Great Belgic Confession of the Continental Reformed Churches, Article 27, the Holy Catholic Church. We believe and confess one single Catholic or universal church, a holy congregation and gathering of true Christian believers awaiting their entire salvation in Jesus Christ, being washed by his blood and sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit. This church has existed from the beginning of the world and will last until the end, as appears from the fact that Christ is eternal King, who cannot be without subjects. And this holy church is preserved by God against the rage of the whole world, even though for a time it may appear very small in the eyes of men, as though it were snuffed out. For example, During the very dangerous time of Ahab, the Lord preserved for himself 7,000 men who did not bend their knees to Baal. And so this holy church is not confined, bound or limited to a certain place or certain persons, but it is spread and dispersed throughout the entire world. Those still joined and united in heart and will in one and the same spirit by the power of faith. And then article 29. the marks of the true church. And I'd like to preface this before I read some of these fun and interesting Roman Catholic comments on the video where I was answering the questions on my other YouTube channel. Several Roman Catholics came in and just threw acid all over the comment section, so I'm going to respond to some of these fun comments. But here's what a true Christian church is. Here's how you can tell if you're in one. We believe that we ought to discern diligently and very carefully, by the word of God, what is the true church. For all sects in the world today claim for themselves the name of the church. We are not speaking here of the company of hypocrites who are mixed among the good in the church and who nonetheless are not part of it, even though they are physically there. But we are speaking of distinguishing the body and fellowship of the true church from all sects that call themselves the church. The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks. The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel. That's the first mark. If you are not in a church that preaches the true gospel of justification by faith alone, that salvation is entirely and completely by grace alone, through faith alone, completely apart from works, on the basis of Christ's righteousness and crosswork alone, you're not in a church. I don't care what your pedigree is, I don't care who these people claim to be, if they're the apostles' successors, or I've had Jehovah's Witnesses tell me that they can trace their way all the way back to the apostles. I couldn't care less about that. If you don't preach the biblical gospel, you're not a church. They preach the true gospel. It makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them, and there are only two, baptism and the Lord's Supper. It practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it, and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks, one can be assured of recognizing the true Church, and no one ought to be separated from it. As for those who are of the Church, we can recognize them by the distinguishing marks of Christians, namely by faith, and by their fleeing from sin and pursuing righteousness once they have received the one and only Savior, Jesus Christ, They love the true God and their neighbors without turning to the right or left, and they crucify the flesh and its works. Though great weakness remains in it, in them they fight against it by the Spirit all the days of their lives, appealing constantly to the blood, suffering, death, and obedience of the Lord Jesus, in whom they have forgiveness of their sins through faith in Him. As for the false church, It assigns more authority to itself and its ordinances than to the Word of God. It does not want to subject itself to the yoke of Christ. It does not administer the sacraments as Christ commanded in His Word. It rather adds to them or subtracts from them as it pleases. It bases itself on men more than on Jesus Christ. It persecutes those who live holy lives according to the Word of God and who rebuke it for its faults, greed, and idolatry. These two churches are easy to recognize and thus to distinguish from each other." Now, one of the things that came up in these comments, I mean, the notion of apostolic succession comes up again and again and again in these comments, and I wanted to read from the Westminster Confession, chapter 5, as I recall, is chapter 25 of the church. I've been just teaching through the Westminster Confession of Faith here at church on Sunday mornings during the Sunday school hour. And of the church, yes, listen carefully to this. This Catholic church, not Roman Catholic, Catholic meaning universal, have been sometimes more, sometimes less visible and particular churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure," listen, listen carefully to this, not as they can trace ordinations back to an apostle or anything like that, they're more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered and public worship performed more or less purely in them. The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error, and some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall always be a church on earth to worship God according to his will. There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ, nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof. and thus is the teaching of God's Word and of the Church through the centuries. Now, a friend here at church, a brother, has been dialoguing with a fellow who's Roman Catholic, and he sent me all those questions, and I answered them on a podcast. I think that might have been a couple weeks ago. And I downloaded it from Brother Rich's channel. I always upload them to my original channel, just so I've got them there, too. Um, but a couple, a couple of Roman Catholic guys have been over there going nuts. Um, leaving comments, but I cut and pasted their comments into a word document. It's 19 pages long. And I hadn't, I didn't even see these comments, uh, until relatively recently and was like, wow. And they're like, Oh, he's not responding. Cause he's never been beaten this badly folks. The comments that are being left here, first of all, they're, they're filled with misspelled words. And I have to tell you, it's hard to take people seriously. I mean, yeah, I have typos occasionally. I mean, typographical errors. I get that. But when your, your posts are just filled with and with sentences that grammatically don't make any sense. Um, it's hard to take this stuff overly seriously. Okay. Um, so before I get into this, there's no way I'm going to get through all these comments. I mean, it's just. One of the things I want to point out before I start reading these comments and just offering some responses one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit of God is self-control and if you can go out on someone's YouTube channel and insult them and call them stupid and tell them their IQ is less than one and you never even met them and all you've done is actually not really even listen at all to a video. What that tells me is you aren't serious. You're not serious. And why should anyone take you seriously? If your basic position is you don't have the self-control and the sense of class and personal deportment to conduct yourself like a gentleman and leaving comments for public consumption on YouTube, I say, hey, keep them coming. Because it just discredits your position. The first sentence is a misrepresentation of everything I said in the video. He says this whole O-S-A-S, that stands for Once Saved Always Saved, is simply a recent heresy. The Once Saved Always Saved is simply a recent heresy, okay? I don't believe in Once Saved Always Saved. I'm not a revivalist semi-Pelagian Baptist. I don't believe if you walked an aisle and prayed a magic prayer, you're going to heaven. I don't believe that. What I said in the video is that God unconditionally elects His church from before the foundation of the world. He unconditionally elects them from a group of people, all of whom are equally undeserving, equally sinful, and equally want nothing to do with God and are happy and content to remain in their sins and under God's just condemnation. He chooses to save some of those who are justly deserving of going to hell. And when God effectually calls one of those individuals, John 6, 44, no one is able, udais dunatai, no one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. When God does that, He will preserve that person to the end. They have eternal life. They will not lose that salvation. Now, what about all the warnings and what about all of that in the New Testament? What about all of the exhortations? God uses moral means to exhort his people on in the faith? I mean, what do you expect God to say? The apostles of Christ did not have infallible knowledge of the audiences that they were writing to, and so they gave them good pastoral advice. And you know what? The way the apostles exhorted their churches is very similar to the way I exhort the church here. Press on. Keep going. Don't turn back. And what am I supposed to say? Well, if you're one of God's elect, you're good to go. Don't worry about it. You don't need to do anything. Don't worry about it. I mean, is that seriously how you do pastoral care? The apostles themselves didn't know if every single person in the church of Rome, the church of Colossae, the church in Thessalonica, if they were all true believers. So of course they exhorted them and encouraged them. Press on, keep going. He says, we Catholics do have what is called a reasonable assurance. We would be judged righteous if we die at that moment. particularly if we're not conscious of any unconfessed grave slash mortal sins. I do not understand how that could minister comfort to anyone. How could that minister comfort to anyone? Well, I don't have any real big sins in my life that I haven't confessed. One of the problems is the Roman Church has never told us what counts as mortal sins and what doesn't. It gives a generic criteria, has to be full knowledge, and yadda yadda yadda, so on and so forth. The fact is, though, we're always guilty when we sin. We always choose to do it when we sin. So here's certainty. Well, I think I'm righteous, because I haven't done anything real bad. And you know something? That's the devil's gospel, because it's totally false. It's totally false. The fact is, the Bible gives us the means by which we can know we have eternal life. 1 John 5, 13, These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life. Paul says, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? He says in Romans 8, 1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Not, well, I sure do hope I'm going to be saved, and maybe, I don't think I've done anything too bad. And you're going to see passages misused, and the whole thing, I beat my body bringing it to the table. 1 Corinthians 9 is misused constantly. This guy does the same thing. He actually doesn't typically cite, give a reference. He just kind of like will allude to something. Maybe he's hoping you won't know the context of the passage. I don't know. But the use of Scripture, the use of Scripture in these comments here is just, it's deplorable. This individual would flunk. out of an undergraduate Bible program offering this kind of quote-unquote exegesis based on Rome's alleged infallible guidance. Okay, wow, people are going nuts over here in the comment section. Goodness gracious. There's Susan, howdy there, from Los Angeles, California. Chris Machin from Scunthorpe, England, and Lambs Grace from Texas. Robert Vogler from PA. Hey, that's right, on this coming Saturday, 28 years, me and my precious girl have been Married 28 years. I cannot believe that. That's just unbelievable to me. She is. I'm married to the best person I've ever met. I am married to the best human being I've ever met. Um, Patrick, if you have time during the podcast, check your email. Okay. I'll do that right now. Real quick. There it is. Tried mass at St. Matthew's Roman Catholic church in long beach, California. What is this? See, this is why I like doing this live. You can just, you can just wing it. Pride Mass at St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Church in Long Beach, California. St. Matthew's is under the purview of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and operates with their blessing. There's a picture of gay pride rainbow colors and four clergy bowing down at the table. Wow. Oh yeah, there's Jesus's one holy catholic apostolic and Infallible Church. Pride Mass. So a gay Pride Mass. Matthew 5 16 is cited on the banner. Be the light and the light bulb is in all rainbows. Oh my good gracious mercy. Oh my goodness. Wow. I'm sure that these guys that left these comments they'd have an excuse for that. They had an excuse for um, John Paul II's prayer meeting at Assisi in 1986 where he prayed for world peace, um, with Zoroastrians, Muslims, um, pagan cult leaders, voodoo priests, um, uh, witch doctors from America and everything else. And one of these guys, one of these Roman Catholic guys here, um, said, He was evangelizing them, like Paul did in Athens in Acts 17, where he said, that which you worship is unknown, I here proclaim to you. Yeah, right. Yeah, John Paul II said, every one of you is worshiping a false deity, when they started praying, and he preached the true gospel to them, and they all got saved, right? That's one of the most pathetic things I've ever heard anyone offer as an excuse. John Paul II, the prayer meeting at Assisi. Okay. Like seriously, let me write this here in the chat thing, just so people can see it. So you want to do a YouTube search on this. So Pope John Paul II prayer at Assisi in 1986. Do a search on that and watch some videos. It is absolutely astounding how anyone could think that that man has anything to do with Christianity. that that man and what he represented has anything to do with Christianity. How can anyone think that Pope Francis, the liberal hippie pope, has anything to do with true Christianity? It is unbelievable to me that people could be that blind, that devoted to a system, that they would believe things like that. I just don't get that at all. Okay, blue-collar man. How would you deal with the church members whose wife is Roman Catholic and they attend different churches? Well, if they're a professing Christian, you'd have to deal with them. If they started going to a Roman church, you would need to discipline them for apostasy. If they were never a member of the church, then there's nothing you could do about it. You would try to evangelize them. Put them on the church prayer list and pray for their salvation. Okay, let's see. Bruce Wiltke. The difficulty of the comment section is much of them aren't real people. I'm pretty sure these are real people. Some of it, you're right, some of it could be AI or whatever. Yeah, the Synergists think that all exhortations, and anywhere the Bible commands us to do good works. See, you're saved by good works. It's like any time there's a commandment. See, that's how you're saved. No sensitivity to context or anything like that. Okay, let's see. All right. Yeah, the rainbows, that's right, reminds me of the Noahic covenant, that God's not going to destroy this world with water again. He is going to do it with fire, which is why we need to be hidden in the true ark. Jesus Christ, not an organization or anything like that. You do need to join a true church. You need to be part of a church that preaches the true gospel. And that has a lot of different denominational expressions, but you do need to be in a true Christian church. But you need to be hidden in Jesus Christ. He is the one that saves us. Okay, so this guy says, I have reasonable assurance. Reasonable assurance. You know, I'd rather have assurance from God, like the assurance that Jesus gave the man on the cross. Okay, particularly if we're not conscious of any unconfessed mortal sins. However, the Bible clearly talks about the possibility of losing one's salvation. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. I cannot fathom how we can read nearly the same Bible and you cannot see it. I can't understand how you don't see it. Those whom God has elected. Okay, Romans 8 29. Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. And those whom he predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, these he also justified. Those whom he justified, these he also glorified." You can't have any part of that golden chain without being foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. So in your system, it's not true. That passage is just a lie. It's just totally wrong. Because there's people who are foreknown, predestined, called, justified, who end up in hell. They're not glorified. The difference is, I believe the Bible, you don't. That's the difference. Okay, we never doubt the infinite, infinite is misspelled, merit Jesus attained on the cross to save us. All right, right. But it means nothing if a person rejects the gift and turns from God. The way you talk about O-S-A-S, which I didn't talk about O-S-A-S. I didn't talk about once saved, always saved. I talked about the preservation of the saints, that God, he's the one who begins the good work in a person and he carries it on to completion because it's his work to the praise of his glory. It is not a joint venture. It's not synergism. Okay. If there's absolutely nothing on our part that would move God to save us. Okay. Listen to this here. The way you talk about once saved, always saved, which I didn't which makes me think he didn't even listen to the video. The way you talk about One Saved Always Saved makes God an evil God, if you don't believe in universal salvation. Think about it. If there's absolutely nothing on our part that would move God to save us, but his own free will simply to do so, then if a person is not saved, it is because of something God doesn't do, rather than something that we have to do first. You see this? This guy's Pelagian. He's a semi Pelagian. He believes that the final analysis, the decisive factor is our free will, is what we do, not what God does. That's such a clear denial of biblical grace. Okay. And by the way, if someone's not saved, it has nothing to do with God not doing something. It's because they're sinful. It's because they're sinful and they love being sinful and they wouldn't have it any other way. I mean, that's just an amazing statement that we make the first move, God reacts to us. I mean, that's semi-Pelagianism to the core and this guy doesn't care. He doesn't care. Okay. Unless you hold a universal, wait a minute. It is impossible for them to be, if after God saves someone, it is impossible for them to be lost again. Then the only logical conclusion is those who are eventually lost are damned only because God chose not to save them. No, people are damned because of their sin. Does this guy have any concept of sin? Does he think that man is depraved and fallen? Remember Adam? Remember Adam in the Garden of Eden? Adam rebelled against God and through the one man's disobedience, Romans 5, 12, death entered the world and death through sin because all sinned? That mankind is a rebel against God? That mankind wants nothing to do with God? Man hates God? Incredible. Just incredible to listen to someone who has no understanding of sin whatsoever. This is why the Catholic position is way better. and closer to what the Bible actually teaches, no it's not, than this made-up O-S-A-S false theology which never existed in Christianity. All I can say is those silly enough to believe in once-saved O-S-A-V-C, you hear the just acid in the face here? Better hope and pray it's true or their ignorance of it of its falsity might help their cause at the day at the Judgment Day. Right, because this guy thinks that you're saved by works anyway, so Now hopefully he's stacked up enough works to do well. I want to warn you about something. The holiness of God, the holiness of God is something you obviously don't understand because the only righteousness that can meet the requirement of God's holiness is that righteousness that was achieved and performed by Jesus Christ and by Jesus Christ alone. That's why Romans 4, 6 says, just as David speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Okay, but be he just sees yourself diluted blah blah blah blah blah, okay just in acid on the face nastiness Yeah, yeah, yeah, do I really want to go through and was there anything else where does he actually try to Talk about the Bible or at least allude to the Bible Let's see It's really just more insults and nastiness. And that's one thing I've noticed with Mormons. There was a Mormon guy I used to dialogue with years ago over email back in the 1990s. He was the meanest person I've ever talked to. The nastiest person I've ever talked to. And the Roman Catholic people like this and Eastern Orthodox converts. Wow. Talk about arrogant acid in the face. I mean, it's just, it's just, it's repulsive stuff to read. And to me, it just shows that there's no fruit of the Spirit there. Oh, here, I want to read this. He says, Ephesians, because he asked, well, when were they given by the Father? I said, Ephesians 1, 3 tells you, 3 and 4, before the foundation of the world. And he totally ignores what the text of Scripture says, totally ignores it. He says, Ephesians speaks of God's knowledge of everything past and future. He knows those who will, by their free will, endure to the end. Where does Ephesians say anything about God knowing who will, by their free will, do anything? It doesn't. That's nowhere in the book of Ephesians. And then he says, this sort of Bible manipulation, which shows why you are leading others astray. Here you have a guy that's pulling stuff, no reference. Ephesians talks about God knows who's going to use their free will to endure to the end. Where? Where does Ephesians say anything even remotely close to that? He says, with this sort of amateur armchair bibnally, the Bible's misspelled, b-i-b-n-l-e, bibnally, this sort of amateur armchair Bible understanding, you will have a lot to answer for. This is absolutely juvenile. the way this guy's coming across. He says, then decides, this is a new sentence, I'm not sure how to interpret this, then decides to commit, as misspelled, a mortal sin because they're convinced by you they cannot be lost, end up at their judgment and damned for eternity. It's amazing to me to listen to legalists and semi-Pelagians just like this guy. They object to the gospel of free grace in exactly the way Paul's enemies objected. They object exactly the way Paul's enemies objected to him. What did people say that Paul was teaching? They accused him of preaching cheap grace. I mean, in Acts 21, 21, they lied about Paul and said, this guy goes around teaching people to reject Moses, to reject the law. You just live like the devil. You're just saved. You can go to heaven. Or Romans 6.1, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? Shall we just do whatever we want and commit mortal sins? Thinking that, you know, once saved, always saved, we're still going to heaven. What's Paul's answer to that objection? It's the same as mine. By no means. May it never be. God forbid. How shall we who died to sin live in it any longer? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were raised to live in newness of life, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him. That's why, that's the answer. Okay. God changes us. Okay. Now, now we get into the private interpretation stuff. It is truly incredible to me to listen to these folks. I think that that 39 nights, whoever this guy is, he actually thinks that he doesn't interpret anything. Everybody else does. Protestants have to do a private interpretation, but not him. And I would ask, 39 Knights, tell me, how did you come to believe that the Roman Catholic Church is what it claims to be without private interpretation of scripture, history, tradition, Catholic apologists? Were you able to sidestep privately interpreting anything to make that decision? You see, the real issue is not, do we have to privately interpret? Everybody privately interprets everything. And he actually uses the Patrick Madrid example. I never said you stole money from me. Remember in the Cura debate, he used that. It is amazing to me that that's actually used based on what word you emphasize. I never said you stole money. I never said you stole money. I never said you stole money. Has Rome ever interpreted a passage of scripture using that kind of methodology? Not only that, but how many Bible verses has the Roman Catholic Church infallibly interpreted? I've heard six. I've heard people say 20. I've heard people say 12. So there's disagreement even on that. So by the way, 39 Nights, every single time you interpret anything in Scripture, you're not giving me Rome's infallible interpretation of it. You're giving your private interpretation. Okay, he does say somewhere in here, I was like scanning this later, yeah. Oh, here we go. Listen to this. This guy's fully competent. He's fully confident in his competence to read and understand the Bible. He says, do you see the error in your logic? You say that you are following the Bible and that the Bible gives you authority, but I can also read the Bible and come away with something different. So then according to your logic and reasoning, You, whoever reads the Bible, grammatically, mostly sentences, I don't even know how to diagram. They're just, they don't even make any sense. You, whoever, who, space, ever, space, reads the Bible, has the authority of God, meaning that I can condemn you to hell. Sir, sir, God can talk to us. It is a sin to misinterpret the Bible. It is a sin to misinterpret God. And by the way, by the way, are you a Sedevacantist? Are you a Sedevacantist? If not, why not? I mean, the Council of Florence in the 15th century said that Jews, heretics, and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart this life to hell for the devil and his angels. Vatican II says that we're just separated brethren. So Vatican II caused the formation of a couple new groups, Sedevacantists, who think that there's not been a valid pope in some time. There are people who reject the Novus Ordo Mass. The old Catholic Church, Josef Ignaz von Dallinger, who taught church history for 47 years as a Roman Catholic, when they defined people infallibility, they split away and formed the old Catholic Church. because they reject papal infallibility because he knew as a professor of church history popes had not only uh been wrong on essential matters of faith and morals they had been named and condemned as heretics by ecumenical councils pope honorius monothelitism ecumenical councils six seven and eight and he knew that and he knew that this is not defensible this is not history this is a lie So, they're all reading the same documents you are. Who's right? Who are the true Catholics? Is it the people that reject the Novus Ordo? Is it the old Catholic Church? Is it the Sede Becantists? Or what? Or are you really going to say you have to defend Pope Francis and just say, you know, he's never said anything from the chair. So we're not accountable for any of the fun things that he said. Okay, just again, again, where do you get your authority? Where do you get your authority, sir? Where do you get yours? You're privately interpreting everything that you ever read. Every passage of scripture that you have alluded to, you are privately interpreting it. Everything that the Roman Catholic Church has ever told you, you're privately interpreting it. Every lecture that you've ever listened to by Catholic apologists, you're privately interpreting it. Every citation from church fathers that they've ever shown you, you're privately interpreting it. The issue is not whether or not we interpret things. The issue is the authority of our ultimate authority. the credibility of our ultimate authority. My ultimate authority is real simple. It's the Bible. It's the Bible. And I'm so thankful for the Church. I love the Church of Jesus Christ in this world. And I am so thankful for the elders and the churchmen of the past and present who have helped me to learn the Word of God, none of whom are Roman Catholic. None of whom are Roman Catholic. Because I don't see anything in Scripture. about the papacy, the priesthood, purgatory, indulgences. This guy says, Matthew 16, 18, real easy, it teaches the Pope. I want to encourage you to read a book by William Webster called The Matthew 16 Controversy. He goes through every available interpretation in the patristic period on that passage. Nobody gives the interpretation that Vatican I gave. None. Zero. So don't talk to me about the unanimous consent of the fathers. It's just incredible to me. Incredible to me. So. He says, well, this is the same Council of Nicaea. I said, show me someone at the Council of Nicaea who believes what you believe about all those issues. And he says, where'd you get your history from? The Trail of Blood? The Trail of Blood is pure nonsense. No one who's serious about church history believes that stuff. And I would reject the Trail of Blood out of hand. It's pure nonsense. The idea that, yeah, Baptists were there from the beginning, and there's always been this persecuted minority. That's not historical, and no one should ever take that seriously. But then you get these fun, sweeping statements. that everybody believed the same thing until 1500. This is not someone who's actually studied anything in church history. I mean, seriously. Church history is not that simple, okay? It's much more complicated than that. Okay, that's one thing. Luther, Calvin, and the magisterial reformers, what they demonstrate in their writings is that they are the ones who believe the patrimony of the ancient church, not Rome. Okay, transubstantiation was not believed by the ancient church. In fact, it was Augustine's influence, his doctrine of the ascension of Christ, that took eight centuries to overcome, for transubstantiation to gain ground and be defined as a dogma at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Okay, and also many of the other doctrines, the Immaculate Conception. I mean, these are modern ideas. These are things that are picked up in the Middle Ages, and they're massaged here and there. They were not believed. And this guy keeps talking about, well, I go with the successors of the apostles. Question, how do you know that these guys are who they say they are? And number two, why do you care? Where does the Bible ever tell us? Look for the office of apostle and their successors today. Are there 12 apostles today? The apostles did not ordain successors to their office anywhere. Second Timothy chapter two. the things you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men who will likewise be able to teach others, not my apostolic authority I'm giving to you, you're now an apostle. So you speak with the same authority that I speak with. The fact is, here's how you know if you're in an apostolic church. Does your church teach what the apostles teach or taught in scripture? If your church doesn't teach what they taught, you're not in church. You're not in an apostolic church. There are many, many, many, many groups that claim, where are the successors of the apostles? The Mormons even will say that sometimes. Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, you can trace our way all the way back to the apostles. I had a pair of them say that to me. Because I said, you guys started in America in the 19th century. We go all the way back. There's always been people. And it's like, well, there were Aryans back then who denied the deity of Christ, just like you do, and heretics and so on and so forth. But the thing is, Paul himself says, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I tell you. In Galatians chapter 1, 6-9, he says, I marvel that you are turning away so quickly from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, the apostles, or an angel from heaven should preach to you any other gospel than what we preach to you, let him be damned. Okay, so if those that pretend to be the apostle's successors preach a false gospel to you of justification by baptism, re-justification by penance, growing and increasing justification as if it's a process through sacramental grace infused into your soul through a celibate order of Christian priests, which is taught nowhere in scripture, let them be anathema too. Let them be anathema too. Well, let's see, this goes on, I'm only on page 13 of 19. Um, let's see. He says to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant that, that, uh, Cardinal Newman quote. Well, that's true. Why did Cardinal Newman have to go back and rewrite sections of his work on history after he prayed to the saints that Italian forces of independence would seize the Vatican and stop the first Vatican council from defining papal infallibility. Rome is not deep in history. Rome is deep in revising history. This is a system that's based on forged decretals like the donation of Constantine in the pseudo-Isidorean decretals. I mean, if it's always been there, why were those forgeries needed then? And why do we know they're forgeries? We know that they were lies, and they still are lies. Okay, let's see. Okay, then they're like, um, I posted some links and stuff about the books of the Bible and so forth. And, uh, their attempts to, uh, actually they kind of sidestepped Pope Francis. If you're a conservative Roman Catholic, I mean, that's a, that's a pretty hard sell. I mean, Pope Francis, the stuff that he's said and done, um, pretty, pretty out there, pretty outlandish. Okay. Let's, um, let's look at, uh, The gospel. Let's, let's sound on a good note here. Cause this is just, this is these two guys that are two of them. No, no mass goer, 83 50. Um, just, it just is vicious and nasty. So what is the gospel? How can a center be saved? How, how can a center be saved? Let's, um, I want to pull up a passage of scripture and I want to show you how clear and simple it is. Ephesians chapter two, verse one. Richard Bennett, who was a former Roman Catholic priest who came to know Christ and his testimony, his story is just an amazing, amazing. In fact, let me pull up a link to it and I'll put it in the comments here. Um, Richard Bennett, he was for a very long time, uh, a Catholic priest and, um, yeah, here, here we go. Uh, testimony, a link. That's him. I love his voice, too. He died not too long ago. He's gone on to glory, but what a minister he had to Roman Catholics to help bring them to the Lord Jesus. But he fell down a long flight of stairs, a concrete stairs, after he'd been a priest for twenty-something years, and he was badly injured, and he was convalescing in a hospital for a long time, and when he came to and he regained consciousness, he realized he didn't know where he was going to go when he died, and he was very frightened by this. And he got ahold of a Bible, and he started reading Ephesians 1 and 2. And he says he just kind of obsessively would read those two chapters 30 times a day. And at first he was angry. He was angry at what they said, because it was so insulting to him. And he said, just looking at it, Ephesians 2-1, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." You see, 39 nights, this guy's not a Christian, and neither is this Noel Masco or whoever these two individuals are, and that's why he has no assurance. He says, well, I have reasonable assurance. I haven't done anything that bad. What is his assurance based on? His own works, his own righteousness. If what he was saying here was true, we would most certainly boast. Romans 3, 27, where then is boasting? It is excluded. Why? Because justification is by faith, not works. We do good works. We do good works in gratitude to God. I just read this the other day. I just read this the other day in Colossians. I was studying the book of Colossians slowly and just soaking in just so much glorious stuff there in Colossians. Listen to Colossians. Colossians 2.6, Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him, established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. Overflowing with gratitude. You know what that word gratitude is in Greek there? It's eukaristia. Eukaristia. What motivates holiness in the life of a Christian? Gratitude. What motivates 39 Knights here, this Roman Catholic guy? A desire to save himself. Why does he do good works? He's hoping he can go to heaven. Why do I do good works? Because I love God. Why do I love my neighbor? To show God how thankful I am. I'm not trying to earn anything. Jesus did all that for me. Jesus is the one who died for me. Romans 4, 6, Romans 4, really the whole chapter. God reckons righteousness, imputes righteousness to us without works, apart from works, not by works, apart from law, apart from works of law, apart from deeds of righteousness we have done. How many ways does God have to say it for someone to finally get it? Well, this guy can't see it because he's blind. And you know what? I was blind once too. I was blind once too. God opened my eyes to see. And the fact is the Bible is a lot easier to understand. than Rome's pronouncements about it. In fact, I want to share with you one of my favorite patristic quotations. It's from Cyril of Jerusalem. Cyril of Jerusalem in his catechetical lectures said this, and I would ask 39 knights and any Roman Catholic people, is this what you're taught in your church? Here's a quote, in regard to the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, not the least part may be handed on without the holy scriptures. Do not be led astray by winning words and clever arguments. Even to me, who tell you these things, do not give ready belief, unless you receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of the things which I announce. The salvation in which we believe is not proved from clever reasoning, but from the Holy Scriptures. And I'd like to recommend the book, Sola Scriptura, The Protestant Position on the Bible. If 39 nights whoever this guy is actually wants the book I'll buy it for myself and mail it to you if you want to email me I'll buy it for you myself and send it to you so you can read it and I would bet Dollars to doughnuts pretty much everything in it will be things you've never heard of Because you have no idea what we believe or why we believe it. It's very that's very obvious very clear to me Okay, so it's very very very important the Apostles of Christ are The early church did not believe that there was an extra biblical source of divine revelation outside of scripture. And they, when they were faced with people who made that claim, they repudiated that as a Gnostic heresy. Irenaeus does. In fact, he even says when they are confuted from scripture, they turn around and accuse those scriptures as if they were not clear. And, you know, our, our faith is proved by the word of God. Okay, and in fact here's a quotation from Irenaeus against heresies. He says, quote, on this account we are bound to avoid them but to make choice of the things pertaining to the church with the utmost diligence and to lay hold of the tradition of the truth. For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to the church to whom they did commit the churches? Okay, it seems to speak of tradition there, but listen, he says, as I have already observed, the church having received this preaching in this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it, for although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. There it is again, it's tradition. Okay, he also says this. These have all declared to us that there is one God, creator of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophet, and one Christ, the Son of God, that sees defining tradition. If anyone does not agree to these truths, he despises the companions of the Lord. Nay, more he despises Christ himself, the Lord. Yea, he despises the Father also, and stands self-condemned, resisting, opposing his own salvation, as is the case with all heretics." Notice, when Irenaeus defines tradition, it doesn't sound anything like what Rome says tradition is. You know, he doesn't say anything about papal infallibility, the bodily assumption of Mary, or anything like that. The fact is, when he uses the term tradition, he's talking about truths derived from the scriptures themselves, okay? And not a single thing he lists there is something that could not be easily demonstrated from the pages of scripture anyway. And so, okay, and there's more. We can look at more. There's lots of quotes that are misused. But listen to Augustine, what more shall I teach you than what we read in the Apostle? For Holy Scripture fixes the rule for our doctrine, lest we dare to be wiser than we ought. Therefore, I should not teach you anything else except to expound to you the words of the teacher. I mean, how can how can you say nobody ever believed in Sola Scriptura? They all did. They all did. Just because they use the word tradition does not mean they mean by that word what modern Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox people mean by it. You got to prove from context that they mean what you mean, and they clearly, clearly don't. Okay. Let's see. Let me see what else is over here. And I got to wrap up because I got a lot of other work to get done today. Um, quality over quantity tends to be a nice year. Roman Catholics are feminists. That's funny. Uh, yeah, they're pretty mean. To me, it's kind of it's kind of um It's a sad thing to see how how just nasty like I don't think none of this bothers me at all like the I take none of us personally all the nasty stuff about you're stupid you're Have a lower IQ. I just would say to whoever 39 nights and Mask, no mask or whoever you guys are. I wear your contempt as a badge of honor. I really do And you who willingly try to take from my good name are only unwillingly adding to my reward. So I would encourage you to repent, go home, and try to count to 10 backwards a couple times and calm down. Read Ephesians. Read Ephesians 39 and 9, and see if it talks about, well, God knew who by their free will would do this or that. There's nothing in Ephesians about that. Nothing. Go read Romans. Read the book of Romans. Did Paul teach Catholicism and Romans? No. Not even close. The righteousness by which we get into heaven is a righteousness that is revealed apart from the law. It is a righteousness that is given to us by faith in Christ, not by works. We do good works in gratitude to God for having saved us, not to try to save ourselves. And the thing is, I want to share one final story because the false system, the false gospel that's presented by 39 Nights, this individual, very much reminds me of the last Jehovah's Witness that came to my door. Jehovah's Witness, he was a guy probably in his 50s, and he was by himself, which was kind of unusual because usually they go out in pairs. And standing there on the porch, it was a Saturday morning a few years ago, I said, sir, may I ask you a question? Sure. I said, why are you out here? Why do you do what you're doing? And he said, well, because I want to live in paradise for eternity. I said, exactly. In other words, you don't really care about me, do you? You don't really care about me. If 39 nights, if this guy was my neighbor, if he came over to try to help me with this, that other thing, I'd ask him the exact same question. Why are you over here? Why are you over here? And if he's consistent, cause I'm trying to earn my salvation. And I would say, yeah. In other words, you don't really care about me, do you? I'd like to introduce you. to a Jesus you don't need to fear, that you can come to Him and what He promises He will do. He says, He who believes in Me has eternal life. If you repent and trust in the finished work of Christ and pronounce a curse on all your works and throw yourself on Jesus Christ and Him alone, then and only then will you have the true motive to live a godly Christian life. You will be overflowing with eucharistia, thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. So why do I go help my neighbor? Why do I try to love people? Because I love them. Because I want to show God how grateful I am for my salvation. They're not objects like 39 nights would think of me. I'm just an object through which he can gain merit for himself. Jesus did all that for me. And so now I can love people with pure motives. I can love them just because they're made in God's image. And the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ because of his glorious and all sufficient gospel, it's a freedom that This guy has no idea what we're talking about. He has no idea what we're even, it's just not part of his world at all. Cause his world, the piety that's created by the false system that he's in is utterly self-centered. It's utterly self-centered. It's totally based on how well I'm doing. And it's what I do. I initiated, I carried on yellow. Couldn't do it without grace. Grace is necessary, but it's not sufficient. See the reformation. The Reformation of the Church was not about the necessity of grace. Everybody believes in that. I mean, the Mormons believe that you need grace. The Jehovah's Witnesses think you need grace. The Muslims think you need grace. Is grace sufficient? Is grace alone sufficient? Paul says in Romans 4.16, therefore, it is by faith. Justification is by faith, not works. So that it can be by grace. And so that it can be guaranteed. Because if justification of getting into heaven is by anything in addition to Christ, anything in addition to faith in Him or alongside of faith in Him, it's not grace anymore. For grace to be grace, it has to be free. And our works cannot play any role whatsoever in getting us into heaven. Our works are judged for rewards. They do not justify us. We're justified by faith without works, apart from works, not by works, not by law, apart from deeds of righteousness, apart from law. Think of Romans 3.21. But now, after Romans 3.20, Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flaw 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 as a gift, freely, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood. Not through works, but through faith in His blood. That's why Paul says, if God has justified you, who can bring a charge against you? Romans 8, verse 33. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is He that condemns? Nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This guy doesn't get that. Why? He doesn't believe in Sola Scriptura. He's not going to go home and read Romans on his own. I pray and hope that he does. I mean, I have nothing ill against this guy. He's been as nasty and condescending to me as he could be in here. I hope that he'll read his Bible and that the Holy Spirit will open his eyes to see. You need Christ and Christ alone, not Christ as a helper, but Christ's personal righteousness, because only his righteousness can meet the requirement of the holiness of God. That's what we're talking about when we say that justification is by faith alone. It means justification by the righteousness of Christ alone, because only his righteousness has the merit necessary to meet the requirement of God's holiness. I hope and pray whoever these two guys are, or two girls, I can't really tell, but I hope that they will both go home and read Ephesians. Go home and read Romans. And may God open your eyes to see that you need Jesus. You don't need a system. You need Jesus to be saved. Thank you for watching or listening.