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[Music]

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mike Gendron from Proclaiming the Gospel thanks so much for joining me on this live stream for the Will Spencer podcast

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well thanks for the privilege Will well the privilege is mine sir your your work has been a great blessing to me as I

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know it has been for so many people and uh the the conversation that's happening right now is Rome has made a very big

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strong push back into the public square through social media and that's been increasing over the past year or so I

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would say and so I think it's important to arm Protestants with some responses to standard Catholic positions and maybe

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also preach the gospel to some uh some Roman Catholics as well

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yeah they have really made an inroads and a lot of it I think is through social media but another factor is uh

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many evangelicals are becoming apostate to

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join the apostate religion of Roman Catholicism and what's amazing Will is that they've become the teaching

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authority in the Catholic Church the priests have vacated that job and are pretty much giving it to the former

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Protestants that know the scripture very well say more about that

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well I think it all started 1994 with the evangelicals and Catholics together the unity accord that was signed and the

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signers of that accord on the evangelical side dared to say that Catholics and the evangelicals share a

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common faith in the gospel and that's the furthest thing from the truth because the Roman Catholic gospel the

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plan of salvation in the Catholic Church is another gospel and those that teach

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it have distorted the gospel and therefore they're under divine condemnation as we see in Galatians

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1:6-9 and so there cannot be any unity between Catholics and evangelicals

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because we believe a different gospel so so you're so that the evangelicals

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who are leaving Protestantism are coming into Roman Catholicism and they're bringing their scriptural knowledge to

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advocate on behalf of the on behalf of Rome and that began in 199 1994 well

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that was the catalyst and I think when you look at um we've been doing this ministry for 34 years and every time I

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hear of an evangelical or a Protestant leaving to join the Catholic Church it is never ever because of scripture

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i I hope your audience recognizes that they do not leave because scripture pointed them to the Catholic Church it's

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the early church fathers it's the eukarist they believe that that's necessary for salvation it's also the

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formality of Roman Catholic worship many of our Protestant churches have invited

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the world in and it's become more of a country club atmosphere and so a lot of

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people are turned off to that and they're drawn to the formality of the Catholic Church so we're seeing a mass

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exodus to the Catholic Church but they don't realize that they're joining a religion that

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has preached a false gospel now for over 1,600 years and that gospel is a gospel

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that those who preach it are under divine condemnation we can't make that any clearer Will and I I hope that's the

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focal point of what we talk about because the Catholic Church has added requirements and you know the Judaizers

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came into town they believed in the Lord Jesus they believed in his death burial and resurrection but they said "If

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you're a Gentile you not only need to believe but you also need to be circumcised you need to come under the

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Jewish law." And so Paul drove a stake in the ground because the purity of the gospel was at stake he said "Even if I

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or an angel from heaven should come and preach another gospel let them be anathema." And that word is to be

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accursed and Jesus described what the word a curse means it means to be turned

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into the lake of fire that was prepared to the devil and the fallen angel so it's a serious issue to distort the

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gospel and the Roman Catholic clergy are the modern-day Judaizers because they

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believe in the life death burial and resurrection of Christ but they've added

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requirements to the gospel one of the things that I've observed from my world travels before I became a

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Christian is when you when you start putting tradition to a parallel or even greater degree than scriptures

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themselves you tend to get the same results whether it be in Hinduism or Islam and that can be a very difficult

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thing because you've you've obliterated objective standards that people are accountable to and you build up this

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giant body that everyone suddenly needs a special priest class to interpret for them this is a very common human

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practice it really is we know that the supreme authority for knowing truth is the infallible inherent inspired word of

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God that is the only infallible source for truth our Lord has left us with and

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we use it to test every man's teaching and every religious tradition if it conforms to scripture we embrace it and

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believe it if it goes against scripture we reject it and so praise God that he

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left us his inspired word that we can use to test everything and I I think that that's what makes the Protestant

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faith so unique is there is that actual consistent standard that is open and

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free and available to everybody bibles are free they're basically free these days there's probably more Bibles in

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print than any other book and so there's no excuse for not having one but then also there's no hidden knowledge you you

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can just read it you can just read it and if you have questions about one section you learn to read the other section and it points you to where you

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need to go there's no like well you need to have mastered this giant body of tradition to really understand what's in

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there it's like no you you can God left us a book and you you can just read it and well you probably know that

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according to the Roman Catholic Catechism their bishops are the only authentic interpreters of God's word

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really and so we don't have the right to interpret the word of God we have to go back to Roman Catholic bishops in in

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order to understand what the Bible really means so maybe we can talk for a second about the church fathers because

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I agree with you when I when I've seen people leave the Protestant faith now surely there is a lot going on that is

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that is wrong in Protestantism today right many many in many different dimensions

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no one's denying that but the departure again as you said is not because of scripture it's for some other reason and

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the appeal that I always see is made to the church fathers that's the most including to Eastern Orthodoxy as well

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well the church fathers well the church fathers like well I I got there's this book called Acts and I think that there are some church fathers in there but

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what are some of the what are some of the compelling you know uh arguments for the church fathers from the perspective

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of of Rome and perhaps also Eastern Orthodoxy the compelling argument for Roman Catholics is that they cannot

Scripture vs. Early Church Fathers

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prove their point in scripture alone so they have to look at the early church fathers and you really gain nothing

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because you find early church fathers on the both sides of every issue and when

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Roman Catholics want me to read the early church fathers my response is "How do I know that they're not the very

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people Paul warned us about?" When he stood before the Ephesian elders and he said "Even from your own number men are

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going to rise in order to distort the truth and lead men astray." So we need

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to build our theology not on the uninspired words of men but on the inspired word of God and so to look to

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the church fathers and build your theology there is completely wrong we need to build it on the acts of the

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apostles that's the the history book of the first century church and as you mentioned early church fathers are in

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the book of acts let's read them because they're inspired

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yeah it seems I I don't remember where I read this but um that Christianity is

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historical events and people attempting to understand what those historical events meant that's the story of the

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faith this happened what now does it mean and it seems like that's what that's what the entire New Testament is

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about you know after the after the gospels you have the the writings of the people who were there the eyewitnesses plus Paul and that seems like that

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should be enough as opposed to the games of telephone that began passing down through the generations

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so true and while we're on this issue um this really isn't a discussion

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between Protestants and Catholics it's a discussion between how does the Roman

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Catholic Church line up through the lens of scripture it's a contrast between the

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inspired word of God and the teachings of the Roman Catholic religion and I know individual Catholics don't always

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adhere to the official teachings of their church the catechism but whenever I teach on

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the differences I'm using the word of God against the Roman Catholic catechism just to show the errors that have crept

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into the Catholic Church because they departed from the authority of scripture in the 4th century and they've been

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following pagan traditions ever since then so let's let's go back to the start

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let's go back to your your conversion your story for those who are watching who who might be listening who who've

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maybe seen some of your videos on YouTube or familiar with the names let's go back to the very beginning um uh when

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you when you left the Well let's start with your upbringing your time in the church and then how you left

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well yeah well I was a very devout Roman Catholic and I came out of a devout Catholic family my uncle was a Roman

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Catholic priest my aunt was a nun and I was an alter boy for seven years i

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taught high school Catholic Christian doctrine so I was very involved in my religion and ultimately I look back and

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I was trusting my religion to get to heaven um the Catholic Church offers other mediators between God and man and

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that would be not only this the sinlessness of Mary she's said to be a

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co-mediatrics of all grace but then Catholics are also utterly dependent upon their priest to dispense salvation

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through the sacraments so I didn't really have a relationship with Jesus i

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had a religion i had a zeal but it wasn't based on knowledge i was sincere

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but I was sincerely wrong because I didn't know the scriptures and the very

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nature of deception is that people never know they're deceived until they're confronted with the truth and so when I

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began reading and studying the Bible in my mid30s I had a crisis of faith because

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what I was reading about the plan of salvation in the Bible was diametrically opposed to what I had been taught as a

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Catholic and so this crisis of faith led me to should I trust Christ and his word

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for my eternal destiny or the teachings and traditions of my religion it was

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impossible to believe both and I believe that's when God gave me eyes to see the

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light of the gospel and the glory of Christ and I repented of the false way that I had been clinging to and believe

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the true gospel of Christ and that literally turned my life upside down i

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left the Catholic church and I was in a Bible study every morning of the week before I went to work and that wasn't

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enough so I ended up leaving my corporate career to go to Dallas Theological Seminary

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i just wanted to purge my mind of all the errors that I'd been taught as a Catholic and and fill it with the truth

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of God's word and so our last semester there we were introduced to a video by

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former priests and nuns and they were showing the true gospel versus the

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teaching of the Catholic Church and I brought that home to my wife we looked at it together and we said "We have to

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share this with every Catholic we know." So for the next three months that's all

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we did every Tuesday night invited Catholics over to watch the video and

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not every Catholic responded favorably many of them stormed out of our house and never to be seen again but there

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were 17 of them that replaced their religion for a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and what do you

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do with 17 new babes in Christ you invite them back over on Wednesday night to help them grow in the truth of God's

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word we made disciples of them which is what the great commission is all about it's not go and make decisions but go

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and make disciples teaching them to observe everything Christ has commanded

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so that was the genesis of the ministry that we have today for 34 years now the

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Lord has taken us around the world several times and we go into churches and seminaries and conferences and we

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teach the body of Christ how to be effective witnesses for the Lord Jesus

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Christ and and point out the errors so that Catholics can repent and believe the true gospel

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can you can you take us back to one of those early moments when you started reading your Bible and you started

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seeing where maybe some of the pieces didn't fit yeah Ephesians 2:8-9 and

Grace, Faith, Mercy's Impact

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Titus 3:5 really impacted me because I was doing everything I could to save

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myself and so when I read Ephesians 2:8-9 for by grace you have been saved

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through faith it's not of yourselves it's the gift of God not of works so

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that no man may boast and then I read in Titus 3:5 he saved us not because of

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righteous things we had done be but because of his mercy and so those verses

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really impacted me another one was 2 Corinthians 5:21 where I read that Jesus who knew no

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sin became sin for me so that I could become the righteousness of God in him

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and I quickly realized that was the greatest exchange any condemned sinner on death row could ever experience by

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faith Christ takes all of my sin all of my guilt all of my punishment and what

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does he give me in return his perfect righteousness and I didn't realize as a

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Catholic that there's two things that keep anyone out of heaven number one they have an eternal sin debt that we

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could never pay off because we're finite men it took the eternal son of God to

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come down and cancel the eternal sin debt but then there's another thing we need and that's perfect righteousness

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and we could never obtain that or attain that but Christ gives it as a gift as we

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see in Romans 5:17 to those who put their faith in him

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so through faith alone in Christ alone my sin debt has been cancelled and I

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have the perfect righteousness of Christ which is why every born again believer

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has the assurance of eternal life because it's based on everything Christ has done and not on what we must do i

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was trusting what I must do to get to heaven as a Catholic now I put all my faith in Christ alone and if there's any

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Catholic listening to this I would pray that you do the same thing repent of your dead works they cannot save you and

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put all your faith in Christ and Will I think it's important too that we recognize that once we are new creatures

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in Christ once we're born again then we do the works that God has prepared for

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us to walk in and our motivation is different we don't do good works in

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order to be saved but because we've already been saved and our motivation is

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to do good works out of love and gratitude for our Lord Jesus going to

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the cross on our behalf and I think that's a that's a very powerful point

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particularly around being born again certainly you know I was I was in the new age for 20 years i was a I was a

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pagan and I remember the guy that I was and I'm not that guy anymore in fact I feel I feel like I have another man's

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memories and in that there's there's there's no doubt within myself about

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about the shift and how crucial it is to be born again and and not to trust in my works for that to trust to trust only in

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Christ and only in his word to help carry me through because if I'm going to trust in my own works I live with myself

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every day i I know that's probably not going to work so great amen

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so um when you when you first encountered those some of those texts those two texts I think it was Ephesians

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and and Titus that you mentioned uh what did you what did you really struggle with letting go of like so you're

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confronted with the word it hits you like a bolt of lightning and you're looking you're like "Wow this is my entire upbringing alter boy family in

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the church." Like what were some of the things that you that were really the most difficult for for you to work

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through well giving up the sacraments and also recognizing that Jesus finished the work

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of redemption on the cross and then he entered into heaven we see that in Hebrews chapter 9 but the Catholic

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Church denies that Jesus finished the work they continue it on an altar and so

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as I read Hebrews chapter 10 I saw that Jesus offered himself once for all sin

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for all time and there are no more offerings for sin i realized the the Roman Catholic mass was deceiving people

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we would gather around the altar as a propitiatory sacrifice so that our sins would be forgiven that we committed in

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the previous week when I realized that all my sins were nailed to the cross 2,000 years ago and there's no more

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sacrifices for sin this was freedom there was no need for Roman Catholic

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priest in fact one of the beautiful miracles that took place at Calvar's cross when Jesus gave up his spirit the

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veil separating the Holy of Holies from sinful man and and almighty God was torn

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open so that now through faith in the shed blood of Jesus we have direct access to the father through the son the

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perfect high priest Jesus offered himself the perfect sacrifice to a

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perfect God who demands perfection and then he cried out in victory it is

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finished no more need for Sassidoba priests that's why the temple was

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destroyed the Jews don't need priests anymore either because they need to look to their Messiah the one who offered

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himself once for all sin for all time so you know I really encourage Roman

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Catholics because they believe their church is the same church that Christ founded and I encourage them to look in

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the book of Acts well you know that's a a history book of the first century church so if it's the same church that

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Jesus founded why don't we see altars why don't we see priests offering sacrifices for sin why don't we see

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purgatory why don't we see prayers for the dead why don't we see Mary as a

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sinless mediator you know the Catholic Church today does not resemble the first

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century church and so it's gone apostate and it no longer resembles the church

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that Jesus Christ founded amen so so as you're as you're having to

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let go of the sacraments because I know a couple people that have gone through this was that was that a difficult process i I know I know a man who's left

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the Catholic church and he's he's become he goes to a Presbyterian church now and in those early months it was really it

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was really like kind of like uh meeting maybe I don't think he would say this but riding a bike without training wheels in a way and I don't mean to I

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don't mean to liken those two things just kind of like okay like can I can I stabilize myself without this thing that

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I'm I find very familiar yeah well you know that once you're born again you are justified and declared

Born Again: Justification and Sanctification

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righteous that happens at a moment in time but then you begin the process of

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sanctification as you abide in God's word you learn more of his truth and you conform your life to the life of Christ

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and you put away the worthless things that you were doing in order to please

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God and to please Christ and so as I abided in God's word the truth was

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setting me more and more free from all these things that I was clinging to and

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I read in 2 Timothy 2 that we are to pray for those in opposition to the

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gospel that God would grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth so they can escape the snare of

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the devil that holds them captive to do his will and as I read that I realized

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as an unbeliever I was held captive by the devil to do his will but the more I

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abided in God's word the more the truth was setting me free from religious deception and religious captivity and so

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there's nothing better than to be set free by the truth of God's word but it

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is a process and that's why again the great commission is to make disciples we

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teach people to observe everything Christ has commanded and one of those is that God speak God seeks worshippers in

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spirit and in truth mhm and so we cannot remain in a a false religion we have to

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come out and worship God where the truth is being taught in a high view of God is

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being presented in a high view of scripture so we've got some comments in the chat from uh from some folks I think

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probably come from X so um let's let's pull up one right now this one says uh

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Catholics do not believe our own good works save us that this is basic Catholic theology and then following

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from that um Catholics do not deny that Jesus finished his work his work either

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how do you um if you wouldn't mind responding to a couple of those comments

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well if Catholics believe that Jesus finished his work of redemption and

Critique of Eucharistic Sacrifice Doctrine

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entered into heaven as we read in Hebrews 9 then why do you continue to

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offer a eukaristic Christ on an altar as a propitiatory sacrifice and I

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understand the terminology they use is to represent Christ as a sacrificial

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victim they're saying that it's a representation but that's just stuff that's made up it you won't find it in

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scripture you find uh Jesus Christ the night before he went to the cross saying

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"Do this in memory of me." Well if Jesus Christ is physically present in the

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Eucharist why are you doing something to remember him and we know that um Jesus will not return to the earth

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again until after the tribulation the Bible tells us where he's going to return that's to the Mount of Olives the

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Bible tells us how he's going to return in a body the same way he left and then we read in Hebrews

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9:28 that when he returns the second time it will not be to deal with sin and

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yet the Catholic Church believes that Jesus is present body and

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soul spirit and divinity in the Eucharist so he's physically present and

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yet that goes against all the scriptures that I just shared and so the Catholic Church needs to read

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Hebrews 10 Hebrews 9 they totally destroy the Roman Catholic mass

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so the other question Will was it was about Catholics uh not believing that

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good works save us well of course they do in fact the Council of Trent dares to

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condemn anyone that believes we are justified by faith alone

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catholics say that they're justified by faith plus works that was a dividing line at the Council of Trent and so the

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Catholic Church needs to read their catechism paragraph 2027 says "The grace that

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saves us is something that we must merit." And yet grace is unmmerited

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favor well how does a Catholic merit grace by receiving sacraments and and

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doing good works so I want to take a little side road for a second um one of the some of the

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comments that I've heard from uh from a lot of young men who have left uh Protestantism uh particularly for

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Eastern Orthodoxy is that they appreciate the discipline of Orthodoxy and I I think probably they some would

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say they appreciate the same about Rome that there the sacraments at least provide some sort of structure that that

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Protestant churches don't appear to have many of them don't anyway my response to that is always well your own daily

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scripture reading prayer confession repentance weekly church attendance all those provide a structure of spiritual

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disciplines now you've been doing this for decades what sort of spiritual disciplines do you do you practice

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well Bible reading and prayer and evangelism and meeting with a body of

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believers on the Lord's day um also offering u myself as service to

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the body of Christ those are all spiritual disciplines but uh primarily

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prayer and Bible reading and evangelism would be the the three spiritual disciplines that I focus on and that's

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what um puzzles me about Roman Catholics u the Lord Jesus gave the great

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commission and that is for every believer to go and make disciples and so

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you don't see Catholics going out trying to evangelize with the gospel of Jesus

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Christ and that's a spiritual discipline that Catholics do not look to instead

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they look to sacraments such as they have to go to a priest to confess their

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sins and you know that's going through another mediator and the priest is not qualified to be a mediator in fact Jesus

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Christ is the only one qualified to be a mediator between God and man that's because he's God's perfect man and man's

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perfect God and so we are called to go through Jesus as the only mediator that's what I would encourage

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Catholics to do and again I would encourage Catholics not to believe what

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I'm saying believe what the word of God is saying all I'm doing is pointing Catholics to the scripture and that is

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what's going to bring conviction of the Holy Spirit of judgment and sin and the

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coming righteousness the spirit of God has to illuminate the word of God because um the natural man cannot

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discern the things of God they're spiritually appraised and so as a Catholic opens the Bible I would

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encourage them to ask the spirit of God to illuminate the word of God to their hearts

27:24

amen amen perhaps we can also talk um since you you mentioned uh mediator perhaps we can talk a bit about Mary a

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little bit um I know that we're we're treading on uh on dangerous ground in many ways by bringing up the subject it

27:37

seems to be quite sensitive on on X these days but you perhaps you could talk about Mary as another mediator

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yeah the Catechism of the Catholic Church reads "Without a single sin to restrain her she became don't miss this

27:52

the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race." And that's

27:58

paragraph 494 so will listen to what the catechism teaches she became the cause

28:05

of salvation for herself right there the only people that need salvation are those who have sinned and so it's a

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contradiction paragraph 494 but without a single sin so Catholics teach that she

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was immaculately conceived without sin and then lived a sinless life and then

28:24

some Catholics that were aware of the Bible said "Well wait a minute if sin is

28:31

causes if sin is what causes death and Mary never sinned then Mary must still

28:38

be alive where is she?" And so in 1950 they had to pronounce an infallible

28:44

dogma that Mary's body was assumed into heaven

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as mediatrics paragraph 96 969

28:56

says she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession

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continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation well this robs the

29:10

Lord Jesus Christ of all the honor and glory that he deserves mary's not

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sinless she doesn't bring us the gifts of salvation she's not a mediator and so

29:24

Catholics look to her many Catholic women choose to go through Mary rather than Jesus she's said to be more

29:31

understanding and so the Roman Catholic Church lifts up Mary

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and we have to look at what this actually does it diverts the pure

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devotion away from Christ to someone else it's not only Mary the Catholics

29:48

elevate but they also have many saints that they look to and pray to for

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different petitions maybe we can also talk about the treasury of merit i think this is a this

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is a subject that I don't hear addressed too often but I don't I definitely don't see that reflected anywhere in scripture

30:06

well it's not but the Catholic Church has a invisible treasury of merit and

30:13

listen to this it's said to contain the inexhaustible merits of Jesus Christ

30:19

co-mingled with the merits of Mary and all those that died with more than

30:25

enough merit to get them to heaven and then the pope has the power to transfer

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these merits in the form of indulgences to those who are suffering in

30:37

purgatory to expedate the removal from the purging fires of

30:42

purgatory and so this whole treasury of merit as you said you don't find in

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scripture it's only the merits of Christ that anyone can cling to for their

30:54

salvation but it's really interesting this whole concept of

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indulgences came about because of the first doctrine of demons that the Catholic Church followed you go back to

31:07

the garden the serpent told Adam "You surely shall not die if you break God's

31:13

command." The Catholic Church perpetuates that lie

Critique of Catholic Doctrine

31:19

in its doctrine of venial sin daring to say that there are some sins that you

31:24

commit that do not cause death only temporal punishment so the Catholic

31:30

Church recognized well Catholics who die with venial sin we need to create a

31:36

place for them to go so they created purgatory and this is where Catholics go

31:42

when they die in venial sin well now that they're in purgatory having their sins purged

31:48

away now they need a way to get them out so they created another lie the lie of

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indulgences which by definition is the remission of temporal punishment for sin

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and so when a Roman Catholic dies the Catholic family members will go to the priest and they will purchase a mass

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card from the priest they'll put the name of their loved one on the mass card return it to the priest he lays it on

32:15

the altar and when the priest offers the propitiatory sacrifice it's said to

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remove Catholic loved ones from purgatory but no priest will tell you

32:26

how many masses must be said before the soul is released and so Roman Catholics

32:32

are held in bondage by the Roman Catholic priesthood not only in this life but also in the next life they're

32:40

still utterly dependent upon the priest to get them out of this fictitious place

32:45

called purgatory and I've heard that the views on purgatory have changed over time that

32:51

purgatory used to be there for years and and now some are saying you might just be there for moments

32:58

yeah but no priest or bishop or pope can tell you how long anyone needs to spend

33:04

or how many years they have to spend for each sin and so again it's a mystery

33:09

because it's not found in the Bible and so Catholics make it up as they go

33:16

can you you spoke earlier about um about you your relationship with Mary i think

33:21

you mentioned something about that when you when you were Catholic can you talk a little bit about that shift in yourself we talked about some of the

33:26

things that were difficult to let go of the sacraments particularly when as your view of Mary began to shift how did how

33:34

was that well I wasn't your typical Catholic i didn't really uh have anything to do with

33:40

Mary so I think and I don't know this overall but I think it's most

33:46

Catholic women that prefer to go through Mary i know the popes the last couple of

33:52

popes have been very devoted to Mary and you see pictures of them bowing down before statues of her and and even when

34:00

Pope John Paul II died he died with set of rosary beads in his hands and we

34:07

haven't talked about that but that's 53 repetitious prayers to Mary and I

34:13

challenge Catholics show me in the Bible anywhere in the Bible where a God-fearing man prays to anyone other

34:19

than God god's the only one that can hear prayers and only one that can answer prayers and it's another

34:27

deception that Roman Catholics are held in bondage to and you also mentioned um justification

34:34

and sanctification i really recommend this book Holiness by JC Riyle just finished reading this and this is an

34:40

entire book about the process of about the process sanctification but let's talk about justification real quick i

34:46

think the thing that stands out to me about the Catholic faith is you faith is that you can you lose your justification

34:52

uh and and what a terrifying what a terrifying thought

34:57

well will and nowhere in the Bible nowhere in the New Testament do you see anyone who was once justified becomes

35:05

dejustified and has to be rejustified again you never see that anywhere in the New Testament nor do you see anyone who

35:12

is born again of the spirit unto eternal life die again spiritually when you're

35:18

born again that is forever and so when you look at justification there's so

35:24

many differences the Bible says it's instantaneous it's a legal declaration

35:29

by a holy judge in heaven the gavl comes down and the condemned sinner because of

35:34

his faith in Christ is instantly justified declared righteous and the

35:41

righteousness of Christ according to the Bible is imputed or credited to the

35:46

sinner's account immediately but the Roman Catholic Church says no righteousness is infused over a

35:54

period of time the Catholic Church says justification changes the inner man they

36:00

deny that it's a judicial legal term and so they confuse

36:06

justification with sanctification roman Catholics um do do

36:12

not understand what justification is there's a great promise as you know will

36:18

in Romans 8:1 there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ

36:24

once a sinner has been justified by their faith in Christ they can never ever be condemned again and that's why

36:31

we have the promise of eternal life roman Catholics always fear dying in the

36:36

state of mortal sin but believers never fear that because all of our sins were

36:42

placed on Christ and his righteousness was credited to every believer's account

36:48

and there's no infallible list of mortal sins either which I find odd you'd think

36:54

like just don't do this set of things oh well can you say it's this and no you can't so the risk it seems quite great

37:01

well the Bible clearly says all sins are mortal romans 6:23 the wages of sin is death ezekiel

Sin and Salvation: A Biblical Perspective

37:09

18:4 the soul that sins will surely die and so Roman Catholics just can't understand

37:17

that when you are born again of the Holy Spirit you have a desire to live a life

37:22

pleasing to the Lord you're turning from sin daily and we know that when we do

37:28

sin that that sin was already paid for at Calvary's cross in Titus 2 we see

37:33

that the grace that brought us salvation teaches us to say no to ungodliness no

37:39

to worldly passions and to live a self-controlled upright life that's the life of every believer now let's face it

37:47

there are false converts in the Protestant churches they've never been born again and so they continue to live

37:55

like the devil because they've never experienced the born again experience so

38:02

Roman Catholics will often point to false converts in our Protestant churches that live like the devil

38:09

well point to a born again Christian there's where you see a life truly

38:15

transformed right and there are plenty of examples of not born again or or not redeemed

38:21

Catholics as well i mean think about Joe Biden you know he ident as a Catholic so

38:26

you know I think I think the the problem of hypocrisy is is a is a real one so maybe we can talk a bit about

38:32

sanctification then and that process of of growth and godliness over time because that is definitely something

38:38

that I don't hear spoken about perhaps as often it should be yeah it's God that's in in us he's doing

38:47

a work in us it's it's not a something we do on our own once we have the indwelling Holy Spirit we're constantly

38:55

day by day putting to death the evil deeds of the flesh and conforming our life to the life of Christ and we're

39:01

doing it through the power of the Holy Spirit and greater is he that lives in

39:06

us now than the devil that lives in the world and so through the process of

39:12

sanctification we're saying no to the flesh no to the devil and yes to the

39:18

spirit and yes we do stumble and fall occasionally into sin but the more we

39:26

are sanctified the more we look like Christ and the more we're victorious over sin it's the indwelling power of

39:33

the Holy Spirit that enables us to conform our life to the life of Christ

39:38

and there's another ingredient that goes into that and that's abiding in God's word because it's the word of God as we

39:45

read we we see the life of Christ and we see what he endured so that we could be

39:51

saved and we want to live a life pleasing to him and so that's through the process of sanctification at the end

39:58

of a believer's life instantaneously we're glorified and that is that we're

40:04

taken into the presence of Christ where sin no longer reigns and we're now um

40:10

either that or at the rapture of the church where we meet Christ in the air and we're instantaneously glorified we

40:18

leave our sinful flesh behind and we go into heaven where righteousness dwells

40:23

and that's the hope of every believer a hope based on the truth of God's word in fact Will that's the that's the

40:30

definition of faith it's the assurance of things hoped for catholics have no assurance of going to heaven so they

40:37

don't have saving faith hebrews 11:1 i just I just want to note how admirable

40:44

your mastery of scripture is just uh and also the c the Catholic catechism and the councils of Trent like just the

40:50

verses uh the verses just coming from memory are inspiring and very challenging sir so thank you for that

40:56

well it's just abiding in God's word and often pray that God would help me

41:01

memorize the scripture and he gets all the glory because it's his word and I just love sharing it with people I meet

41:08

throughout the day so can you talk about uh your your global ministry like this was a small thing you started a number

41:15

of years ago and then suddenly it's taken you around the world maybe talk about the growth of that ministry in

41:21

particular sure we primarily go into countries that are dominated by Roman

Ministry Resources for Catholics

41:27

Catholicism and I've done ministry in the Philippines and over in Italy and

41:33

Mexico all throughout Europe um Croatia you know it's dominated by

41:40

Roman Catholicism over the years I've developed a lot of resources including a

41:45

book entitled Preparing for Eternity and this is a book that not only equips

41:51

Christians to be more effective witnesses to Catholics but it's also a

41:56

great book to give to Catholics because in the book I

42:01

compare and contrast the supreme authority of scripture with the teachings of the catechism of the

42:08

Catholic Church and so as a Catholic reads this they have to make the same decision I made should I trust Christ in

42:16

his word or the teachings and traditions of my religion it's impossible to believe both and so this book Preparing

42:23

for Eternity is now in five different languages Spanish and Italian and it's

42:30

also in Czech and Polish and also down

42:35

in Brazil and Portuguese so we are excited to make this available to so

42:41

many Roman Catholics in different foreign languages we also have eight different gospel tracks well we really

42:48

believe that when we give the gospel verbally we should also leave it in written form and so we just celebrated 1

42:56

million gospel tracks in circulation of one particular track Roman Catholicism Scripture Versus

43:03

Tradition and this track is again an excellent track to give to Roman

43:09

Catholics because it shows the two paths to eternity the wide road that leads to

43:14

destruction and the narrow road that leads to life and when I show that to a Catholic they say "Yes that's the road

43:21

I'm on the wide road to destruction." They say "A picture is worth a thousand

43:26

words." Then you show them the narrow way that leads to eternal life it's not

43:31

based on water baptism but it's based on faith in Christ and we really haven't

Catholic Discussions and Gospel Resources

43:37

talked about water baptism but Catholics believe that that is the sacrament that

43:42

causes their regeneration it's also a sacrament that justifies them but the

43:49

ministry has gone throughout the world uh throughout America conferences churches seminaries and um our website

43:58

proclaiming the gospel.org a wealth of information not only videos of my

44:05

teachings on different subjects that address Roman Catholicism but also on discernment on

44:12

apologetics on evangelism how to be effective witnesses for Christ and we

44:18

also have a set of gospel cards the average Roman Catholic doesn't

44:24

understand the gospel so these gospel cards feature the 12 most important

44:29

words of the gospel and on the back of each card it defines and explains what each word means so I encourage Catholics

44:37

to visit our website look at the resources and ask God to reveal the

44:43

truth to them and he will do that jesus said "Anyone who comes to me I will

44:49

never forsake." So as you as you travel the world evangelizing what are some of the things

44:56

that you find today in particular that are most difficult for for Catholics to to grapple with oh I'm glad you asked

45:02

that question um I can speak from experience i was indoctrinated from the

45:07

time I could think that the Catholic Church was the one true church and that

45:13

as long as you're loyal to the religion that you will eventually get to heaven

45:18

and so that's a huge obstacle to overcome catholics believe they belong

45:24

to the one true church so when evangelicals approach Catholics they pretty much dismiss us because

45:32

you're the Johnny come lately they say "Your church only started 500 years ago." But that's not true well your

45:40

church and my church started 2,000 years ago and um it was the church that Jesus

45:46

Christ founded jesus said "The gates of hell shall never never prevail against his church." And so we can point back to

45:54

Matthew 16 and see that that's where our church was formed what the Catholic

46:00

Church doesn't understand is the term apostasy but they departed from the

46:06

faith of the apostles they started following pagan traditions in the 4th century and then

46:12

at the council of Trent they dogmatically departed from the faith by

46:17

condemning born again Christians with all these anathemas if you don't believe

46:23

the Roman Catholic Church and what it teaches and so that was the official departure from the church of the

46:30

apostles and how do I know that apostasy has existed for 2,000 years we go to

46:37

scripture in 1 John chapter 2 John writes "They went out from us because

46:42

they were never part of us had they been part of us they would have remained with us." So we see apostasy starting in the

46:50

first century church when you look at Constantine in the 4th century he was named Pontipus Maximus

46:58

which means the highest priest and so he started inviting all the pagans into his

47:04

church all they had to do is go through the baptismal font there was no call to

47:10

repentance or faith and so this is really the formation of the Catholic

47:15

religion and that's when so many pagan traditions came into the church many of

47:20

which are practiced today the very term transubstantiation is not found in the

47:27

Bible and that's where the Catholic priest is said to have the power to

47:32

change the inner substance of a wafer into the physical body and blood soul and divinity of Christ this was made an

47:41

infallible dogma in the 12th century but what happened for the first thousand years you won't find that in

47:48

scripture christ entered into heaven having obtained eternal redemption and

47:53

so as we go around the world we see this fierce opposition to the gospel because

47:59

of religious indoctrination and will you know from 2 Corinthians 4:4 the god of this world

48:07

Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel or the glory of Christ the

48:15

most powerful tool Satan uses is religious indoctrination

48:20

it blinds people from having any desire to look into God's word and to see the

48:26

truth and so that's why we have to pray pray for God to reveal the truth to

48:33

them you know Will there's two things necessary for physical birth you need the sperm and the egg

48:41

there's two things necessary for spiritual birth you need the word of God and the spirit of God the spirit of God

48:48

in John 16 convicts the world of sin righteousness and the coming judgment

48:54

but the spirit of God also illuminates the word of God to a sinner's heart so that they can understand the word of God

49:02

so we're called to deliver the imperishable seed of God's word to those

49:08

who are lost and then we pray the spirit of God will bring conviction and

49:13

illumination as we do that that's why it's so important as we witness to also

49:19

pray for those we're witnessing to so this is so I want to talk my way to a

49:26

question just so bear with me as I talk this through so um one of the comments that I got from someone messaged me

49:32

saying that um that in terms of if I wanted to evangelize to Catholics that

49:37

there might be someone who um what word did he use that might be more friendly to people who are sort of grappling with

49:44

these issues than uh than you are that was kind of what he what he was saying but I in this conversation and your

49:51

content I've experienced you as as uncompromising i think is probably is you know I don't experience you as being

49:57

unfriendly it seems to be uncompromising but we live in an age where there where there's a desire to soften everything

50:05

you know to make everything perhaps more nice or winsome in a negative way nice is probably a better word and and you

50:10

seem uh to have held by this unc uncompromising standard throughout your ministry from watching some of your

50:16

older videos etc do you find like how how was that how has that been this this

50:21

approach because it is very uh it is very direct and I I admire it a whole lot uh but I I imagine that it can't

50:28

have been easy yeah that's a good question and we really haven't talked about effective

50:35

ways to reach Catholics but the way I do it is by asking questions you know we look to the Lord

50:42

Jesus as the perfect evangelist and I don't know if you're aware how many questions he asked in his

50:49

three years of ministry on this earth but he asked over 300 questions and so

50:54

that should be our model as we evangelize and we've got some great questions to

51:00

ask Roman Catholics and you know a conversation should really be balanced we ask a question

51:07

wait for the response we offer a scripture see how they respond to it and

51:12

the worst thing we can do is back the theological dump truck on people and let them have it all in one fail swoop but

Assurance of Salvation Questions

51:19

it's a balanced conversation and I like to ask questions like "Do you know where

51:25

you're going to spend eternity?" We actually have a gospel track entitled that and are you based basing your

51:32

salvation on what you do or what Christ has done we have a gospel track the

51:38

Catholics can read on that too and so one of the great questions we can ask

51:44

Catholics is "Do you have the assurance of eternal life?" And they all say

51:49

no and then we'll ask why and it's because they don't know if

51:55

they've done enough and so the only way we can have assurance is to encourage

52:00

Catholics to repent of all they're doing and put all of their trust in what Christ has done because that's the only

52:08

way anyone can have assurance he canceled the eternal sin debt for believers and gave his righteousness

52:14

that gives every believer the assurance into heaven so by asking questions then

52:20

we can respond with the word of God when they return with questions of their own

52:27

so I would encourage uh any evangelical that's listening to go to our website i've actually done a message on

52:34

evangelizing Catholics biblically and from there they'll learn a lot of good

52:40

principles for being a good and effective witness for Christ

52:45

so maybe we can talk a bit about evangelicals then because I think uh I think some of the problems in in the

52:51

Protestant church today are a major hindrance uh for for many Catholics and many Protestants for that matter as well

52:58

you know seeing seeing the the decay of the Protestant church it doesn't it doesn't often speak well of of the faith

53:05

let's say well we do have to let Catholics know that this is not an issue of Protestant

53:12

versus Catholicism it's an issue of what does the word of God say there are a lot

53:19

of false converts not only in the Catholic church but also in Protestant churches and we see that in Matthew 7 he

53:26

said "Many will even call me Lord." And then they'll boast in all the things

53:32

that they're doing in his name and Jesus will say "Depart from me i never knew

53:37

you." So these are professing Christians that call Jesus Lord but they've never

53:42

been born again and so when you look at the Protestant church our churches are

53:48

filled with false converts why because they're not getting the pure and

53:53

exclusive gospel of Jesus Christ they don't know what the gospel is it's what

53:58

you call easy belieism and many Protestant pastors are saying "All you have to do is believe in

54:05

Jesus and you'll be saved." No we have to believe not only in the person of Jesus but also in the work that he

54:12

accomplished and not only do we need to believe but we need to repent the first

54:18

command of Jesus was repent and believe the gospel the word repent is a Greek

54:27

word metaninoia that means to change your mind for 35 years I believed a

54:32

false gospel in the Catholic Church in order to believe the true gospel I had to change my mind about the false gospel

54:41

and believe the true gospel so you see in that passage in Matthew 7 not only

54:47

did Jesus say "Depart from me." Because they were doing things to save themselves but he said they never

54:54

departed from iniquity there was no repentance and so unfortunately many

55:01

Protestant pastors are not preaching repentance and faith in Jesus

55:07

Christ one of the comments that I also get uh from Catholicism is is uh from Catholics is the the trap of falling

55:15

into private interpretation and maybe you can speak a little bit a little bit to that so that a believer doesn't end

55:20

up just kind of wandering into the wilderness on their own just me in my Bible and that's and that's all that I need i get that a lot actually there are

55:27

a lot of uh high-profile new converts to Christianity and I tend to ask them are they attending a church and then I'll

55:33

get a bunch of comments from other people saying they don't have to attend a church like I don't know about

55:39

that well it's a good question everyone is

55:45

going to be held responsible for how they interpreted the word of God and

55:50

there's a study of hermeneutics where you learn the skills of interpretation

55:56

and of course the best method is a literal historical grammatical method of interpretation but we also have to let

56:02

scripture interpret scripture when you look at the epistles you see that they

56:07

were written to the saints at each church not to any bishop to interpret the scriptures for them each

56:17

church was sent the scriptures so that each individual could read them study

56:22

them and believe them and so we have to be good interpreters of God's word and

56:29

often times I think the more you read the more you can see how it's a tapestry

56:36

how you're reading one area here and it it pulls a string in another area over here that you've been reading but when

56:42

you come to a difficult passage there's different tools that you can use to

56:47

enable scripture to interpret scripture so that you get a true meaning of what God is revealing to us how can someone

56:56

do that without attending Dallas Theological Seminary well there's a lot of tools today there's um boy you can

57:03

get different Bibles online you can get Logos software there's so many different ways to study the best way to interpret

57:11

scripture and we know that God never contradicts himself so if you see an apparent contradiction you have to keep

57:18

digging until you can reconcile what two passages mean

57:24

so someone just says "Just want to say as a former Catholic that Gendron has no idea what he's talking about and no one

57:30

should listen to him about Catholicism." I hear that all the time will I only

57:36

lived it for 35 years and now I've been studying it for another 35 and I think I

57:42

know it pretty well what what's what are some of the chief objections you run into when people say ah you have no idea

57:47

i don't I I I mean I've done a lot of reading and and study on the topic and it doesn't seem to me that you don't know what you're talking about but what

57:53

are some of the chief things that people think that you don't understand this i mean all this seems quite consistent yeah and I get emails like that all the

Scripture vs. Catechism Belief Debate

58:00

time and I simply say "If you will show me one place where I was wrong about

58:06

Catholic teaching I'll repent and apologize." But then they just say "Oh you're totally wrong everywhere." They

58:12

never come up with any specific place or I was wrong or I was misleading a

58:18

Catholic all I do is quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church verbatim and I quote the word of God and so I leave it

58:26

up to a Catholic to choose should I trust my catechism the uninspired words of men or should I trust the Bible the

58:33

inspired word of God i don't want them to believe me i want them to believe the

58:38

scriptures and that's great because it brings up another set of questions around solos scriptura which I find is

58:44

is either not well uh articulated by people who are opposed to protestantism

58:50

or not well or not well understood at all and so maybe we can spend some time digging into that because during my

58:55

scripture reading I see solos scripture reflected all throughout the Bible no one ever comes out and explicitly says

59:00

it but there's a lot that we know about you know the teachings of of the Old and New Testament that aren't ever

59:06

explicitly stated so maybe we can start unpacking that because that seems to be the crux of the whole thing

59:11

well Catholics will often say that soloscriptor is a Protestant

Debate on Sola Scriptura Authority

59:17

tradition and they may be right because up until the 16th century the Catholic

59:22

Church submitted to the authority of scripture it was at the Council of Trent that they elevated tradition to be equal

59:29

in authority to God's word so that's why the reformers cried solos scriptorra that

59:36

were saved by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone according to scripture alone all for the glory of God

59:43

alone and they were right uh Catholics misunderstand what we mean by solos

59:49

scriptorra in 1 Corinthians 15:es 1:4 Paul defines the gospel and he defines

59:55

it according to scripture alone it is the death burial and resurrection of

1:00:01

Jesus Christ according to scripture it doesn't point us to any other book to

1:00:06

any other authority if you want to know how to be saved it's fully contained in scripture and then you look at 2 Timothy

1:00:13

3:16 all scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching for

1:00:22

reproof many Catholics don't know what the word reproof means it means to correct i'm sorry it means to expose

1:00:29

expose error so once an error has been reproved and exposed then scripture is

1:00:36

useful for correcting that error and for training in righteousness 2 Timothy 3:16

1:00:43

all scripture that's all we need to be complete in Christ and

1:00:48

so is uh all truth contained in scripture all the truth we need in order to be

1:00:55

saved is so I think we need to redefine for Catholics what we mean by scripture

1:01:02

alone that's all we need in order to know how to be saved in the very next uh

1:01:08

chapter of uh 2 Timothy it says "Preach the word." Second Timothy what 1-4 and I

1:01:14

actually pulled up um I actually pulled up some some sections that I I always go

1:01:19

back to that's reminding me about uh soul scripture so you know Jesus's temptation in the wilderness he replies

1:01:26

to Satan himself it is written it is written it is written he doesn't say because I say so he doesn't say because

1:01:32

it is the tradition he says it is he appeals to the scripture against Satan himself and that's actually what the Westminster uh confession of faith

1:01:39

appeals to for for the defense of soul scripture one of the in one of the first pages if not the first page that this is

1:01:46

this is all you need right there you appeal to scripture as the highest and the sole infallible authority and because Jesus himself does it yeah

1:01:55

there's no higher authority than that right he could have said "I am the God

1:02:00

man i am Jesus Christ believe me." But no he said quoted scripture yeah explicitly

1:02:08

saying "It is written it is written it is written it is written." Not it is not the tradition is or or you know as we

1:02:14

say or you know this collection of of priests or whatever said this it is written is fixed in in in print and in

1:02:21

paper and writing you know this is this is the standard to which you know I appeal this is the word of God god

1:02:27

breathe authority directly to Satan's face and we're all to be good Bereans i

1:02:33

I love sharing Acts 17:11 with Catholics because there you

1:02:39

have the Apostle Paul who wrote over half the New Testament he's preaching in

1:02:45

the synagogues of Berea and as he's teaching he notices that his

1:02:51

listeners are searching the scriptures daily to test the veracity of an apostle

1:02:57

so clearly it shows that scripture has the authority even over an apostle and

1:03:03

Paul didn't get offended he didn't say "Don't you know who I am don't you know I'm an apostle the author of scripture?"

1:03:09

He said "No this is good test every man's teaching with the word of God prove whether or not it's true." looking

1:03:17

to scriptures and then in the in Acts 18 Apollos is

1:03:22

described as being mighty in the scriptures as a as a as a signature characteristic of him right again it

1:03:29

shows up again and then I think about um Stephen Steven's defense is one long

1:03:34

scripture one long scripture quotation the entire thing that's all that he appeals to

1:03:40

we should not live on bread but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God

1:03:47

amen and then also James's judgment a Jerusalem council resolves everything by scripture so this is when they talk

1:03:54

about the church fathers the early church fathers the earliest the the actual church fathers in Acts are always

1:04:00

appealing to scripture the entire way through that's right it's a principle every Roman

1:04:05

Catholic should follow but unfortunately they've been told there's three authorities there's scripture plus

1:04:13

sacred tradition and then the magisterium of the church which is made up of all the bishops even though they

1:04:20

say they're equal it's actually the bishops that sit above scripture and

1:04:25

tradition and they twist and distort scripture so that it conforms to their

1:04:31

tradition mhm so for so for um for some of the Catholics listening who are

1:04:36

convicted by some of the things that you're saying what advice what advice would you give them

1:04:42

i would say follow the words of Christ in John chapter 8 when he was dealing

1:04:48

with the apostate Jews he said "A true disciple of mine is one who abides in my

1:04:53

word then they will know the truth and the truth will set them free." Free from

1:05:00

what free from the bondage of sin free from the bondage of religious deception

1:05:06

free from the bondage of Satan study the word of God abide in it then you will know the truth and you'll be set free

1:05:13

that's the best advice I could give to a Catholic to someone who might hear that and say "But I I can't bring myself to

1:05:20

believe that this is that that Satan has anything to do with this." They might they might find that particular idea

1:05:26

challenging this is mother church this is maybe what they were raised in how would you respond to that

1:05:34

satan is the master deceiver he's the master counterfeitterter he has produced a

1:05:39

counterfeit Christ in the Catholic Church called the Eucharist by the authority of scripture we know that that

1:05:46

is not Jesus physically present in the Eucharist he will return a second time

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not to deal with sin hebrews 9:28 that one verse destroys the Roman Catholic

1:05:56

mass and the Roman Catholic Eucharist so Satan is the master deceiver he's the

1:06:02

master counterfeitter and he is the god of this world he's

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blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel or the glory of Christ catholics don't even

1:06:15

know what the gospel is they think it's Matthew Mark Luke and John often times

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we have to show them 1 Corinthians 15:es 1:4 it is the death burial and

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resurrection of Jesus Christ according to scripture for the salvation of all those who believe it paul said if you

1:06:34

believe any other gospel you believed in vain 1 Corinthians 15:2 and then in

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Romans 1:16 he says "The gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all

1:06:45

who believe it." My dear Roman Catholics please read and study the gospel of

1:06:51

Jesus Christ it's all about him and nothing to do with you the only thing we

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contribute to our salvation is our sin christ did everything necessary to save

1:07:02

us completely and forever trust in him alone can you maybe relate a story of a of a

1:07:10

Roman Catholic you met and maybe you got into I'm I'm almost certain this has happened where you got into real serious

1:07:16

heated conflict with them and you thought for sure this person would never come around and then perhaps days weeks

1:07:21

months or even years later they called you and said you you planted a seed can you do you have stories like that i'm

1:07:27

sure you must have many we have um oh so many stories over 35

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years but I think one in particular would be

1:07:39

um there was a a Roman Catholic that had her two children in a Christian school

1:07:45

in the Dallas Fort Worth area and one day they I think they were 11 and 13

1:07:50

years old they came home telling their Catholic mom that the kids at school

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were saying they're they have no hope of going to heaven since they were Catholic

1:08:01

and so the mother got very upset at these Christians that they would say

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such a thing so she asked if she could meet with us for three hours we

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explained why the Christians at this Christian school would say that and we

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explained what the gospel is and what she was trusting in in the Catholic Church was not the gospel it was a works

1:08:24

righteousness salvation and at the end of our three hours she said "How can I have the same

Path to Peace and Joy

1:08:32

joy and the same peace that you and your wife have?" I said the only way we have this joy and

1:08:38

peace is we know that the moment we die we're going to be in the presence of our savior because we have the assurance of

1:08:44

eternal life and it's based on believing what we have shared with you over the last three year three three hours and

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she said well what do I need to do I said look at Romans 10 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and

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believe in your heart God raised him from the dead you will be saved I said

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look at verse 13 Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved she cried

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out to the Lord to save her and then she said "What am I going to do i've just been named fundraiser at All Saints

1:09:16

Catholic Church i have to go tell the priest that I can no longer go there and

1:09:21

my son is an alter boy i'll have to take him out." And so she said "Will you come

1:09:27

with me when I meet with the priest?" I said "Absolutely." And so we met with the priest and I

1:09:34

introduced myself i said "Could you explain to Rose how she has any hope of going to heaven?" And he started listing

1:09:41

all the things she has to do be baptized receive the sacraments attend the

1:09:47

sacrifice of the mass do good works obey the law and I saw a Bible on his desk i

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said "Could you open to the book of Romans i'd like you to read a couple of verses."

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And when he read the verses I said "How are you going to reconcile what God just said with what you told Rose?" Well now

1:10:07

he knew why I was there he said "This meeting is over." I said "No there's nothing more important than settling

1:10:13

this woman's eternal destiny." So for the next 15 minutes he tried to

1:10:19

reconcile what God said with what he said and each time he did I offered

1:10:24

another scripture that refuted what he just said and he was getting so frustrated and finally he threw up his

1:10:31

hands and said,"Look I don't have the authority to interpret the word of God on my own we rely on the bishops of the

1:10:38

church and they're the only authentic interpreters." And then he dismissed us

1:10:44

so we walked out of his office i opened my Bible to 2 Corinthians 4:2 and I said "Rose look at

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this verse god presents the truth plainly to every man's conscience in the

1:10:57

sight of God we don't need bishops to interpret the word of God for us the

1:11:04

scriptures are written to every individual believer and every individual

1:11:10

we're all going to be held responsible for what the word of God says she said "Oh Mike I know I could never go back

1:11:17

here there was a priest who didn't even understand how to get to heaven mhm mhm

1:11:24

i I imagine that uh it might be difficult for some who are raised or

1:11:31

catechized in in the in that system to believe that it can be that easy and and

1:11:37

they don't want to they they can't trust it like do you run into that like it can't it can't be that easy i have to do

1:11:42

all these things like no it actually it actually can be that easy and that is the gospel it

1:11:48

is yeah our response to the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ is to repent

Repentance and Spiritual Transformation

1:11:55

change our mind and believe the true gospel and once we do then we are new

1:12:02

creatures in Christ and then we do the works that God has prepared for us to walk in it's a lot easier to be an

1:12:10

unbeliever because you only have one nature the sin nature but once you become a believer you now have the

1:12:16

indwelling Holy Spirit and there's a constant war going on between the flesh

1:12:21

and the spirit we are tempted as believers in Christ to commit sins but

1:12:27

it's a momentby-moment decision to say no to the flesh and yes to the spirit

1:12:33

and that's what the life of the Christian is it's not an easy life

1:12:40

and you discovered that did you discover that as you walk through that process it's like this is something that

1:12:45

certainly I I've learned over the process of my own sanctification learning learning to walk in many ways

1:12:50

for the first time i I I don't know if I would describe it as on my own because it's not on my own per se but it's it's

1:12:57

learning to walk in this in this righteousness and being delivered from my sin nature i mean these are things that are universal to all Christians

1:13:04

having to learn how to do who who become born again it's a constant battle between the flesh

1:13:10

and the spirit and that's what sanctification is is it saying yes to the spirit and no to the flesh day by

1:13:17

day moment by moment and just uh you've been very generous with your time today sir thank you very

1:13:23

much do do you have future plans for the ministry is proclaiming the gospel is it uh is it have some things coming up that

1:13:30

people should know about sure we're always uh going on the road and going into the air into different churches

1:13:36

we've got some opportunities in the Witchah Kansas area in April we'll al

1:13:42

we'll also go to Phoenix Arizona that's right doing a two-day conference there

1:13:48

and then we'll be out in Albuquerque later on we'll go back to Southern California so if there's any

1:13:56

pastors or anybody in evangelical churches that would like me to come in

1:14:01

just uh email us or call us i'll give out our phone number

1:14:09

817379-53000 and we'd be glad to go out and equip the body of Christ anywhere and that's what the Lord has

1:14:16

called us to do so we love Roman Catholics we want to see them get off the broad road to destruction and get on

1:14:23

the narrow road that leads to life and that's our heartbeat that's what we live for day in and day out to glorify our

1:14:31

Lord Jesus Christ and demonstrate our love by being faithful to the great commission amen thank you for your many

1:14:38

years of faithful work that have that has impacted my life and and my faith and I pray this conversation impacts

1:14:44

more people as well well thank you Will it's been a great privilege to be on your show thank you Mike