Bible Backgrounds/Church History 2012
Vern Peterman · Dec 16, 2012
Bible Bkgds/Church History, No. 49
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926337481054

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Today is Roman Catholic Catechism. And you have in your handout, there's a four-page part and then a couple of supplements. Because of the kind of irregular proceedings this morning, you've got a black and white copy, which is not terribly useful, of this last page. But then the color copy is intended to be a little more useful. Anyway, we will proceed through this.

One of the things we brought up, and this is from an earlier slide, was new groups, movements, and organizations start because of politics, geography, personalities, social differences, different bases of authority, different methods of interpretation, and failed attempts at reform of organizations. And all of those things have had some kind of an impact on the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church is an evolving, I say, not just was, is an evolving organization, continuously changing. And think about, why would the Roman Catholic Church evolve over time? Why would it change over time? Keep people coming. Pardon? Keep people coming. Yeah, that would be one. Adapt to different things, yes.

It's not based on doctrine or scripture. In other words, if you think about it, what have you got? You've got different bases of authority within the church, including developing traditions, and so you can add things to it and change it and move it around. While certainly not everything has changed, a lot of things have the capacity to change once you say, well, we're going to have scripture and then tradition and some subsequent person can make some announcement that's different from what was before. So you get a continual evolution of the organization.

One of the things that happened, of course you have, and this is from a previous lesson in this slide here, Constantine was the one who, after ten waves of Roman Empire persecution, declared Christianity at first legal, and then the only, the official religion, and then the only religion allowed in the western part of the Roman Empire. Would that be Catholicism when they say Christianity? Well, what it was, was what would eventually develop into what we see now as Catholicism.

By 170 A.D., the church began calling pastors priests, and that's not based on the Bible, but that's, you know, by 220 A.D., both the Lord's Table and baptism were seen as being spiritually effective. In other words, they actually did something, not just were symbolic. So you had those developments even before Constantine declared Christianity. So, when he declared Christianity legal, he declared the Christianity that had already begun to call pastors, priests, and had already been looking at the Lord's Table and baptism as effective. Were they, baptism and the Lord's Table, were they called sacraments at that time?

Yes. Or did that come later? Yes, however, a lot of times what would happen is practices would change and then they would make it official. You see the difference there? In other words, they'd already have something that had begun and then they'd make an official pronouncement adopting it. So by the time a lot of things were adopted, many things had already begun in some other form. the one who's supposed to put the final stamp of authority on it?

That's the ultimate thing, but it isn't simply the Pope. You've also got their College of Cardinals, you know, the Magisterium. But he's got to prove it all, right? Yes. And then you had Rome the Empire replaced by Rome the Church. The empire was falling apart. And then the church stepped in with a similar organization. You have a vicar and a diocese. The title of the Roman emperor was the Pontifex Maximus. So what do you call the pope? He's the pontiff. So a lot of the decaying Roman Empire was then adopted as the title, structure, even the names of various districts that was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church as their term.

When I was in high school we used to play against Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa and here what you see is Cardinal Newman wrote books about the history of the Roman Catholic Church and this is a quote from one of his books temples, incense, oil lamps, votive offerings, holy water, holidays and seasons of devotion, processions, blessings or fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsures of priests and monks and nuns, images are all of pagan origin. So what would happen, these are all of pagan origin and would be adopted into the Roman Catholic Church and then made official. So by the time you have the official pronouncement That's just putting official pronouncement on something that's already been done frequently started out in paganism. By the time the Reformation came along, there were some things that were new, but also whatever they didn't disagree with, they basically continued in a lot of the Reformation-era churches.

So, for example, infant baptism, which had been enforced by the late Roman Empire. The late Roman Empire said, you know, you parents, you're going to get your kids baptized. And if you don't, we're going to kill you and then baptize them anyway. So they're going to be baptized or baptized. You choose. Right? So then what happened is the Lutheran Church and the Calvinistic churches, did they reject infant baptism? No, they did not. And so they continued it and continue it today. Continue it not because it's in scripture, but because they didn't reject it. It wasn't a part of what they rejected and so they continued to embrace it.

Vern, can you tell me the difference between Calvinism and Arminianism? We were talking about that the other day. Essentially, and I'll be brief because we've got a lot to cover, but sure, you have Calvinism and Arminianism, both of which actually developed after Calvin and Jacobus Arminius were dead. Essentially, their positions were kind of further developed And so you have John Calvin who basically centers everything on a system in which God is sovereign in his choices.

God chooses and elects, you know, who will be saved and those people that he chooses and elects to be saved are made alive and then given the gift of faith and then they believe and then they're saved. So that's the Calvinist system, and it pivots around the idea that God's sovereign election is the basis for salvation, and then everything that God does sovereignly after that is the basis of salvation.

Christ died in that system only for those he elected. Christ did not die for the sins of the whole world, but only for those he elected. And only those who are elected will actually believe because they've been made alive, given the gift of faith, and able to believe. So that's Calvinism. Arminianism, on the other hand, says that God has made it such that man chooses, and it's man's choosing that then makes him elect. God elects those that he chooses.

And that's not quite right either. The other part of Arminianism is that you can lose your salvation. However, the Calvinists actually had backdoor loss of salvation. That is, if you fall into some lengthy lapse of sinning, that you never were saved. So even though you thought you were saved, you weren't really saved if you fall into some serious and enduring sin.

So, anyway, interestingly enough, they end up saying somewhat the same thing. Yeah, Tom? That's the quick story. Both of those positions have been around for about four centuries, although there are precursors of those earlier. By the way, during the New Testament times, have you ever heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls? That group, the Essenes, were the Jewish Calvinists. They believed in double election. God chooses these to be saved and those not to be.

So now, the Roman Catholic Church developed this doctrine over a period of centuries and is still under development into our own era. There is always the potential for development of new doctrines. These and other doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church are not found in Scripture. They were developed over a period of centuries. These doctrines and practices may be further supplemented in the times to come from sources outside of Scripture.

You have a supplement that looks like this, the emergent emergence of the Roman Catholic Church that gives some of those official adoptions from the year 600, and there were some from before, and up to 1546, which is the time of the Council of Trent. There were some previous to that, and there have been some since that, but nonetheless gives you an idea of what some of the different things are. Attendance at Mass wasn't mandatory until the year 1000. That was their Y1K craziness, right? Then, the Roman Catholic Church has this thing called the Catechism. It's the official statement of the Roman Catholic Church that also evolves over time. The edition referenced herein is dated September 8, 1997 and signed by the present Pope.

Now, the key contents, we have kind of a rough table of contents. The actual table of contents runs for about ten pages, so you've got the quick outline there, parts one through five. All right, the second page here. And here's what we're going to do.

We're going to have a recent edition here, where we're going to get our quotes. Obviously, they're free to change the Roman Catholic Catechism, so it could change even from the time we copy this. Also, it's available these days online, which is a feature that makes it easy to look things up, and so you can get the latest edition online. So the sources there, this catechism, its principal sources are the sacred scriptures, the fathers of the church, the liturgy, and the church's magisterium. Those are the main sources. We compare that to Jude 3.

I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith, and that's a term that starts in Acts chapter 6 and continues into the book of Revelation, the faith. which was once for all handed down to the saints. Once done, perpetually valid. So we have a basic question here.

Is there any basis of revelation and authority outside of scripture in experiences, whether subjective or objective? Existentialists and charismatics Both of those groups will look to experiences of some kind to define belief and practice. In personal revelations, that's where charismatics, a singular person, or a group of leaders in many of the cults. We have a special revelation. The Mormon Church has several different groups. They've got a group of apostles and they've got a president.

I don't know where they get that name, but anyway. They've got various people and they can get subsequent revelations, which is how they decided that it was okay to no longer have polygamy, polygyny is actually the proper term, and why they decided in 1978 that they could change the Book of Mormon and allow blacks into the priesthood. And the college to play football. So they can have various revelations over time and change things, even change the Book of Mormon, which has almost 4,000 changes. Then you get revelations through some earthly organization, or supposedly endorsed by God. So the Roman Catholic Church, early on, here was the Bishop of Rome, which they claimed for Peter, and that's not historically correct, but the Bishop of Rome, and then he eventually got called this Pope, you know, the Pontiff, But the Jehovah's Witnesses have a similar group. They've got a kind of a council that decides things. The Mormons have several different councils that direct different things. Numerous cults operate that way. They'll have a special group.

This group is designated and some head of the group Compare that to Acts, and this is the fourth slide on the second page, Acts 20.32. And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. This is Paul speaking to the elders from Ephesus as he meets with them in Miletus.

Second, Timothy 2.2. The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

What the Bible teaches is not apostolic succession, which is what you see in the Roman Catholic Church, that's what you see in the Orthodox churches, by that I mean Russian, Eastern, Serbian, Antiochian, etc. Not apostolic succession, where I appoint this guy and then he's the next one in authority, but doctrinal succession. That's what 2 Timothy 2 teaches, doctrinal succession. The things that you heard from me, Timothy, you pass it on to these other people who will in turn teach others also. Doctrinal succession, not apostolic succession. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. All scriptures inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Now, here's another one. Successor of Peter, Bishop of Rome. And, of course, actually from the very introduction written in my copy, written by the Current Pope, they talk about being the successor of Peter. Well, what you have in the last page is this color printout, and we won't go into the detail, but it shows Peter again and again and again somewhere way far away from Rome.

And I've updated this. You had a copy of this in a previous handout. I've updated it to hopefully make it a little more clear and detailed. But the point is, by the time you look at each of these items, some of them are in scripture, some of them are other traditions.

Some of them are a matter of, OK, here's Paul. He writes to the church at Rome. The last chapter is, you know, greet this one and greet this one and say hi to this guy and those kinds of things, right? How many times do you have any mention in there of say hi to Peter? It's not there, right? End of the book of Acts.

Paul gets to Rome, right? And of course, he meets up with Peter there in Rome, right? No. He's not there. The bottom line is, You don't find any evidence that Peter was in Rome until the very end of Peter's life, and that's contested. No solid evidence that Peter was in Rome.

Then the next slide over. The biblical pattern is elders over local churches. That's what was left among the churches. Elders and local churches and deacons. in the appointment of deacons in Acts chapter six, one through six, these seven men were deacons there in the church at Jerusalem. Paul writes to the church at Philippi and he says overseers, and by the way that word overseers is the one translated bishop in some texts. So you have multiple bishops in one church, the church at Philippi. not a bishop over a bunch of churches.

So, that's very clear. Ephesus, deacons, they're actually, every time you look for elders, and you'll see this in the next slide, elders are overseers or shepherds, or we use the word pastors. Actually, the word pastor is used of an elder only once, Ephesians 4.11, and never as a title. The only time that pastor, shepherd, is used as a title is of Christ.

But again, the Church has tended to develop traditions over time. So what you see there is the pattern of Elder, Presbyteros, where we get the source for our term Presbyterian. Hold on a second here. And then Overseer, which is also translated Bishop from Episkopos, and the only time Peter uses it is not for the word Bishop, but overseeing as a verb. And then there is Shepherd, which is only a noun applied to pastors.

In Ephesians 4.11, when Paul speaks to the elders at Ephesus, Acts chapter 20, and when Peter writes to the elders, verse Peter 5.2, each time he does not refer to them with a title, Pastor, he speaks to them using the word as a verb. Get shepherding. Be shepherding.

That's what the emphasis is. What that tells us is that God is a whole lot more interested in action than titles. But what has happened is the church, and not just the Catholic church, but non-Catholic churches, have taken up this title thing. And boy, as a matter of fact, if you have one of these New Testament interlinear Greeks, some of the guys have incredible titles up front there. Right Reverend, Prebendary, I have no idea what that means. And by the way, even Reverend. The Old Testament says of God, holy and reverend is his name.

So should I use that as a title? The next one there, the last slide on page two, the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the bishop of Rome. Now these Berean Jews were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things that Paul said were so.

Acts 17.11. So the bottom line is, whose job is it to interpret? That's right, every individual believer has a place to interpret. Whereas the Roman Catholic Church says, no, sorry, it's reserved for the church leadership to interpret scripture, to tell you what it means. And you're going to see some amazing interpretations very shortly here. Okay, top of page three.

One of the things that the Roman Catholic Catechism proclaims, and the church continues to work in this way, is to see, rather than Christ as the Savior, is to see the church as a saving church. The church does the saving. So, salvation comes from God alone, but because we receive the life of faith through the church, she is our mother. We believe the church as the mother of our new birth. Here is John 10, 27 and 28. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give eternal life to them.

Here is Colossians 3.3. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Scripture puts the emphasis on it's Christ who is our life. Christ is the one who saves us. Here's a Philippian jailer who lays it right before Paul. What must I do to be saved? Oh, well, that, you've got to get baptized and then you've got to go and do this stuff and accumulate merit and on and on, right? No. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved.

And then the Holy Spirit 1 Corinthians 12.13 will put you into the church, put you into the body of Christ. Next slide over. Do men become God? For the Son of Man became man so that we might become God. The only begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in His divinity, assumed our nature so that He made man might make men gods.

Paragraph 460. Yes. Do you happen to know off the top of your head which psalm discusses that, about becoming gods? Not offhand, although I know the one you're referring to. And that one, we won't get into it, but essentially it's taking a position of authority over others, is what the passage is talking about. Now, here's the interesting thing. What is stated in the Catechism is the reverse of what is true. If you have been identified with Christ, you now share his history, and you are being conformed and transformed, two processes going on now, into the image of Christ. You have been predestined as a believer to be conformed to his image.

And 1 John says, when we see him, we shall be like him. for we'll see him as he is. We will be like him in body. We'll have a body like his. We'll be like him spiritually, having been completely conformed. The one aspect that we will not have is his deity. We will be like him in moral and spiritual character and his body.

We will not have his deity. So the catechism has it upside down from what will actually be the situation. We're not being made like God, in the sense of being made into gods. That's actually almost a Mormon kind of teaching. But rather, we're being made like in spiritual and moral character, like Him. Yes. So does that mean that we resume the original position that we were intended for in Genesis, when Adam fell, so we're back? No, it's not. It's not. And here's why. We're not being made Adam again.

Because what was Adam? Adam was made in the image of God, and then Adam had a son in his own image. So we all initially descended from Adam, but what happens when we are saved, we are made into Christ's image. Christ's image, and specifically Him. And so it's not a matter of going back to the garden or becoming Adam again, in the sense of the first Adam. We are being made into Christ's image, conformed and transformed into Christ's image, and so that's what's taking place rather than just reverting back to Adam.

Was Mary more blessed than other saints? The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person, quote, in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, and chose her, quote, in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. Where are those quotes coming from? Ephesians 1, 3 and 4, right?

So what they've done is because they have the sole ability to interpret scripture, what they've done is to interpret it such that it applies not to the saints in general, because saints is something else, right? Not to the saints in general, the body of those who are saved, but to Mary specifically. Yes? Yeah, taking it out of the particular context and interpreting it accordingly. So, Mary is never said in Scripture to have any special spiritual position.

She is last mentioned in Acts 1.14 by name. She and her sons. So, then the next slide over, slide number four on page three. How many of these are there?

Therefore, the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix. So, but now we see our Advocate is who in 1 John 2, 1? Jesus is our Advocate. The Helper is the Holy Spirit. That's from John 14, 6 and 26, 15, 26 and 16, 7. Our mediator is Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 2.5 says there is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. So this is really interesting to see that.

Now, the next one, of course we've talked about a saving church. All salvation comes from Christ the head through the church, which is His body. So does salvation come through the church? No, but that's the teaching. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Next is salvation by our works. All men may attain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observance of the commandments.

What we've been seeing in our main service over the last two years here is the law was not given to determine who would be saved. The law was given to determine whether you're blessed or cursed if you're an Israelite in the land. It was not given to be saved. There is no salvation in the law. And if you try to live by just one law, Paul wrote in Galatians, just one, you've fallen from grace.

So then we see here, I'm going to look here at Titus He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy. Are we saved by deeds? No. For by grace have you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. That is, salvation is the gift. That's what the grammar there says. Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Works will never get you there. Not going to happen. Alright, Jesus' sacrifice ongoing or finished? The Eucharist, every time this mystery is celebrated, the work of our redemption is carried on. Jesus is re-sacrificed.

However, if we look at scripture, here is Hebrews 7.27, Christ who does not need daily like those high priests to offer up sacrifices, because this he did once for all when he offered up himself.

Hebrews 7.27. That word that's given, hapax, in the Greek means once given or once done, perpetually valid. And it shows up several times here in Hebrews. I just quoted one of them. That's also the same word that Jude 3 has. I urge that you contend for the faith that was once for all given to the saints. That's that same word, hapax.

Jesus in John 19.30 said, it is finished, in the perfect tense, completed past action, ongoing results into the future.

Hebrews 10.10, by this will we have been sanctified, that's in the perfect tense, through the offering of the body of Christ once for all. The sanctification positionally is complete and he died once for all. Not again and again.

1 Peter 3.18, For Christ died also for sins once for all. That's that same word, hapax, there. The just for the unjust so that he might bring us to God. He did it once. Jesus said it's finished. And what's translated, it is finished, is a Greek word, one word, katelostai, means it's all paid. And it's completely done. No more need. It's all done. Okay, page 3, the slide there.

Can money buy salvation? The faithful departed, one way we can help them is to obtain, that is buy, indulgences for them so that the temporal punishments due for their sins may be remitted. Pardon? Oh yeah, yeah, quite a deal. Well, it's a good way to raise money if you need it, right? And of course, then they made special proclamations, you know, if you will do this and do that, you know, and pay such and such amount of money, I mean, you'll have all sins covered, you know, for the rest of your life. So then you go out and do whatever you want, right? As long as you give enough money. The Crusades were fought because the soldiers were told that going down to Jerusalem and killing people will, you know, help pay for your sins. But first Peter, and here's Peter, the supposed first Bishop of Rome, knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold, but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

We can quote Psalm 49, 7, and 8. No man can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of his soul is costly and he should cease trying forever. Can we merit God's grace? Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life. That wipes out the definition of grace. Grace is something that you can't possibly earn or pay for. It's completely given freely by God. Beloved, let us love one another. Love is of God. God is the one who shows love and grace. So is salvation free or not? We really come to that question. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 5.17, for if by the transgression of the one death reigned through the one, much more of those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. I want to make one clarification. Stan, you had asked about are we back to being Adam again? Here is a key distinction.

Was Adam righteous? Adam was innocent until he sinned. But Christ is righteous, so as we are being made into Christ's image, He is our righteousness. Whereas Adam didn't have that in the garden. A key distinction. Are believers perfected or not? For all who die in God's grace and friendship but are still imperfectly purified. Here's the provision, this is paragraph 1030.

But here in Hebrews 10.14, for by one offering he perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And that for all time there is in the perfect tense, completed past action, ongoing results in the future. And by the way, unless the context says otherwise, it implies permanence.

Are believers forgiven or not? There is no offense, however serious, that the church cannot forgive. I'm writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven. Forgiven you for His namesake. And by the way, that forgiven is in the perfect tense. Yes, Dan? Okay, so the previous slide, you're saying that the perfect tense, I presume, has to do with perfected, not sanctified. No, it is perfected. That's the perfect tense, right? Right. Perfected is in the perfect tense, yes. Double perfect.

And now here's another one that's perhaps a surprise to you. Do Muslims have a part in the plan of salvation? Now here's paragraph 841, which stunned me when I read it. The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator in the first place, among whom are the Muslims. These profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us, they adore the one merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day.

What they're saying there is that the God of the Muslims and the God of Roman Catholicism is the same one. Wow. And now, problem with that, Islam denies that Christ was crucified but instead claims it was another man. Christ himself was actually not crucified. There's a little trick that was played. That was part one. The next thing, Islam teaches that God is unknowable. Whereas the Bible teaches that if you do not know God, you're not going to be in heaven. Right? Yes. So open the door to one world religion. Yes, exactly. Open the door to one world religion.

They hold the faith of Abraham. Of course, they have a whole different tradition about Abraham. But nonetheless, according to Islam, who was offered up on the mountain? by Abraham. It was Ishmael, right? Not Isaac. So, anyway, they have a different account. And so that's what the Dome of the Rock is about. Yeah, Tom?

Wasn't it Jesus who said, you worship who you do not know anything about. We know who we worship for salvation is of the Jews. Yes. And so Jesus was very specific. Jesus said, you don't know who you're worshiping, you know? But, however, the God of Scripture, you most certainly need to know. You most certainly need to know. And so, knowing God is pivotal to Biblical Christianity. Knowing Him personally is pivotal. Knowing Allah cannot be done. Knowing Allah cannot be done. He has not revealed Himself and He is unknowable. What He has revealed is what you're supposed to do. That's a very different position than Islam.

So, on this Philismian's quote here, that I may know him, does that know, you happen to know, pun intended, is that epigonosco? I would have to look it up. I don't know offhand. It's been a while since I looked at it. to know him? Yeah, I would have to look it up. I don't know offhand. Okay, just thought I'd ask. Yeah, it's been a while since I've looked at that, so I'd have to look it up afresh.

So, anyway, I think, you know, looking at this, and I've just picked a few, my copy is all marked up and flagged. I mean, it's just, whoa, wow. I was rather astounded at the various things I read, and I just plucked some of those out here to quote and compare the scripture. So here we have asked the question, so what's a believer to do with all this?

And so, you therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you're not carried away by the air of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. So here's 2 Peter 3, 17 and 18. Be careful about these unprincipled men, but instead grow in the grace, and this is with grace properly defined, grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we're called to. We are in fact called to discernment. And there is no great purpose in our just, oh, these are terrible, awful, evil things. Just look at it and say, OK, what's the truth? OK, this is the truth. This is not. And then realize, too, that a great many people have been misled by these teachings and drawn into them.

One more thing about the catechism, and that's that Most Catholics have never read it. Most Catholics have studied it far less than I. And I'm not Catholic. And I also don't claim to be Protestant either. I don't want myself defined by just simply protesting this. So I wouldn't claim to be Protestant either. Some of those who were Protestant did things and believe things that I certainly don't believe. So, you know, it's what God's words say. That's what we measure everything by and compare, not by what some group did back several centuries ago. Thoughts, comments, questions?

Yeah. Why is Catholicism so popular, I guess you'd say? It seems like it's more emphasis in... Yeah, I mean, within Christendom, they are a large group. worldwide, and you'll find them in all kinds of places. Well, think about it. Often, if you want to show some sort of a religious leader in a movie, not always, but they will often choose someone of Roman Catholic background. Why?

Yes, identifiable. Whereas a pastor, they might do more than I have and put a suit and tie on, but a lot of people do that. But it's identifiable. It's identifiable by headdress and identifiable by wearing big crosses. swinging things. So one, it's identifiable. The other thing is there's action involved. We come here, and I put some interesting slides up, things moving around on the slides, but they're swinging things, and they're doing this and shaking that. There's some kind of action involved, and so that is similar to the identifiability characteristic.

That's visible and something that you can lock in on. Of course, what the Roman Catholic Church does is they say all those actions have significance. By going to shake things, this goes and cleanses you of this. You don't just walk up to the priest and start confessing. You've got to go in a special place for that.

Things are externally identifiable. Yes. So it's ceremonial and traditional. Yes. It's very similar to what Judaism was, except that they had a specific law. So here the law changes all the time, but you're still doing it. to improve their position with God. Here's something interesting. Several years ago I got together with an Orthodox rabbi and he and I had a fascinating conversation. He laughed. He said that Roman Catholics are amazing.

He says they tear down the whole Jewish system and then rebuild it all up again. You've got altars and you've got sacrifices and all kinds of stuff. So it's essentially you make the connection. It's essentially a lot of the things that were there in Judaism with external activities, special clothing and everything else. Only after casting aside the Jewish system, then they go and rebuild up all this system on top of it, including traditions. Don't they have the finger away from God and bringing it down to man's level, which is exactly what Israel was condemned for and why they lost so much.

We have not even scratched the surface with today's, you know, because I've gone through the catechism. I haven't gone and talked about relics and images. The Roman Catholic Church uses a different Ten Commandments. Why? Because they want to bury their thing against having images. So they bury that into another commandment and then take, in order to still have ten, then they take coveting and split that into two. So you still have ten.

But yeah, I mean there's all sorts of strange practices that we haven't even touched on. I'm looking here at the Catechism and just comparing it doctrinally to Scripture. But yeah, there's a whole realm of things that we just haven't even touched. here just because it's not specifically part of the catechism.

Going back again to the one world religion, not saying that it has to be Islam, but wouldn't this be the perfect place for the religion to be built? Because here you have the folk who can make changes and change doctrine and all the rest of the stuff. So if you bring the religions together, which of course Christianity is going to be left behind, because it's too cut and dry and you have to So if you think about it, you know, it's possible to come up with a system where you've got all sorts of, you know, the dress and the buildings and all that, and you don't need Jesus that much.

Because I don't need to approach Jesus because, you know, I've got Mary who does an awful lot. And, you know, instead of, you know, praying through Christ and all that, I've got a bunch of saints I can approach. And, you know, Jesus becomes far less essential. because I've got so much other stuff I can do, and it's the church that does the saving.

You really don't need the Bible at all. No, because even what's there, just like that quote about Mary taken out of Ephesians chapter 1, you don't need the Bible at all because you're going to make it say whatever you want it to say. Early is the second grade they teach. Don't read the Bible. Read the Catechism. Don't read the Bible and don't bother. It's no different than when I talk to my neighbor about a certain passage. extra-biblical editions, same with Jehovah Witnesses, their own Bible, their own tract of information. They're more entrenched in that. Yeah, right. It's quite common that they're so entrenched in whatever their piece of literature is that they're unfamiliar with Scripture, relatively speaking.

It's quite common among whatever group it is, the Roman Catholic Church included. A recent survey of Roman Catholics showed that over half of them believe things different than what were basic tenets of Catholicism. So, in other words, you might be a Catholic and yet not believe some basic things that are part of the Roman Catholic Church. But, you know, you could actually say that of a great number of different religious groups. Yeah.

I think there are so many cultural groups that are Catholic by nature. They stay in that tradition whether they believe those things or not because their whole Italian family is Catholic. That's what they are and that's what they know, that's what they're raised in, so that's what they still claim whether or not they even know what they're supposed to believe. But those cultural things and those family traditions are so very strong for those groups, that that really pulls that whole thing together, I think. Yeah, you make a good point, and that is that a lot of times people will hear, you know, Catholic, Christian, Muslim.

The truth is, for a good many people around the world, religion is a subset under the culture. rather than being something primary. Even for us as Christians, are we Christians first or Americans first? Yeah, a great many people are Americans and a lot of people, boy, they get trying to get a hold of the American political system. They put that right on the same level as scripture. and get it all confused, rather than seeing, look, here is God's word and this goes above any political orientation or anything of the sort.

So then basically, we're becoming identified with culture, tradition, names, places, and who brings salvation. And so this is all idolatry. It all stands between us and God. We give glory to being American. We give glory to being a Christian. We give glory to being a certain kind of Christian. And so we're losing the focus of the one who gives us salvation. That's why we're aliens. That's why we're strangers. We're aliens and strangers.

I right now have a heavenly citizenship. You know, is it important to me that I'm an American? Yes, yes it is. That's a part of my earthly identity. When I walk through Heaven's gates, however, I'm not sure that that's even going to be a thought. But I will recognize He's the Lamb. He's the one who paid the price for me. And I will recognize that forever. And there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth, and I'm not sure anybody will even talk about America.

And I say that as a very patriotic and American-minded person, but I realize that spiritually speaking, the things that God has revealed in His Word are so far, far above what is here. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you as we look at this. We thank you that we have your word to measure everything by. And that word is by your Holy Spirit. And even the teaching of your word is by your Holy Spirit's work. We do give you thanks. We do give you praise in all these things. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.