Why I Am Not A Roman Catholic – Is Romanism Biblical

If the YouTube video above is not available, here are two other ways to view:

Is Romanism Biblical

APO-10 NR6-01 REV-35

930307PM

Why I am Not A Roman Catholic – Is Romanism Biblical

Well, tonight I can’t think of anything more relevant or profitable for us than to study from the word of God, in the love of Christ that he sheds abroad from our hearts, truly what the Bible teaches us about what we believe.

SEVEN HUGE REASONS

There’re seven specific biblical reasons why I believe that Roman Catholicism is anti-biblical and also wrong.

The first is the mass.
The second is the role of Mary.
The third is the persistent usurpation or usurping of scriptures by tradition. In other words, if you put tradition of the church in scripture in a box and shake it up and let it out, tradition will always come out on top, over the scripture; which, by the way, all of these are not merely Roman problems. In this church, we’re often afflicted with tradition over the Bible. The Roman church has been around for about 1600 years, so they’ve had a lot longer to build their traditions.
The fourth reason is the veneration or worship of images.
The fifth reason is the falseness of the sacraments.
The sixth reason is the lie of purgatory, and I couldn’t think of any more polite way of saying that.
And the last reason, which I think most of you will find the most fascinating (and it’s always been a fascination to me), the tie of Paganism to the Roman Catholic Church. I’ll just kind of explain that one to you before I begin tonight.

OVER A BILLION SOULS

There are almost one billion people in this world that claim allegiance to the Vicar of Christ, to the Pontifex Maximus, to the Prince of the Apostles, to the Bishop of
Rome, to a man from a little town that’s beautiful in southern Poland named John Paul II. I think it’s relevant for you tonight to know what you believe if you’re a born-again Christian.

First of all because there are a billion people that believe what I’m going to share with you tonight, which is in great opposition to the scriptures.
Secondly, you probably live next door to someone who is a Roman Catholic. If you work you work alongside people that are Roman Catholics. And if you have friends, you have many, as I do, who are Roman Catholics.

I’d like to start out by just telling you the seven of the reasons why I believe that I could never be a Roman Catholic, and I trust that you likewise could never be one either.

But I want to show you where we’re going because these are not meant to be polemical, they’re not meant to be belligerent, they’re not insensitive or mongering, rocking the boat, hurting people. But rather they’re a simple heartfelt explanation to you why the church that I’ve visited seven times (I’ve made seven pilgrimages to Rome; I’ve been all through the Vatican; I’ve been to the very top. My wife, six-and-a-half months expectant, climbed the nearly one thousand steps to the very pinnacle of St. Peters with me), there is no animosity toward that monument. There’s no envy that the majority of the people that go to church anywhere, go to a Roman Catholic Church. There’s merely sadness of heart that people could be so religious and so surrounded by the truth and not, on the most part, embrace the truth.

In Revelation 17 we find the collapse of the apostate world church. In the process we see Satan’s harlot bride, the delusion of religion. From Eden onward Satan has been building his church. Eve was tempted and fell into sin but never joined. Cain was Satan’s first member (I John 3:12) and the church has flourished every since. Tody the chuch of Satan has many congregations. Some meet in those ivory towers of academia where God is banished from education. And if God is out of the equation there is only one other source of authority right?

Other congregations meet in churches, synagogues, mosques, cathedrals, and temples where organized religion stresses the achievements of humans working their ways to God. This is the church of good works, self righteousness and “I do it my way”. This is the following of rules, the joining of church and the hoping the good out weighs the bad in the balance religions. This is the religion of many ways to God and many gods to seek. This is man’s making their god in their own image.

Jesus came to seek and save His Bride. He gave Himself to purchase her from sin and damnation. Jesus ever lives as a Great high Priest to purify and cleanse His Bride from all defilement. The True Bride of Jesus is a pure and chaste virgin, washed in the blood of the lamb, sealed by the Holy Spirit awaiting the day of marriage to Jesus.

Satan also has a bride. We meet her in Revelation 17. She is a drunken, licentious harlot. She is the full-grown woman of the Tower of Babel. She is the Queen of Heaven of the Old Testament. She is the Mystery Religion in the cults of the near and far east. She is the one world church of the WCC and NCC of America. She is also the embodiment of a false Christianity, led by a false Christ and embodied in the image of the very mother of Jesus. That is why John was so shocked. No other beast in 16 chapters of death, demonism and destruction shocked him until he saw this false harlot bride given the deceptive name of Mary in religions today. Nothing is more Satanic and dangerous today in the entire world as the ecumenical (one united) church movement. God hates religious deception.

The 17th chapter of Revelation describes the Doom of the Babylonian System. This system is seen as a harlot like woman. She seems to be a symbol of Satan’s world religion. This chapter records the demise of the counterfeit church Satan founded at Eden and has worked on ceaselessly ever since. The Beast (Satan’s incarnation as a false Jesus) finally destroys the apostate church (Rome merged with all world religions) and sets up unhindered Satanic worship (via the beast and false prophets work). His ultimate goals in the world today are to forge global unity politically, religiously and financially.

So in Revelation 17 we discover the TRUE BRIDE OF JESUS. God’s Word is here unmasking the apostasy of false religions and revealing that the true Bride is made up of God’s own saints as 17: 14 describes them, they are “called, chosen and faithful”.

SEVEN HUGE REASONS

There’re seven specific biblical reasons why I believe that Roman Catholicism is anti-biblical and also wrong.

The first is the mass.
The second is the role of Mary.
The third is the persistent usurpation or usurping of scriptures by tradition. In other words, if you put tradition of the church in scripture in a box and shake it up and let it out, tradition will always come out on top, over the scripture; which, by the way, all of these are not merely Roman problems. In this church, we’re often afflicted with tradition over the Bible. The Roman church has been around for about 1600 years, so they’ve had a lot longer to build their traditions.
The fourth reason is the veneration or worship of images.
The fifth reason is the falseness of the sacraments.
The sixth reason is the lie of purgatory, and I couldn’t think of any more polite way of saying that.
And the last reason, which I think most of you will find the most fascinating (and it’s always been a fascination to me), the tie of Paganism to the Roman Catholic Church. I’ll just kind of explain that one to you before I begin tonight.

The Roman Catholic Church is an amalgam. It’s a syncretion. It’s a blending together of nearly all the major elements of the world religions. That’s why today the bishop of Rome, John Paul II, is having interfaith dialogues with every type of religion on this planet. Everything. There’s nothing left out. He’s having interfaith dialogues with them all because they’re finding that they all have something in common, and we’re going to see that as we go through Revelation.

But, before I start my list of reasons, I want to assure you that I know and love some dear, born-again Roman Catholics. Now even to say that is a difficult thing because it’s like saying a Communist American. It’s like those things don’t go together. Like America’s free and Communism isn’t and it’s like saying an imprisoned, free person. It just wouldn’t go together and to say born-again Roman Catholic is like mixing two terms because Romanism is almost paradoxical to the new birth. I’ll explain that to you.

But I do know and count among good friends born-again Roman Catholics. In fact, some of my closest spiritual advisers, people that I look to understand the Bible were, let me emphasize the underlined were ordained Roman Catholic priests. They went through all of the interesting, different movements and I didn’t think, I didn’t want to tell you anything that might sound mocking, but if you just read what happens in a mass, it would just boggle your mind. All of the superstitious, turning here, turning there, doing this, doing that, crossing five times four with seven times backward, turning the back, lifting the host, doing this, all these things, it’s a ritual that they have to follow. And it’s a superstitious one.

FOUR FORMER ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS

So, I have at least four that I count among my spiritual advisers who at one time were ordained, mass offering, host-elevating, pope-following Roman Catholic priests. And I think you do, too.

But perhaps even more than that, these were baptized, as 98% of all Roman Catholics are, into the church. They were priests, and they were totally immersed in the church over their head, until they starting reading the Bible. Not following the mass, but reading the Bible. And when they started reading the Bible, the glorious light of the gospel dawned on them.

First on a fellow named Wycliffe in England.
And then on someone that read his writings named Johannes Huss in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
And then on someone that was reading his writings, Martin Luther.
And then on someone who was influenced by that whole reformation moving, Jean DeNoyen Calvin.

And those four men have impacted my life deeply. And yet they were practicing Roman Catholics.

GOOD BUT LOST

So basically what I’m saying to you is that there’s nothing wrong with the person on the other side of your fence. You can trust them, you can love them, and they can be your neighbors, as my neighbors are. You can give them the keys to your house, to your car. You can entrust whatever you want to with them. They’re not bad. They’re not anymore evil than the rest of us who were born wicked sinners. The problem is that they’re lost – most of them. And the sad thing is most of them don’t even know that. They have almost been inoculated with a gospel vaccine. They almost have gotten just enough of the truth to give them a little case of the gospel much like if you have a little scar, a polio vaccine, or a DPT shot or whatever. You get just enough of that disease to build an antibody so that you will not get the full-blown contagion. Many Roman Catholics have gotten just close enough to the Word of God. They’ve gotten just close enough to the power of God; they’ve gotten just close enough to the God of the scripture that it’s almost inoculated them from the truth.

THE MASS

I’d like to begin tonight with the first reason Romanism is so deadly, abominably wrong and that is the error of the mass. And just because Romanism is deadly, and just because there’re some good people that perhaps are related to you that perhaps live next to you, that perhaps you’re in a Bible study with, that know personally, intimately, the Lord, Jesus Christ, and have been born-again, and just because they choose to stay in the church does not lessen the deadly, blasphemous, totally anti-biblical and anti-Christ doctrines of the church. And I don’t say those words unadvisedly. I don’t say them lightly or flippantly or knowing more than they do proudly. I say it much like Paul when he said, “… by the space of three and one-half years I did not cease to warn you with tears”.

And tonight if I didn’t have to preach I could weep for the people that I know and that you know that don’t believe the truth of the Gospel because they’ve been inoculated by the false doctrine of Romanism.

Number One: Roman Catholicism is false and anti-Christian doctrine because of the mass.

No doctrine in the world is more damnable than the doctrine of transubstantiation (re-crucifying Jesus at every mass in every church around the world every day!). This “Gold Cup” is a picture of a false and vile counterfeit of true communion with God. The golden chalice is filled with the ‘filthiness of her abominations.’ The Biblical view of the sacrifice of the Mass, the very heart of Roman Catholicism, and a denial of the completed work of the cross.

Pagan Origin: It is shocking for Roman Catholics to learn that the proposal of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice was first made by a Benedictine monk, Radbertus, in the ninth century and was the subject of many fierce verbal battles by the bishops until Pope Innocent III declared it an official Roman doctrine in 1215 AD.

The very principles found in the bloodless sacrifice of the Mass as it is in the church of Rome today can be traced back through the labyrinth of paganism to the fountain of idolatry, ancient Babylon. Rome’s most blasphemous and massive religious fraud originated in Chaldean idol worship and will continue until the time of the end when, according to Revelation 17 and 18, amid the wonder and admiration of the world, Rome will be judged with violence and be thrown down and shall be found no more at all, for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. This brutal, bloody, and blasphemous harlot is none other than the universal false church, the wicked wife of Satan!

DEFINITIONS FROM TRENT

Romanism, first of all, is false because of its doctrine of the mass. And I’d like to read to you from the creed of Pope Pius IV who summarized the findings of the great Council of Trent. In his fifth article which is obtainable in probably any library. But Article V says this:

The Mass: “In the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist there is truly, really and substantially the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord, Jesus Christ”.

I’ll end the quote there for just a second and tell you that they actually believe that all the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in that host. And I’ll explain that to you more. I continue quoting:

“And that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood which conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation. I also contest that under each kind alone Christ is received whole and entire and a true sacrament.”

That’s an official, and that’s the end of the quote, an official writing of one of the popes of Rome which has not been abrogated, has not been set aside, has not been lessened or diminished, and Vatican II only reaffirmed the absolute concurrence of all the college of cardinals and all the bishops of the whole Catholic church with all that the Catholic church has always believed. There’s has only been a change of window dressings in the Roman Church, never doctrine!

VATICAN II CHANGED NO DOGMAS

It was only updating the old errors at Vatican II. They changed the mass to English instead of Latin or the Vernacular language. They got rid of the kind of difficulties with Friday fish stuff, but they didn’t change the poison. No one will go to hell because they ate fish on Friday. No one will go to hell because they listened to services in Latin. They’ll go to hell if they believe that a man can do this. And I read to you from a mass book. This isn’t secret stuff; this is obtainable by anyone.

Here are what the priests and congregation is instructed at the mass:

“After the words of consecration the priest, kneeling, adores the sacred host.”

And I’m not talking about the sacred hosts of God in heaven, the Holy and infinite God, and the holy angels surrounding Him and the cherubim and seraphim. They’re talking about this wafer that’s produced by an order of nuns in some nunnery somewhere, that they have in front of you on that altar. Rising, he elevates it and looking up at the sacred host with faith and piety and love says, “My Lord and my God” to that pancake. And then placing it in the altar dish and saying this is Christ’s body corporeal, again the priest adores it.

IS THE MASS IN THE SCRIPTURES?

Now I want you just to think for a minute. Where is that anywhere in the Bible? That quote, “My Lord and my God” is from the twentieth chapter of John’s gospel and that was when Thomas knelt down, shoved his hand, or at least was invited to, into the riven side and the wounded hands of Christ. And he, seeing, believed. And Christ received him saying, “My Lord and my God.” It’s one of the greatest affirmations of Christ’s deity in the Bible. And Christ said, “Blessed are those…” he said that’s great Thomas. He says, you see me and you believe, but blessed are those that don’t see me and still believe.

ROME MATERIALIZES THE SPIRITUAL

You know what the Roman Catholic Church has done in the mass? They’ve materialized the spiritual. They have made into an object what cannot be comprehended into an object through some hoc est corpus meum stuff (the Latin words of the Mass). And I’ve told you before that the Middle Ages were bound in the superstition of magic, by and large, greatly because of the Roman Catholic Church. Taking what everybody knew was just a wafer pancake deal and that priest, many of whom were living a dissipated life, and I’m not criticizing. There are just as many dissipated Protestant priests and clergyman as there are Roman ones, but those people that saw him, how he lived all week long, as Chaucer said, in the eleventh or twelfth century whenever he wrote his Canterbury Tales, he said, “if the gold doth rust what will the iron do?” If the clergy are rotten, what are the people like? And if those people that saw the gold corrupted all week long saw him take a piece of normal bread and by going hoc est corpus meum change it into Jesus? They said that’s the greatest magic in the world, and that’s where our little term ‘hocus pocus’ comes from – from this mystical, pagan rite of saying that by incantation of a few words you can change a pancake into the eternal God.

One former Roman Catholic who is born again wrote this: “The priest and the congregation actually worship the little pancake God and call it my Lord and my God. No wonder I can’t help but call it the mockery of the mass.”

Let me continue reading from the COUNCIL OF TRENT (1545 – 1564) which was the codification of Roman Catholicism. The Reformation was at full steam. Martin Luther was seeing the nations of Europe bow before the God of the Bible and the Roman Catholic Church says we’ve got to stop this. So the Council of Trent made 120 affirmations of Roman Catholic doctrine. They “anathematized”. You know what that means? They damned anyone who didn’t believe what they said. This is what Trent says:

“In this divine sacrifice,” I’m talking about the priest holding that host, “is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, the same Christ who once offered himself in a bloody manner.”

“This is truly propitiatory. For the victim is one and the same. Now offering himself by the ministry of priests, not for the sins of the faithful who are living, or not only for the sins of the faithful who are living, but also for those departed in Christ but not yet fully purified.”

What does that mean? Still suffering in purgatory.

Do you realize that the mass they purport has efficacious salvation attachments to, not just the people sitting out there that are required to come at least once a year, but also the people that are dead – that it’s going to help them get to heaven? Do you understand why Romanism is the most magnificently crafted religion for humans? Why if your Uncle Manny didn’t make it, you can pray him in. If Aunt Zelda had a little trouble with the bottle, you can burn candles and have masses. And I don’t mean to be trite. That’s really what it’s about. It’s very sad. I continue reading,

“IF ANYONE SAYS THAT IN THE MASS,”

and I’m quoting again from the Council of Trent – page 149 of the Decrees of Trent,

“a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God by priests, who offer Christ’s body and Christ’s blood, or that the sacrifice of the mass is not a propitiatory one,” that is bearing and covering and washing away sin, “let him be damned.”

Hmmm. That is grievous. And that’s what the people at the local Roman Catholic Cathedral believe.

But the thing you need to realize is that those people are sincerely seeking God. Those people are with their whole heart wanting something to be done about their sins. Those people are with all that they know worshipping the God they don’t know, by and large. I’m not saying all Roman Catholics are lost, but I’m saying anybody that believes the heart and soul of Romanism is lost. Because the heart and soul of Romanism is anti-Christian, as you’ll see as we look in the scriptures. This blasphemous gospel necessarily alienates Evangelicals because it contradicts the specific teaching of scripture.

Now I want you to open where I’m open to in the Bible to Hebrews. Perhaps the most crucial book to understanding, and I think tonight some of you might understand a little bit more about your salvation. You might have come to Christ simply by faith, which is how all of us have to come to Christ. You might have just been aware that you’re a sinner and there’s no doubt about it, and you might have been aware that God is holy, and there’s no doubt about that. And you might have been aware that there’s nothing you can do to save yourself, so you just said, “God, forgive me. Save me for Jesus’ sake.”

SALVATION LEADS TO SUBMISSIVENESS

One of the greatest joys in my life has been to bow with people. Remember the only thing you can take with you to heaven are people. It’s been one of the great joys of my life to bow, to get on my knees, to bow my head, to open my Bible with people seeking Christ and to pray with them. And you have the same privilege to do that. I hope it’s one of your desires to do that. And to see them come to know Christ. But you know we don’t cover the book of Hebrews usually. There’s a lot in this Bible that you don’t have to know about that you can be saved. But the truth of the gospel is that if you are born again, and if the Holy Spirit of God that wrote this book has come into your life, that when you come face to face to a scripture that you didn’t know was in there, and even if you don’t like it, you’ll obey it.

Now we’re going to cover some controversial things in the days ahead. We only have a few more weeks on Revelation and then we’re going to get into homosexuality and the role of women and marriage. I mean all the big stuff. I mean there’s nothing to make more people hot around the collar than to tell the women that it’s not traditional it’s biblical for them to be in submission. I mean they just about go through the ceiling and out the windows. But there’s something that’s even more controversial and that’s saying that Romanism is not biblical. Now the role of women just affects your eternal rewards. If you’re not willing to submit, God can’t bless you. If a man’s not willing to be a Godly man, he can’t be blessed and have rewards. But what we’re talking about tonight has nothing to do with rewards. It has to do with even getting to heaven.

JESUS OFFERED HIMSELF ONCE HEBREWS 9:25

Hebrews, and I’ll start in chapter nine. Starting in verse twenty-five. Now I’ll read several passages, but starting there.

“Nor was it that He should offer himself often.”

Did you know that among the Roman Catholic churches that circle this globe that the mass is celebrated over 200,000 times a day? Do you know what that means? That means 200,000 times a day Jesus Christ is crucified again. That Jesus Christ again suffers, and as I’ll share with you a little later, and Mary suffers with him. Because He cannot sufficiently get you to heaven. Mary has to plead, because only she has the ear of the Father. The Son doesn’t. Which is hard for me to even say. But 200,000 times a day Jesus Christ is nailed again to the cross and he again suffers in a bloodless way. Do you know why? Because they don’t realize that Hebrews 9:25 says,

“Nor was it that He should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place year by year with the blood not of his own.”

ROMANISM IS OLD TESTAMENT LEGALISM

The whole Roman Catholic priesthood is predicated and based on the Old Testament sacrificial system where those people could never be atoned for their sins. No blood of any goat in the Old Testament covered anyone’s sins. It just temporarily was a portrait of the ultimate sacrifice to come. Nobody got to heaven because they offered a sheep in the Old Testament. And no one will get to heaven because some priest elevates a pancake for him or her in the New Testament time now. The only way you and I will ever get to the presence of God is because Jesus Christ once and for all offered himself without spot to God. He poured out his life bearing in his body our sins once and for all on the cross. And he bled his real blood and his life was given up, not taken from him, he laid it down for you and for me.

HEBREWS 9:26

And it says in verse twenty-six,

“Otherwise he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world, but now once at the consummation of the ages he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

And the same argument that the writer of Hebrews offered to those Jews who were so religious and who were so caught up with dutifully bringing their little lamb to the priest and having the priest slit his throat, catch the blood, cut up the lamb, put it on the altar, dump the blood out and burn up the lamb, is the same argument you need to bring to the very same bound-in-unbelief people that believe in the efficacy of the mass – Roman Catholics. Because they have the same basic blindness the Jews did and still have. Those groups persist in their unbelief. And that is they don’t realize the fact that Jesus Christ coming to this earth was the consummation of the ages. It was the zenith of history. Why? Because He was the lamb as we saw in Revelation 5 and 13.

He was chosen to be slain before the foundations of the world. This was not an accident. This was not a cosmic blunder that Satan came and deceived the woman and she brought her husband into the transgression, and thus death passed to all mankind. God knew it was going to happen. And in His righteousness and omniscience and his sovereignty, in his absolute justice, Jesus Christ was the sacrifice that had to be slain, and that was God’s plan before the foundation of the world in the mind of God. But in the consummation of the ages in time he was crucified on the cross. That’s a mystery. And I bet some of you have been in the Lord a long time can’t figure that out. I can’t.

But the Bible says you either believe Jesus has to be sacrificed over and over again or you believe He was sacrificed once. If you believe it’s over and over again, you didn’t get the message and you don’t have salvation. If you believe it’s once, you’ve got the message and you’re saved. You know what the Bible teaches? Jesus Christ was only offered once. ROMAN CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN IS THIS AN OXYMORON?

Webster’s dictionary defines an oxy-moron as “a combination of contradictory words,” such as jumbo shrimp, tight slacks and pretty ugly. Would you put Roman Catholic Christian into this category? Some would say “no”, because they believe Roman Roman Catholicism is a Christian denomination. Others, who know the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church contradict the essentials of the Gospel would say “yes.” We propose that a Roman Catholic Christian is indeed an oxymoron for two reasons: 1) whom we are is what we believe, and 2) it is impossible for anyone to believe two opposing views simultaneously. We recognize that there may be some Christians attending the Roman Catholic Church but if they have believed the Gospel they are no longer Roman Catholics. Let us consider the contradictory beliefs of Roman Catholics and Christians. By definition we will propose a Christian is one who believes the Gospel while a Roman Catholic is one who believes the official teachings and traditions of his church (presented by paragraph number from the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church).

AUTHORITY A Christian believes Scripture has authority over church. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). By setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience (2 Cor. 4:2).
A Roman Catholic believes the Church has authority over Scriptures. The manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God (119).
JUSTIFICATION A Christian is justified once by faith because justification is a permanent declaration by God (Romans 8:30). However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness (Romans 4:5).
A Roman Catholic is justified repeatedly by sacraments and works because he looses the grace of justification each time a mortal sin is committed. The sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification (1446).

REGENERATION A Christian believes he is regenerated at baptism of the Spirit. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body (1 Cor. 12:13), from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth (2 Thes. 2:13).
A Roman Catholic believes baptism of water imparts divine life, the water of Baptism truly signifies our birth into the divine life (694).

Salvation A Christian is saved by God’s unmerited grace. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast (Eph. 2:8-9).
A Roman Catholic is saved by meriting the graces needed for salvation. We can merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for the attainment of eternal life (2010).

# 2 The False Doctrine of Mary Worship

The Second reason why Romanism is false and anti-Christian is, and I had to tape this in here, and this is really a special prize I have and I always tape it in my notes and take it back out, it’s because of their doctrine of Mary.

And I have an official rosary card here, given by Patrick J. Hayes, Archbishop of New York City. And I just want to read this to you. Apologists or evangelicals do not put this out. This is what you would get if you”d go in a Catholic Church and get on you knee at the rail of the altar, you know, and they’d hand you one. I want to read it to you. I want to read it to you in light of the Bible. It’s really hard to even read.

The fifteen promises of Mary to Christians who recite the rosary. I can’t read all of them, but I’ll just read… number two is, this is Mary: “I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the rosary.”

Now let me, I mean again I want to be as reverent as possible and polite because I really admire Mary. She’s probably one of the godliest women that ever walked on this planet. I think that Protestants are afraid of her and I’m looking forward to, you know, when I get an appropriate passage in the gospel to really preach to you about the most magnificent woman that walked on this plant; among the most magnificent, Mary.

Mary is Not Omniscient

But Mary is not omniscient. I’ll tell you what, she doesn’t know I’m talking about her right now. And I can pray through all the beads in the world I want and she cannot protect me. She is not omnipotent. She is not omnipresent. She is not here listening to my prayers. Only God is omniscient. Only God is omnipotent. Only God is omnipresent. That is part of His eternal nature. Don’t ascribe the attributes of God to a sinful woman. You say, wait a minute. I thought she didn’t sin. That’s part of the myth. She was as much a sinner as you and I are. She had to be saved by the same grace of God that we have to be.

# 2 The Rosary is Armor Against Hell

“The rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell. It will destroy vice, decrease sin and defeat heresies.”

No it won’t. You all know enough of the Bible to know, what is the armor against hell? It’s the helmet of salvation. What is the shield that will keep the fiery darts of the wicked one from tempting you? It’s faith. And where’s faith? For by grace are you saved through faith. And even that is not of yourself, it’s the gift of God. It’s not the gift of Mary or any other saint.

# 4 The Rosary Can Sanctify Souls

“Oh that souls will sanctify themselves by this means.”

Saying the rosary can sanctify a soul? What did Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, say in John 17:17? “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth.” First Thessalonians 5:23, “And the very God of peace will sanctify you holy. And I pray God your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless.” Mary cannot sanctify me. She’s been sanctified. You’ve been sanctified by faith. Mary will not sanctify you.

# 5 The Rosary Saves People

“The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the rosary shall not perish.”

You know what John 3:16 says? It says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish.”

If you’ve traveled much, I love to travel because it helps me understand more about the Bible, but I remember being on a camping trip once and we came down out of the Alps and came through Northern Italy. There’s a church, not just one, there’s many, but there’s one famous church in Italy, that has the normal Roman Catholic crucifix larger than life, Jesus Christ hanging there dead. Then the other side of that cross, nailed on the backside is Mary. How could that be? That is Roman Catholic dogma. And that dogma is that Mary is the co-redemptrix of the human race because with Christ, and I am quoting to you directly from their doctrine, “…because with Christ she ransomed mankind from the power of Satan. Jesus redeemed us with the blood of his body, Mary with the agonies of her heart.”

You know it is really sad that people that love God and are seeking Him with their whole heart are deluded to think that that’s true.

I could go on, I’ll just read these:

“Those who are faithful and recite the rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plenitude of his graces. And at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.”

You know what that is? The supererogation of the saints we had to learn to get our doctoral exams done. You know what that means? It means that some people are good enough on earth that they do enough good works to not only get them to heaven but some of it spills over into this great chalice in heaven which is the repository of the supererrogated merits of the saints. What’s that? That’s a superstition that says the people that are called saints, like St. Patrick and St., I don’t even know them all. I’m sorry I never learned them. But you know, whomever the are, that those people had enough to get to heaven plus some extra for other lowly people like us. And if you pray the rosary that God or Mary or someone will take a dipper of their good works and dump it on you to help you get out of purgatory faster. That’s what it says. That you will participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.

# 6 The Rosary Will Save People from Purgatory

“I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the rosary.”

Not deliver from going, but so you don’t have to stay there forever, Mary’s going to deliver you from eternal punishment.

“And the faithful children of the rosary shall merit the high degree of glory in heaven. You shall obtain all that you ask of me by the recitation of the rosary. All who recite the rosary are my sons and brothers of my only son, Jesus Christ.”

Mary had other sons. James was her son. Jude was her son that wrote the book of Jude. It’s in the Bible.

# 7 Devotion to the Rosary is a Sign of Predestination

“Devotion to my rosary is a great sign of predestination.”

But devotion to the rosary of Mary is a sign of predestination not to heaven. This is blasphemous. And I only carry it around not to make fun of it, but to show you the depths to which human ingenuity has fabricated a way to get around the simplicity of the gospel.

Catholicism’s Christology is heretical. It denies Christ’s exclusive role as a mediator between God and man, making Mary co-mediatrix.
It denies the exclusivity of his redemptive work making Mary demptrix. Vatican II credits Mary with perpetual salvific role. She continues to obtain by her constant intercession the graces we need for eternal salvation. Because Jesus didn’t pay it all.
Romanism denies the sufficiency of his redemptive work. It’s declares that the redeemed must, in addition to Christ’s suffering for them on the cross, suffer for their own sins here and in purgatory.

The first reason why Romanism is false and wrong is the mass.
The second reason why is they’ve taken a very Godly and beloved woman, that all of us are going to enjoy fellowshipping with forever around the thrown of the Lamb of God, whose name was Mary, and they have denied the biblical teaching that all have sinner; that Mary said my God and my Savior. And then she said you’ve picked me up, she quoted Hannah and said, you’ve picked me up out of the refuse pile of sin. And they have elevated her to being next to God, above Christ, to accomplish their salvation. Well, that’s the second one. Those were the big ones.
Next week, Lord willing, we’re going to look at tradition over scripture, veneration of images. By the way, the reason we had to take the picture down is, there’s an inherent desire in the human body to relate to an image of God. That’s just the way we were born. And we couldn’t have any relic in this church that caused people to materialize the immaterial, infinite God. Now he did choose in His redemptive plan for Christ to take upon himself a body. But he chose in the Bible to never describe that body in such a way that we could re-form it in a picture. And we’ll talk about that.
Finally we’ll talk about the sacraments. And we’ll talk about purgatory. And then we’ll talk about the history of Paganism and really find out how all the robes, and the tiaras, and the three-pointed things, and where all the candles came from. Also we’ll discover where all the orders of priests came from, and where all this stuff came from because the Roman Catholic Church didn’t invent all that stuff. They inherited it.