we've been examining the recent agreement over the last few years which is called ECT evangelicals and Catholics together which has followed up with the gift of salvation document and if you've never heard of it that's alright but you'll hear about it much in the future RC scroll recently did four radio series days on it and then when I was back in New England I had done a three session conference on Roman Catholicism in the most Catholic state of all those that are headed into the mission field if they're going into any predominantly Catholic country they're going to have to make a decision and basically the decision of the ECT was that there is not a substantial or substantive difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism and let me add evangelical Protestantism and of course we strongly disagree with that and so this study I know that some of you are thinking long-term about missions some of you love doctrine but what I'd like to share with you from Galatians chapter one is the bigger picture not worrying about you CT or the gift of salvation right now but talking about something that impacts the lives of well over 1 billion people and that's Roman Catholicism I will give you in just a few moments seven huge reasons I call them why I could never be a Roman Catholic but I want to say this in a way that that chairs it from my heart because I can't think of anything more relevant anything more profitable then to study not from the newspapers not to study from polemics and those are our works that are written attacking things but to actually study from the scriptures what the scriptures describe as the gospel once and for all delivered to the Saints and seven diametrically opposed tenants of the Roman Church which are as far away from the Bible as you can and yet within the context of Christianity and that's what makes it so dangerous the Lord Jesus Christ I trust will shed his love abroad in our hearts as we truly look at what the Bible teaches and what we believe there are almost 1 billion people in this world that claim allegiance to the Vicar of Christ John Paul the second he is the Pontifex Maximus the high priests the bridge builder the Prince of the Apostles the Bishop of Rome he's a man from a little town it's beautiful it's in southern Poland his name is john paul ii and i think it's relevant for you to know what you believe if you're a born-again christian for the first reason because there are a billion people that believe what i'm going to share with you which is in great opposition to the bible and a lot of them don't even know that secondly you probably live next door to someone who's a roman catholic i do they're all around me in our subdivision if you work you probably work along some people that are running catholic so if you have friends as i do you have many like i do if you make unsaved friends in town who are Roman Catholics and I'd like to just give you an overview of this series we're going to do by giving you just the seven reasons why I believe I could never be a Roman Catholic and I trust at the end of series there is you examine what I am sharing with you from God's word that you would also be able to understand ibly and not in a fighting way just in a in a very calm and assured way say that you realize that Roman Catholicism is not only wrong it's deadly and damnable if you believe it and if you practice it well when I say that I want to show you where we're going these points I'm going to show you I don't want to be polemical I don't want to be belligerent I don't want to be insensitive it's not that we want to hurt people when I explained you by the Roman Catholic Church and by the way I've taken groups there many groups has seven specific groups I've taken to Rome we've gone through st. Peters in fact I remember that bonnie was carrying James she was six and a half months expecting I said honey I have always wanted to go to the cupola that's the very top of a st. Peter's and she walked all 995 steps with me up and I almost carried her 995 back down it's not that that there's anything wrong with the city of Rome there's nothing wrong with the beautiful st. Peters it's not that that it's bad that there are probably more people to go to church in America that go to Roman Catholic churches anywhere else that's not so much the problem the problem is that the doctrine that they believe is so opposed directly to the gospel of Jesus Christ and that's what gives me such sadness apart that people can be so religious so surrounded by the truth and for the most part never embrace that truth Galatians chapter 1 starting in verse 6 the Apostle Paul is basically has one point in these verses and that is that there's just one gospel there aren't many there aren't multiple versions there's one gospel and this is what he says I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel which is not another but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ and look at this the most serious verse all versity but even if I I another we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you then that we have preached to you look at this let him be and he uses the word damned a cursed forever banished from the presence of God as I've said before so now I say it again if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received let him be accursed now how do we receive the gospel we received it delivered to us on the inspiration of God's Spirit in this book in both the Old and New Testaments God who in divers manners and times past has spoken us through the prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his son and so the Lord Jesus Christ put his seal on the revelation of God as he chose apostles 2 to affirm in profits to speak his word and so he delivered in our Lord's brother Jude said he delivered the faith once and for all for the Saints that is not the gospel that is being dispensed from the Roman Catholic Church and that's the sadness there are and now you can turn back to revelation 17 there's a dangerous time coming and I just briefly want to allude to this and those of you that want to study it in depth the whole chapter is about the collapse of Satan's church you see Satan is busy building a church right now in the process of looking through this chapter we find Satan's bride is the delusion of religion Satan ever since the Garden of Eden has been building his church his church has Florrie Cain was his first member it says in 1st John 3:12 and every since the Church of Satan has formed many congregations you say really are you talking about Anton LaVey in the Church of Satan from California know his congregations meet in church buildings and synagogues and mosques and cathedrals and in temples everywhere where organized religion stresses that you through your human working can achieve your way to God that's religion religion says that man can achieve and make himself acceptable to God God has revealed that there is nothing that we can do that is righteous nothing and therefore we cannot achieve God's favor we can only accept and receive the merits of Christ on our behalf its imputed it's not received one those two the time which is the heartbeat of Romanism Jesus came to seek and to save he gave himself to purchase us from sin and damnation he lives as our great high priest to purify and to cleanse us from all defilement and we are to be his pure and chaste virgin washed in the blood of the Lamb now turn back with me to 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 please because the Apostle Paul warned us that there would be something that would would be an impediment to us being a pure and holy bride to Christ in his second Corinthians 11 he warned us in verse 13 of sin granese 11 that there are false apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into apostles for Christ or of the gospel of Christ look at verse 14 and no wonder for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light Satan's greatest realm of activity is an organized religion there are more people going to hell because of religion then there are because of any of the sins of the flesh lustful things pride arrogance materialism those things are not as damnable as false religion and that's what we'll see of our study of Romanism in the 17th chapter of Revelation that we studied we saw the culmination of Satan's false system well there are seven specific biblical reasons why I believe that Roman Catholicism is anti biblical and also wrong these seven are first of all the mass and we're going to study the mass briefly the second reason I believe is married and the role of Mary the attributing to Mary divine attributes in fact I just wanted to make sure this afternoon I went to the main Catholic site the Sacred Heart site and I went there and I checked and they as of about 4:30 this afternoon are still ascribing to Mary divine attributes they pray at prayers to her they ask her to be with them she is a human she is in one place at one time she cannot hear me talking she cannot hear you talking she can hear no one praying she could not help she cannot save she cannot plead she cannot intercede she cannot offer any type of mission of temporal or even greater than temporal punishment and yet unabashedly the Catholic Church Post Vatican 2 Church offers to Mary prayers that are on the level of the divine we'll see that when we study Mary that's the second reason why I could never be a Roman Catholic thirdly the third reason is that the Roman Church elevates tradition over the Word of God time after time if you boil it down and talk to a Roman Catholic person and find out what they believe they will only go so far with you with this book and then they will say the corpus not just there the body of the teaching of the church says and that takes precedence over the Word of God and thus it makes us no longer the divine inerrant infallible inspired once and for all settled in heaven Word of God that's a very dangerous place to be because God has spoken the tradition of Rome usurps the Scriptures the traditions of the church are 1,600 of the Roman Church are 1600 years old and they are so growing and and metamorphosizing that truly if if the people that study this book and Romanism paid attention to it they would cut all that tradition off but the church tradition has grown to the same place and we'll see that examining fourthly is idols the veneration or the worship of images and even though officially the Roman Catholic Church does not believe in idols if you go to any Roman Catholic shrine or any Roman Catholic Church if you go to the Vatican itself and we were just there last May and when we were there there were just countless people that would grieve your heart that we're kissing stroking kneeling weeping praying adoring every word you want to use images of people the Saints Mary Peter little pictures of the mother-child Marion and Jesus and a few pictures of Christ right images but God hates idols he hates any physical representation of him he hates all worship that is human contrived and human formed in fact I shared this week I was at a meeting where someone said could you could you explain to me the essence of what's wrong with Romanism I said yes if I came in and I was dying of diabetes and someone came and gave me an insulin shot which which temporary relieved that that would be going to the Roman Catholic Church I would still be dying I would be no better off I would just continue my dying if I came dying of diabetes to Christ he would give me a brand new body and I would be cured from it one time totally done and I would live forever that is the difference between the gospel and Roman Catholicism Roman Catholicism infuses grace one insulin shot at a time or they think they're infusing grace and infused raises dispensed by the church through the sacraments there are seven sacraments and it's a production line you you at baptism you you have all of your sins up until that point and until your confirmation taken care of and you begin your spiritual life and then your confirmation you get your next dose and then every time you come to Mass you keep getting every dose after that and you keep going up until you commit a sin and then you fall back and if it's a mortal sin you fall back way back to the beginning and you have to start over again and it's an idea of dispensing grace like insulin shots and the sacraments are a terrible terrible travesty to the Word of God the sixth reason why I am NOT nor could be a Roman Catholic is and I couldn't think of any other way to state it them the lie of purgatory because the idea is that Jesus did not sufficiently pay for our sins on the cross and so you have to do a partial payment it's kind of like your folks put part of the money down for the car but you've got to work off the wrestling or or when we buy a house and put a down payment we've got to make the mortgage payments and Jesus said that he paid the entire price of our sins once and for all their own Catholic Church says no he wasn't able to he needs the assistance of his mother he needs the assistance of the Saints and you've got to cooperate and you have to you'll never make it all the way through and so you have to go to to purge that's what purgatory is purging you you're not quite clean enough for heaven because Jesus did not clean who completely sufficiently his sacrifices insufficiency have to go to purgatory in fact I was reading this afternoon looking over this material when I got to my Sunday missile my prayer book that I had my library opened it up and lo behold there was a card from I bought it at a goodwill from someone who had through buying a candle or something bought 300 days out of purgatory for an individual I have their name I have the card and and you know when you read that or when you go to a funeral and and and it's a Catholic funeral they give out those little cards for you to do masses that's all to buy people out of purgatory will look at that hole where it came from and what's wrong and finally the seventh reason is the incredible role of paganism in the Roman Catholic Church let me just share this with you have you ever wondered how we went from Peter and and James and John and Andrew and the Apostles and Jesus running around Galilee and a boat and nobody having anything and Jesus said that everybody foxes have holes and I don't have a place to lay my head how do we go from a bunch of fisherman and a carpenter preaching the gospel to robes and beads and candles and prayers and images and bones and relics and orders of priests and orders of monks and orders of nuns and hierarchy of Cardinals bishops and Cardinals and the Pope how did we get to all that all of it can be traced back to the syncretism you know it's incretion is it's it's taking the elements of other religions and blending them together into a new one and Romanism in about the 4th century in 313 ad in that period of time to come to the world around it and embraced all of the priests of the false religions of the world and that's where the robes and then for the candles and that's where the beads and as for the images and that's where Lent came from and that's where all of the various handgun elements Romanism came from they were all inculcated in the fourth century we'll kind of that's probably one of the most fascinating parts where that all came from well those are the seven reasons the Roman Catholic Church is an amalgam it's a sin creation it's a blending together of nearly all the major elements of the world religion that's why today the Bishop of Rome john paul ii is constantly involved in interfaith dialogues with every type of religion on the planet everything there's nothing left out he has had interfaith dialogues with all of them because they're finding that they all have something in common and that is that they all believe that there's something we can all do to get to heaven or wherever they're thinking they're going and so that's the idea the Pope is working together with them but before I actually get into these problems with the mass I want to assure you that I know and love some dear born-again Roman Catholics nessam you might be shocked by that to even say that's a difficult thing because it's like saying a communist American or it's like saying things that don't go together but I'll explain to you who my friends are I dunno and count among my good friends born-again Roman Catholics in fact some of them are my closest spiritual advisors people that I look to on almost a daily basis to understand the Bible but let me underline one word they were Roman Catholics and you understand what I mean in a moment they all went through all the interesting and different movements of the mass and if you if you ever read a mass book it would boggle your mind everything that they do how they have to turn here turn there do this do that cross themselves five times four times this way seven times back let the hosts do this a math these were all involved with that these former Roman Catholic priests we're at one time ordained Mass offering hosts elevating Pope following Roman Catholic priests and I think you know them too because it all became famous when they left the church in fact they were baptized as 98 percent of all Roman Catholics are into the church they were priests they were told immersed in the church up over their head until the day they started reading the Bible when they read the Bible it changed their life the first one's name was John Wickliffe and after he was saved in the 14th century someone read his testimony by the name of John HUS and he was saved in the 15th century and then two men read his testimony after his burned at the stake and their names were Martin Luther and John Calvin and collectively those four men are great mentors to me as I read their works but all four of them saw the horrors of the heirs of Romanism and they turn from them so basically what I'm saying to you is that there's nothing wrong with the person on the other side of your fence there's a Roman Catholic you can trust them you can love them they could be your neighbors is my neighbors are you can give them the keys for your house with your car you can trust whatever you want to to them they're not bad at least they're not any more evil than the rest of us were born wicked sinners but the problem is their loss what's even worse than that is they probably don't even know it because they have been inoculated by something it's got a package that resembles the Word of God around it and much like when you and I get a polio vaccine or a DPT shot or whatever you get just enough of that disease to build up an antibody so that you will not get a full full-blown contagion of that illness so many Roman Catholics have gotten just close enough to the Word of God just close enough to the power of God just close enough to the God of the scriptures that they are almost inoculated to the truth and that's the horror well let's turn now to the book of Hebrews and we'll start in Chapter 9 and what I'm going to share with you is just the first reason why Romanism is so deadly why it's so abominably wrong and that of course is the error of the mass and just because Romanism is deadly and and just because there's some close friends of ours and maybe even relatives that are involved maybe you're your neighbor or maybe you're in a Bible study just because of that I don't want to be at all appearing light because we're talking about the souls of individuals that we work with that we live with we're related to we live around and so therefore I would in the words of the Apostle Paul relate to him when he said by the space of three and a half years he said to the Ephesians I did not cease to warn you and he said even with tears if we really really thought about it deeply enough I think that all of us would weep for those who with their whole heart have a form of godliness but by and large the vast majority have denied the power I'm not saying there's not a single born-again Roman Catholic but I would say it's in spite of Romanism and if they at all are conscious of what the Bible says and if they listen it all to the mass they will not stay a Roman Catholic they will begin to make the departure because every time the mass has performed 200 thousand times today the mass was performed at altars of Roman Catholic churches around the world two hundred thousand times today every time the mass was performed the name of Jesus Christ the character of Jesus Christ the atoning work of Jesus Christ is blasphemes and I said to some of this week I was talking about I said you know you're recently married and so what would you think if your wife was deaf and you walked into a room and everyone was smiling your wife and was cursing her and disparaging her and blaspheming her would you continue standing in that room as they mocked her and she was deaf to it of course not your wife you love her you take her out of that setting in fact you would even be quite upset I would be with my wife if anybody treated her that way taught that way I would defend her at all costs and yet there are countless people who seemingly our death as they go to the mass that I'm going to describe as they listen to the to the utter blasphemy that Jesus did not pay at all that I do not all owe my salvation to him that Jesus did a down payment and I've cut the mortgage and I've got a lifetime to work at all and even then I won't be done paying for it which is as the Apostle Paul said another gospel which is those who preach it shall be accursed let's look at the mass just briefly because the first reason the only one we can cover to Roman Catholicism is false and anti-christian is because of the mass and say this very carefully but no doctrine in the world is more damnable than the doctrine of transubstantiation you say what is that that is the heart of the Roman Church it's the re crucifying of Jesus Christ at every mass in every Church around the world every day it's called transubstantiation the gold cup of revelation 17 where we were briefly is a picture of a false and vile counterfeit and and the picture of revelation 17 is of a drunken woman and it says that that she has in her hand this cup of wine in verse 2 and she is getting everybody intoxicating intoxicated verse 4 it says this cup is full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication well one of the the most damnable things is having the abominations of the mass that is so pagan let me just read - and a lot of this is just so difficult to comment on without reading what they say let me read to you from the Roman Catholic history books by the way everything I quote is from the Catholic catechism and if you want to ever witnessed your Catholic friend don't don't hand them Dave hunt you know they will not appreciate you know what you do is you you get a Roman Catholic catechism that is numbered from 1 to you know 2900 3000 wonder I'm not sure how high it goes I haven't looked at the back of it but every doctrine that's catechized that is codified that is taught in the churches and they catechism and what you do is you allude to and I'm going to do that just a second to what the Scriptures saying what the Catechism says and has pointed out and then ask the God of all grace and mercy to move their hearts toward salvation as they see the error but it's shocking for most Roman Catholics to learn that the proposal of the Lord's Supper is a sacrifice this transubstantiation bloodless sacrifice which the mass is was first made by a Benedictine monk by the name of Reb Burtis in the ninth century you see why we can sing songs of Roman Catholics from the 4th century the 5th century the 6th century to the 8th century the 9th century the 10th century do you know why we can do that because up until the 9th the 12th and the 17th century or the 16th century Rome had not come to any type of organized doctrine it was kind of real everybody doing whatever they want and kind of Rome had it together the city but not the whole church but in 9th century a Benedictine monk out some monastery somewhere began promoting the idea that the Catholic Church could change the bread and the cup into the literal body and blood of Christ he just shocked them all and fierce debates broke out and for 300 years there were fierce verbal battles among the bishops every city had a bishop there's a bishop of rome bishop of ephesus a bishop of constantinople Bishop of Jerusalem Bishop of Alexandria you know they were just all over the place and these men would gather hundreds of them at synod's and councils and they would fight back and forth and debate this until finally the most powerful of all the Pope's Pope Innocent 2/3 by the way it was more like General Patton than a pope I mean he was a country just had armies and he was just subjugating Europe on the side he was the Pope but he finds that Ilana quibbling I declare it to be official Roman doctrine 1215 ad and all of a sudden the mass was born full-blown and all of a sudden they began to go exactly contrary to Hebrews chapter 9 and let me show you what I mean starting verse 27 and as it is appointed for men to die once but after this the judgment I just had someone recently I was pregnant on hearing the gospel actually I was talking to someone else witnessing to an unsaved person and another person I didn't know very well was standing there and I got through the first point that we have all sinned when this person piped up and said oh by the way you know I've met God I said well I have to know literally they said I'm in I saw his arm right away I knew that they had because God didn't heaven her you know what I mean and so I knew they'd seen Satan's army thought it was God and and what I saw there was a denial of verse 27 it's appointed for men to die once they after the judgment this person said I I've died already and back to life I've seen God and they said as I was sharing with this lost sinner the gospel they said you don't even have to worry about that because because when I died I found out that everything is going to be peaceful and and when I died all he saw his white light this arm coming to me beckoning me to come you've all read about this if you read The Enquirer at all this happens every week somewhere in the United States Satan fools people all the time and and and they they come out of these experience in fact Betty Eadie wrote a book about it and it's a best-selling book and it's called embraced by the light and the problem is she embraced the light of 2nd Corinthians 11 which is Satan and her god of her book is Satan and not the God of the Bible but this this idea that that we die once and face the judgment is denied by the cults but the Roman Church of the Improv with that they say right one death and judgment but look at verse 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many now let me ask you a question from that Bible study how many times was Christ offered well what is the mass it's a bloodless recruit fiction Christ and so the heart of the gospel is that Jesus in one sacrifice forever have perfected all who come to God through him and the Roman Church says no starting in 1215 ad Christ has to be crucified over and over and they're up to two hundred thousand times a day can you calculate how many millions of times Christ has had to die and he still hasn't made it he still hasn't paid in atone for the sins of the world well the very principles found in the bloodless sacrifice of the mass as it is in the Church of Rome today could be traced directly if you want to read the Encyclopedia Britannica back through the labyrinth of paganism to the fountain of idolatry in ancient Rome and Rome's most blasphemous and massive religious fraud originated in Babylonian worship and as we know it will continue until revelation 17 well Rowen isn't first of all his thoughts because of the mass and I'd like to read to you from the creative Pope Pius the 4th you can look this up in your catechism he summarized the findings of the Great Council of Trent and in his fifth article which is in any library in this country this is what it says article 5 the mass you know this is a written in 16th century English and different but you'll get the idea in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist there's truly really and substantially the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ no doubt what he's saying he's saying that when you walk up front at the altar of a Roman Church and you have in front of you actually I guess they turn around and they have their back the audience they come up that altar and they hold up a host they're saying that they're holding the body the blood the soul and the divinity of Jesus Christ right there that's astounding for them to believe that all the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in a wafer it's astounding but they don't stop there let me keep reading from Pius the fourth and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood which conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation I also contest the Pope says that under each kind alone Christ is received whole and entire and a true sacrament now that's official and that's the end of the quote it's an official writing of one of the Pope's of Rome which has never been abrogated it's not been set aside a has been lesson has been diminished Vatican to only reaffirm the absolute concurrence of the entire church with the College of Cardinals and all the bishops of the whole world that the Catholic Church has always believed in the changing of the bread those little wafers that an order of nuns makes somewhere in different parts of the world and that wine that they have in the front is wholly and entirely changed and how did they change it so church history note here in the Middle Ages in Europe a priest would come walking out carrying this post and he would set it on the table in front of all these peasants that worked in the fields all week long this guy was wearing this glittering gold fighbird robe and this big headdress and a cross and sometimes jewels on it he'd come out you carry this you'd set it down and they could recognize that that was bread and they knew that was wine and the fellow would go in Latin folk as corpus meum and he would go through hope means this esque means is corpus means body Mayim means mind it's Latin he said this is my body you go like that and he elevated several times he'd set it down and he would adorn it and you know but those people thought that is amazing that that man can turn just bread from the bakery into Jesus and he can turn wine from the keg out there into his blood and they didn't know Latin and so what they started doing is started going hocus pocus hocus and that's where the whole magic called hocus pocus comes from to think that you could change that into the body and blood of Christ became the most amazing thing of the Middle Ages and so that's where alchemy came from the idea of transmuting stuff to gold iron the gold and that's where all of the the medieval magical arts came from because the church was in front of the very face of the world doing hocus-pocus and actually that's all they were doing there's no mere man you say how does the priest change the the bread and the wine into the body of Christ that's called X Oprah Oprah toe that's another Latin which means through the operation comes the operation you say it's Oprah Oprah so it's the same word yeah they said it's not inherent in the priest it's through the operation of elevating the host that the change takes place if you do within a Catholic Church and follow the prescribed ritual which is a little bit of circular reasoning but it doesn't matter it became that a very unholy priest could obviously stand in front of a holy place and lift the common cup and embody in his hands the soul the divinity the body and the blood of Jesus Christ that would truly be a miracle he could do it well Vatican 2 changed no dogmas Vatican 2 only updated the errors of Romanism after the priests and the congregation watched this hocus-pocus stuff this is what they say after the words of consecration focused corpus meum the priest kneels down and adores the sacred host ever been in the Roman Church ever see him do that they turn around they do this thing and then they bow on their knee what are they doing you're worshiping the cracker and the cup that's what they're doing but what do they think they're doing their adoring Jesus Christ because they have bodily formed him right there they have just reify him they have just made him go through all that they think through all the agony of the cross they have made him go through the separation from God they made him go through the shedding his blood they made him go through bearing the sins of the world and they've done it right on the spot just like that and so they get down under knees and they adore him now listen it doesn't stop there and this goes on 200,000 times a day after they kneel and adore the sacred host they rise they turn and elevate the consecrated host and with faith and piety as much as they can muster they say to the host my lord and my god if that is an idolatry I don't know what is that's just the beginning of the mass that's not even the fullness of everything that they say well is the mass in the scriptures of course not the the words are my lord of my god y'all recognized that that was the greatest confession of all by Thomas when when he was going to when he was asked to plunge his hand on the side of Christ and to feel the nail holes he couldn't even do it he just fell on his feet in front of Jesus and said my Lord and my god he didn't fall in front of a picture of him he didn't fall in front of wafer and cup well the problem with Romanism is that roam always materializes the spiritual and what Roman the Roman Catholic Church has done with the masses they materialize a spiritual truth they have made into an object which cannot be comprehended I mean they have made into an object that can be comprehended the incomprehensible sacrifice of Christ they have taken the immaterial the the once and for all sacrifice for Christ and you have materialized it into a operation that they can transport around the world and they take what everybody knows was just a wafer pancake and the priest which by the way in the Middle Ages many and I'm not being critical many priests and the ladies were living dissipated live see how do you know that effort of Chaucer Canterbury Tales middle-aged Britain The Canterbury Tales our stories about the Roman Catholic Church and people on pilgrimages and it talks about the debauchery and the drunkenness and the vile lives and it's a a parody and it's a historical fiction but you had behind the fictions a lot of truth and you know what Rosser said about the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages he said if the gold dust what will the iron do you say what does that mean he says if the church men who are supposedly gold are so corrupt what are common people like and so those commoners would look at that at that dissipated priests and and there are just as many dissipated Protestant priests and clergymen I'm sure there are Roman but those people that would see him and they knew how he lived all week long and as they saw him walk into the cathedral and take a piece of normal bread and by going hocus corpus meum taejun's of Jesus they say that's the greatest thing I've ever seen and so they became enchanted even with the process and that was a person well let me read a little bit more from the Council of Trent and then I want to take you on a journey through the scriptures this is when Rome got to write down exactly what they believed from 1545 to 1564 this is what they said they made 120 affirmations Trent the Council of Trent has 120 affirmations a Roman Catholic doctrine and this is what they said in this divine sacrifice and I'm talking about the pre folding on to this host is contained and immolated in an unbloody matter the same Christ who once offered himself in a bloody matter so it's not us blaming them that's exactly what they want to do they say we are taking Jesus who offered himself once in a bloody matter and we are going to immolate and offer him in an unbloody matter constantly fine this is what it says continuing I'm just reading from the Council of Trent in your library this is truly propitiatory for the victim is one and the same now he offers himself by the Ministry of priests not for the sins of the faithful who are living or not only for the sins of the faithful who are living but also for those who departed in Christ and were not yet fully purified what does that mean they died in their sins it's what Jesus called it and what he's saying is they're still suffering in purgatory and so the mass purports to have efficacious salvation attachments not just for the people that sit out there and watch this but who are required to come at least once a year but also for the people that are dead to help them get to heaven that's why I wrote these words you understand that Romanism is the most magnificently crafted religion for humans think about it what if uncle Zeke died an alcoholic a drunkard and you know didn't quite make it it's okay you can burn candles and have NASA said for him and if you do enough uncle Zeke will someday make it to heaven isn't it a great religion you never have to worry about anybody not making it it was a religion designed for humans because we don't like thinking about there people are going to deny Christ and they're going to spend an eternity in conscious torment because they died in their sins and so Romanism says that's too bleak it's too difficult we have something else for you I know that's oversimplifying it but that's really what it's about it's very sad last thing from Trent the decrees of trance say a true and a real sacrifice is not offered to God by priests who offer Christ's body in Christ's blood or that the sacrifice of the mass is not a propitiatory one if anyone ever says that that is true they are damned that's called an anathema in other words what they said is if you don't believe that the priests are re offering Jesus Christ then you don't go to purgatory you're going to hell and that's the bottom line of the Catholic Church well take your Bibles with me and I want to show you something starting in second Corinthians 4 what I'm going to give you is just the beginning of a little way to share the gospel the next nine minutes with maybe your friends that that don't know the Lord yet because a Christian first of all is a person and I'm just reading a standard how to witness your Catholic neighbor tract you can find them anywhere but I want you to actually go through this sometimes we read something we don't study but look at 2nd Corinthians 4:2 it says but we this is a Christian has renounced the hidden things of shame not walking in craftiness nor handling the Word of God deceitfully but we manifest ourselves commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God so what is the Bible to us it is the ultimate authority you all know this verse second Timothy if you want to turn over there 3:16 it says this all scriptures 2nd Timothy 3:16 all scripture not not all church tradition but all Scripture the holy writings are given by inspiration of God they are profitable for doctrine reproof correction instruction righteousness okay that's what a Christian is now what what is the Roman Catholic believe they believe that the church has authority over scriptures I'll read this is what the Catechism says paragraph 1 119 the manner of interpreting the scriptures is ultimately subject to the judgment of the church which exercises the divinely conferred Commission and Ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God you know that is that effectively Rob's normal people of this book you know why too dangerous now the Catholic Church has a little bit change their tech now they're promoting Bible studies in fact I just went up to Harvard and 31st or wherever the Roman Catholic bookstore is and I walked in and I was just acting real interested in the man says you know you're so interested he says you need this tract how to be sure you're saved I said thank you he said I'll be 25 cents I said well thank you I paid him a quarter for it we give him away but he was you know he had a whole box when you're selling what he's supposed to at the store they said you should read that and I did you know what it says it's a view can be sure you're saved if you have been baptized and if you've been confirmed and if you're faithful in your tendons to mass at least once a year and if you are to catch that and so when I read my Bible if I was trying to be saved I would say that doesn't agree you know what they would say the church has been divinely commissioned to interpret the Word of God trust us you see the difference between a Christian and Roman Catholic a Christian says I have the anointing from God I can understand this book God has opened my eyes he's permanent from darkness for life and I formerly when I was lost it was foolishness first my name's 214 but now that I'm born again it's not foolish anymore I understand this book well what about salvation itself turn to romans 4:5 back to the left there in your Bibles I just want to do a few contrast because honestly any truly seeking Roman Catholic if you will will not frontally attack them I mean you don't have to tell them about red Bertus and tell them it's an abomination it's all true but I would start with what what is the basis of our salvation and look at romans 4 or 5 with this what it says in romans 4 and verse 5 but to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness it's the whole chapter about abraham and justification by faith so a christian believes that they have been justified by faith because justification once and for all is a declaration from god that's in the book of romans chapter 8 verse 30 however to the man who does not work but trust god god justifies the wicked and his faith as credited as righteousness now that's what the bible says just plain bible a roman catholic paragraph 14 46 of the Catechism has to be justified repeatedly by sacraments and works because he loses the grace of justification each time a mortal sin is committed the Sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification which even reading it is confusing basically what it says is you're hooked that's what it means you've got to come in for your you got to dab yourself with the needle several times a day and keep getting your insulin or you're going to have an attack God see you see what Jesus has a new heart I'll give you in a new spirit and you'll once and for all be eternally saved and they say no you got to come in you got to keep taking your injections and every time you miss an injection you go back to start you've got to start over again at the very heart Romanism is exactly diametric exactly in opposition to the heart of the gospel how does regeneration occur we have time three minutes for just two more look at first Corinthians 12:13 with me at the work of regeneration it says this and this is good doctrine for us by the way all these verses are already in yellow in my Bible I hope they are in yours and I would encourage you as this series goes on you might want to do something that I do in the back of my Bible I I have these little lists and and I put down like Roman Catholicism you know I'll just got off some some verses so that you know if I'm sitting at someone or talking to my neighbor and have my Bible at least I know where to start and I have my Bible marked and I would encourage you to somehow you know grab a pen and bring it and study this together but look at verse 13 a person billions 12 it says for by one spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks whether slaves are free and all army to drink into one spirit so we believe that we were regenerated at the baptism of the Spirit when we were born-again and at that moment we were baptized by the Spirit of God into the body of Christ and from the beginning and keep turning to the right to second Thessalonians because this is this is a tremendous verse ii thessalonians chapter 2 and by the way this is paul talking to a very new church and you talked about very deep stuff and second thessalonians 2:13 explains regeneration and it says but we are bound to give thanks to God always for you brethren second Thessalonians 2:13 because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the spirit and belief in the truth we believe the spirit sanctify God initiates and we respond in salvation God is the initiator so we believe that God from the beginning chose us to be saved by the sanctifying work of the Spirit and we became one who believes and loves the truth that's what a born-again Christians that's what we are the book of life is a listing of those who are going to be worshipers of God we won't worship anything else the Beast the Antichrist none of that they won't worship false worship but they will worship God in the spirit well the book of life also is a group of people who have received a love for the truth you know it says earlier in 1st or 2nd Thessalonians it says they did not receive the love of the truth and and that's what happens to lost people but what do Catholics believe paragraphs 694 they're confession says this a Roman Catholic believe baptism of water imparts divine life baptism of water imparts divine life and the water of baptism signifies our birth into divine life what does it say God has chosen you from the beginning through the sanctification of the Spirit and through belief of the truth can a baby be sanctified by the spirit you know they could be from the womb set apart to God like Jeremiah the Prophet was but they can't be saved they have to believe the truth themselves and Noah's them can materialize the work of the Spirit well last verse favorite one look at Ephesians 2:8 and 9 what a very glad for fusions 289 for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourself it is the gift of God and you can take that both ways to face an out of ourselves and the gift is not of ourselves and the grace is not of ourselves you can just if none of it is of ourselves it's not of works as the bottom line verse 9 lest anyone would ever have a reason to say to God so glad I mean right I did it all didn't I see that's the idea of religion God aren't you glad how much I did but that's not the God of grace he says no my grace is sufficient there's nothing you can do so a born-again Christian is saved by the unmerited grace of God it is by grace we've been saved it is by faith in the work of Christ it's not something we've done this right or good it is totally a gift that we receive it's not by works so that no one can boast just a few weeks ago when I was out speaking to the young people in northern Michigan I had all these inner-city kids it was very interesting and I remember scared him to death I walked out to the front and stuck my pen right into the face one of them I said I want to give you this gift here you go you can have it what should you do the guy's eyes got real big he says take it I said yep you took it I said that'll be ten dollars scared him to death I said that's religion you pay your way if you go but God says he gives you the gift and all you say is thanks be unto God present speaker yeah that's a true Christian but as Roman Catholicism a Roman Catholic is saved by merit seeing the graces needed for salvation we can merit for ourselves and for others the grace needed for the attainment of eternal life and that's not my words that's paragraph 2010 2010 of their catechism and they literally believe if they are a good practicing Roman Catholic that they can merit grace for themselves and attain eternal life by getting infused grace from God dispensed from the king [Music]