And the title of my sermon tonight is Catholic Hocus Pocus, Catholic Hocus Pocus.
Now let me start out by explaining the term hocus pocus because when we hear that term,
we think of like a magic show or somebody doing magic tricks and they'll say magic words
hocus pocus and then something happens.
Well believe it or not, this term actually comes from the Latin Catholic mass and what
it is, it's a mockery of what the priest says when he holds up that cracker and he supposedly
magically turns it into the literal body of Christ.
He says in Latin hoke est corpus meum which means this is my body or here is my body and
because he's claiming that that cracker is literally becoming the body of Jesus.
So basically people took that hoke est corpus meum and turned it into hocus pocus.
It's kind of making fun of that so it's very appropriate to talk about Catholic hocus pocus
because when you look at the Roman Catholic Church or if you look at the Eastern Orthodox
Catholic Church, it's a whole bunch of hocus pocus superstitions and paganism and idolatry.
It is not the religion of the Bible.
It is not what you read about in the New Testament.
None of these things are found in the New Testament.
When you study the Bible, you're not going to find nuns and convents and monasteries
and priests and confessional booths and all these crazy things that the Catholic Church
does all the idolatry and everything else.
It's a bunch of hocus pocus and it's just as foolish and nonsensical as a magic show.
Now let's see what the Bible actually says.
Now I want to teach to you first of all from John Chapter 6 but first I want to start in
John Chapter 3 because what you have to understand is that Catholics, they get this hocus pocus
about the body and blood of Christ that they're actually literally turning the bread into
the literal body of Christ and that they're literally turning the wine into the blood
of Christ.
They get this from a strange and overly literal interpretation of John Chapter 6.
Now why is that?
This is because unsaved people can't understand the Bible and before you get to John Chapter
6, you get some powerful examples of this in John Chapter 3 and 4.
So I want to show you how in John Chapter 3, the same misunderstanding that an unsaved
person has is the same type of misunderstanding in Chapter 4 and the same type of misunderstanding
in Chapter 6.
It's this ridiculous, overly literal interpretation of Christ's words because they cannot understand
that which is spiritual.
You have to be saved to understand the Bible.
And by the way, this is part of the reason why unsaved people can't get saved simply
from reading the Bible.
A lot of people think that just reading the Bible is enough to get you saved.
That is wrong.
Why?
Because the Ethiopian eunuch had to have some man guide him.
He was reading scripture but he needed Philip to come along and teach him the truth and
he said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
He said, How can I except some man should guide me?
Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God but it's hearing.
And why is it hearing?
Why doesn't it say faith comes by reading?
It says faith comes by hearing because it said whosoever shall call upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
How shall they hear without a preacher?
First Corinthians chapter 3 talks about who is Paul?
Who is Apollos?
But ministers by whom ye believed even as the Lord gave to every man.
So every man has ministers by whom they believed.
Now you say, Well, I just got saved reading the Bible.
I guarantee you that you heard Bible preaching from a saved person at some point.
Now listen, obviously just reading the Bible on your own or hearing the Bible can definitely
plant powerful seeds in your mind.
But it's going to take some Bible preaching from someone who's actually saved, whether
that's from the pulpit or one-on-one, in order for you to understand the Bible.
So I guarantee you that you heard some biblical preaching if you're saved tonight.
You heard the Gospel from probably multiple people.
You know, I know a guy and his salvation testimony was that he was watching a Hollywood movie
and in that Hollywood movie Psalm 23 was read at a funeral and that made a powerful impression
on his mind.
Why?
Because God's Word is powerful.
So we're not doubting the power of God's Word.
God's Word had the power to stir in his soul and he couldn't get those scriptures out of
Psalm 23 out of his mind, but you know what, that didn't make him saved.
You know, he had to hear the Gospel.
It had to be explained to him.
It had to be taught to him because when you're not saved, you're not indwelled by the Holy
Spirit.
You're carnal.
You can't understand the Word of God.
A saved person can understand the Word of God and they can expound that to you.
Let me show you what I'm talking about.
Look at John chapter 3 verse 3.
Jesus answered and said unto him, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again
he cannot see, all right, I was trying not to use a cough drop, but the cough drop is
now being deployed, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus saith unto him, how can a man be born when he's old?
Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?
Jesus answered, verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.
So what is Nicodemus' misunderstanding here?
What's his problem?
He's taking an overly literal interpretation, isn't he?
Jesus tells him, you've got to be born again.
He's like, well, how can I enter the second time into my mother's womb and be born?
He doesn't understand this is born spiritually.
He's got to be born of water.
That already happened when he was physically born and his mother's water broke.
That's the physical birth, the water birth, but now he's got to be born of the Spirit.
Being born of the water is not enough.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
That's the water birth.
That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.
That's the new birth being born again.
He didn't get it.
It went right over his head, didn't it?
Go to John chapter 4 verse 10.
John chapter 4 verse 10, Jesus answered and said to her, if thou knewest the gift of God
and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him
and he would have given thee living water.
Now what's the mistake of the woman at the well?
She's unsaved, so what does she think?
This overly literal, ridiculous interpretation.
The woman saith unto him, sir, thou hast nothing to draw with and the well is deep.
From whence then hast thou that living water?
Art thou greater than our father Jacob which gave us the well and drank thereof himself
and his children and his cattle?
Jesus answered and said unto her, whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again,
but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting
life.
Does she get it yet?
Look at verse 15.
The woman saith unto him, sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither
to draw.
She doesn't get it, right?
It's going right over her head.
It has to be further explained to her.
Jesus has to explain things to Nicodemus, explain things to the woman at the well.
She thinks that he's talking about literal water.
Wow, I can drink this water and never be thirsty again?
That will save me a lot of time every day because I'm coming here every day and drawing
water.
It would just be great to never have to do that again and, you know, he's trying to get
her to understand spiritual things.
Now go to John Chapter 6 and people make the same error in John Chapter 6 and this is the
importance of reading the Bible in context.
The context of Chapter 6 is Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, you know, leading you up to this,
getting you to understand these spiritual examples and spiritual illustrations that
they're not literal.
You don't literally get born again.
You don't literally drink of water.
It's spiritual.
Being born again is when you believe on Christ, you're born into the family of God.
You become his son, he becomes your father.
The living water, again, it's believing on Christ and the living water represents the
Holy Spirit which springs up like a well in you, giving you everlasting life.
Look at John Chapter 6, verse 47, verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on
me hath everlasting life.
You know, why don't the Roman Catholics focus on that verse for a while?
Why don't they meditate on that for a while with their workspace salvation?
The Bible says he that believes on Jesus Christ hath, present tense, has everlasting
life.
Not had as if you had lost it, not will get like you have to wait until you die to find
out.
No, you have now, if you believe now, you have everlasting life.
You're saved.
And everlasting means it can never end.
It's never going to be taken away, right?
Once you've got it, you're saved forever.
Verse 48, I am that bread of life.
Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.
This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.
I'm the living bread which came down from heaven.
If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.
And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
Now it's pretty obvious what Jesus is saying here, but again, they take this ridiculous,
overly literal interpretation.
The Jews therefore strove among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh
to eat?
Now does that not remind you of chapters three and four?
It's the same exact issue.
How can he give us his flesh to eat?
Then Jesus said to them, verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of
the son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
And this is where the Roman Catholics will say, bam, right there, you know, we've got
to literally chew up and swallow the flesh of Jesus and literally drink his blood.
I mean, it's crazy.
It's just as crazy as entering the second time into your mother's womb to literally
be born or to have some magical water that you drink and you're never going to be thirsty
again.
It's nonsense, okay?
But this is what they'll point to.
You go out soul winning and if anybody tries to defend this, this is what they'll pull
out at you.
And I've had many Catholics pull this out at me.
In fact, where's my son?
Did they pull this out at you today?
Yeah, he was out soul winning and he had some really dyed in the wool Roman Catholic pull
out this John chapter six on him.
It's crazy the way they interpret this.
Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life and I'll raise him up at
the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him.
Now again, if this is literal, then I guess Jesus is going to literally come live inside
you.
You're going to literally live inside his body.
That's crazy.
It's a spiritual application, folks.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, they're foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.
They're spiritually understood, but the carnal mind thinks, oh, I got to literally eat that
flesh.
I got to literally drink that blood.
They don't understand that when Jesus says, I'm the bread that came down from heaven,
what he's doing is he's using the manna that they ate in the wilderness as an illustration
for the fact that he literally came down from heaven, that he's not of this earth.
He said, I'm from above, you're from beneath.
You're of this world, I'm not of this world.
Therefore I said unto you that you shall die in your sins, for if you believe not that
I am he, you shall die in your sins.
And see, the manna in the Old Testament represented God's word, because he said that man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
In Deuteronomy 8, 3, he fed them with manna to teach them that.
So they had to get up every morning and gather the manna, just like we're supposed to get
up every morning and read the Bible and read God's word.
And then Jesus is what?
The word made flesh and dwelling among us.
He's that bread that came down from heaven.
Not literally, but spiritually, figuratively, because Jesus Christ did not come into existence
in the womb of Mary, Jesus Christ already existed before that because he's the eternal
son of God, even in the Old Testament he already existed, and he always will exist.
He's the same yesterday and today and forever.
So that's why he's like unto that bread in the sense that he came down from heaven.
He's also like unto bread because he nourishes and feeds us.
He's also like unto bread because he's the word made flesh, and the word of God nourishes
and feeds us, like bread.
So this is a spiritual application.
It says in verse 57, and this is a key verse, so I'm going to come back to this, as the
living father hath sent me, and I live by the father, so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me.
This is like when he said man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God.
This is the bread, this is that bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers
did eat manna and are dead.
He that eateth of this bread shall live forever.
These things said he in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum, many therefore of
his disciples when they heard this said, this is a hard saying, who can hear it?
When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, does this
offend you?
Oh, well, let me change my message then.
He said, does this offend you?
What and if ye shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before?
So he's showing them that the problem that they're having with this issue of him being
the bread that came down from heaven is that they don't believe that he came down from
heaven.
They believe he's an ordinary human being and he's trying to tell them, I came down
from heaven to do the will of the father and they don't believe, they say, well, we know
whence this man is, you know, is this not the carpenter's son?
They think he's the son of Joseph and Mary.
They don't believe that he's divine.
They don't believe in his deity.
It says, what and if you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before?
Verse 63, it is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.
Now look, what does it mean to quicken?
It means to bring to life.
So what did he say?
You have to eat the flesh of the son of man in order to have life in you.
Is that literal?
Of course not.
Just like being born again is not literal.
Just like drinking living water is not literal.
Just like any of these things are not literal.
What he's saying when he says you've got to eat the son of man in order to have life in
you, he says, look, it's not the literal flesh because he says in verse 63, it's the spirit
that quickeneth.
It's not literal flesh in your mouth that gives you life.
It's the spirit that gives life.
The flesh profiteth nothing.
The flesh profiteth.
So are we supposed to literally eat the flesh of Jesus, eat his literal flesh?
No.
The flesh profiteth nothing.
It's the spirit that quickeneth.
And then he explains it in a way that's impossible to misunderstand.
In the next phrase, he says, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they
are life.
So that bread from heaven, that manna represented the word of God.
The Old Testament already taught us that.
Jesus Christ is the word made flesh.
And when Jesus is saying, hey, if you don't eat the flesh of the son of man, you have
no life in him, he's not saying to take a bite of his literal flesh.
What he's saying is that they need to be saved through the word of God.
It's the word of God that saves us.
It's the word of God that quickens us.
If we don't ingest the word of God, we have no life in us.
The words that I say unto you, they are spirit and they are life.
The flesh profiteth nothing.
So we're not saved by eating the literal flesh of Jesus.
We're saved by the word of God because the entrance of God's word gives light.
Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
The word of God comes in and that's what creates faith in our hearts.
Where does the faith come from?
Hearing the word of God.
So we go to the lost person and preach to them the word of God.
And then when they hear the word of God, now something is stirred.
But they have the choice whether or not they're going to accept the word of God or reject
the word of God.
And not only that, but the word of God also has to be explained to them because otherwise
they'll walk away like these people with a wrong understanding.
Even when Jesus explains it to them, many of them still don't get it.
Some of them do, some of them don't.
But he flat out says it is the spirit that quickeneth.
The flesh profiteth nothing.
So how can you walk away and say, oh, yep, we've got to have Jesus' flesh to save us.
What did he just say?
It's the spirit that quickens.
What gives you life?
The spirit.
The flesh profiteth nothing.
And then he says, what is the spirit?
He says, the words that I say unto you, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit
and they are life.
So the way that you're going to get Christ's flesh is not by literally eating it.
It's by believing the word of God.
That's what the Bible actually teaches.
And then he says in verse 64, but there are some of you that believe not.
For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray
him.
So what we get from this is that there are people who don't believe that Jesus came down
from heaven.
And because they're refusing to believe in his divinity, his deity, his status as the
son of God, the fact that he came down from heaven, because they don't have the faith,
they can't understand.
So they're stuck on this hyper literal interpretation of eating his flesh.
And they're like, well, this is hard.
You're suggesting something very difficult here, that we eat your flesh and drink your
blood.
And he's like, no, the flesh profiteth nothing.
It's the spirit that quickeneth.
The words that I say unto you, they're spirit and they're life.
But there are some of you that believe not.
That's the problem right there is that they didn't believe.
If they believed, this would have made sense to them.
They would have understood this.
Now flip over to Matthew 26.
What the Catholics will do though, is they'll say, oh, well, the way that you get this eating
of his flesh and drinking of his blood is through the Eucharist, right?
And the word Eucharist just simply means the giving of thanks.
Okay.
And what they do there is they take this unleavened bread, this wafer, and they supposedly do
a hocus pocus and turn it into the literal body of Christ.
And then they take the cup of wine and they supposedly literally turn it into the blood
of Christ.
And they say, well, this is how we fulfill John six.
And of course, by applying this to John six, they're saying, well, if you don't do this,
you have no life in you.
That's why Catholics will constantly say that there's no salvation outside the Catholic
church.
Why?
Because you have to eat that flesh and drink that blood.
Especially disregarding verse 47 of John six, where he said, if you believe on him, you
already have everlasting life.
And the reason why he's telling them you need to eat my flesh and drink my blood is because
they're not saved.
You don't believe.
You need to get saved is what he's saying.
And he's just using an illustration for how to get saved.
See, Christ used all kinds of illustrations for how to get saved.
He said, I'm the door.
If any man enter in by me, he shall be saved.
You know, where's the doorknob, Lord?
We can't find it.
It's crazy, right?
He said, I'm the good shepherd.
Okay, does that mean we're all going to go out and eat grass and follow around Jesus,
the literal shepherd, and he's going to use his rod and staff to literally come?
No.
Look, these things aren't literal.
Being a shepherd is an illustration.
Being the bread of life is an illustration.
Being the door is an illustration.
Being the living water is an illustration.
But the carnal mind makes all these things carnal instead of understanding that they
are spiritual illustrations.
Now let me prove it to you from the Bible that the so-called Eucharist or Lord's Supper
has nothing to do with eating the literal body of Jesus or drinking his blood.
Look at Matthew 26, 26.
And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to
the disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body.
And the Catholics say, see right there, it's his body.
They don't understand this thing called a metaphor, okay?
And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, drink ye all of it, for
this is my blood.
Oh, there you go, but let's keep reading.
He said, this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of
sins.
Look at verse 29.
But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of what?
This fruit of the vine.
Now this is after Jesus already said, okay, this bread's my body, this cup's my blood.
So according to the Catholics, he said hocus pocus and it actually became his body and
blood.
But then how come in the next breath he says, well, I'm not going to drink of this fruit
of the vine.
So after he pronounces it, this is my body, this is my blood of the New Testament, he
turns around and says, well, I'm not going to drink of this fruit juice again.
I'm not going to drink of this fruit of the vine again.
So guess what?
It's still fruit juice.
It didn't stop being the fruit of the vine, did it?
Look at verse 29.
But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine.
It's still just juice.
Until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
And by the way, notice it doesn't even say wine because they say, oh, you know, you Baptists,
you know, you aren't drinking the real stuff, you know, the hard stuff.
Well if it's an unleavened bread, shouldn't it be an unleavened beverage?
Because guess what?
It's yeast that makes bread rise.
You know what leaven is called in 2018?
Yeast.
And you know what?
Wine is fermented with that you go buy at the store, you wino, you drunk.
When you go buy that, it's fermented with yeast.
So why would we have a bread that's free from yeast and then a wine that's fermented
on yeast?
Nonsense.
Jesus Christ had unleavened bread and he had the fruit of the vine, it says.
It's just fruit juice.
The fruit of the vine.
It's just grape juice.
It's what it says.
Fruit of the vine.
And he said after he already declared, oh, this is my blood, it's still juice in the
next verse.
So it shows that it didn't literally become that.
See the Roman Catholics believe that it's literally the body of Christ and not only
that, but they say that even if an unsaved person eats it, they're still eating the body
of Christ.
Because it's literal.
I mean, when he holds that up and says, hok est corpus meus, you know, hocus pocus.
When he says that, it's literal to them.
And by the way, the Lutherans believe the same thing.
Did you know that?
Lutherans believe the same thing and they claim it's literal and that even if an unsaved
person eats it, you know, it's not going to, it's not, you know, they're eating it under
their damnation, but they're still eating Jesus.
I mean, it's just crazy.
So faith isn't even a factor in the person who's eating it.
It's just all whether the priest performs his ritual and magic on it.
So Roman Catholicism is a hocus pocus pagan idolatrous religion.
It's not biblical.
But let me go over some other hocus pocus of Catholicism.
Who here is a former Catholic?
You used to be Catholic.
Look around.
Lots of people all over the building that were raised this way.
You know about some of the hocus pocus that goes on.
It's a very superstitious religion and it's very similar in some ways to a magic show
when you go to the Catholic mass or the Catholic church.
So I'm going to give you three different hocus pocuses or I don't know if it's hocus poci
or something, but you know, and we could, we could talk about all kinds of hocus pocus
with the Catholic church, but I'm not, I've never been a Catholic, so I can't speak from
experience, but I can speak from study and research and speaking to those who have been
Catholics or Orthodox.
And by the way, everything I'm preaching, you can apply this all to the Orthodox church
friend.
Don't think that the Russian Orthodox is somehow better than Catholic.
In most ways it's worse.
Okay.
And we'll get to that a little later, but hocus pocus number one is transubstantiation
and that's what this doctrine is called where they literally supposedly turn the bread into
his body and the cup into his blood.
So hocus pocus number one is transubstantiation.
Hocus pocus number two is holy water.
Okay.
Now this, this concept of holy water in Roman Catholicism is a total hocus pocus and has
no basis in scripture whatsoever.
In fact, I looked it up on Wikipedia and I like how it said this here.
I'm going to read you some stuff off the Wikipedia page for holy water and of course everybody
acts like, oh, Wikipedia, right?
Well guess what?
At the bottom of Wikipedia are all the sources so you can fact check everything.
You got all the footnotes and everything, so don't disparage Wikipedia.
Okay.
It has great footnotes at the bottom and you can do your diligence and check these things
for yourself, but it says on the Wikipedia article, the use of holy water used by various
sects of Christianity, it's Catholic, is a non scripturally based practice only attested
to in late Catholic documents.
So of course it's not in the Bible, holy water.
Certainly it's not in the Bible, but it's not even in the early Catholic stuff.
Late Catholic documents.
Okay.
There's a section called use and storage.
Holy water is kept in the holy water font, which is typically located at the entrance
of the church.
Smaller vessels called stoops are usually placed at the entrances of the church to enable
people to sprinkle themselves with it while entering in.
In recent years with the concerns over influenza, new holy water machines that work like an
automatic soap dispenser have become popular.
Now if this water is so holy, why does it make you sick?
If it's so holy, it can't even kill germs.
In the middle ages, the power of holy water was considered so great that in some places
fonts had locked covers to prevent the theft of holy water for unauthorized magic practices.
Now by saying unauthorized magic practices, that's implying that there are some authorized
magic practices.
You know, we're going to do our hocus pocus.
We're going to do our magical holy water tricks, but you dare not do any unauthorized magical
use.
So we got to lock this stuff up.
It says here that the constitutions of Archbishop Edmund Rich prescribes that fonts are to be
kept under lock and key because of witchcraft.
Proper disposal.
Yeah, how do you get rid of this stuff?
In Catholicism, holy water, as well as the water used during the washing of the priest's
hands at mass, is not allowed to be disposed of in regular plumbing.
Oh no.
Roman Catholic churches will usually have a special basin that leads directly into the
ground for the purposes of proper disposal.
Hygiene.
Holy water fonts have been identified as a potential source of bacterial and viral infection.
In the late 19th century, bacteriologists found Staphylococci, forgive me if I pronounced
these wrong, Streptococci, Colibacilli, Lurfler's bacillus, and other bacteria in samples of
holy water taken from a church in Sassari, Italy.
So they're taking samples of the holy water.
It's got staph in it.
It's got strep in it.
It's filled with disease.
You know, all these different viruses and bacteria are in this holy water.
The samples in that study were shown to have a wide range of bacterial species.
This is a 1995 study.
The first one was from the 19th century.
Then in 1995, they found all kinds of wide range of bacterial species, some of which
could cause infection in humans.
During the swine flu epidemic of 2009, Bishop John Steinbach of Fresno, California, recommended
that holy water should not be in the fonts due to fear of spreading infection.
Also in response to the swine flu, an automatic motion detecting holy water dispenser was
invented and installed in an Italian church in 2009.
So this is the one that's like an automatic soap dispenser where you just, you know, they
probably get frustrated sometimes like, come on, turn on.
You know, you know how it is when you're trying to get the soap or the water to run?
It's like, come on, I'm doing all the motions here, you know?
And then it's like, squirt a little holy water, all right.
Okay, Roman Catholics.
This use of holy water in making a sign of the cross when entering a church reflects
a renewal of baptism, a cleansing of venial sin, as well as providing protection against
evil.
It is sometimes accompanied by the following prayer.
By this holy water and by your precious blood, wash away all my sins, oh Lord.
So look, these people don't even believe that they're saved, because guess what?
They're not saved.
So they think they have to keep getting cleansed of their sin.
You know, we've already been washed in the blood.
God has washed us from our sins in his own blood and made us kings and priests unto God
and his Father.
We're saved with a D on the end for done, saved, done.
We're saved.
We're not being saved, we're already saved.
But they, every time, oh, cleanse me of my sin with this holy water and your blood also,
you know, as an afterthought, right?
First, we're being cleansed by the holy water, something that's never mentioned in the Bible.
You say, well, show us what the Bible says.
I can't.
There's no mention of holy water in the Bible.
Here's the formula, the traditional Latin formula for blessing the water.
Okay, now, you don't know Latin, and I don't know Latin, but I can understand a lot of
this just from knowing Spanish and Italian and languages like that.
So some of you might be able to figure out some of this, okay?
But I got the English translation.
Let me just give you a little of the Latin, though, just so that you can get a feel for
this.
Exorcisote.
Can you figure out what that means?
Like I exercise you.
So they're like performing an exorcism on the water.
That's the first thing.
Exorcisote, creatura aquae.
I exercise you, water creature.
What in the world?
It's crazy.
This is my translation on the fly.
In nomine de patris omnipotentus, you know, in the name of almighty God, et in nomine
Jesu Christi fili eius domininostri.
Et in virtute spiritus sancti ut fias aquae exorcisata ad effugandam omnem potestam inimici
et ipsum.
I've seen that on a lot of websites that I was building, that ipsum, inimicum eradicare.
Et explantare valius cum, okay, all right, I'll read the English.
I was just giving you a little feel for that.
Here's the English translation on Wikipedia.
I exorcise thee like an exorcist, like an exorcism of water.
What is the water demon possessed in the first place?
I exorcise thee creature of water.
Creature of water?
In the name of the God, the Father almighty, in the name of Jesus Christ the Son, on and
on, that ye may put to flight all the power of the enemy.
So it's telling the water, water, I exorcise you so that you can put to flight the enemy.
And root out along with all his fallen angels through the power of our Lord Jesus.
I mean, this is weird.
I don't have time to read all this, but it's weird.
Through the invocation of thy holy name, made secure against all attacks by the sprinkling
of this water.
I mean, it's just very strange.
So then there's another section, protection against evil.
Catholic saints have written about the power of holy water as a force that repels evil.
Saint Teresa of Avila, a doctor of the church, who reported visions of Jesus and Mary, was
a strong believer in the power of holy water and wrote that she used it with success to
repel evil and temptations.
Here's what she wrote.
I know by frequent experience that there is nothing which puts the devils to flight like
holy water.
I mean, there's just nothing like it.
I mean, holy water sends those devils running away.
I mean, this is, this is hocus pocus.
Now here's my favorite section of the Wikipedia article, unofficial uses.
There's some unofficial use going on.
Holy water has also been believed to ward off or act as a weapon against mythical evil
creatures such as vampire.
Now I didn't grow up Catholic, but I grew up with this because I had the Nintendo entertainment
system, 8-bit video game system, and I had a copy.
My parents didn't like it.
They made me get rid of it, but I had a copy of Castlevania II.
Who played Castlevania II on the, good night.
It's half the building.
All right.
My parents didn't like, they, they, once they found it, they said, we don't want you playing
this game.
But anyway, in that game, you know, you're hurling little bottles of holy water and it's
wiping out zombies and vampires, right?
I mean, well, I don't have to tell you half the church has played the game.
So you know, Simon Belmont's throwing the holy water.
So it says here, you know, people did that in real life.
Listen to this.
In Eastern Europe, one might sprinkle holy water onto the corpse of a suspected vampire
in order to destroy it or render it inert.
Thereafter, the concept proliferated into fiction about such creatures.
So before the fictional vampire craze and all the video games and books and movies,
you know, people would literally do this, these superstitious pagan Catholics, you know,
they'd say, you know, that dead body looks harmless there, but I fear that tonight it's
going to come out and be a vampire and haunt us.
So we need to neutralize that sucker.
So they'll get some holy water, pour some holy water on it, and that'll either keep
it in the, in the coffin at least or destroy it.
Either way, it's going to be rendered inert.
Okay.
This is the holy water.
Now, if you would flip over to John chapter seven, John chapter seven, and look, for those
of you who didn't grow up Catholic, I brought a little demonstration for you.
Okay.
I'm going to demonstrate this, but in order to give you the full feel, I have to, I have
to dress up a little bit for this, for this next part of the sermon, because this isn't
how Catholics dress, right?
So I'm, I've got some, some stuff to put on here to give you a feel for this.
So I'm going to be putting on my, my clerical robe here, and I've also got a, a mitre here
so that you can get a feel for the Catholic hocus pocus.
All right.
So what, look, every, every magician puts on a robe and a funny hat, just like every
Catholic puts on a robe and a funny hat.
All right.
So my wife made me this hat this afternoon.
She's very good with arts and crafts.
All right.
Now I've got the holy water here, and if those of you who've been Catholic, you know, this
is real.
What I'm about to do.
Okay.
All right.
Now don't worry.
This is, this is clean.
This has never been used before.
Okay.
So, all right.
All right.
Pax for Biscum.
All right, everybody.
This is going to keep the vampires and zombies away.
All right.
Don't worry about zombies and all the different undead creatures, temptations.
You won't be tempted anymore to deliver his doctrine.
All right.
Pax before Biscum.
All right.
Oh, that was a little too much.
All right, everyone.
Here you are.
Here's your holy water.
Be sure to cross yourselves regularly.
All right.
Now you say, well, Pastor Aniston, you're being ridiculous.
This is no more stupid and ridiculous than what goes on in Roman Catholic churches every
Sunday.
It's not Christianity.
It's not of the Bible.
It's not of the New Testament.
It's a bunch of hocus pocus today.
It's crazy.
And he said, well, that's just the sword of the Lord folded up into a funny hat.
Well, you know what?
It's no different than all these other funny hats and robes and weird outfits that they
put on.
And that toilet brush is no different than the little thing that they use to throw holy
water around and everything like that.
And what you've just been sprinkled with isn't going to keep the demons away any more or
less than their so-called holy water.
The whole thing's crazy.
It's nonsense.
It's crazy to those of you in the back who did not receive a blessing.
I don't want to spend the whole evening on that.
The auditorium's too big to sprinkle everyone.
All right.
Look at John chapter 7.
The Bible says in verse 37, in that last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and
cried saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water.
But this he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.
For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.
That's the only holy water there is, and it's not a literal water.
It's the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the only holy water, and it's by believing in Christ that you have
that well of water springing up inside of you, that well unto everlasting life.
That's the holy water.
This overly literal, oh, well, we've got to make some holy water and put it in little
fonts and sprinkle and do all this stuff with it.
You know, my wife even showed me where they were blessing cars with it.
You know, so it'd be like if I went out in the parking lot with that, and they literally
were doing that with the toilet brush on the outside of the cars, and then they would make
sure to get the interior.
So they would open all the doors, and they're flinging water into the car.
The blessing of the cars.
Now, have you seen that in person?
Yeah, my wife saw it in person in Germany, where they're going through the parking lot
doing it.
They bless people's pets, their dogs, their cars, themselves just flinging holy water
everywhere.
And it's a bunch of hocus pocus mumbo jumbo.
It's not Bible.
I got to hurry up.
One last point that I want to cover, the hocus pocus number one was the transubstantiation.
Hocus pocus number two is the holy water, and hocus pocus number three is the icons
and idols of the Catholic Church.
Now, all of these things, they all have something in common.
All of these errors have to do with that which is carnal versus that which is spiritual.
Instead of understanding that the Holy Spirit is what matters, they want to have a physical
little jug of holy water.
Instead of understanding that it's the word of God that matters, it's Christ's death,
burial, and resurrection that matters, they want to have a literal cracker and a literal
wine and say, oh, this carnal substance, this is what's going to bring salvation.
This water, this bread, this wine.
And then instead of just praying to the invisible God, what do they do?
They make an image of God, right?
Because they're carnal.
So they want a physical image that they can look at with their eyes and something to bow
down to and worship instead of by faith.
You know, the Bible says by faith we see the invisible, right?
Moses, by faith, as seeing him who is invisible, the Bible says.
You know, by faith we understand.
By faith we can see things with the eyes of faith.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
The Roman Catholics, they want to walk by sight.
So they have to have a physical water, physical bread, physical wine, and then they want to
look at physical image.
Now there are two branches of this.
The Eastern Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Romanian Orthodox, Egyptian,
Coptic, whatever, they worship with two-dimensional images, okay?
And then you have the Catholics with their three-dimensional images, but it's the same
thing.
It's worshiping an image or an idol.
Now let me give you some scripture on this.
If you would flip back to Exodus chapter 20, in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 10 says
in verse 7, neither be ye idolaters as were some of them.
As it is written, the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.
Verse 14, wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.
What does it mean to flee?
To run away from it.
This is the same wording as when scripture said to flee fornication.
And what did Joseph do in Genesis?
He fled fornication.
You know, when he had the opportunity to commit adultery, he ran away literally.
He ran from it.
And the Bible says we should run from idolatry in the same way.
Run away from it.
Don't embrace it.
What does it say in Exodus 20 verse 4?
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them.
So he's saying, look, don't bow down to them or serve them.
You say, well, we're not serving it.
We're just bowing in front of it.
Okay.
Let's back up.
Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them.
It's not just serving them that's a sin.
It's even bowing down before them that's a sin.
That's what the Bible says.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them.
For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children under the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
Now, this is one of the Ten Commandments, but not if you're a Roman Catholic.
The Roman Catholics have doctored the Ten Commandments to delete this commandment.
It is deleted from Catholic and Lutheran lists of the Ten Commandments.
And so, then they only have nine, so they have a problem.
So in order to get a tenth commandment, what they do is they take verse 17 and they get
two commandments out of it.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,
nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is
thy neighbor's.
And what they'll do is they'll say, coveting your neighbor's wife is a separate commandment.
Because they have to bring the total to ten.
Because in Deuteronomy chapter ten, verse four, it calls it the Ten Commandments.
So you've got to have ten of them.
Well, they want to delete that graven image commandment, so if you look at any Catholic
list of the commandments, it'll skip the commandment about a graven image, and instead, it will
make this two commandments.
Well, guess what?
Jesus in the New Testament quotes this as one commandment.
Because he lists the commandments and he says, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet
He shortens this to just, thou shalt not covet.
Romans 13 does the same thing.
Just thou shalt not covet.
Think about how silly this is.
So they, basically, look at verse 17, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.
That's the tenth commandment.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
That's the ninth commandment.
Nor his manservant.
We're back on the tenth commandment again.
I mean, think about how crazy that is, right?
Because even in the same verse, they have to jump back and forth to try to carve this
up into two commandments.
Now go to Judges chapter 17.
Because what people will say to this is like, well, that's just saying he doesn't want them
worshiping other gods.
If they're worshiping the Lord, it's fine.
Wrong.
In Deuteronomy chapter 4, he says, remember, above all, that when you went up into the
mount, I'm paraphrasing, but he says, you saw no manner of similitude.
You only heard a voice.
So when they went to Mount Sinai, the 70 elders who went to the base of Mount Sinai with Moses,
they heard the voice.
And then at one point, all the people of God, all of Israel, hears the voice from the mountain.
But he says, remember, you didn't see an image, did you?
Did you see my face?
Did you see an image?
Did you see what I look like?
No.
Don't make an image.
Because all you did was you heard a voice.
So you know what that tells us is that if we want to get a picture of who God is, we
get it from the Bible.
We get it from listening to the word of God.
We know God through hearing his word, not through seeing his physical image.
Now what people will say, though, that are Orthodox or Catholic is they'll say, well,
it's okay because we're worshiping God.
We're not worshiping a different God as long as it's the same God.
But he says, you didn't see an image of me, so don't make an image of me even.
So the Orthodox will say, well, making an image to God was impossible back then because
Jesus hadn't been born yet.
But once Jesus was born, you know, now we have God in the flesh here so we can make
an image of him.
You already had God in the flesh in the Old Testament when the Son of God walked up to
Abraham in the heat of the day in Genesis chapter 18, right?
I mean, the Bible says the Lord spoke with Abraham.
What about all the Old Testament appearances of Jesus?
Why don't you make an image of that?
No, because you don't make a graven image of deity, period.
Period.
Look what the Bible says in Judges chapter 17.
This is an example of idolatry and it says in verse 3, and when he had restored the 1,100
shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto
the Lord.
Look at the all caps.
This is Jehovah.
Do they have the right God?
Yeah, the Lord, right?
From my hand, from my son, to make a graven image and a molten image, now therefore I
will restore it unto thee.
Yet he restored the money unto his mother, and his mother took 200 shekels of silver
and gave them to the founder who made thereof a graven image and a molten image, and they
were in the house of Micah.
Does it make it okay here that he's making the graven image and the molten image unto
the Lord?
No.
And even when the golden calf was fashioned by Aaron in Exodus 33, what does it say?
Oh, tomorrow's a feast to the Lord.
Tomorrow's a feast for Jehovah, and it's a golden calf?
Okay.
I don't know what this image was that he made in Judges, but I don't care if it was a human
being, I don't care if it was an animal, none of that's acceptable.
Go to Romans 1, Romans chapter 1.
And while you're turning there, I'll read for you from Acts 17 verse 22, then Paul stood
in the midst of Mars Hill and said, ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye
are too superstitious.
And that could be said of the Roman Catholics for sure.
But then he says in verse 29, for as much then as we are the offspring of God, this
is Acts 17, I'll be to Romans 1 in a moment, for as much then as we are the offspring of
God, we ought not to think that the Godhead, Godhead means godhood or divinity or deity,
we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven
by art and man's device.
And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent.
Every idolater is commanded to repent.
Okay.
We ought not to think that the Godhead is like an image made by man's device.
That's why idolatry is wrong.
Because you can't put divinity, deity into a carved image.
Romans 1 verse 21, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither
were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened, professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God
into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping
things.
So it's not just making an idol of an animal that's wrong.
We don't want to do what?
We don't want to make the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to a corruptible
man either or an animal or a four-footed beast or a creeping thing.
So whether it's an animal or whether it's human, no graven image should represent God.
Now what's the justification for this?
Now the orthodox church is even worse on idolatry than the Roman Catholics, period, okay.
They're hardcore about their images.
Now the Catholics believe all the same stuff about it that the orthodox do when it comes
to the justification for images, but I'm going to approach this part of the sermon from an
orthodox perspective because the orthodox are the most hardcore about their images.
The Catholics are still worshiping idols and they still believe the doctrine that's the
foundation for orthodoxy, but the orthodox, this is like everything about their religion
to them.
In fact, and this is why I say in some ways orthodox is even worse than Catholicism in
multiple ways.
Even though it gets a free pass from people, like people think like, oh, you know, it's
not as bad as the Catholics.
It's orthodox.
Oh, Putin is a Christian.
You know, he's orthodox.
Now yeah, Putin's a lot cooler than Obama and could have beat the living snot out of
him, you know, in those comparisons, you know, the comparisons between Putin and Obama, but
that doesn't make him a Christian.
You know, I'm glad that Putin doesn't like homos.
You know, I'm glad.
Amen.
At least he's manly, but that does not make him a Bible believing Christian.
So we've got to be careful not to get too into, you know, oh, Putin is so godly or oh,
you know, brother Nathaniel online or whoever crazy people that people are listening to
because the orthodox church is a false religion.
Let me just give you a feel for how into their images the orthodox church is, okay?
According to the orthodox church, it's not just okay to bow down to their idols and images.
You have to.
It's essential.
It's a requirement.
Is that what the Bible says?
Hey, you're required to acknowledge this image.
In fact, here's what they'll say.
If you don't bow down to this image, then you're denying the deity of Christ because
if you don't think this picture of a random dude that we have with this real long skinny
nose that if you don't believe that's Jesus, you must be denying the deity of Christ.
Now the oldest orthodox icon goes back to 500 A.D.
Oh, I'm sure that's a real accurate depiction of somebody who lived 500 years earlier and
that picture is creepy.
That 500 A.D., who knows what I'm talking about, the 500 A.D. picture, that original
picture, it's very weird looking.
It's like it's split in half and one half looks different than the other half.
And here's the thing.
It's been scientifically shown that part of what makes people good looking is when their
face is symmetrical.
So when you look at this 500 A.D. icon of Christ where one side of his face is totally
different than the other side, it's very unsettling to look at it, okay.
You know who that is?
A random dude.
Some random European dude.
You know, he doesn't even look like he's of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
He looks like the fake Polish imposters of today.
But you know, he doesn't even look like he's from the Middle East.
And you got this random dude with Michael Jackson's nose, skinny long nose, and then
they say, hey, if you don't worship this, you're denying the deity of Christ.
Let me just show you how into their idols there are, their images, their icons.
There's a holiday on the Orthodox calendar, and here's what their holiday is called.
The triumph of Orthodoxy.
And you know what that day is celebrating?
The triumph of Orthodoxy?
It's celebrating the day when they got their icons back.
Because there were some people who came along around the 10th century, you know, 900 A.D.,
and they started breaking up idols and breaking down pictures.
It was called the iconoclast.
Who's ever heard of that?
Where there were these Byzantine emperors and people who said, hey, this stuff's wrong.
We shouldn't have these pictures and images.
So they were going around breaking, destroying, trashing icons.
Amen.
Trash them all.
Destroy them all.
Well, they had this ecumenical council with the Roman Catholics where they got together
and decided, no, actually, icons are good.
And then when they celebrate that decision of bringing back the pictures into the churches
and bringing in all the pictures and the statues and the icons, they call that the triumph
of Orthodoxy.
That'd be like if we had a holiday called the triumph of being a Baptist, right?
Because the triumph of, that's what their religion's called.
So their triumph of their religion is triumph of what?
A picture.
So their whole religion's based on what?
The Bible?
No.
It's based on worshiping pictures.
And in fact, when you enter an Orthodox church, you know what you're supposed to do every
single Sunday?
You have to prove to them that you believe in icons.
Want to make sure you're not iconoclastic, you know, one of those throwbacks from 1,100
years ago.
Because for the last 1,100 years, they've been firmly pro-icon, okay?
So when you walk in to an Orthodox church, here's what you do.
You cross yourself and bow down to a picture of Jesus and then you kiss the icon.
Not on the face, kisses somewhere else, hand, foot, hem of his garment, whatever.
Then you have to go kiss a picture of Mary.
Then you have to go kiss all the pictures of the saints.
I mean, it's just, muah, muah, muah, I mean, you're just doing a lot of kissing of pictures
and bowing down and crossing yourself and just going through all this hocus pocus every
time you enter an Orthodox church.
Then in their houses, they have a little shrine set up just like the Hindus.
Look, did you know that before Jesus even walked on this earth, Hindus and Buddhists
already had little shrines where they bowed down and served idols?
And you know what?
The Catholic's little shrine to Mary and the Orthodox little shrine to their icons is the
same thing as what the Hindus were worshiping the devil before Jesus was even around, because
the Hindus had been worshiping the devil ever since they left the Tower of Babel and worshiped
their goddess.
Just like all these different religions of the world have their goddess worshiped, whether
it's Mary or whether it's the Hindus or whatever.
Now here's what I looked up online as, you know, this is the Catholic justification of
worshiping images.
Catholic theology expressly affirms the image of Christ receives the same latria or worship
that is due to God.
So we're supposed to worship that picture of Jesus or statue of Jesus.
If you're Roman Catholic, it's a statue.
If you're Orthodox, it's a two-dimensional picture.
It gets the same worship that God gets.
Now the reason that they make a point about this word latria is because they want to play
word games about what it means to serve or worship.
So what they do is they go back to the Greek and use two different words for serve.
So back in the Greek, there's the word latria and then the word lulia.
And they say, you know, well, when it comes to venerating the saints, we don't latrevo,
but we do dulevo.
Okay.
So basically it's like just playing this word game.
Well, we're worshiping, but we're not worshiping.
You know, we're serving, but we're not serving.
Now where we get our word idolatry is from that word latrevo, right?
So idolatry.
So they're like, well, we're only latreing Jesus.
You know, we don't latry, so it's not idolatry because we're just doing this other word for
serve or worship.
How do you like that?
But here's what they say.
In the case of an image or saint, the worship should not be latria, but rather dulia.
While the Blessed Virgin Mary receives hyperdulia.
I mean, come on.
Is this stupid?
Where's all this in the Bible?
What a joke.
Well, we're only having latria toward a picture of Jesus.
Hey, it's idolatry because that's an idol.
It's an image.
You say, well, you're saying that Jesus is God.
No, I'm saying that that random dude isn't God.
I don't even know who that guy is.
And if you notice that there's all these different pictures of Jesus and it doesn't even look
like the same guy.
I mean, look at the Roman Catholic pictures of Jesus.
Look at the Orthodox picture of Jesus.
Look at the Mormon Jesus.
It's a different guy.
Which one is it?
It's a real guy.
Who knows?
Well, the Orthodox will say, well, it's our guy.
Your guy is the scariest looking one that I've ever seen out of all of them.
But they say, well, you know, it's mandatory.
And if you don't venerate icons, you're implying that Jesus was not fully God or you're denying
that Jesus had a real physical body.
What kind of stupid garbage is that?
Of course, Jesus had a real physical body.
Of course, Jesus Christ was walking in the flesh.
And you know what?
When Jesus Christ was on this earth, hey, if I were there, I would have been the first
one to fall on my face and latrevo and dulevo and everything else, right?
I'll even hyper-dulevo.
I'll hyper-latrevo, you know, whatever.
It's stupid.
I mean, yeah, we're just going to fall on our faces and worship Jesus Christ.
We'll do that when we get to heaven.
We would have done that when he was on this earth, but not an image, not a picture.
You don't see Jesus and the apostles going around with pictures.
Why don't you see this in the book of Acts?
The Acts of the apostles.
You don't see them, you know, taking pictures and idols, hey, let's get rid of that statue
and let's give you a different statue, you know, let's get rid of Zeus.
And actually, we don't even need to get rid of Zeus.
Let's just take a little off the top, give him a little haircut and call it a saint or
add some hair, right, and make him a long-haired Jesus.
Folks, it's hocus-pocus.
I'm going to close the sermon with that.
But whether it be transubstantiation, holy water, icons, and the reason I call these
icons and images hocus-pocus is that they somehow believe that there's something magical
about that picture, that it has some spiritual powers, that if we somehow get next to it
when we pray, that's going to help us pray.
It's lies of the devil.
It's garbage.
It is pagan idolatry.
And don't tell me there's no salvation outside the Catholic Church.
I got news for you.
There's no salvation inside the Catholic Church.
Catholics are damned tonight.
The Orthodox Church is damned tonight.
Why?
Because they don't believe salvation is by faith.
They don't believe in faith alone.
You know what they believe in?
Works.
You know what they believe in?
Hocus-pocus.
Magic, spells, witchcraft, idols.
And they can polish the apple and try to spiritualize it all they want.
But it's a bunch of spells and incantations, chanting, witchcraft, sorcery.
It's of the devil.
It's demonic.
It's filled with demons.
The Bible says the things that the Gentiles offer unto idols, they offer unto devils.
And it's another Jesus, another gospel.
Those saints are just devils.
They're not saints.
You think that's a picture of Peter?
You think that's a picture of Thomas?
No.
That's a picture of some devil.
Some evil, wicked person.
Some sodomite in many cases.
I mean when Michelangelo is painting it, you know it's going to be a homo.
Right?
All these fairies that they're bowing down to.
All these men with hair like girls.
It's amazing how these icons don't seem to have a high and tight haircut.
They always have what?
Some long hair, hippie haircut.
The Bible says it's a shame for a man to have long hair.
Why?
Because the man is the image and glory of God.
So, oh, here's the image and glory of God.
Go kiss this icon of a long haired dude from 500 A.D.?
It's wicked folks.
What's the answer?
We need to bring the gospel to the Catholics.
You know, kindly, gently show them the word of God.
But don't for a second give a pass unto the Orthodox Church.
Or don't give a pass, you know, look, one of the reasons why I became a fundamental
Baptist, because look, I've been saved since I was six years old.
And I grew up fundamental Baptist in the beginning.
But for about five years, we got out of the fundamental Baptist movement and we were going
to the denominational Baptist churches.
They were of the North American Baptist Convention.
And you know, they had the NIV, and they had no soul winning, and they had the rock and
roll.
And we went to those churches for a while.
Do you want to know what made us switch?
Where we got fed up and said that's it, because it was kind of a worldly phase for our family.
And you know, we were just going to church, and it was a dead church, obviously, doesn't
even have the King James.
We still had a King James in our lap, but the preaching was from the NIV.
You know what got us out of it?
I'll tell you what made us switch was we started getting angry at them saying that
Catholics are saved.
That's what made us switch.
I mean, we switched from one to the other.
We went to a church for years, and we quit the church because my parents went to a Sunday
school class, and they got up in a Baptist church, and they were talking about a really
dark point in the Catholic church.
And they said at this point, some of the popes weren't even saved.
And my parents raised their hand, and they were like, are you saying that there ever
was a saved pope?
And you know what the teacher of the Sunday school class in the Baptist church where our
family attended said?
He said, well, I think the pope we have right now is saved.
John Paul II.
I think the pope we have right now is saved.
Why are you owning the pope?
I think the pope that we have right now is saved.
You know, John Paul is saved, right?
Nobody who ever wore a stupid hat like this is saved except me, because I'm wearing it
as a joke.
But they, you know, oh, I think the pope we have right now is saved.
And you know, my parents were just blown away by that.
They're shocked by that.
And they're talking about, oh, I know a Catholic priest who's saved.
They're like, what in the world?
And you know what?
We switched churches.
And we went to a different church, and then that church turned out to be even worse and
believed all the same stuff.
They all thought that Catholics are going to heaven.
I mean, I found that southern Baptists often when you talk to them think that Catholics
are going to heaven.
I mean, who's run into that, where evangelical Christians think that the Catholics are saved?
Yeah, Catholics are saved.
And you know, what?
What?
And that's what got us into an independent fundamental Baptist church.
You know, back to our roots.
And that's what changed our lives.
Because when we went back to the independent fundamental Baptist church, you know, I've
never seen an independent Baptist church say that Catholics are Christians.
But never say never, because the independent Baptists are getting so weird, it wouldn't
surprise me if they did start saying that.
Folks, you're not doing any favors to the Catholics by pretending that they're saved.
You're not doing any favors to the Orthodox by pretending that they're saved.
We need to realize and come to grips with the fact that they're not saved so that we
can do what?
Get them saved.
Okay.
Get them saved.
And not just think, oh, they're good to go.
Wrong.
They're good to go to hell.
They need to get saved.
And look, you can't be a Catholic and a Christian, because to be a Catholic you've got to believe
in work salvation.
And to be an Orthodox, you're kissing images of some other god.
Some fake dude.
That is not Jesus.
I don't know who that guy is.
I don't know what his name is.
You know, the Orthodox are going to, maybe they'll run into him down in hell and be like,
you look familiar.
You're the guy I've been kissing and praying to.
Thanks a lot for winding me up down here, buddy.
Because you know, he's not going to be in heaven, that guy.
I mean, I'd be shocked, because I'm sure it's a demon or a devil, you know, that possessed
that guy that would pose for that picture.
Here, let me be Christ.
It's wicked.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for the truth.
We thank you for the Bible, the New Testament.
And Lord, I pray that every person who's in this building tonight would read their Bible.
Because Lord, if we read our Bibles, we'll never fall for this garbage.
Anybody who reads the New Testament, anybody who reads the Bible and has the Holy Spirit
living inside of them would never fall for any of this for a second, because none of
it's in the Bible.
But Lord, I just pray that you would just give us the wisdom and the opportunity and
the ability to win as many Catholics and Orthodox to the Lord as we possibly can, because they're
on their way to hell, Lord.
Please help us to reach them and just guide us to the ones that are receptive so we can
pull them out of this pagan, superstitious, idolatrous religion, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.