Hello, we are live. This is Pastor Patrick Hines, your host of today's live face-to-face with yours truly. And before I dig into the topic, which is a very important one, a young fellow at church has been corresponding with and talking to a thoughtful Roman Catholic fellow. And his questions that he's been asking this young guy from my congregation here are very representative of the kinds of questions that a lot of Protestants have given to them. They're actually fairly easy to answer, but unfortunately there's so little theology and so little church history, apologetics, and everything else that's being taught today that a lot of people are taken in by these types of questions. The majority of them actually work to destroy the Roman Catholic position, as you'll see, but I wanted to go through these. But real quick, I wanted to give everyone an update. I was asked to give an update on my health situation. Um, I'm doing much better. I'm doing much better. My, my diet has radically changed, uh, because I have, um, angina it's called angina where your, your arteries capture plaque and things like that. So I've got a stent and my, on my right coronary artery, which was 90% blocked a month ago. And, um, that was, uh, pretty scary. I was, uh, the doctor that did the procedure and put the stent in and told me afterwards, he said, you were on the verge of a catastrophic level heart attack. which is a little disconcerting because my father's dad had a real bad heart attack when he was 52, and my great-grandfather died when he was 48 of a heart attack, and I'm 49, so I'm thinking, had our places been reversed, me and my great-grandfather, he'd be the one with the stent in his heart, and I'd be dead. But I will say, on the evening before the procedure, I was, I was a little frightened of actually dying. I thought, I might actually die. That's not good. But I was just thinking I'm clothed in Christ's righteousness and Jesus paid for all my sins. And I'm so thankful for the gospel. I'm so thankful for my Bible. I'm so thankful for Jesus Christ's glorious body, His church in this world, which I have always been privileged to be a part of from the time I was a little kid. My parents took me to church, a little Baptist church that met at the YMCA until I was about seven or eight. And then we started going to an evangelical free church. And that's the church I was baptized in when I was 16 years old, 16 years too late. But anyway, I was baptized there. Very thankful to God for that church. It's still a good church. My mom is still a member there and they have a wonderful staff of pastors that do a great job preaching the word there. And then I became more Reformed in my theology and joined a Presbyterian church, and then I became an elder and a pastor. But it's always been such a joy to be part of the body of Christ, and that Baptist church was part of the body of Christ, my Evangelical Free Church was a part of the body of Christ. The Presbyterian churches I've been members of were bodies, part of the body of Christ, because we all believe in the same God, the same gospel, the same way of salvation, the same doctrine of justification, sanctification, the same doctrine of scripture, the same doctrine of how the church is to be ruled at the local level. the same doctrine of marriage. Those who practice Sola Scriptura, the body of Christ has different denominational expressions, but there is a oneness to all of Christ's disciples because they are baptized into the one body, baptized into the one church. The label is not really that important. What matters most is do they believe and preach the one true gospel that we're justified by faith alone apart from our works and anything that we do. But I'm feeling much better. It's such a blessing to love the gospel and to believe the gospel and to know that Jesus died for me, that I'm clothed in his righteousness, and that my eternal inheritance is secured and reserved in me for heaven. But I was just thinking about that, like, wow, I am clothed in Jesus's righteousness. It's imputed to me, Romans 4, 6, just as David speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. I just thought, I'm I'm safe and secure in Jesus Christ my Savior." See, that's the thing. The Roman Catholic can't ever say that. And it's just tragic to me that they can never know. In fact, it's a sin in Catholic theology to have an absolute assurance that you're going to heaven. They call it the sin of presumption. And really, biblically speaking, it's a sin to doubt the all-sufficiency of the work of Christ. And I just want to say, as I was laying there, I felt like someone was blowing up a balloon. in my chest on Sunday night. And that was, I think that was only the second time in my entire life as a pastor that I was not able to preach because I was sick. Only the second time I could not have stood up and done a sermon, I would have, I would have passed out. But just laying there and feeling that sensation in my chest, it was pretty, it was very unnerving. Um, and also the medication I've been taking was making me anxious and wonky. And, um, I thankfully four of the things I was taking a run out of, and I was told by my doctor not to, um, refill any of those, but I feel much more sane now, uh, much more, um, less anxious and much more at peace since I've been able to drive without feeling like I'm about to explode or something. So it's been quite the journey, uh, for sure. It really has. And I, um, I'm very thankful to God for modern medicine. I'm very thankful for the people that helped me for the doctors that did the procedure, my heart doctor. So anyway, thank you all for praying for me, and I really appreciate it. I intend to be around for a good deal longer, I'm hoping. Okay, so here's this fellow's question. He's a Roman Catholic, a thoughtful Roman Catholic. And his first question is actually three questions wrapped up into one. If the last man that had free will was Adam, what sins do we have to repent and be forgiven? What debt do we owe that Jesus must pay? Isn't our free will necessary in order for there to be judgment at all? This is a common misunderstanding of the fall. It's a common misunderstanding, not just of Protestant theology, but of biblical, historic—I mean, we don't even differ with the Roman Catholic Church on this issue. What this guy thinks that we mean when we say that man no longer has free will, he thinks that what we mean is man doesn't have a will at all. what we mean, what the Augustinian, historic, biblical, and even Roman Catholic position is, is that the will of man is enslaved to sin. And so no man is free to choose Christ, and he won't choose Christ. But we are free to sin, and so we do commit lots of sin, and we do it with full knowledge that we're doing it. We do it of our own volition. Man always has a will. Okay, when we say that man doesn't have free will anymore, we're not saying man doesn't have a will. When we say the will is not free, we're saying the will is enslaved to sin now, and unless God does something supernatural to it, it will stay enslaved to sin. So what sins do we have to repent and be forgiven of if the last man that had free will was Adam? That's like asking, well, if the last man that had a will was Adam, then what do we have to be forgiven for? Adam was the only person, other than Eve and the Lord Jesus, that had a will that could choose the good, that could choose to do what's right and obey God and everything else. Once Adam falls into sin, the Augustinian position against Pelagianism, and Rome agrees with us on this, is that man's will is enslaved to sin unless God acts to free the will. Now, our understanding of grace, obviously, is radically different from the Roman Catholic Church's understanding. So what sins do we have to be forgiven of? All the ones that we freely commit, acting out of our fallen nature. It's as simple as that. What debt do we owe that Jesus must pay? A lot. We're guilty of Adam's first sin. That's why every single human being on this planet is mortal and will die eventually. We commit our own sins. We violate all of God's commandments in thought, word, and deed every single day. And he says, isn't our free will necessary in order for there to be judgment at all? Yeah, in our will, when we say that man doesn't have free will, we're not saying that man doesn't have a will. We're saying the will is no longer free to choose the good, free to be saved. It's enslaved to sin now. Okay? So I am responsible for everything that I freely do out of my fallen nature, which is enslaved to sin. So this question is making a category error. He thinks that what we're saying, and not just what Reformed churches are saying, but what the entire historic Christian faith is saying, is that, well, if Adam was the last man of free will, then we can't be held responsible for anything that we do because we don't have wills anymore. That's not true. We do have a will, but the will has fallen now. The will is enslaved to sin. Okay, so that's the first question. Pretty easy one. Okay, question number two. How does God select who to save and who not to? According to his own purpose, it says in God's Word. God selects and chooses unconditionally out of the mass of equally undeserving sinners a huge number of people that he gives to Christ before the foundation of the world and commissions Jesus to go and save them. This is the clear teaching of Scripture from beginning to end, that the Lord Jesus was given the elect before the foundation of the world. And I'd like to try and get BibleWorks to work here. What happened? My whole thing shut down. This whole thing crap. Oh, there it is. Okay. We're back. Cool. I'm still learning and I'm learning how to use accordance now, but let's look at some of these verses. Let's look at some of these passage passages that are very easy to understand. The language is crystal clear. People often reject them. Uh, not because they don't interpret them correctly. Whoever this, this fella is asking this, but because they don't like what they say. You see, man is rebellious, even when he reads scripture. And the reason for all the divisions that exist in the body of Christ has nothing to do with the Bible, nothing to do with the Bible's clarity. It has everything to do with our rebelliousness and our sin. Okay. We're going to talk about sola scriptura and that biblical, patristic, historical, vital truth to the Christian faith. He says, how does God choose who to save and who not to? Okay. The first thing you need to understand is everybody's damned and everybody is justly, righteously damned. The entire human race is in its sins and wants nothing to do with God, and if God had left the entire human race in sin and let us all die and go to hell, He would not have done a single thing unfair. He would not have done a single unfair thing. What is fair? If God just chooses to be fair to the entire human race, that means every single one of us goes to hell, and righteously so, justly so. So I have a feeling this fellow is not working with the biblical doctrines of human sinfulness, of original sin and what Scripture says about that in dozens of places, Psalm 51, verse 4, Romans 5, verses 12 through 19. In fact, myself and Jim Thornton and Henry Johnson just did a podcast yesterday, which I messed up uploading it, it got uploaded this morning, on sin. I would encourage this fellow, please go listen to that. It's on the same YouTube channel. It's called Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof. Okay, so this guy's asking, how does God select who to save and who not to? The only thing that we know from Scripture is He does it according to His purpose. That's all we're told. But it's not because of anything foreseen in us and not in response to anything that we would do or do do. Okay? Ephesians 1, verse 3, listen to how clear this is. "...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." Okay? He chose us before the foundation of the world in order that we would be holy and blameless before Him, not because He foresaw that we were. But so that we would be, so that sinners who are in rebellion against God and hate God and want nothing to do with God would actually be holy and saved and blameless before Him. In love, verse 5, He predestined us to adoption. That Greek verb praorizo, predestined, means to destine beforehand. to determine the destiny of beforehand. They were predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved." And that beloved one, of course, is Jesus Christ. As God said at his baptism, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And it's only when I have faith in Christ and not in my works that I'm taken out of Adam and put into Jesus Christ, and I am then accepted in Christ for the rest of eternity. But who does that? Who's going to believe in Jesus? Who, what will put their faith in Christ? Well, look at Acts 13, 48. When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And I would just ask the fellow that's asking all these questions, is that hard to understand? as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed." It's pretty easy to understand, isn't it? Let's look at another passage. Jesus in John 17, verse 2, we're praying on the eve of his crucifixion. Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, even as you gave him authority over all flesh, that to all who you have given him he may give eternal life. So who's going to be given eternal life? The ones given to Him by the Father. How did He select them? According to His own purpose. According to His own purpose, how He wanted to glorify His grace. And those that are not chosen will glorify His justice because they will righteously be sent to hell. And you know what? That's exactly what they want. They don't want God. They want nothing to do with Him. have no interest in repenting, they are the dedicated servants of sin, and it's as simple as that. Okay, this fellow then asks, it can't be our faith—like, God chooses based on our faith, that's actually a good observation—it can't be our faith, that would be a choice invoking free will or a work that we participated in. That's right! And I think this guy probably doesn't realize he actually almost quoted a passage of Scripture. Romans 9-11 is the clearest description of unconditional election in the whole Bible, Romans 9-11 says, "...for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works, but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, the older will serve the younger, just as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." That's Romans 9 verse 11 through 13. This fellow goes on in his question here, does he just love some of us more than others? No, it's not that. It's not that. It's that his righteous and holy nature, having been violated by all of our constant sinning, because we love sin and are the servants of sin, that invokes God's wrath. God chooses to glorify His grace in saving people. So think about this illustration. Let's say that the governor of Tennessee knows there are a hundred convicted murderers that are about to be executed for murder. They were convicted on the basis of 500 eyewitnesses watched them commit the murder. They confessed to the murders. They have no remorse for their murders. And the governor decides to pardon 60 of them, any less the other 40. get what they deserve. What is that? Is that fair? No, fair would be all 100 of them get executed for their crime, for murder. So the 60 that were pardoned got grace, got mercy. Okay, this guy says, does he just love some of us more than others? And if he does love some of us more than others, doesn't that mean he ceases to be omnibenevolent? No, not at all. Not at all. The fact is, omnibenevolence has nothing to do with the categories of justice and holiness. You see, God is holy. Whoever is asking these questions has no concept of the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God. You see, as we're sitting here and I'm in a nice air-conditioned office and everything is happy hunky-dory and all is well right now, I don't feel like God is a threat to me right now. And most people don't. Now, when God saved me, and as He convicts me of my sins, I do know He's a threat to me, because He has righteous wrath against my sins. And that's the testimony of Scripture all the way through the Bible. Okay, remember Isaiah chapter 6? Isaiah is a righteous man. He's a godly man, a godly prophet of the Lord. And in Isaiah chapter 6, Listen to this. In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with a train of his robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations and thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, the prophet said, listen, now before I read this, When prophets of God were sent to the nations, when they were sent to prophesy against Israel in the north, Amos and Hosea are really the only two that are primarily aimed at the north. Everyone else is prophesying against the south. They would pronounce woes and judgment against the people of God. They pronounced woes and judgment from the Lord against the people for their sins. But here you have a prophet doing something real different. And Isaiah is a believer. Isaiah is godly. He sees this vision of the holy, holy, holy Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts here, and he says, Woe is me, for I am undone, he says. Undone. That Hebrew term means to cease, to be cut off, to be disintegrated. Because I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, and he's fearful that he's going to die. I want to ask this young guy who, I don't know how old he is, but whoever this is asking these questions, have you ever had that moment in your life where you came face to face with the Holy God and you knew all of my pretensions of righteousness and all my reliance upon my works, is a fool's errand. I am undone before this thrice holy God." Everyone that ever had an encounter with God, they all thought that they were about to die. That's a Hebrew term, damah. Damah means to cease or call. I am ceased. I am cut off there. Pretty remarkable that he pronounces woe upon himself when he sees God, when he has this vision of the Lord. So omnibenevolence has to do with the fact that rain falls on the just and the unjust, uh, that you have, you know, God feeds and clothes and gives children to people that hate him and want nothing to do with him, that spurn all his overtures of grace and everything else. That's what omnibenevolence is there. Omnibenevolence does not mean God really, really, really, really wants to save everybody or that he has the same redeeming love for all. He doesn't. He doesn't. God makes a distinction. Jacob, I loved Esau, I hated. Now, the first time I read that in my Bible, I thought, oh, he's supposed to love everybody. Oh, this Esau I hated. How can that be there? Now, as a person who's walked with Christ for many, many years, and I see the depth of my own sin, the shocking part of that verse is not Esau I hated. It's Jacob I loved. Why would he love Jacob? He should hate them both. You know, Psalm 5, verse 5, it says in scripture, Yahweh hates all who practice iniquity. Who practices iniquity? Everybody. So he should have that wrathful, righteous hatred, that judgment, that condemnation for every single person in the entire human race. And he does, except for his elect people whom he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world. They don't get fairness. They get grace. And I know for a fact, without any question at all, had God not chosen me, had God not by his irresistible and almighty power, effectually called me, there is no way I would ever have come to Christ. Not a chance. No way would I ever have come to Jesus. I was in love with my sin. And God convicted me and God opened my eyes. God showed me, you're on your way to hell and justly so. And he showed me his son and drew me to Jesus. And I'm thankful for that Baptist church, I'm thankful for the Evangelical Free Church, I'm thankful for the United Methodist Church I went to when I was in college, and I'm thankful for my Presbyterian churches that I've been in, because I heard the exact same gospel in every one of those churches. See, that's what this guy doesn't get, too. He thinks that every denomination teaches the whole different Christian faith, and we're going to get to that here in a second. That's just perfectly false. That's just not true at all. Okay, so then he asks, his third question, whose interpretation of the Bible, or the entire deposit of faith, because he's Catholic, he thinks that there's more than the Bible, that there's these alleged traditions. Of course, I would love to know from this fellow, do you believe in the partum partum theory of tradition, or the material sufficiency of scripture? Because I've heard Roman Catholic theologians and apologists hold both views. The material sufficiency view of Scripture is that everything in the Christian faith is either expressly or implicitly in the Bible. That's what's held by a lot of Catholic apologists today, conservative ones. Others say, no, obviously there's a lot of doctrines we believe that are not in Scripture anywhere, and they come to us exclusively in an oral form. Now, those two positions are contradictory. They cannot both be true. One of them is wrong. Because if there is an extra-biblical source of revelation, well, what is it? And what does it teach? And why do so many Catholics believe in the material sufficiency of Scripture? See, the Roman Catholic religion is anything but united, and it's not monolithic, and they are all over the place. In fact, one of the things that James White pointed out—I watched his video response to the 23,000 denominations lie, and it is a lie. It's a total misuse of the source they're using, because it turns them into a fractured group, too. But one thing that white pointed out in that video and when he made that video obama had just been elected president And he said the statistics were 54 of american catholics voted for obama and you think Really the most pro-abortion not even just pro-abortion pro infanticide President the most cold-blooded ruthless murderous ideologue whoever was ever put on the ticket 54% of American Catholics voted for him. Are they under discipline? Are they gonna be excommunicated? Yeah, right Or how about Pope Francis and all the fun things he's been saying all the wacky liberal You know, hey, Pope Francis is homosexuality wrong. Hey, who am I to judge, he says. The vicar of Christ, the universal pastor of all Christians on earth, the vice god of society, the holy father, he's not qualified. Hey, who am I to judge, he says. What's funny to me is that Pope Francis and two popes before him, John Paul II, they said and did things that probably would have gotten them tied to a stake and burned by the Inquisition 400 years ago, 500 years ago. You know, John Paul II, I think it was in 1986, the prayer summit at Assisi, where they had Zoroastrians and pagan cult leaders and voodoo priests and Islamic imams taking turns praying to their to their demons and their false gods, and then there's the Pope, and what were they all doing? Praying for world peace. Can you imagine the Apostle Paul saying, yeah, let's get together with the Judaizers? Yeah, okay. So I called down the anathema of God on them twice in Galatians 1, 8 and 9, but hey, they're our brothers. We're all doing our best. We're all just feeling different parts of the elephant. Can you imagine the Apostle John getting together with the Gnostics? Hey, let's get together and have a prayer meeting for world peace. One would hope that those who claim to be their successors might imitate them in understanding, you know, the truth of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. He says, whose interpretation of the Bible do you subscribe to? Listen to me, young man, whoever you are asking this, you and I and every human being on earth subscribe to our own interpretation of what we read and listen to. Interpretation is inescapable. Okay. Do you have to interpret the infallible pronouncements of the Roman Catholic Church? Yes. And you do it privately. So does every Roman Catholic agree on their interpretation of the Roman Catholic Church and the Magisterium? No, they don't. And there are many different groups who have very strong feelings against each other in the Roman Catholic religion. How about Sedevacantism? The idea that, hey, there hasn't been a valid pope, and some of them are saying, I think, several hundred years, that every single pope that sat on the chair of Peter is an antipope. Sedevacantism. That's based on their interpretation of the Roman Catholic documents, and it differs from yours, probably. So, okay, maybe you need an infallible interpreter of your infallible interpreter, but what if people disagree on that? Here's your problem. God and you, and you and I, and everyone you know, we all believe, with God, in the adequacy of human language to communicate truth. Here's a scenario. Genesis chapter 12. Genesis chapter 12. Hey, listen, let me pull this up here. Genesis chapter 12. When God speaks after the Tower of Babel to Abram, now the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great. And so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you. And the one who curses you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Question, could he have misinterpreted that? You see, if Abraham felt like a Roman Catholic, he would have said, is that really you, Lord? How do I know that's you? You need to give me a body of human beings on earth who are infallible interpreters of what you said. Otherwise, I don't know what you said. I can't understand anything that you said. Let me put it and make it a little closer to home. When I was growing up, my father used to tell me, Patrick, I want you to go to bed at 930. And I would say, okay, dad. And I'd stay up till 10. And he come to me and 10 till 10, I'm still up. Son, I told you to go to bed at nine 30. Well, I thought you said 10. No, no. I said nine 30. Well, I didn't understand you dad. It's your job to understand me. He would, he would do this with me, but I forgot. It's your job to remember. I thought you meant that. No, it's your job to understand me. And then he spanked me and rightly so. You know why? Okay. Then he spanked me because the man said 10, not nine 30. And he believes, just as God believes, in the adequacy of human language to communicate. You know, one of the things he said to this young man in my church, he said, the number of Protestant denominations is immaterial. What matters is, can Scripture be misinterpreted? Sir, everything can be misinterpreted. The pronouncements of the Roman Catholic Church can be misinterpreted. and often are, and often are disagreed about to an extreme level. And there's all sorts of groups within that religious organization that are very opposed to one another because they don't agree on the right interpretation of those things. So the real issue is not interpretation. Interpretation is inescapable. I mean, you can posit as many infallible interpreters of infallible interpreters as you want. Eventually, you've got to interpret it for yourself. Eventually, all of us have to listen and interpret it. And this guy's position, his understanding of this, would make it really, in effect, God cannot talk to us. God cannot say anything directly to man. He's got to have a perpetual body of infallible teachers on the earth. Yeah, but they're not very good at clarifying anything. And in fact, they don't really interpret Scripture much at all. I mean, if you want to actually say that the Immaculate Conception is an interpretation of Scripture, really, highly favored one from Luke 1, 28, that that's actually referencing a dogma that would not develop for another, what, 13 centuries? I mean, please, always remember the system that these questions are being asked out of, okay? He says, if so, what is the right answer, and who determines what it is, sir? You have to interpret the pronouncements of the Roman Catholic Church, and you can misinterpret them, or you can interpret them differently from someone else. And yet God believes in the adequacy of language to communicate. I'm going to get to this in just a minute here. press on here. Whose interpretation of the Bible do you subscribe to? Everyone. Everyone subscribes to their own interpretation of everything. In fact, when I've listened to Roman Catholics say, well, yeah, I just couldn't be a part of one of these, you know, Protestant denominations, so I joined the Roman Catholic Church. How did you come to believe that that among the many competing authorities that claim to be the one true? How did you come to believe that? Well, I read the scriptures. You mean you privately interpreted them? Well, I listened to some lectures about church history. You privately interpreted church history? Well, I read some of the stuff in the tradition. You privately interpreted tradition? Well, it could be wrong. You could be misunderstanding it. So the real issue is not interpretation. The real issue is whose ultimate authority has better credentials? And I say God has better credentials than the Roman Catholic Church. God has better credentials than Rome. And when I read scripture, I don't look at it like a bunch of mysteries. I read it Ephesians 2, 8 through 10. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not by works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, creating Christ Jesus unto good works that God has ordained that we should walk in them. Now that's so easy, even I understand it. So the Roman Catholic Church teaches you're saved by works that you do with the help of grace, but Scripture says you're saved by faith, not by works, lest anyone should boast. Oh, that just means we can sin all we want? No, we're created in Christ Jesus for good works, unto good works, that we should walk in them, but we're not saved by them. And statement after statement after statement after statement after statement, verse after verse after verse, paragraph after paragraph, chapter after chapter after chapter of God's Word makes that abundantly clear. I've often said in sermons and teaching over all the years I've been a Christian, I have wondered how many ways the inspired text of Scripture can exclude our works from what saves us and what gets us into heaven. And yet men still find a way. not by deeds of righteousness." Titus 3, 5. Romans 3, 20. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in his sight. Rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely as a gift by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. It's not our works. It's not our law keeping. It's faith in Christ. Romans 4, 4, and 5, to the one not working but believing. His faith is imputed to him as righteousness, just as David speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Now, I don't need an infallible interpreter to tell me what that means. Okay, here's another one. The Old Testament says that David was king of Israel. David was king of Israel. Okay, so What are some valid interpretations of that? Okay, interpretation number one. Rehoboam was king of Israel. Could the phrase David was king of Israel mean Rehoboam was king of Israel? Well, without an infallible interpreter, I guess we don't know. Maybe it means Solomon was king of Israel, the letter B. Or C, David was king of Israel. Which of those three do you think is the right interpretation? C, David was king of Israel. Not Rehoboam or Solomon, because that's what it says. See, these objections are so absurd. Interpretation is as inescapable to communication as breathing is to talking. Well, whose interpretation do you go with? Sir, you go with your own interpretation of whatever it is you hold to be your final authority. And as I said, the God of heaven and earth believes in the adequacy of human language to communicate truth. God believes in the adequacy of human language to communicate truth. And in fact, when Jesus was confronted with error, when he was confronted with error, listen, the Sadducees come to him in Matthew 22, and they tell him the whole story. There was a guy that was, a woman that was married to seven brothers, and they kept remarrying, and whose wife will she be in the resurrection? Jesus' answer in Matthew 22, 29 was this, you are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, nor the power of God. Okay, hang on, hang on. Couldn't they have said, if they thought the way this guy thinks, well, Jesus, we, you never gave us an infallible interpreter of scripture. We didn't know what it meant. When Jesus was confronted with error, you just quote scripture and says, you're wrong because here's what scripture says. And you should have known that. Here's what this guy needs to understand. It accomplishes nothing to hand your responsibility to do your own believing and your own dying. to someone else. Yeah, but they told me they were the true church. Why'd you believe them? Well, based on my fallible interpretation of scripture or history and listening to these lectures and reading these books. Oh, you mean you privately interpreted all that stuff and came to this conclusion? Yeah, interpretation is inescapable. You can't get away from it. You can posit 50 billion infallible interpreters of those interpreters, and eventually you've got to make a decision about what it means. And we all believe in the adequacy of language. You do, I do, everyone does. My dad did, and he expected me to. I said, 10, son. I thought you said 930. No, uh-uh. I don't remember 930 coming out of my mouth. I said 10, and so you're getting spanked. And rightly so, because that's what he said. And I couldn't say, well, I need an infallible interpreter of my dad, because I can't understand anything he says. That's the thing about this Roman Catholic argument. I mean, from the first time I ever heard it, well, whose interpretation do you go with? Everybody goes with their own interpretation of everything, because God believes in the adequacy of language. It's his invention. God invented language, and he expects us to understand it when he says something to us. Now, another thing he says, okay, let's get here. Why wouldn't the apostolic succession be a more trustworthy source of interpretive authority than us? Okay, the idea of apostolic succession. Paul the Apostle said, I hope this, whoever this is listening carefully, he said, if I, an apostle myself, come back and tell you something different from this, may I be damned to hell. I couldn't care, even if you could, I don't believe you can, but even if you could trace your ordinations all the way back to the apostles, I don't care. Because the apostles planted churches where heresy grew up in them. The people that they ordained turned out, many of them, to be bad guys. Paul said in Acts 20, 28 and following, I know this, and in the day when I leave, savage wolves will rise among you, not sparing the flock. Okay, so here's the thing. How do you know if you're in a church that's apostolic? If they teach what the apostles taught. And what is the only source of what the apostles taught? It's this. The Bible. And if this young guy, whoever this is, wants to say, no, no, no, no, no. I, I know things that Jesus and the apostles said and taught that are not in scripture. Hey, I'm all ears. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. And please don't tell me the canon. Don't, don't even go there. We'll, we'll have fun with that. If that's the, if that's the response. Apostolic succession. Why do you believe these guys are the apostle successors? Do you have any idea how many groups there are that make that kind of claim? There's thousands of them. Where are the true church? How did Job's Witness tell me that one time? We can trace our way all the way back to the apostles." I'm like, oh, okay, well, I guess their interpretation's gotta be right, because they make this claim. Claims are not justified by standing up and announcing them. You gotta produce some evidence for this. But then I'd have to privately interpret that, wouldn't I? Okay. Apostolic succession? I believe in an apostolic succession of doctrine. An apostolic succession of truth. And in fact, that's what the Scriptures themselves say. Listen to 2 Timothy 2, 2. Notice he doesn't pass on his office. He passes on the things which you have heard from me. It's an apostolic succession of doctrine, of theology, of truth. And would to God that those who claim to be the apostles' successors might actually try teaching what the apostles taught, and the apostles did not teach the papacy, the priesthood, purgatory, indulgences, the Marian dogmas, the Sabbatine privilege, that if you die wearing a brown scapular on your forehead, that the Virgin Mary will come get you out of purgatory on the Saturday after your death. Papal infallibility. They didn't teach any of these things. So don't tell me that you're apostolic if you teach things that are flatly contradicted by what the only source of what the apostles taught says. Okay, fourth question, he asks, what does it mean when the Bible says we are made in the image and likeness of God? Most people interpret that as including a soul and a mind capable of free will, intelligibility, and creativity. That's not true. Most people don't interpret it that way. But that can't be the case if we don't have free will. So this guy's actually making a parallel between the image and likeness of God and an autonomous will? Based on what? I don't think Rome itself doesn't even teach that. Not that I know of, but that's nonsense. What makes us in God's image is that we share certain attributes with God. The ability to love, the ability to know things, the ability to communicate. Language is something that we share in common with God, that we can have communion, fellowship. are being in a covenant relationship with him. Man is different from the animals in all those ways. That's what the image of God is. The image of God is that man is made as like unto God as a creature can be. And we share some of those communicable attributes with God. It's not that we have an autonomous free will or something like that. I have no idea. There is nothing in the Bible that you could use to support that. But if you're a Roman Catholic, What does that matter you don't care if something's not in the bible because you have capital t tradition, which who knows what that is Maybe it's an extra biblical source of revelation. Maybe it's well implicitly somewhere in the bible. We can find the bodily assumption of the virgin mary He says if we were to subscribe to our own interpretation of scripture everybody already does that Which is probably not a good idea. It's the only idea on the on the market, dude You subscribe to your own interpretation of the roman catholic church's pronouncements and many, many, many Roman Catholics would disagree with you on however you interpret them, since it produced 24,000 different denominations. Oh, 24,000? Man, that number is so much higher now. I mean, I've actually had Roman Catholics tell me there's 86,000 denominations. 86,000 denominations. Of course, that is every independent fundamentalist church on the planet. Now, I had my congregant here send a link to an article exposing that lie. There are not that many denominations. Also, it's a gross category error. This guy is comparing a rule of faith, Scripture plus an infallible interpreter, which is what he's positing, he's comparing a rule of faith—I believe in Sola Scriptura is my rule of faith—he's comparing a rule of faith with a denomination. Let's compare rules of faith with rules of faith. Let's think of three denominations, three groups that have scripture plus an infallible interpreter, Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, and the Jehovah's Witnesses. They all practice the same thing, scripture plus an infallible interpreter. And let's compare three denominations that practice solo scriptura, the Continental Reformed Churches, Presbyterians, and Reformed Baptists. Okay. Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Roman Catholicism have different gods, that are completely contradictory, they have different understanding of the person of Christ, totally different Jesus, totally different understanding of salvation, different gospel, different understanding of justification, different God, different Jesus, different Holy Spirit, different gospel. Continental Reformed tradition, Presbyterian tradition, and the Reformed Baptists, same God, same gospel, same Jesus, same Holy Spirit, same understanding of marriage, same understanding of authority, And we all practice Sola Scriptura. The fact is, the reason that there are so many denominations out there is not because of Sola Scriptura. It's because of not practicing Sola Scriptura. It's because people have their traditions. They have their hobby horses and things. They have their ignorance and their biases that they bring to Scripture. And they don't want to believe that. They don't want to believe that God chose in Christ before the foundation of the world. They don't want to believe that. So they're like, well, that can't be true because I have to have an autonomous will. You want to see just how powerful a person's desires and traditions are in theology. Listen to this, the guy who asked these questions, let him walk through Ephesians one and explain it to you. And you'll see his traditions in living color because he won't bow to the text. He won't. Okay. So the reason there are divisions is not because of the Bible, it's because people refuse to believe it. That's the issue. Okay. Um, all rights. Uh, yeah. And this article, um, on the 24,000 domination, it was 33,000 when James White did the article and I've heard 86,000. So it also says that there are hundreds of Roman Catholic, the same source that they're using the world. What is it? The world encyclopedia of Christianity. Uh, it's extremely expensive. There it is. The world Christian encyclopedia, a comparative survey of churches and religions in the modern world. Okay. Listen to this. Before looking at the source of this argument, this is James White's article, and the problems associated with it, it should be made clear that the entire argument being presented here can only be identified as bogus. It fails scrutiny at every possible level. The leaps in logic and argumentation are vast. Let's just focus on two of the obvious problems. First, how does the Roman Catholic Apologist go about demonstrating that sola scriptura is the source of these divisions? For example, when we see divisions in the rank of Rome and see strong disagreements on key issues, does it follow that the Roman magisterium is to blame for the differences of viewpoint? You see, on this guy's logic, that would mean, well, you've got to have another group of apostolic successors to interpret the interpreter. But then people would privately interpret that and disagree on that. Well, we need another group of apostolic successors to privately interpret the infallible interpreter of the infallible interpreter of Scripture. Listen, If a Christian believes Scripture's a sufficient rule of faith, how does it follow that an abuse of such a sufficient source is an argument against its sufficiency? That's the key thing here. That's what this guy doesn't get. That's what this guy doesn't get. He says, it produced 24,000 denominations that all believe something different, and they have privileged and correct truth. Then why does the New Testament counsel us to sin no more, carry our cross, and endure? I have no idea what he's even asking there. And they don't believe something different. I already told you, I was raised in a Baptist church, an evangelical free church, United Methodist church, and Presbyterian churches. I heard the same doctrine of God, the same doctrine of Christ, the same Holy Spirit, the same gospel, the same doctrine of justification, sanctification, and the Christian life. And all those different churches, you act like they have different gods or different gospels, different Jesuses. Your groups do, though. Scripture, plus an infallible interpreter, as a rule of faith, has produced different gods, different gospels, different whole understandings of the Christian faith. Scripture plus an infallible interpreter has resulted in an even greater number of religious cults. Okay, so he's making a category error. He's comparing a rule of faith with denominations. He can't make that's a category error. Scripture plus an infallible interpreter has not helped anything. Because at the end of the day, we all privately interpret everything. You can't get away from it. Like when I tell my kids, okay, kids, it's nine o'clock, go to bed. We thought you meant 930. No, no. 30 never came out of my mouth when I said bedtime at 9. Well, we need an infallible interpreter. No, you don't. Because God, me, you as a child, this guy asking these questions, this young fellow at my church, and every other human being on this planet, with God, believes in the adequacy of language to communicate truth. He says, or any of the language that very thinly veils the implication that our choices must matter. Our choices do matter. They always matter. What does this guy even talk about? Why do we even need to know that the crucifixion and resurrection occurred if nothing we could do about it matters? It's like you, you pile on, once you, you don't understand original sin, you think that we're actually saying humans don't have wills. Men always have a will. Our will is enslaved to sin, unfortunately. And so we freely act out of our fallen nature and we can only sin. And why does it matter? Because you're, you're, you're expanding your guilt. You're piling up more wrath upon yourself. It says, why does Jesus command the apostles to go out and forgive sins, make disciples and baptize the nations? Because it's God's will to save a vast multitude of people. So vast, no one can count them. Think of Acts 13, 48, when the gospel goes out, when we preach the gospel, when I preach it in my sermons, the people that are appointed to eternal life will believe. Acts 13, 48. There it is right there. My young fellow here at church last night at Bible study. wanted me to address the Apocrypha. Why do we not accept the Apocrypha? Well, the main reason we don't believe the Apocrypha is part of the Old Testament canon is because it's not inspired. And we know it's not inspired because the Apocrypha says it's not inspired. That's one of the things that's so weird about the Roman Catholic Church's understanding of this. They claim that these books are part of the Old Testament canon, and the books themselves say there are no prophets in Israel. There are no prophets in Israel, and God's not talking to them anymore, that there had been a cessation of prophecy. The Jewish people never accepted the books of the Apocrypha. Unfortunately for them, the Apocrypha also has gross historical errors in it. It puts Nebuchadnezzar reigning from Nineveh. Nineveh's the capital of Assyria, not Babylon. Oh, whoops, wrong empire. And there's other things. The author of 2 Maccabees, at the end of the book, says, you know, I did my best to write an accurate history. If it's poorly written, I did the best I could do. He apologizes. It doesn't have thus sayeth the Lord. Are there allusions to the Apocrypha in Scripture? Yeah. Did Jesus know about those books? Yes. Does he ever cite one of them with the Greek phrase, gegreptai, it is written? Nope. Never. Well, there's other books that you accept that he doesn't quote either. Yes, but they're in the threefold division that Jesus accepts. The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings have the books of our Old Testament in them. They do not. They do not include the Apocrypha. Well, some of the early church fathers believed the Apocrypha were part of Scripture. Yeah, because they were ignorant of the Jewish background. A few did think that the Apocrypha was in the Old Testament because they thought excuse me, that the Jewish people accepted those books of scripture when they didn't. And they were often included in the Septuagint version. And so Augustine assumed that the Apocrypha was part of the Old Testament. Jerome and Origen, who were two of the only of the church fathers who could actually read Hebrew, both of them knew that those books were not part of scripture. One of the ironies of church history, too, Cardinal Cuyatam, the guy that interviewed Luther, the prelate that interviewed Luther, was a Roman Catholic scholar, and he wrote commentaries on the Old Testament, he rejects the Apocrypha, because he knew he was a scholar. The Jewish people never accepted those books as part of the canon of Scripture. And so we shouldn't either, because they have errors in them, and the books say they're not inspired. So why in the world does the Roman Catholic Church Include them. Why did the Council of Trent say that the the books of the Apocrypha in the old Latin Vulgate? Edition are canon scripture. Why did they say that well because there's one passage that Sort of a little sounds like purgatory Jewish fighters carrying idols on their persons, which would be a mortal sin I would think that would take them to hell and they're told after they die that they should pray for them these Jewish fighters that had idols on their persons. At best, that would indicate a misunderstanding of purgatory, but they're desperate. There's nothing in the Bible to support purgatory, all disparaging attempts to read it into 1 Corinthians 3 aside. And if you want to listen to a good debate, listen to James White's debate with Tim Staples on, does 1 Corinthians 3 teach purgatory? It's really pathetic on the Catholic side. That passage has nothing whatsoever to do. with the total anachronism of purgatory. Okay, purgatory is a confluence of a whole bunch of unbiblical ideas. It doesn't come to formal dogmatic form until the Council of Florence in the 15th century. But the fact is, in the inspired scriptures, there's nothing. There's heaven, and there's hell. That's it. But, you know, if Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation is right, that it's a process of moral transformation, well, they even, they realize nobody perfect, nobody who's Imperfect that all could go to heaven so there's got to be this you know the cloak room that you got to get scrubbed down a little bit free going to the throne room or all these nice ways they have a putting it Some Catholic apologists even talk about purgatory might be instantaneous Really, then why'd you have people tooling all around Europe? trying to get time out of purgatory by looking at femurs and teeth of apostles and feathers from the angel that carried the house at Loretto from Nazareth, the Virgin Mary's house at Loretto from Nazareth to Loretto in Italy. And you can go look at it, look at this feather and get time out of purgatory. It's a pious fraud. This is the system that is built on lies, on a false gospel. And that's where I want to end my program today. This system cannot save you. This system cannot save you. The Roman Catholic Church does not have the true gospel that were justified by faith alone, apart from works. God sanctifies everyone that he converts and saves and justifies. He changes their heart. He begins that process of transformation, but that's not what saves us. Galatians 2.21, if righteousness, if justification, if getting into heaven could come by our works, Christ died for nothing. He died in vain. Jesus came because we can't do anything to save ourselves. All that we do to be saved is believe in Jesus. And who believes? The elect, when they're irresistibly, effectually called. And that's what I pray for. That's what I pray when we witness the people, when I share the gospel with people. Lord, open their eyes. You know, growing up in a church, we were not given clear teaching on predestination and election. And our youth leaders would ask us, okay, do you guys have any friends that we can pray for their salvation? I remember thinking, why would we pray for anyone's salvation? God can't do that. It's entirely up to their free will, isn't it? But now when I pray, I pray knowing he can save people. That's why B.B. Warfield said, every Christian on their knees that prays for someone is a Calvinist. Because if you really believe that in the final analysis, God cannot save someone without their permission, then what are you asking him to do? Why would I ask God to save lost family, lost friends, if he can't do it? You see, God gets all the glory for salvation and those that go to hell, that's exactly what they wanted. They don't want anything to do with God. They've turned their back on him. They're running from him. So there's my response to these questions. Hold on a second. Let me see who's over here chiming in. Okay. There's Rich Agatha Sawatsky. Yeah. Thank you. Uh, Chris Machen. Yeah. Evening, evening, Rich from England. I think that is amazing. That's so cool. There's people, um, from England that listen and, um, what a blessing. Robert Vogler, the guy from PA, um, prayed for you and then your church situation. I appreciate you sharing that with me. There's brother Rich, my dear brother. Um, Chris Machen, Rob Vogler. There you guys are. I'm trying to see if there's anyone else. Um, no one, God bless you. Vince quitting tobacco. That's good. Yeah. That's one thing I've learned. I've learned a lot about the things that hurt your arteries and smoking. I've never, I've never smoked. So that's a good thing. Alcohol is still, I can't drink alcohol. I drink a little wine occasionally and very, very sparingly. Now we'll, we'll do that a little bit, but. Let's see, anyone else? Junker George, how do you answer the Catholic claim that Protestants can't prove what books belong in the Bible? Junker George, here's how you answer it. How did Jews 50 years before Christ was born know that Esther and the Song of Solomon and 2 Chronicles were part of Scripture? There's no infallible interpreter, and yet they all knew. And when Jesus quoted those books to people, quoted from the Old Testament, not a single one of his opponents ever thought to say, well, we didn't know those books were scripture because you never gave us an infallible body of teachers to rule on it and tell us these books are scripture. The character of the canonical books draws the people of God to them. God worked passively with his people to draw them to the books of the Old Testament. He does the exact same thing with the New Testament. And by the way, for the Roman Catholic Church, if you take their system seriously, No one knew what books were in the Bible until April of 1546. Because that's the first time an ecumenical council ever ruled on the subject. That is absurd! Are you telling me that Ignatius of Antioch, who died in 108, he didn't know what books were in the New Testament? Are you telling me that Irenaeus, Cyprian, Augustine, Jerome, Origen, that none of these guys knew? We don't know. We're still waiting for the church to hire. I sure hope first Corinthians makes it in there. I sure hope the Psalms make it in. I hope Genesis makes it in there. I hope Romans makes it in. I hope John's gospel makes it in. In the early centuries of the church, even before Hippocarthage and Rome, before the synods, those local provincial synods of Hippocarthage and Rome in 397, 399, and 401 actually take down the list of the 27 books, the Christian people had been quoting and using all the books of the New Testament for centuries. They'd already been using them. Why? Because they come with God's inherent authority attached to them already. I remember seeing that. Polycarp thought the book of Tobit was part of the Old Testament canon. And you know what? So much for the infallibility of Polycarp. He didn't know. But he's also quoting other books of the New Testament. Thus saith the Lord. Thus scripture says. And he's doing that before any church council's ever said anything about it. Isn't that amazing? Okay, let's see who else. Paul Garvey. You're the other fella from England. Okay, okay. So people are answering Junker George's question there. Thank you guys for doing that. Let's see. Hey, I was in the trenches like talking to Roman Catholics for years and years and years because when I lived in Cincinnati, that's Roman Catholic Mecca. Like everybody there is like almost everybody I grew up with was either went to Catholic church, went to Catholic schools and met a lot of wonderful people. And it's sad. It's sad that they, they don't have the gospel. And, um, You know, they'll blather on and on about Sola Scriptura. Let me tell you why they hate Sola Scriptura, why Eastern Orthodox converts hate the doctrine of Sola Scriptura so much and attack it with such mockery and viciousness. Because they know full well, as long as you still believe that, you're never going to give any credence to their doctrines. Why would anyone ever entertain the notion that the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin? No one reading their Bible is going to walk away thinking that. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, she said in her Magnificat. The idea that she means that I was prevented from falling into the pit of mud, and He's still my Savior because He prevented me from getting original sin. She meant that in exactly the same way that every other believer throughout both Testaments and all world history meant it. She was sinful, had original sin just like everyone else. The reason they hate Sola Scriptura so much is because they know as long as you believe that, you're never going to believe in the papacy, you're never going to believe their false gospel of justification by infused righteousness, and all their stuff about sacraments being a propitiation, the Eucharist being a propitiation for the sins of the dead and the living, you know, the dead and purgatory. In the proportion of the disposition of your heart, it'll be effective for you, and you keep going to the sacrifice of the Mass thousands of times in your life and still can die impure. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 10, 14, by one offering, He has perfected forever those who are sanctified. So if the Mass is the sacrifice of Christ and it doesn't make you perfect by one offering, it ain't the sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary. The Mass is a blasphemy against the finished work of Christ, and the only way you're ever going to believe that is if you throw away this book called the Bible. The reason there are divisions in the true Church of Christ has nothing to do with the Bible's clarity, has nothing to do with the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. It's because of not practicing Sola Scriptura. And always remember, the principle of Scripture plus an infallible interpreter has resulted in an even greater number of cults. The Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses in Rome all practice Scripture plus an infallible interpreter. Different God, different Jesus, different Holy Spirit, different salvation, different gospel, different way of, of, of, different conception of the afterlife. I mean, Jehovah's Witnesses don't even believe in hell. The Mormons think you can become a God, like the God of this planet was a, was a God on another planet somewhere. But they all practice the same thing, Scripture plus an infallible interpreter. Those that practice Sola Scriptura, the Continental Reform tradition, Presbyterians, Reformed Baptists, same God, same Gospel, same Jesus, same Holy Spirit, same plan of salvation, same understanding of God's sovereignty, His decrees. The reasons for the divisions have nothing to do with Sola Scriptura. It's because of not practicing Sola Scriptura. And you want to see why we're divided? Have the guy that asks these questions walk verse by verse through Ephesians chapter 1, and watch him dance a jig around what it says. You want to see why people are divided? You'll see it if you watch him walk through Ephesians 1, because he will not let it say what it says, that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that he predestined us to adoption. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. He'll, he'll come up with another interpretation. That's why there's division. It has nothing to do with the Bible or its clarity. It's because of our sin. Okay. Um, Jeremy Nethercutt, you're welcome, sir. Appreciate your kind words there. Okay. Whoa. Wow. I've been talking for over an hour. Man, that went fast. That went by real quick. Okay, well, I hope that this video gets a wide audience. Post it on social media. Post it on Facebook. Post it on X or whatever they call it. I don't have social media accounts, but please do post it, and let your Roman Catholic friends see it, because they need to be saved. They're not in the Christian church. They don't hear the true gospel. They need to know that we're justified by faith alone and not by works. You don't look to the Virgin Mary to intercede for you, and you don't worship, and you don't commit acts of idolatry. Oh, I know, it's, it's do you oh, not la true oh, you know, all that wonderful, fun, sophistical Jesuit sophistry. But you've got to, you've got to witness to them, because they need to be saved, because they have a different Jesus, a different gospel, a different everything, sadly. Well, I love you all. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for watching or for listening.