Polemics - Discernment - Roman Catholicism
Vern Peterman · Aug 2, 2015
Defense of the Faith, No. 30
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926510561310

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

So we're going to look at Roman Catholicism this week. We'll begin a comparison with Orthodoxy, and what I mean by that is Greek Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, Coptic, etc. So when I say Orthodox, that's what I mean. So we'll begin that comparison, and because next Sunday is Camp Out Sunday, no elective, so two weeks from now we'll get to the Orthodox churches as a point of comparison.

So what happened here is while you will have the Catholic Church refer to Peter as the first Pope, Peter never knew anything of that. They'll say he was the Bishop of Rome and elevated to the Pope status. Peter never knew anything of that and actually the term Pope and the role of a Pope didn't begin until about the year 600.

And so one of the things that is fascinating about the Roman Catholic Church, all the different things that are part of today's tradition grew gradually over time. And so looking at the chart, the emergence of the Roman Catholic Church there, Latin is used in prayer and worship imposed by Pope Gregory I. Prayers directed to Mary, dead saints, and angels about the year 600. Kissing the Pope's feet began with Pope Constantine 709. So as you kind of go down the list, we have veneration of the cross, images, and relics authorized 786. College of Cardinals was not established until 927. canonization of dead people as saints initiated 995 A.D. That's one thing.

What does the Bible teach about saints? We're set apart. And does it take some special church action for somebody to be a saint? How do you get to be a saint? You believe. That's it. So the Apostle Paul could write to the very confused, mixed up messed up saints at Corinth, but still call them saints, and still say that you were sanctified, and use the perfect tense. So saints is every Christian believer in the Bible, but over the centuries then it develops into saints as some special designation, and the church has to take certain actions to have somebody declared a saint.

Attendance at Mass made mandatory, 1,000. Celibacy of the priesthood, 1,079. The rosary, repetitious praying with beads invented by Peter the Hermit, 1090. The sale of indulgences established to reduce time in purgatory, 1190. And by the way, that came out of Egyptian religion. Indulgences and purgatory and all that, that's out of Egyptian religion. And so people would pay money to be able to have their loved one spend less time in purgatory.

And we'll talk about the Roman Catholic plan of salvation here shortly. Then you'd have transubstantiation proclaimed by Pope Innocent in 1215. What's transubstantiation? Now, when you take communion and you're taking the actual body of Christ. Yeah, in other words, as he says the blessing over it in Latin, you ever hear of hocus pocus? It comes from a misunderstanding of hic est corpus, this is the body. That declaration by the priest is what supposedly turns this into the literal body and blood of Christ. So then we have a confession of sins to a priest, Pope Innocent III, 1215.

The doctrine of seven sacraments affirmed. So they got the list of seven sacraments, and that includes marriage as one of those. Tradition claimed equal authority with the Bible at the Council of Trent. The Council of Trent was kind of a counter-reformation movement there. And then along with that, the apocryphal books declared king in the 1500s. a full veneration of Mary wasn't declared until the 1800s. So this thing continues to move, continues to change.

And many of these things back in the earlier era actually came out of paganism. The Roman Catholic Cardinal Newman actually wrote that they came out of paganism, and documented that they came out of paganism. But he says, though they came out of paganism, what makes them holy is that the Roman Catholic Church does them. So, let's take a look at page 2 here. So, you have the quote from Cardinal Newman, John Henry Newman.

And as we're told in various ways by Eusebius, the Constantine, in order to recommend a new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. The use of temples and these dedicated to particular saints and ornamented on occasion with branches of trees, incense, lamps, and candles, boat of offerings, et cetera, et cetera.

He goes through all this. These are all of pagan origin and sanctified by the adoption of the church. It goes down the list. So the kiri eleison was actually used in pagan ceremonies and was even used to sing praises and whatnot, to sing to the emperor. who was deity and divine, right? So it was just adopted in the Roman Catholic Church.

And they had the council at Ephesus. What was the big temple at Ephesus? Pardon? Diana or Artemis, right? Artemis. And they shouted, remember, in the theater, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Well, when they had the council at Ephesus, that was where they adopted having Mary to be venerated. Because then they could convert all these people who followed Artemis to follow Mary instead.

Just change the name. Keep up the same practice. You'll see on the table below Roman Catholic Churches and Orthodox Churches. And these are some points of comparison. Initially, until about the 6th century, when they started having an argument, the Roman Catholic Churches and the Orthodox Churches were all part of the same system of bishops.

Leadership of singular pope over the hierarchy in the Orthodox churches. Leadership by confederation of bishops. Initially, the Roman bishop was a part of that confederation. Male celibate leadership to priests and nuns in the Catholic system. Male leadership at the highest levels, but not down below.

Baptism and Eucharist is effective. The same thing was taught in both. In the early church, about 170 is when they began calling pastors priests. About 220 is when the early church began adopting communion, or the Lord's table, and baptism as spiritually effective, not just symbolic. This does something to you. So that evolution got carried on.

One of the things that caused the division between the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox, it's not the only thing, but on the West, there tended to be more Latin as a language and cultural background. And on the East, where the Orthodox churches were mostly located, more Greek background. And so even just that language and cultural difference was one of the things that helped split them apart. Something that is quite different is one of the things you see there is veneration of statues and icons in the Roman Catholic Church. Veneration of icons but not statues. And in the Orthodox churches very frequently they'll just set scripture aside and focus on the icons.

So we'll get to that. Both of them taught Mary as perpetual virgin. Same thing. And that started fairly early. And then both the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches looked at the Church as our mother. Now where did that come from? It did not come from Scripture.

Take a look at a flow chart. This is just wonderful because this is the Roman Catholic plan of salvation. What you'll see in this flow chart is a line that's about two-thirds of the way down horizontally, and that's the state of the soul. If you're above that line, you're spiritually alive. If you're below that line, you're spiritually dead.

So how do you initially get saved in the Roman Catholic system? What happens? you get baptized. That's what initially saves you. So, for instance, a baby is born, you want to get that baby baptized. It might even be a scramble to get the baby baptized before it dies, if there is some health issue. So, baptism is the initial start. So now, once you are baptized, you're saved, and then what's the hazard in Roman Catholicism? What's the hazard, the thing that's going to get you in trouble? The mortal sin is the worst, because that will make you lose your salvation.

In the Roman Catholic system, you're wanting to increase merit. You want to accumulate merit. and you want to do that by avoiding the venial sins, the ones that are bad but won't cause you to lose your salvation. So you'll have the venial sins, you want to avoid doing those, and then you want to do things that help you accumulate merit, going to Mass every day and that kind of thing.

It's possible that someone, and so-called Mother Teresa was one of these, that had an excess of merit. And if you have an excess of merit, you bypass purgatory. But most people don't get that. And so just about everybody is going to spend some time in purgatory when they die. And then you can help decrease someone's time in purgatory by paying for indulgences.

So this system is a matter of, I mean, it all fits the flow chart. You've got to accumulate merit. You've got to do all the right things. You have to avoid a mortal sin, which is a complete blowout. It gets you unsaved. And you even have to avoid doing the venial sins. If you do them, then you go to confession, and then you do whatever the priest says to compensate for that.

Let's take it for instance. It's possible Hypothetically, it's possible for a Pope to commit a mortal sin in the last five minutes of his life and then die and go to hell. Hypothetically, that's possible. It could happen. So this is the Roman Catholic plan of salvation. If you commit a mortal sin, you completely drop out. You can be resaved if it's time. according to their system. You could go in and out of being saved several times. Now, purgatory. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Is that allowed for purgatory?

No. 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 10-15 talk about a judgment in which there is a test by fire of wood, hay, and stubble, gold, silver, and precious stones. So there is a testing, that's a judgment, but that's not purgatory. And it's the works that are judged, not the person that's not burned. None of this comes from scripture. It's all been invented.

But that's the Roman Catholic plan of salvation. It depends on you. So what is grace in the Roman Catholic definition? Grace is then the opportunity for you to earn your salvation. Christ died to give you the opportunity to earn your salvation. That's really what it amounts to.

One of the things as we go through these different systems, the Mormons and all these different ones, You can't assume the same definition of the words. And if you're trying to have a conversation with them, it's very important to get things clear. What do we mean by this? What do we mean by this? And grace is one of those key words.

Alright, so here's the Roman Catholic plan of salvation. It depends on you. As the Bible describes salvation, who does it depend on? God. All we did was believe. God says that's great, I'll take it from there. So this is very similar to what the Pharisees did because the Pharisees added to God's plan of salvation and in the process people give money to the temple. So they benefit from that and they devised a system that's going to help the people be saved because it's more than what God wanted. You make a very good point.

As a matter of fact, a little over a decade ago I sat down with an orthodox rabbi here locally and he was saying the Catholics are just hilarious because he says they go and tear down the whole Jewish system and then build it all up again. Basically it's salvation by works and they got priests and they got the whole thing, but it's just, you know, oh those Jews, they've got a bad deal going, but they essentially do the same thing all over again. Okay, let's take a look at the top of page three.

Okay, given that both the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches have developed doctrines and practices on the basis of authorities, multiple authorities, outside of Scripture, and that we will encounter the same basic issue with a number of institutions and groups in the weeks and months ahead, a very good question is, does Scripture itself claim that Scripture is our sole basis of authority?

So here's Isaiah 820, writing of the Scriptures revealed by his day, When Isaiah wrote the Old Testament, the Tanakh, as the Jews call it, was not complete. To the law and to the testimony, if they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn, no light in them. Mark 7, 7-9, 13, Jesus speaking to the scribes and Pharisees. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men. And he was also saying to them, you are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition, thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down.

And you do many things such as that. So there's Acts 20, 27 through 33, Paul speaking to the elders from Ephesus for the last time. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert. remembering that day and night for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears 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 and this by the way is a chiasm because you find at the top there it's referring to the whole purpose of God and at the bottom there the word of his grace And then in between there, it starts off with, be on the guard. And then ends right before the part I bolded here, be on the alert.

So here's 2 Timothy 2.2, right below it. Paul writing to Timothy in his last letter, of which we have possession. 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.

Let's ask this question. What is apostolic succession? What's the idea of apostolic succession? The idea, theoretically, is that the apostles then appointed people who were bishops, and those bishops then appoint other bishops, and you have apostolic succession. And that is, in fact, what the Church embraced so that by the second century, a system of bishops was starting to be put into place. That's apostolic succession, where the apostles pick a bishop, supposedly, and then the bishop then picks the next one, et cetera. So there's apostolic succession.

What this passage, I just read, Second Timothy 2.2 says it's not apostolic succession, it's doctrinal succession. That's what the Bible teaches. Doctrinal succession, not apostolic succession. Yeah? Does the Episcopal Church hold to that apostolic succession? Yeah. If you think about it, the Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church, all those hold to some form of apostolic succession.

And one of the things that shows that up is bishops. They'll have bishops who are over pastors in the area. And do they have a person that's over them? Yeah, they may not call them the Pope, although that's what they do in the Orthodox Church, is they actually call the guy that's over all of the bishops a Pope. So yeah, they will have essentially a hierarchy that they claim is from apostolic succession. And yeah, Roy? I don't know, just a question.

The disciples got together to replace Judas in a similar fashion. They asked for the Lord's directing and they chose him. Right. This they did and ended with Matthias, right? But when you go into the New Testament and see from that time of replacing an apostle basically, what did they do?

They appointed elders who were also called overseers, who were also called shepherds or pastors. When you look at those, there's an exchange directly across. An elder is an overseer, is a pastor. And the word that's translated or taken as bishop is episkopos. And instead of, as the New Testament has it, that's an elder or a pastor, they make that a special position over the other pastors.

And so Clement was the first one to propose that. He acted as Bishop of Rome and wrote to the Church Accord. He should have been soundly reprimanded, and instead his system got established. So yeah, replacing Judas was one thing. But from there on out, the apostles, what did they do? They appointed elders in each of the churches.

And so from then on, there's nothing biblically authorized beyond an elder as a shepherd, as a pastor. was an elder by name, is James, Jesus' half-brother. What's interesting is elders are otherwise anonymous. So there's no big high-profile, big-name elder. There's no elder over other elders.

The apostles at most had that authority, but after the generation of the apostles, it was done. 2 Timothy 3.16-17 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 and equipped for every good work. Jude 3 I felt necessary to write to you, appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith, as the teachings of the apostles, which was once for all handed down to the saints, once given, perpetually valid. In the last several years, that verse about being equipped for every good works, I think about that quite often because it's so easy to feel like I'm inadequate in anything in life, not just bearing matters. And there it tells me that God has given me everything I need for the life He's given me to live.

I already have the resources. It's His adequacy, right? He is adequate. I don't have to crank up some adequacy in some way, or ability, or strength. Nor go around thinking I'm inadequate. Because we by ourselves were never intended to be. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, who is sufficient for such things? Who's adequate? Only because of the Lord do we have the adequacy.

Let's take a look at page four there. Another question, may anyone interpret scripture or only the official hierarchy of the church? So the Roman Catholic Catechism, paragraph 85, says the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor Peter, the Bishop of Rome. So, can you interpret scripture? You're not authorized according to this, right? So you're not authorized. So you can read scripture, but you can't interpret it with any finality. But here's Acts 17, 10-12.

The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the synagogue with Jews. Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. Therefore, many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men. They examined the scriptures daily. And what did they do when they examined? Did they just read it? They arrived at conclusions, didn't they? Let's look at 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21.

But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. No subjective interpretations. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. So then the question becomes, okay, just how do they interpret scripture? How does the Roman Catholic Church interpret scripture?

Okay, now this is a lot of fun. Here's paragraph 492. Roman Catholic Catechism states, The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. How are we doing so far? and chose her in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. How's it going? How's that set with you?

See, all of a sudden, what is said of you as a believer, as a saint, is now made to apply exclusively to Mary. And what that does is Mary was pre-saved. That's what this paragraph is saying. Mary was pre-saved. Instead of these words applying to all those who believe, all the saints, it's now made to apply especially to Mary.

Whereas here it says, in Ephesians 1, 1-4, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints, all those who are believers in the church, who are at Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

Isn't that a radical difference? Quite. Here's paragraph 969 in the Roman Catholic Catechism. Therefore, the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, benefactress and mediatrix. And so it says here in 1 John 2.1, My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, which is who? Jesus Christ. So Mary has now supplanted the role as our advocate.

Next one, 1 Timothy 2.5, for there is one God and one Mediator also between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. So then is Mary the Mediatrix, the female form of Mediator? No, that doesn't fly, does it? And so, essentially, how about Helper? Who is the Helper? the Holy Spirit's the helper.

That's what Jesus said, but now Mary has supplanted that. So what you have is they have the sole authority, supposedly, to interpret, but their interpretations are goofy, very badly distorted. Rather than drawing the meaning out from scripture, what does God say through his word? They instead overlay a meaning on top of scripture. which is a whole different process.

All right, let's take a look now at one other point, and that is, it should have one of these towards the back, and it's got some color at the top, and it's titled, The Record of Peter's Absence From and Possible Later Presence in Rome. And what you have there is the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. It says they're 30 or 33 AD, Both of those are initially possible. The evidence is stacking up more and more that Christ was crucified on April 3rd, 33 AD. But the first 10 points there essentially point to Peter having a presence in Jerusalem. And then, let's just kind of take some testing points.

What is the last chapter of Romans? What does that say? The last chapter of Romans says, greet this guy, say hi to that one, right? Does he write and say hi to Peter? It's not there. It's not there. When Paul arrives in Rome, that's Acts 28, he goes and meets with different people. Does he meet with Peter? No. So in neither the Book of Romans nor in Acts do we have any indication that Peter is the Bishop of Rome. We have no indication that Peter is even present in Rome from either of those.

And so what we have as you go through the various pieces of evidence, it is possible that towards the end of his life that he was in Rome. That's it. Everything else indicates that he was somewhere else other than Rome. And it is not absolutely certain that his life ended in Rome.

So the conclusion that we draw from this was that although the Roman Catholic Catechism will say that Peter was the Bishop of Rome and it was he who appointed subsequent bishops, etc., there's no evidence for it. There's no evidence that he was ever the bishop in Rome, there's no evidence that he appointed anybody else, and in great part, there's no evidence that he spent 25 years as the bishop of Rome, and that's indicated quite to the contrary. There's one other thing, and that is that the Antioch, there is some evidence that Peter spent some time there, and there's even a tradition in the Antiochene, the Orthodox Church, that Peter actually stayed in Antioch and not Rome.

So there's a conflicted tradition there. But when you put it all together, the claim that Peter was the first Pope and that he was the bishop of Rome, has nothing behind it except tradition. Nothing behind it at all. And so from there, do you have apostolic succession? If he never was the bishop, you don't have apostolic succession.

The whole thing falls apart. The whole thing falls apart. Essentially, the Roman Catholics have their succession of bishops, and they've got it all documented. And about the first two centuries, it's all made up, including that Peter was the first one. So as far as apostolic succession goes, it all falls apart, because Peter was never the bishop of Rome. He was, however, an apostle. But there's no evidence that he appointed or wrote to anyone, except when you go to 1 Peter 5, 1 through 4, he writes to who? Elders. So an elder is an overseer, is a shepherd.

Those are equivalents, and scripture backs that up. But even what Peter wrote can't be used to point to bishops as being over other churches, multiple churches. The case can't be made. All right, so when we look at this Roman Catholic system, it does not compare well with scripture. You have scripture and tradition. And guess what happens when there's a conflict between the two?

Tradition trumps scripture, just like we saw there with the interpretation of Mary being chosen in Christ and blessed with every spiritual blessing. And saints, instead of saints as they're addressed, even right there in Ephesians chapter 1, instead of saints being addressed as, these are all believers, A saint is then a special designation for a certain especially holy person who worked really hard in support of the Church. And so between the two, I see scripture, I see the saint's tradition, the tradition trumps. And even to the point where I will see that there is one mediator between God and man. and we add to that Mary.

So you actually replace the Godhead with Mary. Yes? Well it only makes sense if you're trying to destroy your relationship with God, that you would put more levels or categories between God and you. Because then you add air, you add misinterpretation, you add additional things, just like with the Pharisees. Moses was on the mountain with God and he brought back the law. So they add to it, which creates air. which creates pride, which creates a lot of things directed toward the leaders and not toward the people who it was meant for.

As a believer, do you have direct access to God? You personally have direct access to God? The Father is Abba Father, Papa. I have direct access to God. As a matter of fact, the way I could put this out of The last part of Ephesians chapter 2 is we have direct access to the Father through the Son by means of the Holy Spirit. And the Son is even the introducer. That's the term that's used in Ephesians 2. The Son is the one who introduces us to the Father. we can run into the throne room and say, Papa.

Now, given that kind of intimacy, given that I have been identified with Christ in this death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating, given that I am seated with Christ in the heavenlies, do I need to appeal to some dead saint? No! I can run right into the Father's lap. I have that kind of intimacy into the throne room of God. And the prayers of the real saints, not just faith-designated ones, the prayers of the real saints are held in golden bolts in heaven. That means God highly values them directly. I don't need to go through somebody else to get some extra leverage. Now, why did that system of saints, and by the way, psalms have angels included in that too, so that gets mixed up. St. Gabriel's and St. Michael's, the angels also get put over in there. Why that system? Yeah?

Number one, to give authority and position to men that they don't deserve it. And also to get money to the churches and to the... It's the same thing as communism. They say this is such a great system, but it's only for the people on the top because they're the ones who have the glorious life and the rest of the people suffer.

What happens is it is an agent of control. Because we're the ones who pick the saints that you have to pray to, right? So it's an agent of control to be able to pick, you know, this saint counts and this one doesn't. And so that's control. And you have the church, instead of being the body of those who are saved, ministering as God has gifted each one, You instead have the Church as now the agent of salvation and the agent of sanctification. You have to have the Church and you've got an element of control. That's part one. The other thing is how those were picked in the first place.

People in the Roman Empire were what? They were polytheists in great part, right? And you could go around and pick and choose different gods and you could mix and match. As long as you included the Emperor as one of them. The Romans said, fine, you can mix and match whatever you want. And so one would go to, a lot of the soldiers went to Athena, and you had Artemis or Diana, they had the god of wine, and you could mix and match the different ones, and mixing and match was just fine.

But then when Constantine came in and said, first Christianity is legal, and then it's the official religion, and then eventually it's the only allowed religion, then the way to get These polytheists, to adopt things, is to have all these saints just stand in front of these other gods. And now I'm appealing to this pantheon that helps me appeal to Jesus. So essentially I'm taking the pagan system and giving it some Christian words and now I've got the polytheism addressed. by Christian works, pulled into the system. Yeah? One of the things that's most disturbing about that from a Christian perspective is what does that say about the character and quality of Christ as God? As far as omniscience and omnipresence and those attributes of God. Now he can't focus on us. He doesn't have a compassionate love for us. He's got to be manipulated. You've got to pull strings, right?

You read in Ephesians about naming every name that is named, and all those things, and that was the naming of different ones. You'd go into the Ephesus and you could buy an amulet, and the amulet had the names of seven different angels. Because it's not in the Bible, they concoct these different names of other supposed angels, and you could name all the names of those angels and get more and more power. So it's all a pagan system, and all the saints that you pray to, and the angels that you pray to, to get you some extra leverage.

If I'm seated with Christ in the heavenlies, if I can look at the Father and say, Abba Father, and run right into the throne room, if I am a child, if I am a brother of Christ, what need do I have of these others? I don't need them. Jesus is the name above every name that can be named. I don't need all the rest. No need for them at all.

I'm called to behold Christ through his word, not behold this saint and that angel and this other set of angels and these saints over here. You can't add to the list of the ones I'm supposed to name. Patron saint of lost causes. Patron saint of lost things. I don't need that. I don't need that. So Satan just takes your focus off the work of Christ, period? Now I can't interpret God's work, if I take it for what it is there. I'm distracted by all these other beings, including calling Mary the helper, the mediator, the things that are reserved for the Son and the Holy Spirit. There's one mediator. Right now I've got two.

I think you said last week that it's something about that Popes can speak extemporaneously. I don't know if that's accurate. Ex-cathedra. They speak ex-cathedra and that's authoritative. Yeah. And then that list you have of the different things that were set in place down through history. Yep. Then wouldn't that tear down the authority of the scripture and Pope qualities? Certainly. And especially if there's a conflict between them. And there very often is. So what happens is that the tradition trumps scripture, rather than using scripture as the measure of everything. Yeah?

I was just reminded of this verse here in 2 Peter. And this voice which came down from heaven, we heard what we were with him in the Holy Mount. And that's the transfiguration of the name. And then it says, we have a more sure word of prophecy. So even Peter was telling. through this letter, that the Word of God is more reliable than what I saw in the Bible? Yeah.

The Word of the Lord doesn't need anything else. It doesn't need anything else. I don't need to be under somebody's power structure. It is the characteristic of cults that they will put themselves in a position of exercising power over people. Whereas I come here and I say, it's completely under grace, no laws, and if you want condemnation, I can't help you. I have no power over people, right?

So yeah. What's the position of angels, like guardian angels and the angels that are among us, and are we free? Is there a position for them? Are you talking about the Roman Catholic system? Angels are under God's authority. We know that there are those angels who are on the Lord's side, angels of heaven or similar terms. We know that those angels that are fallen, they fell at once with Satan. Some of them left their proper abode before the flood and were then set aside into the abyss. the Tartarus, others roamed the earth seeking some kind of possession of a body, and those cropped up, especially during the time of Christ, but still do to this day, And those demons then know that their time will at some point be up. Meanwhile, there are those angels who follow the Lord and are under the Lord's command and carry out whatever the Lord tells them they can carry out. They have a place as He commands them now. and they will, Revelation reveals, have places for carrying out judgments during the tribulation period. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 says that we, human beings, will judge angels. So that's very interesting. Ephesians 3 says that God points to us to reveal God's wisdom to the angels. So, in a sense, we're angel college. Isn't that interesting? So anyway, there are numerous interactions. The angels are simply under God's authority. They're a different kind.

What's interesting is that of those who are saved, there's Gentiles, Israel, and the Church. Those Gentiles who believe, those Jews who believe in the Church, all of whom believe, so there's different groups and they're treated differently.

With angels, are all angels the same? No, you have cherubim and seraphim and different ones and they have different roles and assignments. There is an angel over the abyss, so they have different roles and assignments. So, just as there are varieties of human beings, spiritually speaking, there are also varieties of angels, spiritually speaking. Different ones.

Does that answer your question? The idea of a guardian angel is kind of interesting. There is weak support for that idea. Because I guess the question is, what's their assignment? If their assignment is to keep everybody safe or something, that's apparently not working. And in terms of spiritual, notice it's not physical guarding. In terms of spiritual guarding, that gets done other ways.

But angels will have assignments of different kinds, and God appoints We only know the names of two of them, and that's Michael and Gabriel. Aside from that, all the other names are made up. Doesn't it say in Hebrews that you have a guardian angel? Not exactly. I'm just thinking of the verse that says that there are angels speaking about children. There are angels who are standing before the Lord. I'm not sure where that is. Yeah, and there's a ministry there. But our term, guardian angels, gets kind of mixed up with that. So angels are assigned to various ministries. And some of them are tasks. I would not want to be the angel over the abyss. That just sounds like a nasty thing to spend your centuries doing. Well, I'd be shift worker or something.

Like Abraham was supposed to do, isn't that so? He would guard so none of the Jews would enter. Yeah, yeah, the Jewish mythology says that Abraham is supposed to stand at the gates of hell in the last days and make sure no Jew ever goes in. But again, that's one of those pieces of mythology. The reality is what Jesus said was, you know, strive to enter the narrow gate. Wide is the gate that leads to destruction, right? So many will go in. Yes?

Just a question going back to the authority of the Word of God and interpretation of it. I'm just curious, what is the latest interpretation methods that are leading men astray? into progressive dispensationalism and things like that. You've opened up a topic we don't have time for. There are lots of areas, it seems like there's more and more opportunity for error, isn't there?

And those keep multiplying. There's 30,000 different denominations approximately, Christian denominations supposedly. And people keep inventing new things. It doesn't stay static. One of them we'll be touching on is, for example, spiritual formation, different kinds of dispensationalism, and we'll be taking a look at that. But that's a huge subject.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what you do make clear. And we thank you that we can discern from your word what is true and what is not. And we just thank you as we examine this subject of Roman Catholicism here. We thank you that you have made clear what is the true gospel and what is true doctrine, and that we can, in fact, know the truth. And we just pray in Jesus' name. Amen.