This is, you'll see here, this is where we ended last week. You can turn your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians 2. I'm going to remind you of a few things from 2 Thessalonians 2 especially. You need to make a mental note of 2 Thessalonians 3, 6 as well. in thinking about these verses. This becomes really important for us to understand that there are places that Roman Catholics and others misinterpret Scripture and that misinterpretation of Scripture becomes dangerous. I try sometimes not to use words just to be inflammatory. I know people can be sensitive in their ears to inflammatory words. He's just spouting off stuff to get people riled up, that Baptist preacher. But this really is dangerous. It's very, very dangerous because it takes us away from the actual truth and use of the scripture. And when you see Paul write in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, especially verse 15, so then brethren stand firm and hold to the traditions Now, that word we alluded to last week and spent just a moment at the very end dealing with it, that word traditions there, it's used in this translation by the Roman Catholics as the idea of holding to something as an extra-oral tradition, that there is scripture And then there is this other oral tradition that has been handed down, and both are on equal plane. Now, you say, oh, well, show us that. Because there are people that say, oh, that's not true. The Roman Catholics don't believe that. OK. Look at the handout I gave you. I didn't put this on screen because it's such a huge section. I'd just be clicking slides. But the handout here is the Council of Trent. This is the fourth session of the Council of Trent. And this council was very formative for the Roman Catholics coming out of the Protestant Reformation. And they were really dealing with the context of what was happening. And in this council, this is a Roman Catholic council, all right? This is their decree concerning the canonical scriptures. The sacred and holy ecumenical and general synod of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost." Now you see they're using very religious language here to couch the reason that they're working together here. The same three legates of the apostolic sect, or see, presiding therein, keeping this always in view. that errors being removed, the purity itself of the gospel be preserved in the church. Now that's an important phrase because they're saying the purity of the gospel is preserved in the church. They don't start with it being preserved in the scripture. That's a different basis where Protestants come from in the preservation of what is the truth of the gospel. We say it's preserved first and foremost in the holy scriptures. That's where our confession starts. It starts stating that the scriptures are infallible. They're saying that the gospel is preserved in the church. Now, you'll see why they're going to say that. Which gospel, before promised through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first promulgated with his own mouth and then commanded to be preached by his apostles to every creature, as the fountain to all both saving truth and moral discipline. All right, so they're gonna talk about saving truth and moral discipline coming through the scriptures, passed down through the Lord Jesus, through the apostles, to every creature, and seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books and the unwritten traditions. So they have two formations there. They have the written books of what they're gonna call the canonical scriptures, and they also have their written traditions. Those traditions passed down in the church since the apostles were gone, since that first group of apostles who were with the Lord Jesus and those closely, most closely related to them, since they were gone, these traditions have been passed down through the church, and those traditions have been written and these were received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself or from the apostles themselves the Holy Ghost dictating have come down even to us. So they're saying all these oral traditions that came to the apostles and we're going to see in a minute where they're going to even use scripture to verify that further out of John chapter 20. The context of this is to say all this information that was given orally to the apostles Some of it was written down and put into canonical scriptures. Others of it was a part of an oral tradition passed along through the apostles. And even that oral tradition has been dictated by the Holy Ghost. Look at that phrase there, the Holy Ghost dictating. So they say the oral tradition passed down through the apostles, that oral tradition Then passed down after the Apostle's death, the oral tradition continued to be passed down in the church, and the Holy Ghost dictated even the oral tradition. You can go on further. It was transmitted, as it were, from hand to hand, following the examples of the Orthodox Fathers. Receives and venerates this the synod following the examples of the orthodox fathers Receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety and reverence all the books of the old the New Testament Seeing that God is the author both as also the said traditions All right, do you see how they're putting that on equal plane I What they call the canonical scriptures, and we haven't even gotten to the part of disputing what they include in the canonical scriptures, but they say there is a canonical scriptures And there's also this oral tradition, and they're putting those on equal plane as both being dictated by the Holy Ghost, both being passed down through the apostles, and both of those are to be venerated in the early church fathers, and they are only following the example of the early church fathers that they would continue to hold the canonical scriptures and the oral traditions both as being dictated by the Holy Ghost and both being on an equal plane. Now, you can use, in this little document, you can see here that I've shown you that they don't have the same canonical scriptures we do. They have seven extra books that they've added. I'm not getting into the Old Testament canon this morning. We may discuss that later, but you need to note that This idea is an idea formulated at the Council of Trent, but it's an idea that's been formulated walking through the Roman Catholic Church for a thousand years previous, and the Council of Trent formalized it, and the Roman Catholic Church to this day has not denied it. Now, you may say, well, how do we know they have these two equally held ideas of scripture and tradition both on an equal plane? Well, after the Council of Trent, there was one of the greatest Roman Catholic theologians of the late 1500s into the early 1600s. Now, this is important because this is tying the work of the Council of Trent to one of its foremost scholars and theologians nearby who was giving interpretation of what the Council was doing and his scholarship was being used in the Roman Catholic Church. Francis DeSales is what I'll call him. They call him Saint Francis, but he ain't a saint in the sense that they call him one. I went back to Southernese there, didn't I? He ain't a saint. He is not a saint in the sense that they say that, that he is. But Francis DeSales, Roman Catholic scholar, circa 1600. I believe he was born in 1567 and died in 1622, if I remember correct. seeks to make scripture and church tradition on equal plane with one another. He says the scriptures are indeed most useful. Oh, well, thank you. And it is no little favor which God has done to preserve them for us through so many persecutions. But the utility of scriptures does not make holy traditions useless any more than the use of one eye, of one leg, of one ear, or one hand makes the other useless. The council, now he's speaking of the Council of Trent here, says, it receives and honors, now it's interesting, in this quote, now understand, he's quoting the Council of Trent from the fourth session. So he's bringing that forward and saying, here's what the Council of Trent was doing. The Council of Trent says, it receives and honors with equal affectionate piety and reverence Now that's an important phrase, receives and honors with an equal affectionate piety, equal affectionate piety and reverence all the books as well as the Old and the New Testament and also these traditions. Equal piety and reverence. He says, it would be a fine way of reasoning. Faith profits, therefore works are good for nothing. Similarly, many other things also, and he's quoting John 20, 30, 31. Many other things also did Jesus, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is son of God and that believing you may have eternal life in his name. Now he makes a bold statement here and says, therefore there is nothing to believe except this. Now he's using John chapter 20 to state that because there were other things that were not written in the book, those other things can be on an equal plane with the things that are written in the book. And the two, because he's already said the Council of Trent put this together. He's remember he's explaining the Council of Trent. The two together. Tradition and scripture are on an equal plane of piety and reverence. Therefore, there is nothing to believe except this. He says we quote one verse John 2030 31. And both of these are on equal plane, scripture and tradition. Case closed. That's what he says. He goes on and he says, the scriptures are given for our salvation, but not the scriptures alone. Traditions also have their place. Is it not the holy scriptures of St. Paul which says, therefore brethren, hold fast to traditions? which you have received, whether by word or our epistle." Now, when you look at these things together, you have to recognize Francis de Sales is bringing forward the Council of Trent to say that scripture and oral tradition has been passed down from the apostles to the early church fathers, from the early church fathers into the medieval period in the Roman Catholic Church. And all the Roman Catholic popes, because you remember a while back we were talking about that the pope interprets scripture for the church. And remember their opening statement of the Council of Trent was, is that the gospel is preserved in the church. How is it preserved in the church? From the passing down of all the church father's information in its oral tradition, the pope's interpreting scripture for the church, that's how the gospel's preserved. Now, what is happening every time you perpetuate that kind of thinking over history throughout what you consider to be a Christian community? Okay, there's something more ultimate than scripture. It's the church. All right, there's change. There's something happening. There can be evolution in God's truth. All right, this is why we go back and one of our concerns with our charismatic friends is what? New revelation. I got a word from God. Nothing against you ladies, but there are multiple women preachers right now. Some of them have seeped into Southern Baptist life. And these women preachers, they get a word from God. Now these men charismatic preachers have been doing that for years. They've had all kinds of words from God, which are not from God. They are proclaiming new revelation. We have a new revelation. Now, if you question them on that, they say, oh, no, no, no, that's not what we're saying. It just has to agree with scripture. Well, then why do you need a word from God? Just give us what the scripture says. That's why it becomes very important as believers to go back to the book of Acts and think about being Berean type believers who search the scriptures. That's why it's important for elders to lead the church according to the scriptures in their preaching and teaching. Now, is every man perfect? No. There's going to be mistakes that can be made, even in the most solid churches. Our confession gives that identification in the latter parts of the confession. There can be difficulties in and among churches, and there can be mistakes that are made and differences. But there has to be a solid ground in which one can stand, and it has to be the scriptures. If there's something added to that, that's new revelation. And here for the Roman Catholics, their ongoing new revelation is this tradition. And it's moved from being what they would call oral tradition to just what they call the traditions. And now the traditions include all of the different things. which the pope has interpreted for the church. Now what's interesting though, if you read in the Catholic Catechism and you spend some time looking at different formulations of Vatican I and Vatican II, you'll see where they say, well, no interpretation or oral tradition can expressly go against scripture. And yet, how many popes have gone expressly against the scripture. There's a pope right now. And his social thinking has moved expressly against the scripture. Now I didn't bring you those quotes in. You can go look it up and see how the popes have become more liberal socially going against scripture over the last 40 years or so. This is new revelation. This is why this is so dangerous. You have the ability to have new revelation and they go as far as to say it's on equal plane with the scripture. That means if you go against the Pope, what's the problem? But if anyone received not as sacred and canonical the said books entire with all their parts as they have been used to read in the Catholic Church and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate and knowingly and deliberately condemned the traditions of foresaid. Not only do they have seven books not recognized historically in the canonical scriptures, Okay, that's an issue in and of itself. But they join whatever they think are the canonical scriptures with these traditions and they say, you cannot go against them. And if you do, it says, let him be anathema. If you go against the oral traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, let him be anathema, accursed. That puts you in a very, very, very, very, very difficult spot to ever go against anything a pope says. No elder is perfect. How could you ever deal with an elder who was out of step if you had the elder saying, well, there's holy scripture and then there's my oral tradition. This is one of the things that at times has been so frustrating even in Protestant churches that Protestant churches over years have gained certain traditions in their churches and if you did something with that tradition then all of a sudden you hit their sacred cow and you were done. First church I served in, a little church in Bessemer, Alabama. I was 18 and a half years old when I went there. And it was a learning experience. Small church had been established for, I don't know, at that time, at least 60 years, 50, 60 years. And I started to learn that there were little sacred traditions in that church that if you did anything against those, I mean, Katie barred the door. Somebody was upset. There was a particular flower arrangement that got moved because I was the new Minister of Music and Youth, and these flower arrangements were right in front of the choir singing. I didn't think twice about it. I'm 18 years old. I thought, well, that's just in the way. Let's move that. So I moved it, got it out of the way. And boy, when I showed up Sunday morning, you would have thought that I denied the deity of Jesus. These things can happen among any group. The problem becomes when they become institutionalized as though they're scripture themselves. Now that's a small example. There can be other bigger issues. But that shows you how something can get entrenched. And that tradition becomes almost as though it's in scripture rated. And if you did that, you went against Jesus himself. Okay. These things happen in Protestant churches too. The only problem with Roman Catholic church is they have now put this actually in writing on equal plane with scripture. The oral traditions of the church. There's another issue here is it brings confusion among the body of Christ. How are we supposed to be Bereans and know the truth and stick with the truth if the truth can have new revelation all the time and can change? Sharon brought up the word change. It's as though now there's a context to where this evolution of material continues to grow. What do you end up with in the New Testament sense? It's something similar that Jesus was dealing with in the Old Testament sense. The Pharisees. What was one of the problems for the Pharisees and the Sadducees? Say it again. All right, they had all these traditions, these rabbinical writings. They had all of these things that had been handed down to them over time, put on top of scripture. And scripture itself could even be misquoted. And Jesus deals with that in the Sermon on the Mount, doesn't he? That's part of what he's doing there. This is happening in a New Testament sense in the Roman Catholic Church, and it happens with the Charismatics. You end up with all this new revelation, these new traditions, and they become inscripturated. Those volumes I emailed to you, the information, I think it's chapter 4, volume 1. It may be chapter 3, but chapter 4, volume 1, David King outlines not just Francis de Sales' quote, but he enumerates multiple quotes through history. to where as this moves along, the statements begin to be even stronger that modern Roman Catholic theologians come to a place to say, these are the two revelations, sources of revelation, scripture and tradition. It only emboldens people to do those things when you don't knock it out. And that's what the reformers were trying to do, was trying to say reform Catholic Church and go back to the scriptures and the scripture alone, sola scriptura. All right, let's take a moment and look at John chapter 20. Turn there in your Bibles. I know it's on the screen. I don't like to do this often. You can look at the screen too because I've highlighted a few things. But I want you to also just look at this in your Bibles as well. Because what I want us to do is see some of this in context and then we'll deal with the verse. Starting in verse 19 of chapter 20, let's go back and read that. Verse 19 of chapter 20. So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, peace be with you. And when he said this, he showed them both his hands and his side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they have been retained. But Thomas, one of the 12, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, we have seen the Lord. But he said to them, unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. After eight days, his disciples were again inside and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, reach here with your finger. and see my hands and reach here your hand and put it into my side. And do not be unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see and yet believed. Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name." Now, it's important to understand the context here of the verse. I think Francis de Sales and other Roman Catholics are taking this out of context. What is the main issue with Thomas? His unbelieving mindset because he had not seen Jesus physically. That was the main issue. All right. And so it says in verse 29, because you've seen me, if you believed, blessed are they who did not see and yet believed. Now, verse 30 happens. And John says, therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples. which are not written in this book. But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing you may have life in his name. They are putting an emphasis on something that is silent here. They are building a doctrine off of silence in this verse and the whole of its context. The verse never says anything about giving you an unwritten tradition or an unwritten oral tradition. It just plainly states there are some things that are not written, which Jesus did. He performed some other signs and they're not written. Does it say, and now we establish an oral tradition based on the unwritten signs? It doesn't say that. Furthermore, it states expressly why. there is a written word. It says, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ. Yes, Ed. Very much so. And that was the argument of the reformers. Not only is it inspired and infallible, but it's got preached last Sunday. It's sufficient. The written word is sufficient. So you're taking an argument from silence to give something that's not necessary. And furthermore, it's not sufficient because an oral tradition, that A, is not dictated by the Holy Spirit. Had it been dictated by the Holy Spirit to be written down, it would have been written down. We have from the Holy Spirit dictated through man exactly what we need, and it is sufficient. And it states it's sufficient for something very particular. Well, later in his quote, he then builds upon that with 2 Thessalonians 2. But the problem will be, we'll look at in just a second, something we said last week. There's something specific that's said in that text by Paul as well. Yes, Michael. Yes, Michael. Yes, Michael. Yes, Michael. Yes, Michael. Yes, Michael. Yes, Michael. Yes, Michael. Yes, Michael. Yes, Michael. Yes, Michael. Another one of the teachings of tradition is that Mary is the perpetual virgin who is in sainthood. Once again, that's an oral tradition. It's not built off of scripture. Scripture doesn't teach she's a perpetual virgin. Matter of fact, it teaches the opposite because she had other children. For the sake of time, Mark, one last comment that I need to move forward just a second. Well, how do they deal with comment off of nothing? I mean, oral tradition off of nothing? Well, this is what men do. When you have a position you want to hold, you're going to find something to try to hold on to it. Even if you want to use the scriptures and twist them in some way. There's other things that have been done that way. I'm not trying to be ugly to my Presbyterian brothers and friends, but they have a lot of arguments of silence for infant baptism. Now, my Presbyterian brothers, I would say, especially more than any Others, those are my brothers in Christ. I love those folks. We just have an issue because they've taken something out of covenant context in the scriptures and they're applying the sign of the covenant to infants who can't even believe at that point. They may believe one day, but the sign of the covenant was given to those who repented and believed. Multiple scholars have shown where there was a literacy issue in the Middle Ages and in the Middle Ages that was an issue that the Roman Catholic Church played upon and even among the priests themselves. Many of your priests were illiterate. Many of the priests couldn't even read the scriptures. That's why the oral tradition became so important because they passed it down to the priests and many of the priests couldn't even read the scriptures themselves. And that's one of the things that pre-reformers and reformers we're trying to deal with. We've got to go back to scriptures and we've got to have men who can read the scriptures and study the scriptures and therefore you've got to put it in the common language of the people. It can't be in Latin anymore. Another side issue of them wanting the Latin Vulgate edition of the scriptures from the Council of Trent, there's a problem with the Latin Vulgate edition of the scriptures. Does anybody know of that? One of those, there's several, but one of those problems. Who translated and gave that Latin Vulgate edition? Jerome. Jerome, at the time that he translated that, didn't even have some of the New Testament books from the original Greek in any of the manuscripts. He was actually doing work and going backwards Like the book of Revelation. He didn't even have that. There's all kind of problems that they've got. But yes, literacy was an issue. They played upon that. It's historic. They even played upon it with the priests. So that is an issue. And there's multiple scholars, and you'll find some who debate that, but quite frankly, most scholarship shows there was a literacy problem. There were pockets and areas of people who read and wrote more than others. It's not as though there was a complete illiterate context for the whole world, but literacy was an issue. And that's why people started teaching people to read by using the Bible. That's what Christians would do. They would use the Bible as a way to teach people to read. It's a pretty good evangelistic tool. Well, and that's another problem. That's why we go back earlier, we talked about the importance of the printing press. So hard to get a Bible. Yeah. And the Lord Jesus was merciful and came to him and said, okay, you can see. But he says, there's going to be many who aren't able to see me physically, and they're going to have to trust the things that are written. And that goes back to Ed's comment about those things that are written is what's sufficient. Oh, I didn't flip slides. Okay. Just note once again, it says, so then brethren, out of 2 Thessalonians, so then brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us. Now that word traditions there is not the word to give you something inscripturated. It's just simply saying this was handed down. And that which was handed down that was meant to be inscripturated was inscripturated in the letters, in the epistles, in the gospels. Nowhere does Paul open up the idea that there's this ongoing tradition. He's stating to the Thessalonians at the time in his letter, you've heard us preach, and we've preached to you, we've handed these things down in preaching, and we've also written letters to you. That preaching and those letters are handed down to you for you to believe. That's what's there for you. Nowhere does Paul go on to say there's going to be a continuing oral tradition that unfolds and will continue on after the time of the apostles. No, he's just simply saying, we preached to you in Thessalonica, and when we preached, you believed. And since then, that's what we taught as apostles directly to you, and since then, these things are being inscripturated. You have the old covenant scriptures passed down, and we're giving you, as we talked about last week, Paul recognized he was being used of God to bring about new covenant scripture. There was a few other things out of Romans I wanted to show you, but I don't have time. It's 10 o'clock, let's close here. If you want to continue the discussion, love all that, enjoy it. But let's close here for the sake of our blessed Bible study teachers. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your mercy and kindness to send your son, that through his person and his work, there would be the completion of the covenant through his shed blood. Through the completion of that covenant, Lord, you ultimately brought about the completion of your word for your people for the rest of time. May we glory in your word alone and may we not add to it as your word cautions us. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.