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4:30How many of you have seen this guy on the news? Yeah, who is he? He's the Pope. Yeah, as Pope Leo XIV, formerly Robert Prievist from Chicago, as an American. And he became the Pope 17 days ago. Talk about a promotion, right? Well, as you've no doubt seen on the news, this has brought a lot of international attention to Catholicism as an idea, as a religion, as a worldview. And so the whole world, Christians, non-Christians alike, are revisiting the question: what is Catholicism? What is the Pope? What gives the Pope his power? So, on the one hand, I feel that it's important that you and I, as members of this world, are able to engage in these issues and that we capture this cultural moment. But on the other hand, when is Catholicism ever not relevant?

5:34Just to give you some statistics, did you know that there are 1.3 billion Catholics in the world today? Now, these are people who identify as being baptized into the Catholic Church. And 8.5 million of those Catholics live in Texas. That's about 30% of the Texas population. And right here in Bryan College Station, within 20 miles of May. Baptist Church, there are ten Catholic parishes that perform Mass every single week. So, why should we care about these stats? Well, I want to say this very carefully and very clearly, right here at the beginning. The gospel of Catholicism is not the gospel of Jesus Christ according to Scripture.

6:24The gospel of Scripture is found in John 14:6, where Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Not through a priest, not through a Pope. Ephesians 2:8 through 9 says, By grace you have been saved through faith. This is not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. 1 Timothy 2:5, For there is one God and one mediator also between God and men. And it's not the Pope, the man, Jesus Christ. And I could go on and on and on, articulating this from the scripture. In contrast to the clear and overwhelming teaching of Scripture, the Catholic Church as a whole proclaims a salvation that's based on grace plus works that can only be achieved through, you guessed it, the Catholic Church. So, why should we care?

7:30We should care because there are thousands of people in our backyard who are being deceived. They are placing their trust for their eternal souls in the hands of men, and most of them have no idea that they're doing it. So, my goal over the next two weeks is for us to become missionaries right here, right now, while this cultural moment is upon us. It's easy to strike up a conversation about the Pope right now. I'm not here tonight to pick a fight with Catholics, but I am picking a fight with Catholicism, and I do believe there's a difference. Catholicism is a false worldview that has distorted the clear teachings of Scripture. Catholics are people.

8:21They're men and women like you and me for whom Christ died and who desires to come into repentance. I remember the words of the hymn we sang this morning: We're called to love the captive soul, but rage against the captor. This is what we're called to do. And the mission field is ripe right here. What a blessing. So, my plan tonight is to educate and equip. And I really hope that it's educational. I hope that for you and for me, we can all learn tonight.

9:00And the question that I'm going to address head-on is this central question: Is the Catholic Church the true universal church? And if not, when did it go wrong? These are important questions if we're going to be missionaries. Tonight we're going to focus on a historical analysis. So I hope you like history because there's about 2,000 years of it that we're going to cover. So consider this your seat bel warning sign. And here we go. Part 1. Oh, look at that. Fancy me.

9:41First millennium. So when talking about the origin of something, or talking about history in general, it gets a little bit tricky because there are a lot of vantage points. There are a lot of people who might say different things. You know, when did something begin? And I want to be fair in my analysis. So I'm going to begin where the Catholics begin with the Bible, believe it or not. And in particular, this one verse in Matthew 16:18. And in it, Jesus is speaking, and he says to Peter, I tell you, you are Peter. On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It's a common verse. We have often heard it before. It's triumphant. It's glorious.

10:26But we must understand from the Catholic worldview that Peter. Is central to the history of Catholicism. You cannot have Catholicism without a pope, and you cannot have a pope without Peter. I can't overstate this enough. For the Catholic theologian, this verse right here, Matthew 16, 18, is the start of the Roman Catholic Church, and it's evidence for their claim that the papacy was established by Christ himself. So, I ask you, did you get that from this verse? Let's quickly analyze this biblically so you can go ahead and open up to Matthew 16. And I'll start reading in verse 13 to get some of the context.

11:15Matthew 16, 13 says, Now when Jesus came into the district to Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And he said to them, But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now, this is an awesome passage, and it comes at a time where Jesus is explaining to his disciples his true purpose on earth. And his disciples are very, very slow to understand.

12:23But then, in this glorious moment, Peter, he finally gets it, and he confesses to Jesus, You are the Christ. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And that's the confession. That confession is key. That's the confession of faith. Romans 10:9 says, If you confess that Jesus is the Lord and believe in your heart that you will be saved. And Jesus, for his part, he gets really excited. He goes, Yes, you got it. And in front of everyone, he says, You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. Then he goes on in verse 19, starts talking about the keys to the kingdom of heaven, about binding and loosing things on earth, etc. So the question is, did Jesus make Peter the Pope just then?

13:15Is that what the keys to the heaven, keys to heaven are? Powers of the papacy. Think about everything that the Pope represents today. All the power, the claim of infallibility, the pageantry. Is there any way that we can read this passage and arrive at that? And I would say, absolutely not. And here's why. One, that's not what it says. You know, we have a historical, grammatical hermeneutic. We read scripture based on what the text is saying, and we just don't see it. But maybe we're interpreting it wrong. You know, maybe the people that were standing around Jesus, maybe they understood it that way. Well, let's analyze that. Let's look at what the rest of Scripture tells us. I think there's three telling things about what the people around understood. One, I don't think you can say that Jesus saw Peter as a pope-like figure. Because just five verses later, literally on the same page, Jesus is going to rebuke Peter and say, get behind me, Satan. Now, I've heard a lot of Protestants call the Pope Satan, but I've never heard a Catholic call the Pope Satan.

14:35The disciples, they didn't see Peter as a pope-like figure. When the disciples were on their way to Gethsemane after the Last Supper, what were they arguing about? They're arguing about who is the greatest. That was an open question. And not one of them said, oh, remember when Jesus said that thing about Peter? Well, maybe we should all listen to him. Acts 15. After Pentecost, we have the first recorded ecumenical church council takes place in Jerusalem. And Peter is there, but he's there as a witness. He stands up, talks about his testimony with Cornelius, receiving the Holy Spirit, and then he takes a seat. It's actually James, who wasn't even among the 12 disciples, who makes the final authoritative decision in Acts chapter 15. We'd expect the Pope to be the one presiding over these things. Number three, and this is perhaps most importantly, and Peter himself did not see himself as a Pope-like figure. 1 Peter 5, verses 1 through 4, this is the writings of Peter. He says, Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder, and witness of the sufferings of Christ. Shepherd the flock among you, overseeing not under compulsion, but willingly, according to God, and not for dishonest gain, but with eagerness, not as lording it over those allotted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, then you'll receive the crown of unfading glory.

16:28The chief shepherd, by the way, is It's not Peter referring to himself in the third person. So, what did Jesus mean when he said, on this rock I will build my church? Well, most scholars believe Jesus to be referring to Peter's confession. We already talked about, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And this confession is not unique to Peter. This is shared equally by all believers who repent and submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And this is why, if you go a couple chapters down to Matthew 18, Jesus uses the phrase again, powers to bind and to loose. And this time, it's referring to the whole church, and it uses plural pronouns. That's Matthew 18, 18. It's not just for one man. Now, this interpretation, I'll just say, is troublesome for Catholicism because they need Matthew 16, 18 to mean the Pope in order to substantiate their claim to authority. The Vatican-approved interpretation of Matthew 16, 18, in it they write, and I'm just paraphrasing, but they write, the church, meaning the Catholic Church, has always interpreted this verse to refer to the origin of the papacy, and anyone who says otherwise is perverting the original doctrine of the church. But the thing is, the early church did not interpret this passage. This way.

18:02Thank God for the internet because we can actually go and check. We have the writings of the church fathers, and someone went in and made a survey of how the church fathers interpreted different passages. You want to hear the results? 17 of the church fathers did indeed interpret the rock as Peter. However, they did not go the step further to say that Peter was the Pope. They just said, okay, this word, the rock, is referring to Peter. 17 of them. 16 of them interpreted the rock as Christ. That's pretty good. I like that one. Eight of them interpreted the rock as the disciples, the collective group of disciples. 44 of the church fathers interpreted the rock as the confession that Jesus is Christ. So, the Catholic position is that everyone has always known that the rock refers to Peter, which refers to the papacy. And anyone who thinks otherwise is deviant. In reality, 80% of the early church fathers did not take this view. So let me ask you: who is really deviant here?

19:19We could spend more time on this, but we do need to move on. We're not even past the first century, so let's go to the patristic age. Patristic age, which is the age. Of the church fathers, you know, the 200s, the 300s, they're marked by two things in particular. They're marked by the expansion of the church, and they're marked by the persecution of the church. And persecution is hesitated that the church leaders formalize what is it exactly that we are dying for? And so, this is the formation of systematic theology. These are the doctrines. And just to be clear, doctrine was not created in the second and third century. It was just plainly stated for the first time. We get the Apostles' Creed, which I referenced earlier, that happens in the second century. We get the Nicene Creed in the fourth century. And these are unifying statements that attempt, and I think they do a pretty good job of summarizing what the Scripture teaches. And that's the point. Scripture was alive and well during the patristic age. And we know this from the vast amounts of scripture that are quoted by the church fathers in their writings. A popular tactic for a Catholic theologian is to assert, well, you know, our authority is above scripture because, after all, we're the ones who gave you your scripture. And this is historically wrong on two accounts. One, the canon, the 66 books of the Bible, Preceded any semblance of the Catholic Church that we see today. Catholic Church is not on the scene when the canon is canonized. But maybe even more telling is that Orthodox Christian doctrine preceded any semblance of the Catholic Church that we see today. In other words, if Mass and the papacy and the priests and the sacraments were so important to our identity as believers and so necessary for our salvation, where is it? Where is it in these early creeds? Did they just forget? Did they leave it out? It's not there because it doesn't exist. It's a later invention.

21:45We'll talk a little bit more about what's going on politically at this time. I mentioned that the early church was marked by persecution, which, by the way, is a really effective way to weed out false doctrine. This changes in 313 when Constantine, who's the Roman Emperor at the time, legalizes Christianity across the whole Roman Empire. And at first glance, you might say, great, that's awesome, no more persecution. But this has some severe consequences for the doctrine of the early church. Think about it. All of a sudden, the cost of becoming a Christian, of making this confession to Christ, which was very, very high, could cost you your life. Overnight, the cost becomes very, very low. It even becomes in vogue. It becomes trendy to be a Christian. First time in history, you start getting nominal Christians, which is Christian by name only.

22:45Additionally, with this edict, Constantine assumes a title for himself, the title Pontifex Maximus, which is a fancy title that just means high priest. Constantine felt that there should be one earthly rule corresponding to one divine rule. Oh, and by the way, I think I should be that guy. Pretty convenient, huh? And thus you have the, what one scholar puts, the dysfunctional marriage of church and state, specifically the state of Rome. And this is why the Roman Catholic Church is Roman. This, of course, what Constantine did in his authority that he grabs, well, this is the prototype for the Pope. Now, the Pope, just to be clear, the Catholic Church doesn't recognize Constantine in the succession of popes. However, it's this idea that one man is behind the controls for both the church and the empire. Now, that's a powerful idea. That's a Pandora's box, and it never quite goes away. And the other popes are going to expand those powers further and further and further as we go through history. So let's talk about that. Actual pope. Where did he come from? Well, first of all, there is a disagreement about when the term pope appears. We won't get into all of that, but it's in the earliest, it's the fifth century, you know, those would be the 400s. Before then, the person who occupied this office, which is now called the papacy, he was just called the bishop of Rome. So, what was the bishop of Rome? Well, to understand the bishop of Rome, we have to understand what are bishops and where the church was at geographically expanding at this time. It was relatively small. Remember, it started in a room in Jerusalem, in Judea, and then it expanded and expanded and expanded. And a well-intentioned but extra-biblical attempt to organize the vastness of Christianity was to appoint regional heads called bishops. And the bishop was supposed to be the guardian of Orthodoxy for their region. And the more influential the city or the region, the more influential the bishop. Thus, by 400 AD, you had prominent bishops located in Rome and Antioch and Alexandria and Constantinople. Anywhere where there was power, there were bishops. And the bishops were supposed to be accountable to one another. They were equals. They were all guardians of the same doctrine. And if they ever had a disagreement, they would call a council and they would all Gather and they would hash it out in person and go back to the scriptures and figure out what the scriptures actually said. Well, this changed. This changed in 440 AD when Leo I, the namesake of our current guy, makes two remarkable claims. He says, one, that the Bishop of Rome has a direct line of succession that goes all the way back to Peter. And we already covered that. The second is that the Bishop of Rome has authority over all the other bishops out there. And pretty convenient that Leo was the Bishop of Rome at the time. And this elevation of the Bishop of Rome is carried further as the Bishop of as history goes on. And it comes to a head with Gregory I in 540 AD, and he's known as Gregory the Great. And he is the man who is credited with establishing the powers of the papacy. Some of those powers were he claims that the papacy, or the pope, is the vicar of Christ. That word vicar means representative. When the pope speaks, it's as if Christ himself is speaking. He standardized liturgy in Latin. You had to read it in Latin. He put tradition on equal footing with Scripture, and he declared salvation only through baptism into the Roman church.

27:00I want you to note the timeline here. Now, this is 540 AD. This is 500 years after the church began in Acts chapter 2. So, who was leading the church that whole time? If there was no bishop, if there was no pope, no priests, well, I'll tell you who. Ephesians 4, 11 tells us who. It says, And God gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers, doesn't mention priests, doesn't mention popes, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure, the statue of the fullness of Christ.

27:48It's Christ, not the Pope, who is the head of the church. And nowhere in Scripture does it suggest that Christ needs a representative on earth to speak for him. And the thing is, I think Catholics know this, which is why they are so close-fisted on tradition. They depend on tradition and not Scripture for their authority. The thing about tradition is that it's unverifiable. And that's what you have with the origins of the papacy. You have men in power who seek to consolidate that power for themselves by adding tradition. Additions to the doctrine of Scripture. And this just gets worse and worse. And by 1054 AD, you have a big problem. The other bishops who are around, they're questioning the bishop of Rome and his remarkable claims.

28:51And this makes sense, right? Because when you devalue scripture, what becomes your theological anchor? What becomes your authority? At the end of the day, it's the person with the loudest bullhorn. And at this time, that's the bishop of Rome. And so in 1054, the bishop of Constantinople, another powerful city at the time, that bishop challenges the bishop of Rome's growing influence. And so what does the Pope do? He excommunicates him. You're out of here. But that doesn't really work because they don't recognize his authority to do that. So this bishop excommunicates the bishop of Rome and says, you're out of here. So you have this school playground scenario where everyone's saying, I was here first, I was here first. It would be comical if it wasn't so destructive. And the effects of this schism is still felt today. This is where we get the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is also where we get the name Roman Catholicism. The church in the West, I have a little map up here for you, became known as the Roman Catholic Church. Catholic Church, which still exists today, because it sided with the Bishop of Rome. And the Eastern Church became the Eastern Orthodox Church because it sided with the Bishop of Constantinople, which was in the East. You see where this is going here. And my point is simply this. As we analyze this history from a thousand years after the fact, we ask ourselves the question: which one split from the true church?

30:29Because I guarantee you, if you ask an Eastern Orthodox Christian, they'll tell you that they are the true biblical church. But if you ask a Roman Catholic, they'll say that they are the true biblical church. If only there was a book, a written account of what the true biblical church was actually like, that would be so helpful right now. I think you get my point. All right. We're going to move on to the second millennium. All right, that was fast. A thousand years. Lickety split. I think we'll get through the next one a little bit faster. So now the quote, heretical Eastern Church has been excommunicated, and the papacy has never been stronger.

31:18This is the medieval period. This is what many scholars refer to as the golden age of Catholicism. The height of the papacy was around the tenure of a guy named Innocent III. Well, don't be fooled. Innocent III was pretty far from innocent. Anyone ever heard of the Inquisition? This was this guy's brainchild. This is not a guy you want to take lightly. When he was consecrated as the Pope, his sermon was on Jeremiah 1:10, which says, I see that I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and to overthrow. And he applied that to himself. This is the guy we're dealing with. He asserted dominance, not just over the Catholic Church, over Christians, but over every human institution on earth. Innocent III declares the doctrine of papal infallibility, which is to say that anything that the Pope decrees or declares is on equal footing with Scripture. And this is still the official stance of the Catholic Church today. This has not changed. Innocent III, he formalized Mass, which is the Catholic weekly service. But if you've ever been a part of one, you know it's more like a ritual than what we do for our weekly service. There's no teaching of the word, or very little, if it is, and the parishioners have to go. Through carefully synchronized steps, and they have to do it every week. Now, this was formalized under Innocent III. And again, notice the timeline. What has the church been doing this whole time?

33:14Some of these rituals are transubstantiation of the Eucharist, that is, communion becoming the actual body and blood of Christ when the priest says the magic words. Confession to a priest, you know, that was formalized around this time. And a priest, by the way, was only someone who agreed with Innocent III. Last rites, anointing of the sick, you know, these standardized blessings that we know today and associate with Catholicism. So, why all the ritual? You can see here, Mass is very carefully designed to keep the parishioner coming back for more.

33:57And this isn't disguised. Like, this is blatant. It was a power play. And the thing is, it worked. Innocent III, by virtue of his authority, used spiritual manipulation and became accountable to no one but essential to everyone. I can't help think of 1 Timothy 6:9 when I think about the state of the papacy. 1 Timothy 6:9 says, But those who desired to be rich, and I think at this point, we can add, Powerful fall into a temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. This is what is happening with Roman Catholicism. Here's the thing: every movement, the history of the earth, every movement has bad apples, even the good ones. So, this guy obviously has some issues. And nobody, no movement wants to be judged on their worst representative. I get that.

35:07But the thing is, this is still the position of the Catholic Church. They have not relented. Because to do so would admit the fallibility of the Pope, of the Church. And they can't do that. Because everything the Catholic Church stands for rests on tradition. They can't chip away at that pillar, even a little bit, even when you have maniacs like this guy who assumed the office. Well, this is a big problem. And the people who were alive at the time, they knew that this problem existed.

35:48And after Innocent III, the papacy itself goes through a lot of turmoil. You have some popes that were crowned by kings, you have some kings that were crowned by popes, and at one point, you even have three. Popes who were all ruling at the same time. And I mention that because there's this picture that's painted by the Catholic Church, like there's a clear, straight line of succession from Peter all the way to the pope that we have today. And that's just not true. The papal succession is not historically, it is never as smooth as what we just witnessed 17 days ago. It was a mess. All to say, the world realizes this, the Christian world. And it all turns upside down when a monk named Martin Luther reads the Bible and he posts 95 observations from Scripture that seem not to line up with the Roman Catholic Church. I won't spend a lot of time here because you all know the story. This is the story of the Reformation. Martin Luther did not start the Reformation. There were plenty of reformers that came before: John Huss, John Wesley, or John Wycliffe. Martin Luther and the 95 Theses were the spark that lit all of this kindling, this dissatisfaction and corruption that was happening with the Pope and the Catholic Church at this time. But what makes the Reformation so powerful is that it gets to the very heart of the problem, and that is that authority does not come from Rome.

37:30It comes from the Bible. Sola scriptura, the battle cry of the Reformation. And furthermore, every believer has the right to interpret scripture for himself, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. You don't need a priest to interpret it for you. This is not new theology. This isn't the Reformers making it up. To prove this point, read some of the literature from the Reformation. They are constantly, constantly referring to the early church fathers, the same church fathers that the Catholics claim as their own, to justify this position of salvation based on grace, not based on works. They didn't think of themselves, the Reformers didn't think of themselves as splitting from the true church. They saw themselves as defending the true church, defending it from wayward leaders that had left the true church long ago. It was a coarse correction. The Reformers also didn't see themselves as starting new denominations, although we know from history that that's what happened. But Luther's hope was that through reasoned debate, that the Roman Catholic Church would lead the charge with sola scriptura, that they would repent and take the lead. For what it's worth, the Catholic Church had the opportunity to do that in 1563 at the Council of Trent. So, what is the Council of Trent?

39:00Catholics love to convene councils. And so, in response to the Reformation, you know, thousands of people are leaving the Catholic Church. What do we do? All right, let's convene a council. Let's talk about it. It was convened in response to the Reformation. That's the important detail. And from it, we get probably the single most important document that defines the state of Catholicism today. These are the decrees, ironically, they call them canons, that come out of the Council of Trent. And their purpose is to clarify and distinguish Catholicism from all of these Protestant denominations that are springing up all over the place. Now, it was a great opportunity for Catholicism to examine Scripture and history and strive for unity. But that's not what happens. At the Council of Trent, the Council makes a series of very decisive proclamations that further alienate the Catholic Church from Scripture. And by the way, these proclamations, according to the Catholic worldview, are infallible. They're on equal footing with Scripture. These proclamations affirm that there are seven sacraments for believers, some necessary for salvation, all can only be administered by a priest. They affirm that tradition is on equal footing, equal authority with Scripture. They affirm that only Catholic bishops are able to create Correctly interpret the scripture. They affirm that the Apocrypha, that is, the extra books of the Bible and the Catholic Bible, is officially added to the canon at this time. They also confirm the existence of purgatory, this extra biblical destination for the afterlife. But their most alarming statement was on the doctrine of justification. That is the Catholic theology of salvation. I want you to see this in their own words. I'll read it out to you, but just this is straight from the Council of Trent. And canon number nine says: If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema. Canon 32 says, If anyone says that the good works of a justified man are gifts of God to such an extent that they are not also good merits of the justified man himself, let him be anathema.

41:47So I asked at the start of this, I asked, when did the lowercase C Catholic Church become the uppercase C Catholic Church? In my personal opinion, right here. This is it. Council of Trent. This is the line in the sand, and it definitively answers the question: what does it mean to be Catholic? And their answer is that it means that you believe that you are justified by works, and that grace is bestowed upon you through those works, not by faith, but through the apparatus of the Roman Catholic Church.

42:32You see that this is absolutely antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:8 through 9, which I read earlier, says, it is by grace you have been saved. And this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works. Paul had to put that in there just to make it clear, so that no one can boast. Trent says, in no uncertain terms, that anyone who believes that they are anathema, which is a word that means they are cursed to eternity in hell.

43:16This is not the true biblical church. This is reactionary theology, and it has no basis on the teachings of Christ or the apostles. And because Of this teaching coming out of Trent, many Catholics around the world today live in perpetual dependence on the Pope and on his army of priests for the salvation of their souls. Galatians 1, verse 6. Paul is writing to the church there. He says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are instead turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached, let him be accursed.

44:25In his writing, Paul is saying that the pure gospel, the gospel of faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone, that is more powerful than any one man. Because even if Paul himself wavered from this gospel, he calls on the church to rebuke him for it. But in order for the church to do this, the church needs to know and believe the true gospel for themselves. And for that, we need... Scripture. I'll just end with a couple points about Catholicism today.

45:09We'll talk more about the theology of Catholicism next week. And I know there are a lot of questions associated with that. Can Catholics be Christians? That's a big question that I get often. But we'll end just by going through a few observations so that we know how to effectively minister, how to evangelize. There have been more councils since the Council of Trent. The most recent was Vatican II, which was in the 1960s. And this was in large part a response to the Information age. You have kind of another mini-Reformation going on. People are reading more and learning more, and that presents a problem for the Vatican. And so, in response, they called a council, and they took a softer stance towards Protestants. Now, out of Vatican II, Protestants have been upgraded from curse to hell to just separated brethren. So, congratulations to everyone.

46:13However, just to be clear, when you read the language of Vatican II, it does not recall or recant any of the things that were said in the Council of Trent. In fact, they doubled down very hard on sacred tradition and the exclusive ability for the clergy to interpret Scripture. So, where does that leave Catholicism today? Well, a few observations. And these are just my personal observations from my experience talking to Catholics and some of my research. One, we are at a time right now of theological uncertainty within the Catholic Church. And I speak to a lot of Catholics, especially as a hospital chaplain. I've ministered to a lot of Catholics there. And I would say that probably one in 20 of them have examined scripture for themselves.

47:04But that doesn't mean that they are necessarily reading Catholic dogma either. A lot of Catholics that I've talked to, they know the Catholic right answer. They know that they need to go to Mass, that they need the anointing of the sick, or pray the Hail Mary, but they have no idea why. And they don't know where that comes from. They just know that someone in a frock told them that they needed to do it to be saved. And so they do it. But I think this uncertainty extends to a lot of hardcore Catholics as well, Catholics who defend Catholicism. And this is the trend that I've noticed. The rigidity that once marked Catholicism has given way to a sort of a cultural fluidity that have many Catholic theologians scratching their heads. The question, what does it mean to be Catholic, is debated probably more intensely now than it's ever been debated.

48:00Before. So I'm eager to see how this new Pope addresses that question. Number two, hand in hand with uncertainty, there's a lot of theological diversity in Roman Catholicism. And this flies in the face of a big claim of the Vatican that the Catholic Church is unified. All Catholics across the world are, you know, stand unified. And that's just not the case. There are over 200 denominations within Roman Catholicism. There are conservative Catholics, there are liberal Catholics, there are charismatic Catholics.

48:41These worldview gaps are just getting bigger, and more and more people are being let in under the Catholic label. Again, this is interesting. This is something I'm eager to see what happens with this. You may remember recently Pope Francis was asked about atheists going to heaven. And do you remember his response? He said, who am I to judge? Now, this is a very fascinating response from the man who is supposed to be judging these things. And it's funny, the article I read about this was rather comical because the Pope, this guy who's supposed to be infallible, makes this statement, and immediately all these cardinals and bishops say, oh, what he actually meant was, you know, so there's diversity, there's confusion. And lastly, I think there's a shift towards transparency. And I see this as a good thing. Now, not total transparency, but moving in the right direction. Because the Catholic Church has almost always been associated with secrecy. It's why in the conclave, no one is allowed in except for the cardinals themselves. It's also why Catholic Mass, up until the 1960s, was always conducted in Latin. Presumably, this was just a way to keep the lay people from, or it was to keep them dependent on the clergy for interpreting Scripture. However, now, a Mass is conducted in English, at least it is in the United States. And now we have popes like Benedict and Francis who are encouraging people to get this, read their Bibles.

50:19This is huge, and this brings me hope. And I hope you understand that this has never happened before in the history of Catholicism. And I believe that many Catholics, by virtue of God revealing himself through Scripture, perhaps have stumbled their way into the true gospel. And we should be praying for this. And we should also be proactive in leading Catholics to Scripture and to the gospel, the true gospel that's found in Scripture. The harvest is ripe. The harvest is ripe.

51:00Right here. They're in Bryan College Station. And we're all talking about the Pope right now. So, my final encouragement to everyone here, including myself, is let's get out there. There are souls at stake. The history of Catholicism is complicated, it's convoluted, and it's obviously more extensive than we've had time to cover today. But I encourage you to study it for yourself. Read what Catholic theologians are saying. Read these decrees made by the popes and by these councils. Read it and test their claim that they are the true church of the Bible.

51:41Many would have us believe that there is a straight line from Christ to Catholicism, from Peter to the Pope. And the evidence is just simply not there. And this is the pillar upon which Catholicism rests, this unquestioned authority of their tradition. And friends, it is a very crummy pillar on which to base your eternity. So, next week, we'll talk more about how to be an effective witness, but for now, start there. Start there. Chip away at this pillar of Catholic authority based on tradition. It does not stand. It cannot stand. There is one God. One mediator between God and men, and that is Jesus Christ.

52:37Let's pray. Father, Lord, you know our heart. You know that we can stand here and talk about lost souls, but in truth, Lord, we have all been saved by grace alone, Lord, grace that comes from Christ alone. None of us are any better than any Catholic person out there today. Lord, it is only by your merit that we are saved. And so I pray that you protect us against any seed of self-righteousness or superiority, Lord, that we are able to love and respond to the calling you have to preach the gospel. And God, that you would give us confidence and wisdom.

53:38Thank you for your word that guides us into all truth. Jesus' name, amen.