Dan McClellan does clearly believe he is the greatest scholar to ever walk the earth.

Let me tell you right now, I am not. Okay? I'm confident in what I do, but I do so much, such a wide variety of stuff, that in any one particular area, there's people go a whole lot deeper than I do.

I can't. I'm not a generalist. I'm not the Bible Answer Man type generalist.

But I know my calling. I know who I am. And I don't have to sit here and go, I am the best there is.

Dan McClellan seems to have that problem. The consensus view, and I get to define that, is to define is for miscarriage and life for life is only for the death of the mother.

Oh, okay. This is the excess thing. I actually wrote an article on this.

And you know, now that I think about it, I may have responded to McClellan on this. It's ringing a bell.

I'll have to look. I'll have to look. But don't worry, Brother Chris, you are right.

And the arrogant sort of Mormon guy is wrong. Just so you know. I just popped up on my signal chat.

And that's why I saw that. So anyways, that's, hey,

Eric, doing this live stuff is all the rage. By the way, I need to get back to our

Mormon friends who have said they want to come on and talk about their song. And we're going to do that.

One of the reasons I didn't rush this week is my wife's having a little surgery thing. It actually should be done by now.

I haven't heard from her. Her sister's with her. And so I just didn't want to put anything this week and then have to put it off.

So I'll get back with them. And I'm looking forward to it. I'll be honest with you. This is one place where it's going to take zero preparation.

Why? I've been presenting Reformed Theology for nearly 40 years. And I think

I've heard every straw man there is. And this song was a straw man. And these men who produced it don't understand it.

And the difference between us is I understand Mormon theology. I may have read more

Mormon theology than they have for many decades longer. I was saying Mormon theology before a couple of them who sang the song were born.

And so let's just talk about it and ask the question, why aren't you serious in criticizing other perspectives?

I mean, my understanding is that, let me just say really quickly, the only reason I saw this, this song thing, was because I saw a

Mormon tag me in it and say, you know, you guys complain about the Godmakers.

And then you do this. And I'm like, bingo. How many times have

I heard people complaining about the animated sequence in the original Godmakers? And yet you all will turn around and do this.

That is not only inconsistent, it is hypocritical. So there we go.

So we're going to probably, hopefully, next week, we can do a

Zoom thing or whatever it is we need to do to make it work and go from there.

But I'm sure they're going to want to put the segment on their webcast too. So I don't know how that'll work out.

But we'll make it. We will make it happen. All right.

Well, thanks for listening to the program. We bounced all over the place today, but stayed pretty much in the

Roman Catholic area, aside from a few little things there at the end.

And my assumption is, what does tomorrow look like for you?

No issues? Think we could do a Zoom show? A call -in show?

Okay. Yeah. It's difficult for me to do two shows back -to -back.

We did that during COVID. That was a lot of work. Because I covered most of my bookmarks just now.

And so the call -in shows are always really good. I'm not saying that every question is as good as every other question, but most of the time they're really good questions.

So let's see about doing a call -in show tomorrow. Call -in means

Zoom show is how we do that. That's what we'll probably do tomorrow. All right. Thanks for watching today.