Roman Catholicism: Contending for the Faith

which you're about to watch is an interview I did with Lisa Lazar on the topic of Roman Catholicism trying to lay out some of the real specific reasons why I not only can't be Roman Catholic but I can't hold hands with the Roman Catholic Church when it comes to their claims about their own authority as well as what the gospel actually says these are significant issues it's difficult to tackle these topics but hopefully this videos going to give you clarity if you're Roman Catholic and you're watching this is not an attack on you I'm hoping that this creates more light than heat that is one of the goals in this so if you're interested to hear out why I'm not a Roman Catholic as well as why I think that Roman Catholics should reconsider the teaching that they've received that's what this videos forth after this teaching is and we're just going to jump right into it oh and if you're interested in Lisa Luger's ministry I have links below to her website and her ministry women's Bible study and thank you to her for inviting me on to do this long but really need full teaching since so many people will not really talk very carefully about this topic but it's important we already did two sections that Jehovah Witnesses 2 on Mormonism and now today we're going to talk about Catholicism which is kind of a big deal actually for both Mike and I were just it's a big topic what do we say there's a 1.2 million athletes in the world and when you talk against not even against but confront that that's a big that's a big thing to do so last week Mike I was in California we were there for vacation and apparently you guys it's mandatory to wear face masks ok yeah I think I'm supposed to even wear one right now while I'm alone at home I think yeah but in Phoenix when we left Phoenix we were all fine you didn't have to wear face masks to go anywhere so I guess California and I went to Walmart and they try to talk my way out of it like I don't really have to wear a face mask you're in you don't want to walk around here I got a face mask unless yeah I want to potentially be attacked well they said well basically if you want to shop you have to wear a mask so all that's its name is that in this life there's all these rules that we have to abide by that aren't suggestions and so it's kind of the same with what we're talking about today with this whole conference like God has like they're not suggestions on how to get to heaven and how to spend eternity with him it's really like his way only and so that's really the reason why we wanted to do this conference so we're not bashing anyone's religion so talk about that for a second oh yeah there's in fact to be honest this is to me one of the hardest topics to cover Catholicism because we have so much we agree on and in so many ways it is part of the Christian tradition yet there's out there also important areas really important areas where there is disagreement and it's major disagreement and so it's it's like this challenge you see Catholics on one side who you were like I love you and I want to have relationship with you and I want to affirm you as much as I can you know with truth and on the other side I say but then there's this thing called Catholicism that has specific doctrines and teachings and has made claims claims about the whole earth claims about the whole church claims about salvation and a bunch of stuff that's that we have to look at and we have to examine and it ends up being a hairy issue but it's too important not to talk about and so many people won't even address it even guys I know who are great at theology you know great at studying and thinking about these types of things they won't talk about Catholicism they just like yeah I don't deal with that issue right and so I want to hopefully not be harsh and judgmental and cruel about it or misrepresent and also not pretend like these things don't actually matter when they really do they really do I think that's the thing like when Jude said like you've got to contend for the faith that was once delivered to me like what does that mean which actually will will bring about our first question which we've done I think each one of these segments like first of all even just go what is the faith once delivered because people are gonna be confused at that right away yeah so we get this actually in in the book of Jude where it says that we should contain honestly for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the Saints in that phrase the faith we we often think is talking about your personal act of believing but it's not it's actually talking about like the doctrines like the beliefs the theology you might say of that was once and for all delivered to the Saints about who Jesus is and how he saves us these are kind of like the primary things and so we have like Romans 1:16 for instance Paul his attitude about the faith he says I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek so that we're seeing that you're saved by these these this message of the gospel the gospel is is like a list of truths you know it's things that we're supposed to believe about Jesus about his death and resurrection about our sin and about how he saves us so these things are pretty important in believing this gospel in responding to God's truth that he's revealed you relationally become joined to him you become saved so these in other words it's kind of like saying if I if I handed you a pill and I said you're gonna die unless you take this pill and let's say that it's true how important is that pill right that's pretty important how important are the ingredients in that pill that it's made just the right way that's pretty important and so that's like the faith it's like these core you know central issues of Christianity that we must hold to we must fight for not physically but we have to be committed to and strive to maintain well I'm just gonna add a few things to it yeah yeah we don't want to add or take away and we don't want to just say like some people do well it's just about Jesus it's not about theology Mike it's just about Jesus it's like yeah but you don't know a single thing about Jesus unless you do theology like that's what that's what G the word Jesus unless it has a a theological meaning it's not about anything and so yeah we we have a like for instance in in the book of Galatians the Apostle Paul he deals with false Gospels in particular a false gospel that does relate to the conversation we're having today in Galatians 5:4 he says you are severed from Christ you who would be justified by the law you've fallen away from grace now the the thing that I want to point out about Galatians in particular is that the group of people that are there they believe in Jesus they believe in his death and resurrection they believe in who he is right there's Paul's not rebuking them for confusion about the person of Christ the one thing he rebukes them for is that after they thought they were saved by grace they started adding works and thinking that those works were gonna help accomplish their ultimate salvation that it was required of them and he effectively he flips out right he apostolic Lee flips out on them and writes Galatians and he's like you're severed from Christ if you would be justified by the law you've fallen away from grace so what I'm saying is it's not just who Jesus is that matters it's also how he saves that seems to be a biblical principle that we have to hold to if we're gonna be honest with Scripture so every Christian is called to know and fight for this this pill in my in my metaphor this pill of essential theology about Jesus and salvation perfect alright let's talk about let's talk about this whole idea of Catholicism because it is like you said extremely complicated it just is and a lot of Catholics they don't even know what the Church teaches which is kind of interesting to me and so I want to have you talk about that because we did a short thing on Catholicism at Bible study one time and people were just they came up said I had no idea the Catholic Church teaches that so why why is that well let me let me say from the outset um I've spent a lot of hours on this topic and I'm very open to changing my mind I've you know honesty I want to change my mind um my concerns are that Catholicism does touch and alter east-central gospel truths and it breaks my heart I don't want to say that right like I I mean I'm just being my bias is I don't want to say this I want to find a way to be able to affirm that the gospel of Jesus is intact in the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church and and it breaks my heart that I say well in some of the teachings it seems intact and in other teachings it seems like very much like it has been compromised so I'm also convinced that this is the case I'm you know when I talk about the complexity of Cal of Catholicism let me just mention for those who don't know perhaps maybe you're not Catholic you were you weren't raised Catholic they actually have a lot more than the Bible that they have to look to to understand what they're supposed to believe so they do include the Bible right the Bible's an authority but then there's this new authority or secondary Authority which is ultimately the Pope and the bishops who are in agreement with the Pope they have to be an agreement to be kind of included in that group and then the priests that are underneath them in the New Testament there are no priests there I mean well I'll put it this way first Peter 2:9 it tells us you are chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation so we're we're all priests in the New Testament but the Roman Catholic Church says yeah you're all priests but in addition to that in addition to that there is a special class of priests and they can give us access to the body and blood of Christ access to forgiveness access to the Treasury of merit the forgiveness of certain kinds of sins and others you have to go up the ranks to a bishop in Scripture a bishop and an elder are synonymous terms there these are leaders and local fellowships they're not even leading whole cities they're just leading local fellowships of Christians and groups have these guys come together and kind of lead a city group well in Catholicism there's they separate this and they say no no bishop is different than elder and in the Catholic catechism the Catechism of the Catholic Church which is this book right here this is like an official teaching from Rome it's oh boy nine hundred pages there's a lot of documents here but this is like a pretty authoritative coming from Rome on what Catholics are supposed to believe and this is separate from Scripture of course although it quotes the Bible a lot but in the in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1549 it says the bishop this new class of people that's different than the new testament is like the living image of God now the Pope is considered the chief Bishop he's like the bishop of Bishops and in the Catechism in paragraph 937 it says the Pope enjoys by divine institution nothing less than supreme full immediate and universal power in the care of souls so the Pope is is is the boss right he's the boss actually in Catholicism youth the boss of the world he stands as the representative of Jesus on earth and he's in charge of all of all the Christians all the believers in Jesus and he's also ultimately in charge of secular government's whether they choose to obey him or not that's his job he is he outranks them the official titles of the Pope are Vicar of Jesus Christ successor of the Prince of the Apostles supreme pontiff of the universal Church the primate of Italy the archbishop and metropolitan and metropolitan of the Roman province the sovereign of Vatican City State the servant of the servants of God these are act official titles of the Pope so when we look at the Pope in the Catholic Church we're not looking at a pastor who's like a pastor for everybody or some it's no it's it's a different kind of role altogether the degree of authority that's there they claim that he has the ability to infallibly tell you what the Bible means that the Pope or the church when they're in agreement with him have the ability to infallibly declare doctrines that you may be who've never heard of but you are now required to submit to so these are pretty strong claims I mean if someone your local church down the street was like hey guys I'm in charge of the whole world like you you would you would be like that's a big claim right this is a big claim to Authority and the question is whether it's biblical or not but at least you should know that's a big claim there's various issues related to that we'll talk more about later but that's just the roles the bishop the priests of Hope in addition they also have not only the Bible but what they call sacred tradition and sacred tradition is basically the same as Scripture they call it the Word of God and they serve a kind of through church history and sort of pull out little pieces of church history and they code that's that sacred tradition this is something you have to obey it's difficult to know what the Catholic Church thinks is authoritative tradition because it's it's it's just not really lined out very carefully like when a church father they're quoting is authoritative or when he's not it's very difficult to tell so this makes it confusing like I said complicated but how much content is there well there's 21 ecumenical councils the ecumenical councils are different than the Church Fathers in that these are as far as Catholicism teaches this is when like the Pope and the bishops are in agreement and so the things that is that are taught in these 21 councils throughout church history they are authoritative infallible and true so it's a lot more complicated than that but that's the general idea but just so you get an idea this is the text from just one of those councils Vatican 2 this is the most recent council in the 1900s this is the text from just the one council we've got 400 pages of content one of the 21 councils what is in there like what are they just telling like doctrine about or what you believe yeah it's a huge variety of stuff in here so mmm it's gonna talk about decrees about beliefs about the role of the Pope in it they actually upgraded prior to this they basically would have thought from the Council of Trent of previous council they would have thought that non Catholics who will not submit to the Pope and they know about him and won't submit that they're basically they're basically damned but Vatican 2 upgraded non-catholics two separated brethren because the Catholic Church is very much interested in like rejoining reconnecting everyone together but this is key they still want to connect everyone together under the authority of the Pope okay so nothing's really substantially changed there so there's lots of different declarations that are in there this is the Council of Trent this is probably the most important council in my opinion in the in in the Roman Catholic Church at least for our interests and the Council of Trent was in response to the Reformation of Martin Luther and John Calvin and those guys what they did was they gathered pardon they gathered together and they declared infallibly a whole bunch of stuff that we'll talk about today we'll actually get into today but you start to add all this stuff up you've got the Bible you've got this you got the other councils the other I mean 19 councils of the Catholic Church you have church tradition so you have all these Church Fathers that you could make a mountain out of the books from the Church Fathers the first 800 years of the church and this stuff starts to get overwhelming I think a lot of Catholics don't really know what Catholicism teaches and I've even talked to informed Catholics who didn't know what Trent said I mean these are Catholics that are smart intelligent thoughtful they read they study but it's just such a massive amount of data right so when I talk about Catholicism I mean all this official stuff I don't mean Catholics Catholics may or may not even know or agree with even informed thoughtful I've talked to a Catholic apologists who disagreed with the Council of Trent I read to him from the Council of Trent and he just said I said what do you think of this and he said I don't really know I don't know what to do with that so I don't want to assume anything about any Catholic even if they're educated right so yeah there's there's countless countless stuff there's there's also Latin terms that are confusing in Catholicism for a lot of people the priesthood where the priest is an ultra Chris do the the Treasury of Merit the nature of transubstantiation purgatory indulgences the Magisterium the seven sacraments mortal and venial sins and those all weigh in very heavily on whether you are saved or not so actually what's that it really does become a different gospel when you add all of that stuff into it it's not just the simple impossible that that you know is definitely not simple it's definitely added to the gospel and then the real tough question is do those additions actually compromise the gospel or are they just like unnecessary additions and in many cases they're just unnecessary additions but in other cases I think that they really do compromise the actual gospel of Christ the gospel of grace so I asked a devout Roman Catholic friend how to be saved I was like how is it that not just when I am like a baby getting baptized right like how is it that me you know I put my faith interest in Christ and then I'm like I get old and I die seventy years old I die how is it that I will be saved please just explain it to me and he said that he didn't want to answer the question he's a devout Roman Catholic thoughtful man because he was afraid he would get the answer wrong because on Catholicism the gospel is incredibly complicated and that's that's that's the concern we did it was a priest one time and I asked him if he were to die that night would he go to heaven and he was like I have no idea I said well what about me am I going and he said well I'm a speedboat you're a rowboat that was his comment I was like mom's boat you're a rowboat yeah I mean he's gonna get there faster than me and I'm thinking I said I don't think that's really what the Bible says but anyway okay go to like unlike Mormonism and Jehovah Witness Catholics really do believe a lot of the same thing so like you know we know calf or Joe and some Mormons do not believe in the same Jesus of the Bible the let's do so what are a couple things that we do agree on well um this is huge this I mean this it's Catholicism is not Mormonism it's not jehovah's witnesses I don't really feel like I can put it in the same category and yeah and these are some of the reasons why um we believe in Jesus like Catholics would hold arm and arm with me to proclaim who Jesus was that he was born in virgin lived a sinless life he rose bodily from the grave he ascended to heaven and these returning in glory to judge mankind they would affirm all these things they would affirm the Trinity the very nature of God which is a huge huge issue I mean this is a big issue that separates you know true Christian doctrine from false doctrines and they would affirm that there's one God he exists eternally in three distinct a co-equal persons Father Son and Holy Spirit this sets Catholicism apart from like some sort of weird apparent groups it's not it's not Islam it's not Mormonism it's not Jehovah Witnesses it's not any of that kind of stuff it is truly I mean you could say it's truly a Christian tradition it's truly a Christian tradition and as far as the world's concerned as far as the visible church is concerned there's so many ways in which Catholicism is part of Christianity it is and and I want to acknowledge that they respect the Bible it goes more than that they respect the Word of God that the old and the New Testaments are inspired that's a belief that they're infallible let's you know a lot of Catholics believe that some of the theologians nowadays are a little he on that but at the same could be said for some Protestant theologians this is just a doctrine that a lot of people are compromising but the problem is that the Bible while they respect it and believe it's God's Word it's not the only word of God in Catholicism right there's the there's a lot more outside the Bible that is considered God's Word than in the Bible that's considered God's Word that's a problem but I'm things like moral issues like pro-life issues pro marriage pro-family values were so in agreement on tons of essential and divisive issues we agree with with Catholicism and Catholics so even the first creeds of the church the first Creed's of the church that are kind of like meant to like separate true Christianity from you know false beliefs we would agree with those we'd be able to echo you know the Nicene Creed together but there becomes a lot of problems as you keep tracking down and those problems do touch the gospel itself okay you know it's funny because people are like why are you just being so nitpicky about this like like it's ridiculous we're just we're close enough like I kind of don't think that's true and I think that's what scares me the most it's like this is a big issue because salvation isn't speak I I want it I wish I was being nitpicky I even called friends multiple people who are you know if they do theology their theology guys I even talked to the author of a book on Catholicism who's a Protestant who affirms that Catholics are that their gospel is good their gospel is solid right and I while I would affirm lots of Catholics are saved lots of Catholics are saying I think it's in spite of the teachings of Catholicism I'm going to address the teachings today not the salvation of every individual Catholic which is depending on what they personally believe but but yeah I don't I don't think that's the case I I call these guys and I was like please help me convince me please help me that the Catholic gospel doesn't compromise the essential gospel of Jesus Christ when it comes to working for your salvation and what I found was that even the Christians that I talked to who affirmed that the Catholic gospel does save that it solved it that according to Trent according to the official canons of the church those guys didn't have any really good reasons like they just said well you know you don't have to have right theology in order to be saved or perfect theology in yeah well I agree you don't have a perfect theology but it seems to me that the book of Galatians outlines that you do need to believe it's by grace right and that when you add works it's no longer the gospel of Christ that this seems to be the clear teaching of Galatians and the guys I talked to we're like yeah that's a tough one and I thought here they are affirming that this gospel is true which is a big affirmation yeah and they don't even have a good reason and that concerns me so it's not just the gospel though there's other issues too that do really matter even though they're not solve salvation related and is that the Catholic Church has this the Magisterium or the the authoritative teaching structure of the Catholic Church the Pope ultimately and the bishops when they agree with him these are radical Authority claims that they make and tons of new doctrines have been added over the years we just can't we can't just pretend that nothing's in fact this is the version of ecumenism that we did from Catholicism hey those issues don't matter now come under the wing of the church and accept all of our authority and you're like wait a minute you can't say it doesn't matter and then still keep making your authority claims right it turns out that the Roman Catholic Church is the divisive one they're saying we have full authority over you and you just need to give in and that's their version of ecumenism it's like yeah just just just yield alright just yield to these authority claims and we'll talk more about the authority to if you have 30 seconds in an elevator to tell someone what the difference what would you say that's tough so give it a shot maybe I could try to boil it down to like a few just a handful of issues and I'd say well the first thing I'd say is you know Catholics stick around hear me out you probably feel like I'm personally attacking you but you haven't heard the reasons all the reasons I'm gonna give for why I'm saying these things but I'll say that I do think the Catholic Church has unbiblical authority that the Roman Catholic Church in particular and especially the Pope they claim authority over every Christian how we live in what we believe and that we have to actually be submissive to the Pope in order to be saved this is an official claim of the church although it's muddied by Vatican 2 but it is a classic claim with the false authority that they have that they weren't given by Jesus and it isn't in the New Testament or the 1st century or the 2nd century or the 3rd century without false authority they made countless additions and changes to the Bible adding unbiblical traditions and Jesus had a problem with this right he complained about the Pharisees because they were teaching as doctrines the commandments of men in mark 7 70 yeah your teaching as doctrines the commandments of men this this is what Jesus came against if Jesus comes against that sort of thing shouldn't I if Paul comes against a gospel that adds works shouldn't I do the same there in the gospel itself in Catholicism is confused it's fundamentally I hate to say it but it's been compromised compromise the grace of Christ the official teachings here I'm not talking about the individual Catholics who may affirm the grace of Jesus Christ entirely but the official teachings of the church is that graces is necessary but it's not enough you need works too and the council's outright deny the sufficiency of faith in Christ for salvation you have to add your works to earn your salvation and those works are not just fruit of what Jesus did so that ultimately speaks of a rejection of the of the fullness of the sacrifice of Christ and it sounds to me like a compromise of the gospel right yeah it sounds like that's been to talk to me because when I heard talk to people about Catholicism they'll say but we were the first church we were the first people so can you kind of give I had a girl write to me before and to ask like at what point in history did the church be the Catholic Church like it's very confusing like you know so explain that history you know so we can understand it better yeah I've heard this a lot too and it does come up a lot this is this is um this is a good sign that the person you're talking to hasn't really thought about these issues and definitely hasn't studied maybe they've looked at like Catholic Answers website or something but they haven't like actually studied the topics themselves so the word Catholic you know originally the word just means a universal that's all it means it's not a title for a denominational group Catholicism is basically like a big denomination it's not a title for that it just means universal originally the the early church writers would use the term it never is never in the New Testament but they use the term to say we're talking about true believers everywhere that's all they meant by the true church by the Catholic Church the universal Church or you might think of the invisible church that all the real believers in Jesus everywhere over time over time hundreds and hundreds of years Rome started saying the Catholic churches whoever is submitting to Rome okay this is radically sectarian this is like what do you do and dude this is like the gospel of Christ is this organic thing that creates this organism of the body of Christ they're saying you know whoever submits to Rome that's ultimately the Catholic Church roman catholic as a title is not the same as saying the universal church where you're using the word like a definitional term universal instead of a name for a denominational type schismatic group which is what Catholicism ultimately is the first church was in the first century right in the New Testament epistles and acts we can read about this early church we don't you don't read about the Roman Catholic Church in the Bible anywhere or in the 1st century or the 2nd century for that matter there's a there's a book by Gerry walls and Kenneth Collins that I would recommend I think it's very interesting don't reviews them on everything but have a lot of great content on there and it's called Roman but not Catholic and that's kind of their thesis in their book it's like oh yeah you're the Roman Church but when you say you're the Catholic Church that's not true you aren't the universal Church you're you're claiming this like special status for your group and trying to rob it from everybody else and that's what we would say in response yes there is a Catholic Church it's unit is the universal church like lowercase C the Catholic Church but when you say Catholicism is the universal Church that's just not true so after Jesus that's a bit early church check to the Apostles how does it even show up like the enemy because it went Bishop and then different areas and suddenly Peter's the Pope like how does that even happen well that happened really gradually over time and so the the first time we see a connection between bishops and Peter that I'm aware of is in the late 2nd century so over a hundred years after Jesus we have Leo in Rome who's suggesting that that he's getting that his office connects to Peter's office he's connecting it to Peter but at the time they were more thinking that every Bishop is connected to Peter it wasn't like just the Roman guy is that wasn't really the view that was much later development over time so basically and we'll get more into this little later but but the development is very gradual and historical and what I think most Catholics think is that the modern Roman Catholic view of who the Pope is and of his role that that was pretty much held throughout time and that's demonstrably false there's just there's no way to contain this belief even though you have to believe that to believe what the counsels of the church say they're like it's always been the case but we'll talk a little bit more about that lightning later questions on that okay the next question like we we talk a lot about how the Catholic Church has added on to Jesus a lot like we're saying like faith in Jesus that's just the way it is so this is gonna be a really long like this will probably take up the rest of the first session I would assume but it's really really important to see what what have they added to this whole Jesus alone concept all right well what I'm gonna do here and I want to remind Catholic viewers of this pardon me is that I'm gonna be quoting from Catholic sources so if you want to say that I'm misrepresenting Catholicism what you need to do is go to those quotes and figure out why they don't mean what I'm saying they mean and what they seemed to me and as you read them at face value I'm just assert as I see in my videos all the time Mike doesn't understand Catholicism and I'm like I just quoted Trent this quarter the Catechism you know you need to do better than that you can't just wave my wave it wave it away so I encourage people to really think these things through I know that our blood gets hot I'm trying not to be that way I encourage you to not be that way as well so in a biblical view of of the gospel right we trust in Jesus that is we repent and believe so I turn from sin towards faith in Christ and I get all of the benefits of Christ through faith meaning I don't do anything to earn it so I have justification which means that the imputation of my sin to Jesus like it talks about in first Corinthians that that happens I have I'm then declared righteous and this is key and the righteousness I have it's a declaration and it's God's righteousness or Jesus's righteousness not my own so Philippians 3:9 talks about this notice that the righteousness I have is not my own it says and be that Paul wants to be found in him in Jesus not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ the righteousness from God that depends on faith as it not works because T'Pol faith and works are two antithetical ideas it's either faith or works and he's like you get righteous and you get there by faith apart from your works so that that's the gospel right you're saved by faith in fact Ephesians 2 verses 8 through 10 it says by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it is the gift of God not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them notice this I include a verse 10 because I know it's important here we're saved apart from works but works are then a future result of our salvation right we then do good works because we're saved we don't do them to get saved so save by grace through faith apart from works resulting in works this is this is because Romans 11:6 it gives us and this is honestly this one of my key verses in the whole issue with Kath with Catholicism Romans 11:6 says if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace would no longer be grace catch this this is key Paul the Apostle inspired by the Holy Spirit is defining the terminology of salvation and he says grace means no works if you add works it's not grace anymore and that's gonna be my thesis on on Catholicism's once you add works it's not grace anymore so you could say oh it's grace plus works but ultimately it's just works now based on the what Paul says in Romans 11:6 I've never heard a good Catholic response to Romans 11:6 I'd like to I'm interested but I've asked it's never heard one so Romans 10 verses 3 and 4 giving us the gospel it says for being um excuse me give me an explanation of why the the Jews many of the Jews not all of them were rejecting the gospel of Christ it says they were being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own they did not submit to God's righteousness for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes yeah Catholicism will teach that were we maintain our salvation through our righteous deeds Romans four verses four through five it says this not of the one who works his wages are not counted as gift but as his due and to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is counted as righteous now in Roman Catholicism this whole idea of do of what your what you are owed do you eat that concept is actually part of the gospel they think that you're gonna you're gonna be owed salvation because of what you did this is a big now they're gonna add Jesus so it's Jesus and you but but according to Romans 11:6 according the gospel of the New Testament this is not the case like this isn't a possibility so we have all these beautiful things right what we're saved were justified the righteousness of Jesus is imputed to me as my sins have been imputed to him and then salvation results in then following up sanctification that's a fancy word for you become more like Jesus right you're more godly in your heart in your behaviors but that's the fruit of salvation salvations clearly by grace through faith that's my salvation the result of it as it plays out in my life is fruit this is what first John talks about he's like basically if I could summarize first John for us right hey if you're saved you're gonna look like it right and he doesn't say you're gonna be good to earn your salvation he's talking about it being if you're born of God you're gonna love like this is the result of it it's not how you get it it's what it causes that's that's huge now let's talk about the Roman Catholic view instead of the I went through sort of a biblical view very briefly and quickly a Roman Catholic view is that your justification and your final entrance into eternal life it requires sanctification or your obedience your personal holiness and their view of justification is very different than what we see from Paul the Apostle who he seems to think a justification is your declared righteous like God declares you righteous on behalf of Christ's righteousness so it's it's alien to me right not of not of myself or righteousness is not from my works it's from Christ but on Catholicism justification is is like a substance you're given where God like makes you righteous or makes you a good person and then you have to live out that good person life in order to keep your salvation so it's so it's God does work in me so grace is involved but then it's completed by it works starts with the grace finishes with works so it's a process let's read from the Council of Trent Canon 32 where it says if anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good emeritus of him justified or that the one justified by good works that he performs notice they the guys justified according to them by good works he performs by the grace of God in the merit of Jesus Christ who is living member he is does not truly merit an increase of grace eternal life and in case he dies in grace the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory let him be anathema so let's leave this on the screen this texture for a minute but I want you guys to realize first we don't usually talk this way so you don't really start a long run-on sentence this just you know people just did this more in the past and they do currently but they're saying look if you make these claims your Anathem and if your so if you deny that you are meriting an increase of grace through your good works then your your anathema which means you're accursed now there's a debate over what an ask them I mean does it mean we just kick you out of the Catholic Church or does it mean you're not saved like I'm not gonna worry about that the point is is giving you the doctrine of Catholicism you merit an increase of grace now if we could go to Romans 11:6 here's my point meriting grace is incoherent it's it's it's a meaningless phrase these are words that just don't make any sense when you put them together because merit is earning and grace is unearned Romans 11:6 if it's by grace it's no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace would no longer be grace this is like shocking and this is these are the verses I quote in Trent every Catholic I talked to I say explain this to me and I've yet to see a good answer in response let's let's give you another one Trent Canon 24 now this is the authoritative in according to the church the Catholic Church infallible teaching of the church they say if anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works but that those works are merely fruits and signs of justification obtained but not the cause of its increase let him be anathema now this is still doctrine and Catholicism they have not left behind Trent and you can look at the modern Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph two zero six eight this is more recent right this is the you know in case people are thinking what trance old school but like you don't understand Catholicism if you think doesn't apply anymore the Council of Trent teaches that the ten commandments are obligatory for Christians and that the justified man is still bound to keep them the Second Vatican Council confirms the bishops successors of the Apostles received receive from the Lord the mission of teaching all peoples and of preaching the gospel to every creature and then listen to how it defines the gospel so that all men may attain salvation through faith baptism and at the observance of the commandments so this is significant because the the Catholic Church is teaching us that we can get saved in part by observing the commandments by doing good works now we it would agree that we are bound by our faith and trust in Christ in our new birth to obey God and have walk in holiness and you can just easy believe is amira oh I believe in I could do whatever I want with my life we're not teaching that but they're teaching that these works are actually causing you to be saved and they say that that's the gospel now when we go to the Bible it seems to completely refute this in verses I quoted before but all at another Galatians 2:16 it says yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law what what did they say you're gonna increase your justification through obeying the commandments those are works of the law right Galatians 2:16 says you're not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ so we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law because by works of the law no one will be justified so I have to pick between you know Paul's view in Rome's view in Rome's view we're saved by grace and works but Paul makes it very clear there's no both and here it's one or the other and he adds and this is the scary part to me he's like in a few ad works grace is gone and that's the part that scares me because I I don't feel like I can just say Catholicism yeah they are they have a wrong gospel but it's okay they're still saved cuz you don't have to be right about everything to be saved what's sure you have to be right about everything but you do have to be right about this I think based on what you know Galatians T so it's possible in Roman Catholic theology that you could have true faith in Jesus but not have enough of your own good works to actually be saved because it involves grace and works works aren't just fruit they earn grace which is an incoherent idea but that's what they teach staying saved you staying saved depends on your good works and it's not just do good stuff so let's talk about some of the good works that you're supposed to do because we talked about just the commandments you're supposed to obey the Ten Commandments they say but there's more first you get baptized it starts with baptism according to the Catholic Church being justified or declared righteous before God is actually a process it's a process and it begins at the moment of baptism and then progresses and is maintained by a person's participation in these seven sacraments have you heard of the seven sacraments before yeah most of us have right we're at least at least heard of the seven sacraments even if we're not too familiar with them I know you how cuz you watch my teachings on this stuff so uh but the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church are and I'll go through them really quick here my version of really quick baptism one is the first one mentions baptism and specifically you're supposed to be baptized with a formula that's proved up by the church and it generally happens at infancy generally when you're trying on the sacrament so this is what they have to do to acquire grace into their life so in order to be saved this is something that they are required to do yes I see the sacraments as ways of getting grace okay and I love and I can't wait to get to that part about grace because it that totally made me understand now how Catholics sink they never knew that before yeah like I said thankfully a lot of Catholics wouldn't even would be like wait Trent says what like right now they're learning and they're going I didn't know that because below them behold they been Catholic their whole life and they never even believed this and I'm like yeah because I want them to just a trust in Jesus Christ man and whether they are officially Catholic or not is not my main concern I want them to be saved but but this is the teaching of the church so so you start by getting baptized according to the Catholic Encyclopedia a baptism quote makes us Christians and it's also according to Vatican 2 Tisza misquote only a beginning but necessary for salvation so baptism is one of the many steps that you need to take in order to be saved now against this the Bible actually has examples of unbaptized saved people even after the gospel was being proclaimed so you can't say well that's Old Testament right in Acts chapter 10 Cornelius and his family they are saved filled with the spirit speaking in tongues and then Paul's Peters like I guess we should let him get baptized now I mean look at God saved them already so this so you can you can't have this like a law that baptism is required for salvation based on that then the second one is penance penance is kind of complicated especially for like a Protestant mind or someone who's not part of Catholic Church cuz you have no idea what's penance like what is that you know penance has to involve a few elements one involves contrition over sins so you being truly and genuinely sorrowful over sin now we think that's a good thing and that that's like an element of repentance and putting faith in Christ that's good but let goes a lot further than that they believe it involves confession and specifically confession has increased and so now you're like oh yeah that's why they have these confessionals in the Catholic Church that's why you go to the priests to tell him about your sins this is actually the part that I think most Catholics don't like about Catholicism from the ones the guys I've talked to and there's like math the guy should have to talk to the priest about it it's embarrassing and it's awkward and other types of things but according to the Catholic Church the priest is an altar Christ an alternate to Christ he's another Jesus and ultra Cristo is the term Vatican 2 says this the priest receives a special sacrament by which through the anointing of the Holy Spirit he is conformed to Christ the priest in such a way that he can act in Persona Christi that is in the very person of Jesus Christ so when the priest goes when you go to the priest it's like you're actually going to Jesus for forgiveness of course the implication is that you can't just go to Jesus normally without that guy but that is ultimately the teaching of the church there are exceptions but the general rule is you need a priest to be forgiving Pope Benedict the 16th recent guy he said the priest is quote the minister of their salvation wow those are big terms for people who really read the New Testament you go well you don't really usually talk like that you know only the church has the power to forgive sins they believe that there is this thing called the Treasury of merit and so when I go in and confess mm I I need remember it's not just grace I need works to help me with the forgiveness of my sins Jesus's works but also Mary's works and the Saints works so there's imagine if you can a big bank vault in the sky and in this bank vault it's called the Treasury of merit this is Catholic theology and in that bank vault you have the works of Jesus the works of Mary and the works of the saints but not just any works it's the works they did that were um even more than enough because Saints are people who've done more than enough works to enter Heaven so they're extra works can be stored up in this bank vault and I go to the priest and I say hey priest I confess I did this and he's like okay spiritually I have the keys I'm gonna unlock the bank vault take some of those merits and I'm gonna apply them to you so that I'm the one bringing you forgiveness through the works of other people other than Jesus I mean this is yeah as much as I love Catholics like I have to like I'm shocked I'm shocked when I hear these these teachings so finally the third part of penance is following the instructions of a priest so whatever he tells you to do afterwards usually this involves like praying 10 our fathers or 10 Hail Marys praying the rosary you know it's something you do to merit grace at times it requires a religious pilgrimage to a shrine of Christ or Mary or wearing painful clothing or doing some other charitable deeds some other good works in America it's more relaxed I think in South America they often give them bigger jobs to get forgiveness so this deals a specific sense is it kind of like you're at Ground Zero with with grace in your life and then you know you do sin so you lose a little and then you have to go it more and then you do something but your whole goal in your life is to just build this grace up to where you have enough for when you die I mean is that kind of is that sort of what you're saying here it's kind of like that so they have venial sins and mortal sins these two different kinds of sins we'll talk more about them later but briefly I'll just say this venial sins our sins that you have to pay for but you're still you're still saved right like you committed a sin and you'll pay for it in purgatory or in this life and you go to the priest to deal with the venial sins hey I did this it's not the worst thing in the world but and he gives you forgiveness then there's mortal sins now when you commit a mortal sin you lose the grace of salvation in Catholic theology so like not attending Mass is generally considered a mortal sin so you don't go to Mass you lose salvation that week when you go back you confess and the priest kind of gives you back salvation you actually walk in unsaved and you leave saved again and you can do this over and over again throughout your life so the problems with this are a lot but one of them is that you're you're earning grace and that's incoherent I'm gonna put this verse up again because I want you guys to memorize it Romans 11:6 if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace would no longer be grace now Catholicism says that works artists are necessary doesn't that mean that that's no longer grace I think the answer is very sadly I think the answer is yes so there's also there's no Roman Catholic priesthood in the Bible for this this doctrine of penance this sacrament there is no priesthood in the Bible that's like the Roman Catholic one I've actually already shared this verse in 1st Peter 2:9 so we don't need to put it up again but we're all a royal priesthood and there's no mention of the kind of Catholic priesthood that you'd think would be pretty important since it's essential for your salvation right to mention it somewhere in the New Testament according the Bible you go straight to God through Jesus it's what the whole book of Hebrews is about he's our high priest in fact 1st Timothy 2:5 it says that there's one God and there's one mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus but in Catholicism priests are the mediators between you and your mediator there's lots of mediators the Saints the priests Mary they're all mediators between you and your one mediator we'll wait a minute if there's only one mediator and why do I have so many so let's talk about the third sacrament which is Eucharist you know I'm gonna move through some of these more quickly but Eucharist we'll spend a little more time on this is actually what's meant by the word Mass when we say going to Mass what they mean is you're going to partake of Eucharist or it's the communion meal right the bread and the wine that's what it's referring to the bread the wine but Eucharist is a very particular doctrine in the Catholic Church they believe in what's called transubstantiation and again we're getting into the complexity of Catholicism here this is basically where the bread and the liquid and the wine in their view it literally not symbolically but literally becomes the body and the blood of Jesus Christ and and in it maintains the substance or if the substance have bought the body and blood of Jesus and the accidents or the appearance of bread and wine so it looks like bread and wine but literally physically it's actually the body and blood of Christ now the reason why this is kind of important is because in Catholicism you need the Eucharist it's part of it two sacraments how you're gonna gain more grace that you're gonna need for your life for salvation but the only way you can get ahold of the Eucharist is through the priest because the priest he's the one who literally invokes the buddy he told it up and he brings it back down and now it's the body and blood of Jesus so if you had communion on your own or a group or a Christian Church has communion somewhere that's not the Eucharist that doesn't work because they're not priests right that so this kind of like says oh now you need the Catholic Church to administer to you these special sacraments in order to be saved now in the scripture it's just in remembrance right but this is actually these interests in remembrance of Jesus this is Jesus the Eucharist is Jesus and we have a long discussion of lots of verses that come up when you have this conversation but this is one of the reasons why I'm in the Catholic Church they have the adoration or the worship of the Eucharist and it makes sense because they think it's Jesus so they're worshiping it I confused as to whether Jesus is alive or dead in the Eucharist that's a little bit confusing to me because isn't he alive and forever alive and yet you'd have to be dead for you to be consuming him as a sacrifice that I have a question about and there's too much to get into historically but basically it evolved over time this doctrine the Eucharist evolved over time Catholic apologist will often quote select passages from different church fathers throughout history but they won't tell you what church history actually says about the issue it's very select it's a very edited version of church history to support their teachings but this ultimately forgets the Jewishness of Jesus and His disciples they're not gonna eat blood you know this is it's it's symbolic its representative the Passover meals representative of Christ they didn't think they were drinking blood that was forbidden and it was continually forbidden even in acts 15 the church was forbidden to drink blood and so what Eucharist is requiring us to drink blood to be saved and yet they're bringing forbidden to drink blood Jesus in John 6 talks about his flesh and blood but in he continues to make it clear that he's talking about it in a symbolic sense John 6:63 he says it's the spirit who gives life the flesh profits nothing the words that I speak to your spirit and their life meaning that you're to believe the message that's how you partake of Christ is believing in his message believing in him is how you eat his flesh and drink his blood and this isn't about actually communion so much as communion is about the believing in Christ it's actually what it's really about you know we went to the Catholic Church one time and they wouldn't let us take communion and now that I actually make sense now because it wouldn't give me any good according to them because I'm not like so I don't need the grace and all that kind of stuff yeah you're not part of their their fellowship in that so yeah you yeah you don't get to partake your communion with them so it's not believing in Jesus that's enough you have to submit to the to the Roman pontiff you know and it's more complicated than that though I think they may have some people who don't quite submit to the Roman Pope but they can still take communion I shouldn't speak too harshly on that because I don't know how that all works out a lot of these issues are very complicated so so yeah Eucharist that's that's needed for salvation according to them um so Mass involves and this is where we get to the theology theology of it I want us to really understand this Mass or the Eucharist the whole event what the reason why they're doing this the reason why you need this is because it involves and I'm gonna be very careful of my words here re presenting the sacrifice of Jesus to the Father in order to appease God's wrath and cover over people's sins so Jesus is sort of he's not being sacrificed again in the mass he's he's being but he's being offered again right he's being reoffer freshly for your sins that you have committed up until that point next week we'll do it again so so that's what Mass involves and grace is given out piecemeal in Roman Catholicism peace of grace here and there throughout your life this is part of the reason why the guy you talked to was like I'm not sure if I'm saved I'm not sure if I would actually what happens it's you know it's like am I in grace right now let me think have a committee like you'd think by now even like it was that's the outgrowth of their theology right so um so it's it's not just what happens to the bread and and wine that they become the body and blood of Christ it's what they do in your life that's really important in Catholicism they apply the grace of Jesus in little pieces you get you get it again today you get it again next week but what does scripture say about this does scripture weigh in on this re offering of Jesus well Hebrews 10 verses 11 through 14 I've got underlined a couple parts of it for you I'm gonna underline a lot of the underlies are all me okay so obviously the Bible doesn't come with underlines nor does the Catechism or anything else but Hebrews 10 11 through 14 it says every priest this is being of the Old Testament stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins but this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down at the right hand of God from that time waiting till his enemies are made his footstool for by one offering he has perfected forever those who were being sanctified so wait one offering how many offering shows in the Catholic Church well every Sunday there's countless offerings around the world but according this text Jesus was offered once and then he sat down he no longer offers himself again and again which would imply that the job's not done instead verse 14 makes it so clear by one offering that was 2000 years ago he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified and this is I love this because I am perfected in Christ I'm forgiven I'm assured of my salvation I'm still growing in sanctification I'm still growing to be more like Jesus I'm being sanctified but I am perfected forever by the one sacrifice that happened a long time ago meaning that communion is really important but the Eucharist is not a biblical teaching the mass is just in in Roman Catholicism you can take in the blood of Jesus thousands of times and still die and go to hell that's that's a pretty big deal Jeremy like I don't know that I would want to become a Catholic just because I would never feel assured of my salvation my good I don't know who would ever want that and then here's a question as a Christian I commit sins I have issues in my life how do I go about getting right with God and there is a relational break there I mean I'm not I don't lose my salvation as a human but there's like a I feel the damage in my walk with God right like there is that relational issue that's going on there well romans 5 it talks about how you how do you get continued grace from God for the sins that you continue to commit romans 5 verses 1 & 2 notice how it answers this question therefore since we've been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God so it's not like the priests right who invoked Jesus for us to get us right again and again after potentially losing our salvation again and again instead it's more like no i standing grace and I access it not through a priesthood not through Eucharist I access it by faith the same way I got saved I just I just continue believing in Jesus and that's and I continue benefiting from his salvation that's it that's why I have peace with God but in Roman Catholicism it's more like a ceasefire right well you got peace right now but later today you might come in a mortal sin peace is over yeah so it's it's a pretty big deal I'll move quicker now through these three these seven sacraments pretty quick actually so the fourth one is confirmation this occurs when a bishop lays his hand on the head of the Catholics it is signifying that they're coming of age so this is like their free will decision to be a Catholic another sacrament is matrimony or marriage it's a big deal to have a Catholic wedding this is part of the reason why they seek because they see marriage as a sacrament it's part of the reason why they think that you that divorce is actually impossible so they allow annulment but not divorces and I did actually just did a whole teaching on that so I tell it that as well and I will be doing a video on Catholic annulment coming up a short video coming up sometime in the next month or so then there's you know you don't have to all be married I'm not saying you have to have to do every one of these sacraments these are just ways of getting grace the holy orders which is the office of the Bishop priests or deacons or the Pope these types of things are a sacrament now you don't do that as a Catholic you never do that right but you need them in place because they're helping to gives you grace that's the idea they give you access to grace and then finally the anointing of the sick or the last rites their last rites you know where the priest comes and the you know it's not just a ritual in the in the Catholic theology the last rites is where the priest is resolving and absolving you of mortal sins venial sins your hope is to avoid purgatory to get you a clean slate and to make sure that you get to heaven because even though you got faith in Jesus even though you really trust in him it's not enough you need more and so you need this access to this ultra Christ's alternate Christ ultra Chris do because he's gonna once again give you access to the Treasury of merits and grace and get rid of your sins and stuff like that and those are those are the seven sacraments but it's not it that's not all you have to have to be saved in Catholicism because you have to just observe the commandments whatever that means right that's what the Catechism says in chapter 20 68 all men may attain salvation through faith baptism in the observance of the commandments so we have to follow the commandments yet the verse and I'll put it up again because I want to burn it into our hearts Romans 5:1 look at verse 2 we have acts we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand now by works not by sacraments of things we do we've we've got access by faith that's it so typical Catholics do not know all this stuff I just told you and many of them are gonna be so mad at me right now as they hear me talk about this that they're just thinking Mike's just making stuff up not gonna believe me well that's okay at least consider it at least go look into it for yourself find out for yourself most Catholics I think they find a couple Catholics that they trust and they just believe whatever they say about the Catholic Church which is weird because it's like that guy is now their authority rather than going to the actual like sources of Catholic authority they have fallible proclamations of the Catholic Church and that's what I want to talk about because I can't hold the Catholic Church to what even a Pope says in a lot of cases it's got to be the infallible proclamations I turn to girl one time I said you understand that what you believe is not in the Bible and she said oh I just listened to my it my priest he tells me what to do and I'm good to go and I'm like who does that but apparently a lot of people do so I think that's why why this is so important we talked about something and I'll tell you this is where I I if there's one doctrine in the the church that I say I'm sorry this just throws everything out it's this whole idea of purgatory to me and it's just so it flies in the face of what Jesus did um you know another guest speaker come in and talk about a whole different subject one time and I got to talking about what we were gonna do here and I brought up that we were going to bring in Catholicism and he just freaked out I was like okay just tell me about this for a second if if you were a Baptist Church or a Presbyterian Church or Methodist Church and you were like oh by the way when you die you have to pay for your own sins like whatever is left over I said we would kick them so far out like why are we just giving the Catholic Church a pass on this and so that was that was my thought process on it so let's let's talk about purgatory because it's like it's it's not even anywhere biblical it's not even a biblical concept so explain that yeah I don't I don't see any place for purgatory there's two issues here though let me just say this the issue is is there purgatory I think the answer is gonna be no but luckily speaking and the second issue is if it's there why are you there what are you doing right like what are you accomplishing while you're there because it's one thing to say oh you're there because you're undergoing sanctification like just God's working on your character and it's something else to say you're paying for your sins which is something Jesus did that's a difference of this different claim so I just want to try to be clear here um so you know biblically we have held for the unsaved heaven for the saved to put it you know eventually having a nurse or you join together in the future but that's the destination for the saved whereas Hell for the unsafe but purgatory is the place to go for the saved who still need to suffer for their sins that's on Catholic theology one of the things you do there is character change and if you talk to a lot of modern Catholics they will make it sound like all you do there now all you do in purgatory is you just have character transformation like oh you're you're just becoming more christ-like and more godly you wouldn't want to go to heaven yet because you're not ready because you solve all these things you have to work with and deal through work through it and now to me I say well that doesn't that's wrong but I don't think that that compromises the gospel right I think I label that as a secondary error and not a primary or I think that they may misunderstand the nature of the flesh that what the scripture teaches about the flesh is like when I die this flesh is gone I'm gonna put on incorruption and that's gonna be this major sanctification that takes place in our lives and I'm very much looking forward to it because as long as I'm in this flesh I will not be ready for heaven and from the presence and glory of God but I'll be rid of this flesh the moment I die and thank God for that but on Catholic theology that's not all that happens in purgatory you are paying for your sins to get holy enough to enter Heaven the Catholic Encyclopedia says this they are not so good as to be entitled to eternal happiness and that's why they go to purgatory so we they're not entitled to we turn are not entitled I'm not nobody's so good as to be entitled to eternal happiness it's all Jesus but I Catholicism it's Jesus plus you so you're the you're the weak link obviously this this formula let's quote from the Catechism I'm gonna quote a lot of their authority of text here so the Catechism says in 1030 paragraph 1030 all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified are indeed assured of their eternal salvation but after death they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven so it's like there's a prerequisite to entering heaven that you have to achieve through your goodness your holiness and that's why you're in purgatory and 10:31 it goes on and says the church gives the name purgatory to this final purification of the elect I'm stored purification I've underlined a bit there for us which is entirely different from the punishment of the Damned right it's not hell the church formulated her doctrine of faith on purgatory especially at the councils of Florence and Trent the tradition of the church by reference to certain text of Scripture speaks of a cleansing fire as for certain lesser faults we must believe that before the final judgment there is a purifying fire these are four faults I'm being purified by fire from the beginning of the church has honored from the getting the church has honored the memory of the Dead and offered prayers and suffrage for them above all the Eucharist sacrum Easter Eucharistic sacrifice so that the spear fide they may attain the beatific vision of God the church also commends alms giving indulgences and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead let us help and commemorate that if job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them so there's a lot that we can unpack there but let me just say for those in purgatory they're suffering to pay for their sins Ludwig OTT in his book the fundamentals of the Catholic dogma on page 487 he says the temporal punishments for sins are atone for in the purifying fire by the so called suffering of atonement set espacio very important word theological II for Catholicism that is by the Willing bearing of the expiatory punishments imposed by God here's what you need to know about this this paragraph these are all terms that should be said of Jesus not us he suffered the punishment for my sin he atoned for my sin he it was the expiatory sacrifice right bearing the punishment imposed by God for my sin like Jesus did all that to me the doctrine of purgatory when it's speaking of me suffering punishment for my sin that Jesus already paid for it approaches blasphemy yeah I I'm shocked and I don't as much as I I feel the inclination to say come on Mike we agree with Catholics on so much like it's not let's not let's just hold hands I'm like I I can't hold hands with a theology that requires me to let go of Jesus and what he's done for me and that's ultimately what I think happens with Catholicism breaks my heart I hope I'm wrong someone show me on but I'm convicted that this is the truth and I'm gonna have to say it openly even even though I know it makes me a lightning rod but I mean that's irrelevant doesn't matter of it so so not only in purgatory do you suffer for your sins but also when you have friends or relatives in purgatory you could do good deeds according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church you can do good works like alms giving works of penance you know doing a Eucharist in their name and this will help purify them from their sin now you can't think purgatory is just about growing in character if you think that your uncle who's alive and you're dead and your uncle he can give money to the church and it will purify your character more quickly it's not about character you're making payment for sin that's what this is and oh man it's it's scary the doctrine is scary to me it ties you to the Roman Catholic priesthood and the sacraments because now even when you know and say your loved one dies I'm like okay let's help him let's get him out of purgatory the job is not done Jesus didn't do it alright we we've got a we got to go to the Eucharist and and and we got a be given give alms and let's let's do good things to try to help and pray rosaries in their name to try to help them get out of purgatory more quickly this is I don't even I don't I wish I wish it wasn't as big of a deal as it seems like it is that's all I'm saying this is why I just air right up I'm like it's not even I mean this is what this is it this is my line in the sand so I only get that do you think and this is a weird question but do you think that the the church did that many years ago in hopes to just get money like do you think at that point when whoever came up it's like it's a great way for a church to make money if I'm like hey hey and I get your loved one out or early like yeah I I'm really hesitant to say things like that to to brashley I think that even income even in the Catholic tradition there are a lot of really sincere people like totally sincere people can be sincerely wrong you know where they just think oh no this is just we're just we just want to get him out of purgatory you know like that could be the whole thing in the in during the Reformation there was major abuse of indulgences and the church did try the Catholic Church did try to deal with those abuses in the council trend right they tried to stop those abuses there was some horrible abuses people were just literally they would give money to the church in anticipation of sins they were about to commit hey I'm gonna go cheat on my wife how much joining to give you uh now I don't blame Catholicism for that right because that was an abuse even in their own view that was an abuse of their own doctrines and there's the old so I'm gonna grant them that and not put that on them but what I what I think it's more about personally is or I should say the effect the part that concerns me is it's about the the replacing of Jesus with the Catholic Church and with its hierarchy and with its sacraments and with its priesthood and with its Pope to try to say look we have this thing that's four into the New Testament four into the to the actual early church and it's necessary for your salvation and that that to me is the big issue yeah yeah oh my gosh all right let's talk about started with the Bible do they view the Bible differently than we do like for us it's the Word of God and that's you know mean like is that how a Catholic would also view I'm definitely they would absolutely affirm that it's God's inspired Word they would love it they would they would have a great affection and respect and belief in the authority and fallibilities of the inspired scriptures but there are some big differences that aren't related to just the things I said but they're some other issues that come in so for instance there's the Apocrypha or what the Catholics called the deuterocanonical books these are eleven Jewish writings that are added into the Catholic Old Testament that are not in everybody else's Old Testament and they're not in even the Jewish Old Testament then they also add a mediator so I have the Bible but I'm not really I'm not really good enough to understand the Bible properly and so only the Catholic Church can authority say what the Bible means that's a really big deal because as soon as you have someone who's the only person who can interpret the Bible with with their apparently infallible and their claimed authority then all of a sudden the Bible is second and the church is first and it becomes you know we have the Sola scriptura is the cry the Reformation write a description and they what it ultimately turns into in Roman Catholicism is Sola ekklesia or or whatever the church says it's only the church and so on yeah now they don't generally interpret now that the Catholic Church does not produce Bible studies not I mean there's Catholics who do theologians who do but the Church officially infallibly doesn't ever say here's what ephesians means and they just give you like a study and all these years is they don't do this but this leaves us in a conundrum only you can perfectly interpret the bible but you don't really interpret the bible for the most part what you do is you sometimes refer to scripture and you tell us this is what theology you're supposed to have so the effect is that whatever doctrine the church teaches it just trumps whatever you think the bible is saying and that's that's the part that that is is a problem so why we if i were catholic i'd be like it would really matter because what if i got air network then yeah i mean you might read it because you feel like you're supposed to it maybe it's like a good thing you can do you might read it because you just love the scripture but you ultimately if if it looks like the bible is totally contradicting the catholic church you're supposed to believe could what catholicism says not what the text seems to clearly teach they they are right and you are wrong you can this this is the bottom line you can't prove them wrong the Roman Catholic Church claims that they are the the the only ones to interpret the Bible they also claim their subjects to the scriptures but what it what's okay we're subject to the Bible guys how do I know that trust us because we'll tell you what it means trust me we're subject to the Bible because we infallibly declare that we are it's a bit hollow only they can interpret the scripture ultimately and infallibly um so they're subject to their own interpretations not to the text itself so you can't hold them to the scripture because they'll say well it doesn't mean what you think it means right the this is the same as actually this is where there is a parallel with Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons they they do have an extra biblical authority that that you have to take their word over what the apparent teaching of the scripture is and that is a connection there now this is actually totally different than script in scripture in Galatians 1 Paul's like even if an apostle or an angel from heaven comes and they give you something different than what you've already received don't listen to them so he thinks the the message delivered the faith delivered once and for all of the saints he thinks that message not even an apostle can come and change it meaning that an angel from heaven so that no authority no matter what authority you claim you have if it doesn't seem to match the plain sense of the scriptures you can reject that person and I'm I'm I'm with Paul when someone says well our Bible is better because we have the Apocrypha what do you say to that how do you what is your response to that um well let me see I have a section here I was going to talk about we come back to that a little bit later so my last nerds but I do have some some things I'll share about the Apocrypha let's talk about traditions because I hear this all the time we have one of our sons a couple of his friends actually love the Christian Church and joined the Catholic Church and these are strong believers they just feel like no we think that we're following the tradition and I kept hearing traditions traditions I'm like I don't think that's what it means so yeah so a lot of times when the Roman Catholic apologetics and theology when they go into the into ancient history they'll they'll take a word that's being used and they'll interpret it with a modern sense instead of with the ancient sense like the word Catholic Catholic just meant the whole church and to them it means Roman Catholic right so when when you have a church father who's like you know um you know you must you must have the Catholic Church to be saved and they're thinking AHA and you're like that's not what he meant at all like that's completely anachronistic so Vatican 2 says this so about tradition it says sacred tradition and sacred scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God which is committed to the church the task of authentically interpreting the Word of God whether written or handed on has been entrusted exclusively exclusively to the living teaching office of the church whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ for all of what has been said about the way of interpreting Scripture is subject finally to the judgment of the church which carries out the divine Commission and minister of gardening and interpreting the Word of God so they have like I said earlier they're the only ones who can interpret the Bible ultimately authentically as the word they use and tradition though the idea of tradition you see it's it's there's like two separate things there's scripture on one hand and tradition on the other tradition is meant to be this is like what the Apostles taught that just wasn't written that's the idea that's why they say whether written or handed on well let's hand it on okay it's tradition because it's handed on apostolic teaching but the word traditions a bit muddy when you start trying to apply it in real life there's lots of things that Catholic Church teaches as tradition that we're clearly not taught by the Apostles like this isn't handed on right there's things like the bodily assumption of Mary people infallibility the Immaculate Conception of Mary these are doctrines that are unknown in the in the early church literally unknown like you can't find anybody who believes in the bodily assumption of Mary that early on right people infallibility was defined in 1870 at the Vatican to council and that particular doctrine was so divisive a bunch of Catholic theologians left the Catholic Church because they're like wait what you're infallible now you know when you when yous not everything he says is infallible but in certain conditions and so they had a big problem with that well these things are just not known historically there's no way the Apostle Paul taught the pig or you know or Peter taught papal infallibility because there was no papacy teacher Pope it's just it's this is really out there so tradition doesn't really mean tradition this is a big key issue when the Catholic Church says tradition what they mean is whatever teachings we affirm and we say it's always been that way trust us okay right they don't actually mean that you could go into the into church history and you can gather all these doctrines and figure it out on your own they have to take a very edited version of the Church Fathers now the Church Fathers it's not like they're evangelical Protestants I'm not pretending they agree with me but to pretend they agree with because with at least I'm just in some ways they do in some ways I don't but to pretend they agree with modern Roman Catholicism is just really butchering history it's just really butchering it and it but the problem is it's so complicated like how long is gonna take me to explain how these 15 church fathers were misunderstood by Catholicism how many hours it takes it to explain that now there's one verse we'll talk about this is the verse must commonly used to support the idea that tradition in the modern Catholic sense meaning whatever teachings they currently have and they say is historical that that is in the Bible so second Thessalonians 2:15 it's just so than brothers stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us either by our spoken word or by our letter now the first thing you should notice is that Paul says that the traditions he's talking about is the key word here is tradition right but what he says when he defines it he says it's either by word or epistle so he doesn't have like the Vatican two categories scripture here tradition here scriptures what's written tradition is what's handed down verbally and not written that he doesn't have that he's like tradition is whatever I said whether it was written or oral that's tradition see he's not using it in the Catholic sense at all he's just using the word and a whole different kind of content he just means whatever the Apostles taught publicly stand and hold fast to that all I have to do to break the Roman Catholic claim is show that at least some of the things they say are authoritative tradition we're definitely not taught by the Apostles and then it breaks their connection that the modern claims about tradition don't relate to what Paul was talking about in 1st or 2nd Thessalonians he didn't teach it to them it wasn't taught to him originally yeah no technology it just misses how second Thessalonians defines tradition some Roman Catholic apologist do have a nuanced view of this but it doesn't do anything to support their claims just them that's the point okay okay so you make you make a really great statement when you talk about how Catholicism would actually crumble if if you got rid of this whole Church authority thing because that's where most of these unbiblical documents and doctrines come from and and they come from that because of the authority of the church so if you can improve that the authority the church is not a biblical thing that it kind of wipes away Catholicism so explain that yeah now just you know I have Church authority in many ways there's lots of there's there's legitimate Authority the church the biblical way of looking at it is that we have the teaching of the Apostles which we have recorded New Testament that we must hold fast to that that trumps every authority right even if an angel of heaven in all that stuff so but then we have leaders in the church in the New Testament we their elders and bishops same person those terms are used interchangeably and then we have deacons okay and these are kind of the offices in the church that are to be appointed others other functions in the church but those are the offices but in Catholicism the authority of the church takes on a whole new dimension whole unjust totally not found in Scripture at all and that's about the Pope centrally it brings it comes out of the Pope the unity and the teaching and the authority and the claims of the Catholic Church come down to the Pope so the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 937 says this the Pope enjoys a divine institution nothing less than supreme full immediate and universal power in the care of souls 883 says this the college or body of Bishops these are Catholic Bishops has no authority unless United with the Roman pontiff that's the Pope Peters successor as its head as such this college has supreme and full authority over the universal Church but this power cannot be exercised without agreeing the agreement of the Roman pontiff so I mean he is the key you with Pope you have total authority everybody else in the world without Pope you don't have that authority like this is the claim of the church in Vatican 1 they make some specific claims about this papacy this idea of this Pope this one ruler of the church and notice this that they claim that it's ancient inconstant that the beliefs that they're about to it so hold on let me back up and just say this in Vatican 1 they've just finished saying that in Matthew 16 and in John 21 that we have Jesus instituting Peter as the first pope then they go on and they say here in Vatican 1 everyone has always known this so remember this claim we're going to test it he says we for the preservation safekeeping an increase of the Catholic fly with the approval of the sacred council judge it to be necessary to propose for the belief and acceptance of all the faithful in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal Church the doctrine of the institution perpetuity and nature of the sacred apostolic premise II now this is massive because what they've just done is they said the nature of this hope of having supreme authority over everything this has always been known everybody knew it and it's especially in Matthew 16 and John 21 well those are the two passages they offer if this is true I want to be Catholic if that's true I want to be Kelly because I'm not opposed to being some in submission to proper authorities that's up that's what I want to do but if it's not true it's a pretty big issue I can't just I can't like I've heard one prominent evangelical pastors say the Pope is our Pope he's like he's our Pope and I'm like there is no Pope he's it's if it's not true he's a usurper claiming massive authority claims that just are completely unfounded and then giving doctrines authoritative lis based on those claims so this is a big deal now biblically speaking Matthew 16 is where Jesus says like you know I'm giving you the keys to the kingdom Peter you're the rock and uh and on this rock I will build you are you are Peter the rock and on this rock I will build my church it's that phrase now the weird thing is this if you were just doing a Bible study you would you might be like wait is Peter the rock or is the claim that Jesus is the Messiah is that the rock you would be asking those questions what are the keys mean huh let's go through the rest of the New Testament what how did they are the key is used like what is this all talking about but the Catholic Church says like know when when Jesus says here's the keys you're you know Peter you are Peter the rock what he's really doing is he's instituting that Peter is the Pope he's the leader of all the Apostles um he has the full authority of Christ on earth and everybody else in the world if they don't agree with him they have no authority if they agree with him they have his authority effectively right this is the authority claims and that Peter is then gonna establish the Rome has the future location where this where this future papacy is going to continue to exist and it will be it will exist in perpetuity it's not just for the first century it's forever like all that's coming out of like your your Iraq and here's the keys right she's not how we do Bible study this is like in Mormonism when they say well Paul said three heavens so we have celestial terrestrial until I still like wait a minute you just literally made up a word collection because know how you do Bible study so did the Apostles think that this made Peter above them and leading the church as basically the head of the church after this I'll give you several reasons really quickly why not we we could spend all day on this one first but but we won't so one the Apostles continue to argue about who was the greatest both in Matthew and in Luke and even in the Garden of Gethsemane way after Jesus supposedly gave apostolic primacy to Peter why are they arguing who's the greatest right like and why isn't Jesus like obviously Peter's the greatest you numbskulls why couldn't you see me I gave him the keys in Matthew 18 Jesus supplies the keys and binding and loosing he applies it to the whole church not just Peter Peters kind of like was seen as a spokesman not as the single head of the church especially in Matthew 18 verses 18 through 20 binding and loosing the activity of the keys is seen as giving being given to the church as a whole Peter again he's the spokesman he's not the Pope he speaks what the church is thinking and then he responds to that claim in number three in Acts chapter 15 there's a council in the early church the first council we read about and anywhere in history and it's James not Peter who seems to push the final decision seems to be leading peter hasn't his important role I don't know I'm not against Peter he is an important role but we can't call that papacy in action x-15 doesn't look like that at all right number four Paul he actually offers us a description of Peters ministry and he doesn't say Supreme Pontiff of the universal Church he doesn't say head of the church Vicar of Christ he says that yep that Peter says that sorry Paul says that Peter is the apostle to the Jews wait that doesn't even fit if he's the Pope right the Pope is its universal there's no there's no to the Jews thing going on here um Paul actually lists in one point where he lists the pillars of the church in Galatians he puts him in this order James Cephas which is Peter and John James Cephas John you don't now when you're when you're listing and the Pope is on your list guess who comes first the Pope right now then he goes on to say that these three pillars agreed that Paul should go to the Gentiles and the three of them should go to the circumcised and they're considered about reaching apostolic leav angelically up to the world there's no there's no idea in their head of a papacy going on right now Peter calls himself a fellow elder in his in first Peter chapter 5 he also calls Jesus the chief Shepherd so he's just a fellow elder right I'm just a fellow elder Jesus is the chief Shepherd this isn't just humility he's just giving us a description of you know the way things really are and finally a seventh thing all I'll mention is that continuing offices in the church are mentioned throughout the New Testament we read about them all the time we never read about a Pope and it would be pretty significant to give us that indication right yeah if you're pretending to have an office that the New Testament knows nothing about so here's an example Catholic historian Eamon Duffy here's a Catholic historian he says there is nothing directly approaching a papal Authority in the pages of the New Testament in in Roman sorry in Roman but not Catholic that book I recommended earlier they write this the substance of Matthew 16:18 you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church was never interpreted gosh that never interpreted by the 1st century Church in terms of claims to preeminence by a non-existent monarchical Bishop of Rome or even later by the Apophis taluk fathers once this office eventually emerged that's because historically in the first century there was a lot of different you know leaders in Rome bishops or elders in Rome there wasn't even one who was in charge of them all like that took a whole development of history before they even started so it's just it's just weird but in Vatican 1 they say that Matthew 16 has always been understood to make Peter the Pope and for it to talk about apostolic primacy that Peters of the boss of the church and he's in charge of everybody else it has quote ever been understood this way so this means I can test a historical and biblical claim of a infallible counsel of the Catholic Church in Vatican 1 well the French Roman Catholic llinois he surveyed the writings of the church fathers to see what the early church said about Matthew 16 did they say that this made him the Pope he found 17 citations from church fathers who agreed that Matthew 16 when he says the rock it's referring to Peter so 17 citations that make Peter the rock now they did not say that Peter was the Pope most of them don't even talk about that because it was historically didn't exist yet but they did say that the phrase the rock referred to Peter he found 16 citations that identify the rock as Christ so those are split 50-50 he found 8 I did that identified the rock as all of the disciples not just Peter but all the disciples and he found 44 citations that identified the rock as the confession that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God so the favorite interpretation of the ur of the Church Fathers is that the rock is the confession of trusting Christ as God now 80% of the time the Church Fathers disagree with the Roman Catholic position 80 percent yet Vatican 1 says that this has always ever been the knowing the known belief of the universal Church because matigan one made stuff up which is why a lot of Roman Catholics left when Vatican 1 in 1870 came out and said this stuff and they're like yeah that's best is not real it's not true but the Pope at the time was demanding that they affirm these things and they are they even are you at one point the council people were like we don't want to say some of these things and and the church isn't in agreement look we're voting we are not in agreement about all these things you want in the council and the Pope said I am the church and so they they had to continue pushing it forward because some popes are not as humble as as francis you gets a mixed bag so there's no papers if you've got apathy totally then the whole thing crumbs yeah it becomes it becomes a usurping claim instead of instead of there is no authentic papacy to look for in the first century it doesn't exist so you can't trace it to any modern person because the ancient thing never was there in the first place it developed over time so it was very gradual so there was I'll do it a couple stages here um initially there were like I said multiple elders or bishops in Rome there was not just one who was in charge of them all that's during the first century late late in the second century then we start to get a monarchical bishop well one bishop who's like I'm in charge of the region of Rome but he's not like the Pope he's not claiming you know universal authority over the world and over every Christian that's centuries later but that's when you first start to get it over a hundred years later we first start to get the idea of someone who's the guy who's in charge of Rome the historian Kenneth Collins he says this clearly Rome continually reads back into the past much later historical products as if they were ever present to claim for example that the Apostle Peter was the first pope is akin to the error in stating in the fourth century the United States of America had few people there was no United States it just didn't exist such a statement simply doesn't compute this city that was of such great importance to the Christian faith in the mid first century was not Rome but Jerusalem and after that it was Antioch thus once again not Rome the earliest Pope who you could probably start to say is looking at claiming some of the power of the modern Pope right like he's not only saying like I'm the Bishop of Rome altogether but he's starting to like flex a little more is Leo in the fifth century that's that's one of the earliest guys you could say here's a guy who you know some would argue he's actually a Pope we actually have a Pope now you know in the modern somewhat modern sense but let me let me read to you here's a book I recommend this is the Matthew 16 controversy people want to read on just Matthew 16 just have one issue here's a whole book for you early church fathers and what they said but allow me to read to you this is Gregory the Great he is the 64th Pope if you ask the Roman Catholic Church where they say they about all these posts according to them he is the 64th Pope so by now right there's everybody knows what the papacy is now in all its authority claims but Gregory the Great actually rejected the title Pope for himself and it's and rejected some of the official titles that are currently part of the Pope he rejected those things but he had a letter that he wrote to John of the Bishop of Constantinople now John the Bishop of Constantinople at the time they were kind of like they were all rising in power the bishops were getting more and more heavy headed and big-headed in their power beyond the New Testament right now Constantinople is one of the one of the cities it's like trying to claim a lot more authority than he ought to have and so look at what Gregory writes because this guy calls himself the universal head that he's the one in charge he basically claims to be a pope the Bishop of Constantinople listen to what Gregory quote the Pope says about him it says um what will they say to Christ who is the head of the universal Church in the scrutiny of the Last Judgement having attempted to put all his members under the thyself by the appellation of Universal he's opposed to not only that guy doing anybody calling himself the universal head of the church and he's like you're and you're gonna get judged for that let me read on and when thou desirous to put thy self above them by this proud title and to tread down their name in comparison with thine what else does thou say but I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven are not all the bishops together clouds who both rein in the words and preaching and glitter in the light of good works and when your fraternity despises them and you would fain press them down under yourself what else say you but what is said by the ancient foe I will ascend above the heights of the clouds he's he saying if you want to try to say you're higher than other bishops which even at that point the concept of bishops going beyond the New Testament so I don't agree with it but basing like if you're gonna be the one who's above all the others that's satanic right he quotes Satan he's like that's satanic let me read on certainly Peter the first of the Apostles himself a member of the holy and universal Church Paul Andrew and John what were now here is get ready for it right here's Pope Gregory supposedly Pope Gregory right the guy who rejects the title Pope still exercising more power than you should biblically but he is now writing about who Peter was in the church right certainly Peter Paul Andrew and John what were they but heads of particular communities Oh Peter was just a head of a particular community according to Gregory who's one of the like this is part of the problem with Catholic tradition is that there's all these conflicting statements even in the tradition so you have to look at the modern church to tell you what you're supposed to hold on to and what you're supposed to reject but here's a pope saying something that would that vatican ii would say no he didn't he didn't say that you know um anyway he goes on he says now let your holiness he calls you the guy your holiness let your holiness acknowledge to what extent you will swell within yourself and desiring to be called by that name by which no one presumed to be called who is truly holy he goes on he has other writings too like the Bishop of Alexandria when they write back and forth and the Bishop of Alexandria addresses him as like universal Pope and he hates it right right yeah yeah interesting he says you have thought it fit to make use of a proud appellation calling me Universal Pope but I beg your most sweet holiness to do this no more since what is given to another beyond what reason demands is subtracted from yourself see Gregory's concern is that the the bishop in Alexandria he thought had equal authority as him and he says you call me this you take away your own authority that's interesting isn't it goes on and says for if your holiness calls me Universal Pope you deny that you are yourself what you call me universally but far be far be this from us away with words that inflate vanity and wound charity it goes on and on I could I could read pages and pages of content now in this book Matthew the Matthew 16 controversy by William Webster there are a lot of church fathers that are quoted by Catholics to suggest that they believed in the papacy he offers their quotes in more detail in more context so you can see that they didn't even know about the papacy right didn't exist at that early time because we always have element over time we talk about this like if you were stuck on an island with just your Bible it's just like you'd never come to the Mormon Church you'd never come up with Jehovah Witness you would never come up with the papacy that's that's kind of thing okay we only have like 18 minutes left Mary I want to probably finish out on Mary because that's kind of a big a big deal mother of Jesus of course totally blessed by God because this is you know God gives her the you know Jesus that's kind of a big deal but they've added so many unbiblical doctrines the perpetual virginity the bodily assumption Mary as co-redemptrix like you can pray to her like there's just so many things so let's really focus on that because it's such a false doctrine that people get sucked into so so talk about that yeah so especially in the Middle Ages what the Catholic Church did was they didn't look they weren't care I mean in all reality they're not carrying traditions from the Apostles it's like they put their thumbs in the air and they go ooh this doctrines become more and more popular in the church we're gonna we're gonna say it's true now like it and so they kind of follow the sway and flow of things and these influences that are a lot more than the Bible or the Holy Spirit and one of those influences was the continued exaltation of Mary so one of those doctrines they have nowadays that that the early church wouldn't have had is katak the Catholic catechism has in paragraph 491 it says the Most Blessed Virgin Mary was from the first moment of her conception by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ savior of the human race preserved immune from all stain of original sin so a lot of people think that Immaculate Conception refers to Jesus that's the virgin birth Immaculate Conception actually is reference to Mary the idea is that she was born without sin in page paragraph 493 it goes on to say by the grace of God Mary remained free from every personal sin her whole life long so Mary is sinless actually Mary is the first sinless human being on Catholicism before before Christ she's always sinless there's nothing in the New Testament like that that would supply this belief it's just not there now um there's a lot more that can be said and that the Mary stuff it's hard because a lot of Protestants it's almost like they feel like they have to bash Mary or something and I mean that's wrong that's just that's terrible Mary is wonderful I think Mary would be offended and bothered by the claims of Catholicism About Mary I think she'd feel uncomfortable and would rebuke them for these claims but here's some more of those claims in catechism 964 says there she stood in keeping with the divine plan enduring with her only begotten son the intensity of his suffering joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother's heart so Mary it sounds like she is part of the sacrifice for our sins well in in 966 as we read on it says finally the Immaculate Virgin preserved free from all stain of original sin when the course of her earthly life was finished was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things so that she might be the more fully conformed to her son the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death in giving birth you kept your virginity in your Dormition you did not leave the world Oh Mother of God but we're joined to the source of life you you conceived the Living God and by your prayers we'll deliver our souls from death shocking stuff so that that's the bodily assumption of Mary that's another doctrine that was utterly unknown in the early church you can't find support for it and the early church fathers even even if you could it would it would be some weirdo and not vercinix actual Christian agent in 968 it goes on it says in a holy singular way she cooperated by her obedience faith hope and burning charity in the Savior's work of restoring supernatural life to souls for this reason she is a mother to us in the river of grace so she helps Jesus save us Mary is this is the first sinless human who suffers along with Jesus helping his sacrifice accomplish our salvation this is this is blasphemous in 969 the next paragraph it says taken up to heaven she did not lay aside the saving office she's office of saving us but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation therefore the blessed version is invoked in the church under the titles advocate helper benefactress and meaty Atrix mediatrix is like a feminine form of mediator right she's she's the meeting and a mediator what first Timothy 2:5 it says this about our mediator right there's one God and there's one mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus Mary would be embarrassed in a shame and a pull at the claims of Catholicism voter and so would early Christians first Christians would just be blown away by this stuff now Marian devotion grows as we see church history move on hundreds of years go by by a thousand and eleven hundred B ad particular it starts to get like off the rails it sure does now let me take you to one section of the because you guys know the Hail Mary prayer Hail Mary it says mother of God Lord is with you you know that that prayer it's a part of the Rosary part of the things they pray all the time this is the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2677 this is where they're explaining the prayer and when they get to the part at the end of the prayer where it says pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death here's how they explained it by asking Mary to pray for us we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the mother of Mercy the all holy one we give ourselves over to her now into today of our lives and our trust broadens further already at the present moment to surrender the hour of our death wholly to her care may she be there as she was at her son's death on the cross may she welcome us as the mother at the as our mother at the hour of our passing to lead us to her son Jesus in paradise on a practical level Catholicism makes Mary Jesus right like she she takes away parts of parts of Jesus like she participates in his sacrifice she leads us to Jesus Jesus is still the good guy right but she's gonna lead me to jesus Mary's the one I'm entrusting my soul to and do I how much do I have to comment on this to show how weird it is the fact that that Catholic could read these things and not see the problem is is that they're rooted in their traditions and not in the Word of God exactly well it's it's it's terrifying to me it's like all of these religions that we've talked about they've just added things that don't even make sense and it takes away it's like we have friends that are Catholic and and I hear more about Mary than I do Jesus like it's Jay and I'm like there's just something really wrong with that and then explain why people pray to Mary like where does this even come from yeah well so I mean part of that you could see from these claims Mary is actually a source of mercy for you and in a practical level Catholics often see Mary is more loving than Jesus so they often would preferred and plighted pray to Mary because she's like more nice and gentle in that way like in Cana like Jesus is like what is your concern have to do with me you know Mary's like oh come on hey you know I'd like it like she'll impose her motherly influence on Jesus to have him be more merciful perhaps this is the this is the practical application to a lot of Catholics prayer life so they often will pray to Mary instead but in Roman Catholicism Saints are people who are if someone's declared to be a saint it's not like the biblical view of the biblical view is if you're a Christian you're a saint right you're you're saved everyone everyone who saves is the same Catholic view is that Saints while they would affirm that it would add another new category of Saint and they would say well when we say st. you know what we mean is someone who after they died they they even if they went to purgatory for time they're in heaven now they're in heaven now and because they're in heaven they have special access to God and they have excess works that they are being above and beyond what they needed for their salvation and so now you can pray to them and get their help in in your life today so when you start praying to them now there's prayers in the Bible now including Mary Mary's the chief one that people pray to theirs prayers in the Bible from Genesis all the way through to the book of Revelation and you know how many of them are dressed to saints or angels or anybody other than God not right this doesn't happen I mean well yeah it does it when pagans do not like the approved of prayers in the scripture in numerous places the Old Testament actually condemned all attempts to communicate with the dead and it doesn't qualify it it's just Deuteronomy 18 verses 10 through 12 Leviticus 20 verse 6 and 27 for Samuel 28 verse 5 through 18 Isaiah 8 verses 19 through 20 it condemns all attempts to communicate with the dead with those who have passed on the roman catholic rescue is they say well I'm not praying to them really I'm asking them to pray for me and Mike you would say hey Lisa will you pray for me I'm going through this right that's okay it's okay to ask people to pray for you and you go well yeah of course it is and they go well that's all we're doing we're just asking these wonderful men and women of God to pray for us and that's like really clever yeah but it kind of ignores the part about them being dead exactly you're dead like that that didn't even address the issues that we dealt with in Scripture about prayers not being given to anyone other than God so they do you know various things like the veneration of saints they make images they bow physically down to the images of the saints they light candles they pray to the Saints they thank the Saints including Mary especially and these are all the same things the Old Testament forbids doing that thing doing those things towards other than God right even with God you don't make an image right but but the Catholic Church this is why the Catholic Ten Commandments is slightly altered from what you read if you read through the Catholic Ten Commandments and you compared to say Exodus you'll notice the de-emphasis of making idols they'll just dill just de-emphasize that part of the commandments because it I think it just it's uncomfortable with their theology yeah all this just makes me sad because it's like I don't know how people can get so far away from the gospel and yet they are and there's a billion of these people out there and they I don't know how to reach them and I think that's what I was hoping for this segment is like how can we reach you to make you say go to the Bible that way what would you say to people like what would what would you ask of them to do after today well let me say this I think that a lot of Catholics are Christians and I mean are saved I think Catholicism is a Christian tradition in many ways but it compromises the gospel so I feel hesitancy calling it Christian because the Gospels essential but I think a lot of Catholics are saved and that if you ask them about their beliefs I've talked to Catholics where they share I had a conversation with the Catholic apologist for like an hour and a half like I don't month and a half two months ago and I was just like can we just talk I just I wouldn't have dialogue friendly dialogue on these issues and we talked for like an hour and a half I asked him to explain to me how people are saved finally saved before God and I know that double speak and I know the different definitions of languages and things like that so I'm listening and I go what he just described to me is the biblical gospel and I told him I was like you just described the same gospel I affirmed right I think that's beautiful I am you I can't address I can't understand how relieved I am talking this gentleman thinking he just described the biblical gospel right he affirmed the gospel of Christ like I'm excited about this so then I share with him the Council of Trent and I said help me understand how you view these quotes from Trent which seemed to conflict with the gospel you just proclaimed and I read to him the quotes I shared with you earlier today and at first he said hmm wait can you read that again and then I read it again and he said yeah I'm not really sure what to do with that now here's the good news a lot of Catholics aren't sure what to do with that yeah just cuz this is the official teaching of the church doesn't mean they know it and even if they know it doesn't mean that they actually believe it so they may be saved and I'm very hopeful and very optimistic but it's a fearful optimism because I realize they're being raised in a tradition that does contradict the very essence of the gospel of Christ and so there's a good chance they're getting the false gospel or a an inadequate understanding of the gospel and many Catholics will say this they left the Catholic Church they had to come to an evangelical church to hear the gospel for the first time and many would say that that's their story so I'm if I'm fearfully agnostic about the salvation of any individual Catholic I just I'm scared because I don't sign up to me and I don't know what they affirm but what I encourage a Catholic listening to this to do is is calm your heart and know that there may be a difference between allegiance to Jesus and allegiance to the Pope between allegiance to God and allegiance to the council's and the traditions of the Catholic urghhh you have up until now you've always seen Roman Catholicism as simply the true one church but if their claims about the papacy aren't true then it's actually a sectarian group that has added a lot of extra teachings and you need to go back to the Word of God and you need to find out what scripture says perfect see I can there's no other way to end except what you just said so Mike thank you so much for doing this I know you're gonna you're gonna sleep well tonight we do know that we so appreciate this I'm sorry the waiting to meet in person and you couldn't come to Phoenix but one of these days let me get you here okay I'll talk to the one girl that uh that I'm supposed to talk to there you go all right you pray for people really quickly absolutely absolutely and then let me say this too before we go um I am NOT replacing the Pope with me I'm not like the infallible my cleaner I'm open to change in my mind I I wish I want to change my mind on this I it's just that I'm it's not an uninformed opinion and I've shared with you guys what builds that opinion if you could show me where I'm wrong I'm all I'm all yours please show me that the Catholic gospel is the saving gospel oh I so want to affirm that but according to the trend it's not probably in many parishes it is but not according to the official teachings of the church and that's a big problem so um that being said let us pray Lord we we acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior who died on the cross and rose again who paid the full price for our sin and made one offering forever and then sat down at the right hand of God having perfected forever those who are being sanctified we acknowledge that we are saved by grace alone through faith and it's apart from works it's it's not from ourselves lest anyone should boast and yet yet works are the fruit of your work in our life that do come definitely come naturally because we're born again but all the credit and all the merit for our salvation our justification is all yours and we rejoice in that help Lord help Catholics who might be watching this to just see Christ to find truth and to not have their world destroyed by by a either blind allegiance to Catholicism or by not being able to discover the truth of Christ through all the confusion now we pray Lord God for that you bless them that you use this video and this teaching to minister to people and to create more light than heat we pray in Jesus name Amen thank you for everyone who joined us Mike thank you [Music]

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 169,716

Rating: 4.5492392 out of 5

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Id: 7ZVHHmCOjOg

Length: 113min 57sec (6837 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 25 2020