I'm gonna briefly just hit a little bit more about the Roman Catholic Church and its oral traditions, just real quick, just so you kind of know where they're coming from. And then we're gonna get on to the next topic, actually. So we talked about oral tradition. and whether or not really it has the same weight as the written word of God. And that is a thing that sets Protestants and I think real Christianity apart from almost everything else. Because when in doubt, we fall back to the written word. If the written word says it, we believe it. If the written word says it's wrong, we don't believe it. The written word doesn't say anything, we do our best. You know, because sometimes, honestly, the written word isn't always obvious or clear. I mean, you've gotta, you know, we'll all be spending a lifetime, hopefully, getting a better sense of how it works. You don't, I don't know, going to seminary doesn't make you an expert. You might learn the original languages or something. I didn't go to seminary, by the way, don't mistake me. But going to seminary doesn't make you really good at this. You know, you could learn the original languages, that helps. But as often as not, you learn the original languages and then find out, boy, we've got really good translations today. You're usually right. You can't just trot something out and say, oh, but they are all lying to you. The original says, if anybody ever tells you that, give them the stink eye a little bit. Okay, prove that. Where'd you get that from? I'm okay with people saying that maybe there's a nuance that couldn't get expressed in English. That's different. But if somebody says, no, the meaning is entirely different than what we have in English, it's worth asking about. It's worth pushing a little bit and saying, okay, how did all these translators get it wrong? How did committees that made the ESV, the New American Standard, the King James Version, all the way back, how did all of them get it wrong? And why are you smarter than they are? It's worth an ask. You don't trust in man's authority. You're only supposed to trust in God's. And God meant for us to take the written word as it was given to us. You know, don't, I don't know, don't ever let anybody tell you because they know the original languages and you don't. That happens to me. The group that I was in before I became a Christian believed it was one of the basic tenets of their belief. although they never would have said so, that there is only one man in the world who really understood scripture, and it was the guy running the place. That's a cult. Right then and there, you should run, because God didn't promise to preserve the church through an individual, unless you mean the individual Jesus Christ. But there's no human being on whom the church rests. which kind of brings us to the Roman Catholic issue because, well, you remember that, you know, or perhaps you don't, I don't know. Cause part of my survey is going to be to find out just how much you guys have read the Bible because I've been making a lot of assumptions and they're probably not right for some of you. I don't, I just don't know. You know, I, you know, maybe I've, desperately over underestimated how much you already know going in here. You guys got to speak up by the way. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's okay. Somebody else doesn't either. You know, we've got people from all levels in here and I'm not smart enough to figure out that I'm not communicating sometimes. You know, you guys could be listening intently or you could just be giving me the blank look of, he wants me to stare at him and look like I know what I'm doing so I can get through this. Yeah, you know, please, please speak up, please tell me, you know, you're making no sense, or I have no idea what you're talking about right now, or I don't even know why this is important. How is this gonna help me think like a Christian, which is the whole point of the worldview class? Those are all worthy questions, and they, you know, if you don't know the answer to what we're dealing with right now, you should know, and I should be able to give you an answer. I haven't thought about it for more than a minute or two. It always takes me a while to figure out how I'm gonna say something, but if I'm hemming and hawing for more than a minute or two, again, you can push on that a little bit, because I'm not an authority over you. I'm not one of the godly authorities. We're gonna talk about that, God willing, in the second half of today. All right, so the Roman Catholics have this oral tradition. And they have a name for it. It's called the Magisterium, which sounds really cool. Or it sounds like, you know, maybe some sort of conclave of wizards in a fantasy novel. And I read fantasy novels, which is why I thought that. So the Magisterium is the body of information that the church preserves outside of scripture But it is up to the church to do that. The church, for them, is really the number one authority, because the church is what preserved the written word, and the church is what preserves the oral tradition. So for them, the church is the ultimate authority. And when they say the church, what they mean is the Roman Catholic Church that they believe was established by Peter in the Church of Rome in the first century. So, just so you know, they believe that Peter was the first Pope. They don't know if anybody called him the Pope, but down the line, far down the line, by the way, hundreds and hundreds of years later, they started calling the Bishop of Rome Papa, or Pope, because he's the father of the church, fully exalted, reverent father of Every spiritual person in the Catholic Church, right at that moment, he carries a lot of authority in a human being. And it's appropriate because they think that that apostolic office, the office that Peter got because he's special, okay? You know, one of the original 12, you know, saw the death, saw the resurrection, believed, he preached and acts, he goes out into the world preaching the gospel just like the others, but he ends up according to them, in Rome, establishing a church there. And they believe that Jesus promised that Peter would be the foundation on which the church was built. And if that's true, and Peter died, which he did, well, what happens to your church when the foundation gets crucified upside down in Rome, apparently? Well, he must have passed that on, you know, it must be an office that can be handed down. They believe there has been an essentially unbroken succession of popes from Peter all the way to the current guy that some of them love and some of them are kind of holding their noses about because he's weird. I mean, as Popes go, Francis is an outlier. Have you guys heard the things he's saying and the way it's dividing the Catholic Church right now? It's kind of fun to watch from outside. But at the same time, it worries me too a little bit because destabilizing anything is usually bad. I'm no fan of the Roman Catholic Church, but I don't want to think about that splintering and becoming all the wreckage it could be. you know, far better for them to be one big ship going in the wrong direction than a whole flotilla of rafts going everywhere. Yes. So why should we even as Christians? Oh, well, I don't think we should, honestly. I mean, we, we don't have to, we have, you know, there's no requirement. I don't care if you guys never heard of him. If you did, I'd be like, no, you, you, you know, you missed out on some news, but it's not worth it. It really isn't. Honestly, you, Well, that's not a bad thing. The only reason I've paid attention is because of dealing with Roman Catholics and there's a lot of them and we live in St. Louis. I meet somebody and they go, I'm Christian. I'm like, oh, that's so cool. And then I'll say something and they'll be like, oh yeah, I was baptized as a baby. And I said, so you're Catholic. And they're like, yeah, I'm Catholic. I said, I said, I was Christian. I didn't know you were Catholic. It's different. It's very different. It is. It is. And you gotta be, yeah, you, you know, if you want to keep them as friends, you gotta be careful about how you talk about this stuff. You know, it's like, oh, okay. You're Catholic. Okay. No, that's fine. I mean, it's not fine, but... You know what I noticed? Most of the Catholics I meet are Christians, but then I'm like, oh yeah, I have church on Sunday, and they're like, oh, I don't go to church. It's always the Catholics that don't go to church. But if I meet someone who's Christian, they do go to church. I don't know. That's split up for me a bit. I know a lot of people who aren't Catholic. But I don't, like, ate them. Pretend, yeah. Who don't ever attend church, have no idea what's going on in the church. Never darken the door. All right, yeah, why is it important though? It's mostly just because, you know, we live in a world that was, I mean, Christianity was the Roman Catholic Church for a thousand years. You know, it's not, and they claim that they have believed everything they believed from the beginning. That is so obviously false, historically. They invented stuff as time went on. They invented things. Let's see here. Who in here has heard of the Immaculate Conception? You have? Okay, you have. Anybody wanna, besides Kira, because she always talks to me, anybody, I'll come back to you. Anybody wanna explain what the Immaculate Conception is? You don't need to know. Again, this is not super important unless you're dealing with Roman Catholics. Okay, Kira, tell us what it is. Isn't it like Mary? It's about Mary? Yeah. Oh, that's all you got? Yeah, it's like the baby. Immaculate conception. Okay, actually the immaculate conception, it's kind of about Jesus, but it's kind of not. Okay, so the Catholic Church believes that Jesus can't possibly have had any human sin involved in the production of his body, basically. So, you know, and we believe, as Christians, that, you know, who believe that the Bible is true, that Mary was a virgin who conceived and bore a son. And the virgin conception takes place because she provides the egg and she is sinful, a normal, utterly normal human being, except that God picked her to do this. That's the only thing she stands out for, the only thing. Mary, a sinful, ordinary, probably pretty young girl. I mean, remember, you know, these kids were, you know, you know, when you were in 10th grade, if you'd lived in the old days, they would have been like, how do I, haven't you popped a kid out yet? Why aren't you married? Yeah. Good to be an old man, aren't you? 15, 16. Boy, when are you going to, when's somebody going to find somebody for you? Anyway, so odds are, odds are, you know, Mary's probably a mid teenager, not even a late teenager, probably. and sinful, that's what we believe. But they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, a sinner gave birth to the Messiah, to Jesus, it can't be. But that's the problem. I mean, you know, he's half, you know, she provides the egg, but the sperm is because the Holy Spirit created it and put it into her. You know? I mean, the bodily part of Jesus that comes from the man comes from somebody who is not a man. He's God. He's not a human at all. He's masculine, but he's not. I wouldn't even call him male, technically. He's, yeah, he's spirit. First thing you learn about God, right? God is a spirit. Jesus said that. God is a spirit. And, you know, we should worship him in spirit and in truth. He tells that to the, in Samaria, in John chapter four. Anyway. But, yeah, she's a sinner. And so, they back everything up a generation. Maybe she's not a sinner. There have been two human beings as far of course, and his mom. Because she can't have said, if she sinned, then she can't have given birth to the Messiah. That's goofy. The Bible never says that. Yes. And they go and pray to Mary too, right? Oh, golly. There's more coming. Yes, absolutely. Yes, they do. Yeah. And there's reasons for that. They go, we don't pray to Mary. We just pray that she receives for us. We're just praying that that she can talk to Jesus on our behalf. That's what they say. If you tell them, do you pray to Mary? They say, no, no, we don't. So you can't say that. They're gonna get mad. Yes, exactly. I know, I know. Everything they're going to Mary and the saints for, we've been given in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I mean, every single thing. There's no need for all this stuff, but they found a need for it. And that's what we're heading toward as slowly as I go. All right, the Immaculate Conception basically just means that God did a miracle when Mary's sinful parents conceived and took away the sin so that she came forth sinless and remained that way her whole life. Which, by the way, means that she doesn't die. You know, because if you don't sin, you don't die. That was what God told Adam and Eve, right? She was assumed into heaven, finally. I'm getting cell phone numbers if possible. Email will work if you don't want to give me your cell phone. I'm getting those so that I can send out Not very often, just very occasionally, but I'll send you maybe something to read, or something to think about, or a survey to take, which is the first thing I'm gonna send out this week. It's a short survey, too. By the way, yeah, 10 minutes, probably, and it's one of those things, if you don't understand it, do your best and keep going, because it goes all over the place. Anyway, all right. So, yeah, the Roman Catholics believe, then, That, you know, because God performed a miracle and made Mary sinless, she can then give birth to Jesus. But that makes Mary really special. You know, I mean, she's not God, not yet. There's people trying to get her to be the fourth person of the Trinity. How does that work? But seriously, but, but, Yeah, anyway, but it makes her special. You know, she's she's a human being, but she has no sin, which gives her a lot, you know, between being that and being Jesus's mother. I mean, who among you wouldn't do whatever you could for your mother? Who, you know, you know, you don't you don't talk back to mom. You don't ever tell her, not when you grow up, not when you get past the teen years, because the teen years are crazy, but you know, when you grow up and start making a relationship with mom again, you find a way somehow to work with them and you end up kind of thinking, I love this woman. I would do anything for her. I would take care of her. If she really wanted something, I'd give it to her. That's wedding. That's why they get married, to call on your behalf, because Jesus can say no. They can't say no to mom. Isn't that weird? I mean, that sounds like, oh wow, you're emotionally manipulating Jesus Christ, the son of God? Yeah, that's how it works. Things like that, and that didn't show up until, I think it's sometime in the last thousand years. That was not, the church fathers knew nothing about that stuff. Obviously, the apostles never wrote about it. They didn't even write against it, because nobody saw it coming in the first century. Nobody said, oh yeah, Mary's a sinner, because everybody assumed Mary was a sinner. No one ever say in any of the Roman Catholic books that are separate from the Bible. Oh yeah, they've written quite a few books, but they're not, again, none of those books are officially the doctrine of the Catholic Church, except for maybe the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that is. And it contains a lot of these doctrinal pronouncements, and that sort of has a semi-authority, just because it's the state of the magisterium right now. But you know, old versions of the Catechism said things and the new ones contradict them. So what are you going to do? But yeah, I think, yeah, officially they don't have any other books. Oh. Other than the books they added to the scriptures, but we'll hit that in a second. Yeah, they put, yeah, we have 66 books. They've got more. And you know, Mary being sinless. OK, so there's another idea. This creeps in very early, unfortunately, but it's a The idea that sex must be sinful. There is always an element of sin in sex. That is not true, by the way. God invented it. God is all for it under certain parameters, but he loves it. The Song of Songs, what is that about? Have you ever read the Song of Solomon? It'll turn you right if you're reading that aloud. You'll be like, I don't wanna sing this anymore. You know, I mean, it's poetry, but, you know, you kind of know where the poetry's headed. You know, it's sort of explicit almost in places if you, you know, just jump a little bit into the symbolism. And God, he thought it was great. He's like, oh yeah, we're putting that in the scriptures. That's inspired by the Holy Spirit. God breathed out. What about sex? And love and marriage, all that stuff, put it into the Bible. God meant for Adam and Eve. He wanted it. He was like, why did he make Eve look in the way she did? Why did he make her so the minute Adam sees her, he's like, finally, you're the one. Oh my God. Why is all this? Why is there an attraction between men and women? You know, evolution says, well, it's because of the evolutionary tendency to want to procreate. But, you know, people who don't believe in evolution, people who believe that God created people, what are they gonna do? Well, you know, again, the right attitude is that, you know, I mean, you know, there's a lot of different chapters in scripture we can go to to show that God You know, it sounds weird, but it did happen. We covered one at the end of Genesis last school year. Anyway, but they believe that because, I think it's because these people in their own lives saw that sin was always associated with lust in some way. You know, they transferred, if you will. You know, it's that psychological thing, you know, where you see this in yourself and so you think everybody else has it too. And they, you know, had taken stupid vows of celibacy, also something that shows up mid first millennium of the church. They'd taken vows where they weren't going to be married or ever anchor themselves to a woman. They would just, you know, give it all to God their whole life. And, you know, Jesus actually said that, yeah, there's some people who are gonna be like that. He didn't say that was normal. He didn't say that was more holy or better even. I mean, Paul said, hey, it's great if you can be like me and not have to deal with that. Because, you know, the kingdom's really important. But basically Paul concedes, most people, they're gonna get married. They have to. Because, why did Paul say people have to get married? Do you remember? Anybody know? is it's better to marry than to burn. That's what he said. And that, you know, there's some question as to whether they mean burn in hell or burn because you, you feel it, you feel it hot and you can't do anything with these feelings. You know, I think Paul meant the second one personally. Honestly, I don't think he was talking about hell. I think he was talking about hormones. Anyway, um, There is always, in the Catholic Church, they really do believe that sex is always sinful. You know, the best marriage in the world for them would be a marriage, you know, it's a sacrament, so it's not a bad thing, but you know, you get married and then you never, ever, ever sleep together. That would be ideal. And you're like, boy, am I never not gonna be a Roman Catholic. Wow, okay, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I mean, oh, I'm sorry. If you can clear your mind of every bit of lust, if you can make this so this is totally, utterly not about your attraction to a person, but purely because you are fulfilling the commandment to have children for God. If you can do that, then you can have sex without sin. But nobody can. Anyway, concupiscence is the word. Augustine made it up. Augustine is either the best or the worst, depending on what he's writing. In this case, he's the worst. He has no idea what he's talking about. He's Augustine in his confessions. And, you know, this is a fifth century saint who, again, good man in a lot of ways, fought some good fights for us. You know, but this is, you know, doctrine's starting to fall apart at this point. It's starting to become the Roman Catholic Church and not the Church of the First Century. you know, he looked at his own life. He transferred how he felt because he spent his life as one of these rich bros. You know, he was going around, you know, I mean, you know, Mr. High Body Count, Mr., you know, I mean, he's making it with everybody, you know, I mean, you know, he's living the world's dream for a young man. And God saves him out of that. And so for him, that's one of the major sins of his life. I can see that personally. I totally can get that. Yeah, I see why it would be a big deal to him. But he says, well, it should be a big deal to everybody. Oh, yeah, but not to the point of saying things that scripture doesn't say. Anyway, so of course that means marry who is sinless. Sex is always sinful. Mary must never have had sex. Now, what's the immediate response you have? She has kids. Other kids. Well, it says something about that, but anybody else want to throw anything else in there? What usually happens in a godly family before mom and dad have kids? Fun. Well, I'm speechless. That almost never happens. They can't have fun until they've got married. Yes, yes, I'm sorry. All right. Yeah, yeah. So they got married. So Mary married Joseph. Is that true? Yes. Everybody agrees. Catholics say so, too. But she had the only one of those perfect marriages we were talking about, the ideal marriage. You know, Joseph was such a godly man that he knew how exalted Mary was and said, I will marry you to maintain your reputation, but I will never sleep with you because you are the mother of God. Oh, but the Bible does say he's got brothers. Yes. James calls himself a brother of Jesus. Jude, you know, near the very end of the Bible, wrote a book and he calls himself the brother of Jesus. Where do they come from? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not Joseph's first time around in marriage. He had a wife before. He's a widower, most likely, who had kids. He's an older guy. A lot of paintings, you can see that the Catholic paintings, you know, Joseph's got white hair, but Mary is this beautiful, at least 18 year old, you know. And you're like, wow, I made a summer there. Well, it was God's plan apparently. Anyway, I don't buy that either. Not for a minute. Okay. Anyway, they don't have any proof for that. It's the same word in the original languages. There's no way to prove. It's just something they made up to back up their story in every other way. But there's nothing in the Bible that leads you, you know, we don't have to have a sinless Mary. So we don't have to have a perpetual virginity of Mary. So we don't have to have, we don't have to have a, you know, a Joseph who was a widower and had kids before he met Mary. Anyway, I'm going slow, gotta get through all these. You know, I've already mentioned that, you know, Mary being sinless, she was never gonna die, so she had to be assumed into heaven. Catholic doctrine. Because of all these things, you know, she is above all of humanity in some way. Because in some weird way, she's got a little bit of authority over the second person of the Trinity. Jesus, right? Because she's his mom, he has to do what she says. Or at least he should give her a lot of consideration in her will. It's funny because he kind of doesn't do that in the Gospels. You know, Mary shows up, she's like, you know, they're out of wine at this wedding. And Jesus is like, hey, I don't think he was impolite. And all the scriptures, they always say, woman, why are you bothering me with this, basically? To say it that way is not impolite in their culture. Now we read that, and we're like, dang. Boy, you guys had some problems. No, no, not at all. He was politely telling her, this isn't my time yet. But a few minutes later, he decides, no, you know what? It is my time. He didn't change his mind. and he does something about it, changes water into wine, and it's the whole wedding at Cana miracle thing. But there's one point I wish. She goes out with his brothers and tries to haul him home because she thinks he's crazy. He's been going around and people say he's the son of God and the Messiah, and he says he can do all these miracles. I don't think she ever saw of it maybe but not all of it when he was growing up you know and so she and the brothers go out and they're like dude you you can't you can't keep going around like this you know you got people following you you're sparking up some revolution here and there you know come on come back home you know have a lie down for a while and we'll you know you know and basically it's the equivalent of you know let's get you some help And he resists that. He's like, no, no, you know, and that's when he says to that, you know, whoever hates his mother and father and his family, his children, even for my sake is worthy of me. The one who doesn't isn't. He's saying basically, hates, in this case, I'm sure, meaning, you know, makes the choices that show that they're not first in their lives, you know? I mean, if you have to choose between God and mom, you choose God. If you have to choose between God and your children, you're supposed to choose God. Children will have a hard time with that if they're not believers, by the way, just to let you know. All right, well, anyway, so, you know, we could pray to her because she has this hold on Jesus, so we can pray to her. And in fact, also, the other thing she's got up there is a lot of righteousness. I mean, every good work she has done is an astoundingly good work. She's the only human being who isn't Jesus who walked into heaven with a positive balance. Everybody else had the debt of sin, but not her. Everything she did was good. And so she has righteousness to spare. And so maybe she would spend some of that on us because we always need more. So Jesus, how about your righteousness and Mary's righteousness? And you put that together. And from there, it was just a, I mean, they'd already been saying that, you know, well, some of the saints actually, they were sinners, but they were so righteous that they actually bumped themselves over zero too. Like you can be so good that God will forgive your sin just because you were such a nice guy, such a generous person. He won't. He'll only bump your sin if it's been paid for. That's what Jesus did, but we're leaving that for the moment. So that means that Mary and the saints have extra righteousness. There is something called the treasury of heaven. That's where the righteousness goes, seriously. And that's where this goes. Jesus and Mary and the saints have deposited their extra righteousness there, but they're willing to make loans. That bank, you can apply to them. You can actually tap that by asking, by praying, by praying to the people who put their money in, or their righteousness in, Jesus, but definitely Mary, and the saints. They clothe me with your righteousness, so when I stand before God, he doesn't see me, he sees all of your righteousness. That's problem isn't it because they don't really you know the Bible actually says that nobody but Jesus has enough righteousness to cover Europe if you're not up there with entirely 100% Jesus's righteousness You're not covered by anything at all and that's not the way to go to court Okay, you got to be wearing something Emperor's new clothes does not work here So, big deal, you know? I mean, it's huge, but that's the whole, that's one of those places where they just, they take their, they were already diverging from the gospel, but this is where they really, really slam it home by saying that, you know, there's more that you have to do. There's more things you need than Jesus to be saved. And Paul in Galatians says, if you need more than faith in Christ, that's a cursive doctrine. Ah, the preeminence of Peter, I already mentioned that, this Bishop of Rome thing, the existence of purgatory, that shows up, indulgences, we talked about that at length last week, that was fun, I thought. Because, okay, that's the thing, they also don't really understand the whole righteousness-sin-bank balance in terms of life and time. Because, you know, what we believe is that when Jesus died, He paid for all your sins, right? The ones you did in the past, the ones you are currently doing right this very moment, because you're human and you're still sinning in some way. You're not paying complete attention to me right now. You're not giving me my respect. And you're saying, no, well, that might be true, but I'm not, I'm not demanding that. I'm not going to hold you to that. And you're going to sin in the future. What about those sins? Well, we believe that Jesus covered all of that. He knew everything you were gonna do and he took all of it on himself at one point in time, 2,000 years ago, and he took away our sin and made us right with God forever and ever and ever. In fact, he gave us his extra righteousness as they want from everybody else. But you have to keep on reappropriating that if you didn't take away the future sins so that as you progress, as you sin more, and you will always sin, they do know that much, So, as you continue to sin, you've gotta get that covered, too. It's like Jesus has to get on the cross again. Oh, crud. Well, he's not gonna do that, is he? Actually, as far as they're concerned, he totally does. Every Sunday, multiple times a week in most churches. In what's called the sacrifice of the mass. That's that moment when the priest They wouldn't say it's by magic, but I'm gonna say it. But the priest magically uses his power that God has given him. And this is really what it means to be a priest in the Catholic Church. Change bread into the actual body of Jesus so that it is no longer bread. Even though it looks exactly like bread, smells exactly like bread, digests exactly like bread. And the wine into his blood. When that happens, Basically, he's putting Christ back on the cross. Jesus is dying now, additionally, for the sins you've committed since the last time you got clear, and now, and you eat of these things, and you are blessed, and given forgiveness, but you may still have to do something. That's why you have to confess sin, and you are given things to do. Prayer Hail Mary. By the way, how in the world can they say they don't pray to Mary when The Hail Mary, how does that start? Who are they talking to? Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Maybe I don't understand too much. Anyway, that's a big deal though. Again, again, they've just completely destroyed the message of the gospel. Your alarm's going off. Oh, yeah it is. That's what that sound is. Hebrews, you know, the whole point of the book of Hebrews is to say that we've got the best high priest in the world because he only had to do it once. And he took care of it for eternity. He took care of all of our sins. He wiped them all away. And they're comparing themselves to the Jews who had to keep on doing sacrifices under Moses' law in an ongoing way forever and ever. And the holy priest, I'm sorry, the high priest had to go into the temple once a year to be just absolutely certain that they covered everything and that Jesus was cool with the nation of Israel by having a sacrifice on behalf of the whole nation and hoping that God would accept it. That's where the word comes from actually, you know, they he puts his hands on the goat gives it the sin he Sacrifices the other goat and this one it says they Does it say they release it into the wilderness in the scriptures, but honestly I do think the Jewish tradition is correct about this again wilderness is always desert actually and And what it really means is that they took it out of the desert and threw it off its life. They killed it, and they made it so it would never come back. Because, you know, if they just let the thing go, what's gonna happen? You might see it again, and that would be bad, right? I mean, oh no, it's our ship! Get away! Anyway. Let's see here. Well, I covered just about everything, except for monastic vows and priestly celibacy. more respect with God and more holiness by making promises that you'll commit yourself to perhaps poverty or not talking or chastity. They're all chastity, right? They're all celibacy. You know, so you have monks and nuns and of course every priest is not supposed to marry which is weird that they think that it's okay to molest children but it's not okay for them to get That's really a big deal. That's the biggest black eye the church has gotten in 200 years, probably, is that that's happening everywhere. I mean, it's happening all over, across the whole world. This isn't just something that happened in Boston or that happens in a few big cities in America. It's everywhere. It's terrible. Is that mine? I'm sorry. I didn't want to take your drink. Yeah, but the belief that you can be more righteous and more holy and gain more acceptance with God, all that stuff is against Galatians. There is nothing you can do to make yourself better standing with God. Nothing you can do to be holier must simply trust Christ. Know that he did it all for you. We've got the You trust him? No matter what you did, you get off. You do not. You know, you get before God in the great judgment time. The judge is looking at you. Well, you know, I've got charges against you, but there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever. And your lawyer there, Jesus Christ, pointed out that All of the punishment for this has already been laid on somebody else because basically somebody else took it upon themselves. So actually you look a lot like my son. You have my son's righteousness. So you're awesome. In fact, you know, leave the court because you're clear, but not only are you clear, meet me at my house because you're my son. You're my daughter. You're part of my family, man. That's the gospel. That's the great news we have. And that's it. It's what we have to keep going back to. The hard part about the Christian life is just remembering that because we live in the world and we keep sinning and we keep getting angry about it. We're like, ah, save me from this. I hate myself. Well, you shouldn't hate yourself if you're a Christian because God has changed you. You're a different person. hate your sin, hate your flesh that drives you to sin, because that's still tied to you. The sinful habits, the sinful predisposition, that's part of your body, your animal body, if you will. But when it dies, or if the Lord comes back early and gets changed, or maybe, you know, you die, and then when you rise again, you get a body like Jesus's, and there's no sinful inclination in it whatsoever. You will never struggle with this again. You will never sit there and go, or, oh, I don't want to do this, but I just can't help myself. You will never have that ever again. It is the best news in the world to me. I mean, it is one of the things I am most looking forward to about the future. And I am not going to sit here and fight with temptation because it is the ongoing thing I'm always fighting now. I want to get angry, but I can't. I want to look at that picture on the screen. No, but I can't. I want to, you know, be lazy and take money and not work. But, you know, I have to fight with these things frequently or some version of them. And once you think you finally got one down, another one rises up and you're like, crap, I'm still fighting sin. I thought I'd be past that now. I've been a Christian for 15 years. or 20 years, or 50 years for some people, and they're still like, I still have fits of anger, and I can't control myself. What happened? How long do you have to be in the ward before you change? Oh, a little longer. You have to die. You die to sin in your spirit, but your flesh actually has to die, then you're free. That's the best thing. I think that changes. We're out of time. I'll just stop there. We can come back later. But I don't know. Any questions? Any thoughts? Anything? Everybody get their names on the paper there? Anybody who at least wants to communicate Yes. Considering the last, sorry, pardon my accent. Considering the last thing you explained about having to succumb to sin because we are just, we have flesh in us. We are trying to overcome temptations. I think as a Christian, if we truly give our lives to Christ and we get baptized, we can do away with sin. We can what? We can do away with sin without having to like die and then have our body defiled. We have been released from the slavery to sin that we used to have. We don't have to sin. You're right about that. But we're still going to. You're right though. I mean, we have freedom where we never had freedom before because before you were saved, your heart hated God and all you ever wanted to do was sin and you didn't see any reason not to. Okay, I have a question again. Yeah, okay. Can we be perfect? No, not in this world. Perfection comes with death or the return of Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but the heart he put into us is perfect. It's just that the heart isn't always the only thing driving you. Sometimes, sometimes you let the flesh take over. Sometimes, sometimes you just almost, you feel like you can't help yourself because you've got these old habits. That's the thing, you know, some people are immediately delivered of sins when they are saved and some people aren't. I know people who were raging alcoholics who were able to give it up instantly when they were saved. And I know other people who struggled with it the rest of their life. The Lord has his own things that he's dealing with in his time. He's got his own plan for you. Everyone's is different. Everybody's going to struggle with things and everybody's going to get delivered. And, you know, I don't know, you can be unhappy about it and pray all you want, you know. And sometimes the Lord will come through for you, you know, and actually give you the answer you were hoping for. But, you know, usually I think what the Lord says is, no, no, you need the growth that comes with actually fighting sin and being on your side, you learning how to get in there, put on the armor of God and fight, you know, and do some real spiritual warfare, because that's what it really is. Yeah.