(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Great singing. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for our church and the opportunity to sing praises to your name this morning. We pray that you fill us with the Holy Spirit. Help us to sing out with love and understanding in our hearts for you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, for our second song, flip to 255, Come and Dine. 255, Come and Dine. Song 255, Come and Dine. 🎵Music🎵 🎵Jesus has a table spread where the saints of God are fed. 🎵He invites his chosen people, Come and Dine. 🎵With his manna he doth feed and supplies for every heat. 🎵Go to sleep to stuff with Jesus all the time. 🎵Come and Dine, the last to call it, Come and Dine. 🎵You make fees to Jesus' table all the time. 🎵He who fed the multitude turned the water into wine. 🎵To the heart we call it, Come and Dine. 🎵The disciples came to lend the soul-bearing rice from men. 🎵For the master called unto them, Come and Dine. 🎵There they found their hearts desire, read and fissure on the fire. 🎵Plus he satisfied the hungry every time. 🎵Come and Dine, the last to call it, Come and Dine. 🎵You make fees to Jesus' table all the time. 🎵He who fed the multitude turned the water into wine. 🎵To the heart we call it now, Come and Dine. 🎵Soon the Lamb will take his bride to be ever at his side. 🎵All the hopes of heaven will assemble thee. 🎵Oaks will be in glorious sight. 🎵All the saints his heartless wife. 🎵And with Jesus they will dance eternally. 🎵Come and Dine, the master call it, Come and Dine. 🎵You make fees to Jesus' table all the time. 🎵He who fed the multitude turned the water into wine. 🎵To the heart we call it now, Come and Dine. Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you did not already get a bulletin, you'd like one, just slip your hand up real quick. Our ushers will come by, get you a bulletin. On the front we have our Bible memory passage, Proverbs 31 verse 20. And we had a New Testament challenge that we need to give out prizes for. Where are those prizes exactly? Okay, so Brother Dylan is going to stand over here, kind of by this kitchen area. And when he comes in here, if you completed the New Testament in the month of January, you can go over there and see him real quick and collect your prize. So right now, if you completed it, go ahead and just stand up, go see Brother Dylan. He's going to come and get you a prize. And congratulations to those who completed that. Just to go over a few more announcements, we do have our service times and then church-wide soul winning times. There is a note there about one of the church-wide soul winning times with Brother Illy on the Saturday. They're meeting now at 4.30, so that is a time change that he just wanted everybody to be aware of. But again, the church-wide soul winning times meet here at the building, and then the regional times meet in different parts of the city. Then we have our church stats down below. On the right, we have the list of our expecting ladies, and also down below is a prayer list. Make sure you're praying for both our expecting ladies and our prayer list. On the back, we have the note. So upcoming preaching class is not going to be this upcoming Saturday. That's going to be skipped as well, and then it's going to be the following, so February 17th. And that should be the third class of the preaching series. If you haven't been to the first two classes, you're still welcome to attend. Just please ask me or Brother Dillon about the specific class, just in case there was a specific instruction regarding sermons or anything like that. It is a participation class, so you do have to participate in the class. Typically, we usually do about a five-minute sermon that people can prepare, and there's been some really good sermons. I really appreciate people for participating in it. Down below, it's the best announcement. I'm a little biased, but it is the best announcement. Congratulations to the Shelley family on the birth of Adeline May. She was born at 1228 AM on the 30th. She weighed six pounds, seven ounces, and measured 19 inches long. So, yeah. And really, all the congratulations goes to the Mrs., because she did all the work, all right? Let's be honest. But no, they're both doing really well, really happy and healthy, and thank you so much to everybody who prayed for us. It means a lot to us, and so I'm looking forward to them coming to church in a few weeks, and everybody can meet Ms. Adeline. She's very sweet, so that's pretty much all I have as far as announcements. We're going to go ahead and sing our third song, but before we do, there was a little junior birdie that told me it's someone's birthday today. Mrs. Milstead asked if I would sing for her, and I said, Dylan can sing. All right, so Dylan's going to come up, and he's going to sing happy birthday for us, all right? All right, so it goes happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, God bless you, happy birthday to you. All right, here we go. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, God bless you, happy birthday to you. All right, and in a total change of themes, let's sing Psalm 139. Psalm 139. In your white handouts, Psalm 139. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God. Depart from me, therefore ye bloody men, Depart from me, therefore ye bloody men. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? Am not I grieve with those that rise up against thee? Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? For they speak against thee wickedly, For they speak against thee wickedly, And thy enemies take thy name in vain, And thy enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? Am not I grieve with those that rise up against thee? Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? I hate them with perfect hatred, I hate them with perfect hatred, I count them my enemies, I count them my enemies. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? Am not I grieve with those that rise up against thee? Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? As the offering plate is being passed around, please turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter number 2. As the offering plate is being passed around, please turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians 2, the Bible reads, For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the Spirit, joying and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power, in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the head from which all the body by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using, after the commandments and doctrines of men, which things have indeed a show of wisdom and will, worship and humility, and neglecting of the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for Pastor Shelley and his family, and I pray that you fill him with your spirit as he preaches your word to us, and I pray also, Lord, that you would open ears in the room and soften hearts as well so that we can receive the sermon that you've laid on his heart. We love you, and in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. I want to start with being at verse 1. The Bible says, For I would that ye know what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Colossians chapter 2, it starts out by the Apostle Paul instructing this church and encouraging them to understand that everything they could possibly want to know or understand is in Christ. It's in God, and that they have access to this information. Especially at this time, Greek philosophy is very well known. It's definitely prevalent in their culture and in their society. And Greek wisdom is something that's of the learned, the scholars, what we would typically think of today as the college educated, those who go and get master's degrees and doctorates of philosophy and all these different elevated statuses that they have within the college education system. But even then, they still had a system of education and they had their group of elites and their scholarly types. And he doesn't want them to get into this trap of trying to go after knowledge that comes from the world, knowledge that comes from the formal education system or from philosophy specifically. But he wants them to realize you already have all of the knowledge. You know, think about the church at Colossae. It's not in Jerusalem, so it's not really where a lot of the knowledge and the origination of Christianity or the religion of the Bible came from. They're not really in Rome, they're not really in Greece, so they're not really in any of these parts where a lot of people would try to pontificate about how they have special knowledge or extra knowledge. They're kind of further away from all these different areas. But what Paul doesn't want them to get trapped with is this idea of, well, have you heard about all this wisdom from Jerusalem or have you heard about all this wisdom from Rome or have you heard of all this wisdom from Greece or Athens or all these different areas? And it's like, no, I don't need any of that information because I have Christ, I have the Word of God, and I have the capacity to have all understanding, all knowledge. I want you to be comforted and realize you already have all the information you need. Imagine someone comes to you on the job site and says, wow, you're doing everything wrong, you must know nothing. What their person is trying to do is they're trying to frighten you. They're trying to put some fear or intimidation on you. And what if you already did know everything about your job? Or what if you already are excelling in your job? You know, that wouldn't be helpful for someone to constantly trying to put doubt on you or telling you there's all these things you don't know. And that's really what a lot of false religion tries to do, that's what cults try to do, is they try to overwhelm you with the idea of all this knowledge you have no idea about. They try to say, well, there's just all this information you don't know, or there's all these things you've never studied, there's all these things you've never learned, so you're just an imbecile, you're ignorant, you're foolish, you need a teacher, you need someone to instruct you. Whereas what Paul wants you to get and understand is that Christ wants to empower you and help you realize you can have all knowledge and all wisdom and everything's at your fingertips. Now probably the worst cult of all time trying to make people feel like they can't understand, they don't have knowledge, they don't have understanding, is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has wanted to overwhelm their parishioners, overwhelm their members, with the idea that there's just all this knowledge and all this wisdom and all this understanding that they have and that the lay people don't know. That lay people can't understand. In fact, for a large portion of their history, they kept the Bible away from their populace because they said you wouldn't understand it, you won't interpret it right, you can't really exegete the scripture correctly. So it's kept in store for the priests and the priests will deliver the knowledge and the teachers will come and you need a master, but really this is just a way to try to control the narrative. It's to try and manipulate people and it's for them to stay in power. It's for them to stay in power and really they have essentially this tradition, this Catholic tradition where they basically teach all kinds of doctrine, all kinds of information that's just not in the Bible. So the title of my sermon this morning is this, Catholic tradition versus the Bible. Catholic tradition versus the Bible. And you say, are you going to preach for 10 hours? No, I'm not, okay. But here's the thing, you know, I want to cover from a big picture what Catholics kind of generally believe on a lot of subjects just to kind of give you an idea of what we're talking about. But the main emphasis of the sermon is coming from this verse here in verse 8 where it says, beware lest any men spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. So in the book of Colossians, he's warning this group, this church, he's saying, look, you need to beware of something. What is it that they're supposed to beware of? What does the Bible say? Let any men spoil you through philosophy. Now this is interesting because when you go to college or you go to these institutions of higher learning, they want to teach you what? Philosophy. And they act as if philosophy is one of the greatest achievements or somehow you're inferior to them because you don't understand philosophy and really what the Bible is saying, beware of philosophy. It's not saying, hey, philosophy, great thing. Please learn philosophy. Please get sucked away into philosophy. It's saying beware of philosophy. Why? Because you can know everything you want to know from the Bible itself. Whereas philosophy is an endless study. It's an endless search of trying to listen to all these different people and all their ideas and all the thoughts that they've had. And they've written scores and scores of books and novels and it would take a lifetime to just read a small fraction of what has been written on this particular subject. And so what philosophers like to do is they like to snow you with the idea of how much information there is and all the different people they've read and all the different terminology. They never use basic simple terminology. They use fancy wording, fancy concepts and really it's not that you're unfamiliar with the concept or the idea. It's just you've never heard that particular word or phrase used and so they try to snow you. They try to confuse you. They try to make you seem like you're dumb when you're not. And what the writer here, what Paul wants you to know and of course this is really coming from God. What God wants you to know is he wants you to be comforted in the scriptures. He wants you to be comforted in the doctrines of Christ. He wants you to be comforted in the word of God as knowing, hey, I do know what I'm talking about. No, I do know who God is. No, I do know who Jesus Christ is. No, I do know that I'm saved. No, I do know there's a heaven. No, I do know there is a hell. And what philosophy tries to do is it tries to creep in and say, well, I don't know if you really understand metaphysics. I don't know if you understand logic because how could someone burn in hell for all of eternity and not perish? Well, the Bible says so. That's how. How is it that when Moses came across a burning bush, it wasn't consumed? Because God is more powerful than your human understanding. God can do things that defy the laws of physics and reality. They're called miracles. And in fact, if you don't believe in miracles, good luck believing the Bible and good luck getting saved because the most important aspect of getting saved is believing the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Guess what? That's a miracle. And so you have to realize, hey, I understand things beyond your human reasoning. Get beyond the carnal and become spiritual and get rooted in Christ. And beware of philosophy. Beware of, notice these things that it says in this list, not just philosophy, vain deceit, tradition of men, and the rudiments of this world. Now, what is philosophy? Philosophy is the study of knowledge. In fact, if you look it up, it says philosophy is known as the love of wisdom, the love of wisdom. And it's a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, all we really hear, reason, knowledge, value, mind, language. It's just studying things that humans know. Within philosophy, they kind of have four major topics that are taught in colleges and these different areas. One is metaphysics, which deals with reality. Who God is, what truth is. This makes me think of Pilate. What is truth? Oh, he's such a great philosopher. They discuss what a person is. Well, you know, Catholics are screwed up on that. Matter, minds, free will, all of these concepts and ideas are taught in philosophy. And I want you to understand something. A lot of this is coming from the Greek culture. It's coming from the idea of Socrates and Plato and men that are well before Christ even came. And their ideas of philosophy crept into Christianity and they mixed with Christianity. And what happened is you end up getting the Roman Catholic Church, which is a mixture of Greek wisdom and Greek philosophy, the Roman gods, and Christianity. It's just kind of this blend, this hybrid, and out of that came a lot of traditions, came a lot of teachings, came a lot of philosophizing that is not in the Bible. And you have to decide as a person, what am I going to trust? Am I going to trust the tradition of men? Am I going to trust the history of men? Am I going to trust, you know, oh, well, everybody's done it this way, or am I going to trust what the Bible says? And this is important when you think about the New Testament itself because the vast majority of the people that we're reading about in the New Testament are first generation Christians. And what that means is they had to reject what they had been taught growing up. They had to reject what their parents believed. They had to reject whatever religious ideas they had prior to being countered with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because, you know what, the Gentiles didn't have Christ. The Gentiles didn't have Christianity. The Gentiles didn't have the New Testament. They had to be won over and brought into a new religion, a new understanding of the scripture, and get saved. And for them, you know what, they had to give up a lot of these traditions. And for us, you know, we have to be careful that we don't get wrapped into or sucked into tradition and get away from the Bible. Now, if you went to Mark chapter 7, go to Mark chapter number 7 for a moment. What I want to do is I want to kind of just cover a basic list of some of the Catholic teachings that are out there. And we'll just look at like one verse or something to kind of dispel it. But I just want to give you the general sense that Catholics don't believe the Bible. And if there is a group of people that embody the Pharisees in the Bible, I can't really make a closer parallel than Catholics themselves. I believe that the Pharisees and Catholics are so similar. Now, of course, there's going to be distinctions and differences. They're not the exact same group. But if I were to say, who are the most modern-day Pharisees? Who are the most similar to the Pharisees in the Bible? It is Catholics. And, you know, there's a lot of comparisons in the sense that they both are very zealous. They take their religion very serious. At least a lot of the Pharisees, they believe in a lot of parts of the Bible. They believe in the spiritual aspects. You know, they're not so much the Sadducees who just deny the entire Bible. You know, that's like your liberal, apostate weirdos. That's like leftists or something like that. Whereas, you know, a lot of times, when you think about Catholics, they're more conservative, they're about family, they're usually very nice, they're kind, they appear righteous. And I think that sometimes we don't realize that that must have been how the Pharisees were perceived because people thought highly of the Pharisees. They might not have liked everything about them or they might have been aware of some of their hypocrisy. But just generally speaking, they didn't necessarily have a lot of animosity towards the Pharisees in general. They looked up to them, they were taught by them, they kind of respected them in a sense. Jesus Christ even talked about how you had to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees. So, and that was to try and compel people to realize, wow, I can't get saved then. Because if you think about a lot of Catholics, a lot of Catholics are actually very zealous and being righteous. Like, think about Catholic monks and Catholic nuns. They take vows of chastity where they're supposed to just essentially just never have any kind of relationship whatsoever. They completely isolate themselves, they may pray for hours, they sometimes do all kinds of rituals to try and purify themselves. I mean, things that are way more extreme than I'm doing. I mean, there's never been a, I'm not going to take a vow of chastity, that's for sure. I'm on my sixth child, okay, folks? Alright? I'm not interested in going down that road whatsoever. Not only that, you know, just the complete isolation and all the weird stuff they do, I mean, that's pretty extreme. And I guarantee, similarly, a lot of the Pharisees did things like that. They separated themselves, they had all these rituals, they did all these prayers. The problem is, a lot of that, though, was done in vain. Because it's not in the Bible, they're not saved, they don't really have the Spirit of God. And God doesn't want us to isolate ourselves and just try to, just see if we can hide in the closet and be holy for the rest of our lives. He wants us to still live in the world, okay? And that's not to excuse sin, but it's to say that that's not really the pursuit of our lives. It's just to try to avoid anything and everything that could possibly be sinful. He wants us to be in a sinful world and still trying to be separate as much as possible. Now, when we talk about Catholics, though, and the Pharisees, where the biggest comparison is, is that both had a lot of tradition that they passed on to their followers that was not Scripture. They basically would teach them all these different rules and all these different doctrines that are just not found in the Bible. And look what it says in Mark, chapter number 7, verse 3. For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, meaning often, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. Meaning, oh, our church fathers, or the people that are passing this down, we follow their traditions. Verse 4, and when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold as the washing of cups and pots, brazen vessels and of tables. Notice it also says this, and many other things there be. Meaning, this isn't one doctrine that they were off on. They have many traditions, many instructions, many ordinances that are not in the Bible whatsoever. Verse 5, then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? So the basis is saying, like, why aren't you guys Catholic? Because you know what? Catholic is not the right religion, buddy. Neither is the religion of the Pharisees the right religion. Verse 6, he answered and said unto them, Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And again, very similar to how Catholics are, is that they're very hypocritical. Where they say one thing, but then they do the opposite. They have a great public persona, but then in private they're very wicked. They're very evil people. And I want to read just a little bit more here. He says in verse number 7, Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Notice also, it says in vain they do worship me. It's not like they have the wrong God. They have the right God in general, but they're doing everything in vain. Kind of like Cain. Cain has the right God, but he offers the wrong sacrifice. And as a result of offering the wrong sacrifice, it's not respected. So Catholics in general, they understand, hey, there's God the Father, there's the Son Jesus Christ. They'll recognize a lot of facts about Jesus Christ. That he's the Son of God, that he's also God. That he was born of a virgin, that he came to this earth, that he died on the cross. I mean, they're going to have a lot of the right facts. They're going to have some similarities, for sure, but somehow they're doing it in vain. What they're doing, the religious practices that they have. The people that are going to Catholic mass today are doing it in vain. The people that are partaking in their Eucharist are doing it in vain. And why? Because a lot of the things they're doing are the doctrines and commandments of men. Not what the Bible says. Verse 8, for laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups, and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. This is what Catholics are like. They reject the Bible, but they keep their tradition. They're actually more likely to discard something in the Bible, than they would be to discard their own Catholic traditions, Catholic teachings that they hold to. Now, when I talk about the Catholic tradition, or I talk about Catholics, I'm mostly talking about the doctrine of Catholicism. You know, I'm not really against Catholic people, because most Catholic people are very nice. Most Catholic people also don't know anything. Most Catholic people don't even go to church. And in fact, most Catholic people are very easy to get saved. So I really like, you know, a lot of the people that I've met that are Catholic, and they're very nice people, and I have nothing against them individually or personally, but I want them to stop being Catholic and stop being ensnared in this vain philosophy, in these traditions that are not biblical, and I want them to get saved and become a Christian and become a Baptist. Okay? Now, go back to Colossians chapter 2 for just a second. Go back to Colossians chapter 2. You know, another thing it says is the rudiments of this world that people ensnare you with. And rudiment is just kind of something that's basic, kind of the fundamental, the principle thing. So like basic and principles of this world. But when it talks about it in the text in Colossians chapter 2, and I'm not going to read all this for you, but it talks a lot about, you know, meats, drinks, certain holidays, and this really also makes me think of Catholics a lot. Why? Because they're really big on things like Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and Lent. But wait a minute. Where is Lent in the Bible? Here's another thing. Where's Good Friday? It should be Thursday, all right? If you could count to three. I mean, you know, you'd think that you'd be able to figure out how to count to three, three days and three nights. How do you get from Friday night to Sunday morning with three days and three nights? I mean, even a five-year-old would be like, they don't know how to count, okay? But that's, again, them not trusting the Bible. What are they trusting? Well, our tradition, it's always been Good Friday, okay? Well, fix it. Go to Thursday, right? I mean, learn how to count and then realize, wow, we're off pretty big here, okay? That's just a bonus point. But, you know, and really my first point was this, and I'm just going to make a lot of points really quickly now, but point one is that the Catholics embrace tradition over the Bible, as evidenced by Good Friday, okay? Here's the second point. How about baptism? Baptism's also a pretty basic teaching in the Bible, but, you know, it's funny because when you read it in Colossians, look at verse 12. Buried with him in baptism. Now, here's the thing. Catholics, they don't baptize by immersion. They don't actually take the person and put them all the way in the water and have them come up out of the water. Now, go to Matthew chapter 3. I want to show you one more verse on this. But something that's so fundamental and something that's so basic, and we have the greatest person to ever live, according to Jesus, was John the Baptist, you would hope that they could figure this one out. Not only that, their Lord and Savior, our Lord and Savior, was baptized, and the Bible describes them being baptized. And if you ever see Catholics baptized, it's weird, okay? Because they don't do this. There's nothing about it that's found in Scripture. And you would think, like, how do you read Matthew chapter 3 and then come away with sprinkling? I don't know. But look at Matthew chapter 3, look at verse 16. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water. Now, when are the Catholics getting into the water? You know, in order to come out of water, you have to go into the water. All right? And it's really clear the reason why they go into the water is because they're going to be baptized and buried into the water and come out. Why? Because baptism pictures the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That he died, he was buried, and that he comes out of it, risen. When you get baptized, it pictures you trusting Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection as your only method of salvation, okay? Now, again, it's that trust that saves you. Baptism doesn't save you, okay? But obviously what baptism represents saves you. Just like, you know, a good example that people use is a wedding ring in the sense that when I got married, me making the vows and saying that I'm going to basically be faithful unto my wife as long as we both shall live, that's what marries us. What marries us is me vowing and making that commitment before her and God and the preacher, that's what marries us, right? But then what do we do right after? We put a ring on our finger, okay? The ring is not what makes us married because two people could put on rings that look the same and they're not married. What makes someone married is them making that vow and pledging and putting their trust in that other person. Similarly, when you believe in Jesus Christ, that's what saves you. And then that outward showing of the ring is similar in baptism where you're putting that outward show, hey, I trusted in Christ's death, burn, and resurrection to save me, not my works. And additionally, it signifies the idea that you want to serve Christ with your life. In Romans 3, it says that we do this to walk in newness of life, saying now that I'm dead to myself, now am I want to live like Christ does and I want to walk in newness of life because of what Christ has done for me. I don't need the works to get saved. You get saved first and then you do the works. All the works you did before you got saved were dead works. All the works you do after salvation are something you get rewarded for and paid for, okay? When people say you need works to be saved, well, guess what? No works got you saved. The works can't get you saved, okay? Getting physically baptized won't take you to heaven. You have to believe in Jesus Christ. That's what takes you to heaven, okay? That's what gives you that salvation. Of course, I'm pro-baptism. Our church is a Baptist church. We believe in being baptized. But you know what? It's so funny to me how this is such a basic, simple, easy concept. The Bible talks about being buried. Remember the last time you saw someone buried by someone splinking a little dirt on their forehead? Like, think about how silly this is and yet this is what a billion Catholics do. And you say, how in the world do they do that? Because they didn't read the Bible. Because they don't believe the Bible. It's Catholic tradition versus the Bible. Why are you in a Baptist church this morning? Because you like the Bible and not just some kind of vain tradition, okay? So if you would to Deuteronomy, go all the way back in the Old Testament Deuteronomy. So point one, they embrace tradition versus the Bible. Point two, they're screwed up on baptism. Point three, they use the Apocrypha. They use the Apocrypha. Now the Apocrypha simply is just meaning lost or hidden or secret. So it's like the hidden books, the lost books. But I'll just remind you that when Christ was on this earth and he was being tempted of the devil in the wilderness, he said, man does not live by bread alone but by every word of God. Why would God then want people to not have access to these words by hiding them? You know, in fact, in Romans chapter number 10, the Bible says the word is 90. It doesn't say, oh, there's these hidden books. The hidden books are the philosophy books at the college. Oh, have you read Socrates? Have you read Nietzsche? Have you read Aristotle? No, I haven't. But you know what? I read Colossians 2. And he said beware of philosophy. Beware of these vain traditions. You know, those guys are burning in hell. Why do I care what they said? Now again, I'm not against studying what the world studies just to have a better idea of what people are going through or what the world thinks or just kind of understanding their viewpoint. I'm sure that Daniel learned the wisdom of the Chaldeans. But you know what? He also learned the wisdom of the Bible and what his king thought. Oh, you're ten times better. You're ten times better. Why? Because their wisdom is junk. Their wisdom constantly changes. Their wisdom is constantly proven wrong, whereas the Bible is always proven right. Now, the Apocrypha is just something that I want nothing to do with. I want to read another verse for you, though, in 2 Thessalonians. You don't have to turn there, but it says, that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as of the day of Christ is at hand. The Apostle Paul said that there were people writing letters to churches pretending to be an apostle. So it's a fake letter. So if the Apostle Paul is saying, at the time that he's writing many of the New Testament scriptures, there's already people writing fake books, then it doesn't matter how old it is. Oh, we found this manuscript, the Gospel of Thomas, and it's really old. Okay, well maybe it was... It could have been written before the Apostle Paul finished all his epistles, and I still wouldn't use it because it's junk. We have to understand, there has to be letters, there has to be written documents that are wrong. Paul told us they were wrong. So if you accept everything, then you have to realize you're accepting bad documents. Because the Apostle Paul and many others are saying, hey, there are corrupting documents out there. There are bad documents. There are letters pretending to be from us. So if I embrace everything, then I'm going to get a lot of junk with that. You have to filter and discern what is right. And of course, we've already established that it's the Word of God. It's the Bible. It's the Holy Scriptures that's been tested, that's been proven. We don't need some archaeological dig to go and discover Sinaiticus or some other document, you know, the Gospel of Barnabas. You know, we don't need Konstantin von Tischendorf to go to some orthodox monastery and go and discover some trash document and say, oh, I found the most important biblical treasure, the Epistle of Barnabas. It's like, no, it's trash. Because it was trashed. And look, the Word of God is not going to be trashed. It's precious. It's a diamond. It's the ruby. People aren't going to be hiding this thing. And you know, the Word of God has always been accessible. So I totally reject the Apocrypha. Christians for hundreds of years have been rejecting the Apocrypha. It's trash. It's garbage. But yet, Catholics embrace it. Why? Tradition, not Bible. And it says all kinds of weird stuff in there, too. Obviously, that's the reason why we know it's not real. Just like when you see a painted telephone pole as a tree, you know it's not a tree. People say, like, well, how do you know it's not real? Have you ever read it? You know what's the easiest way not to become a Muslim? Read the Koran. You know, that's why they sing it, because they don't, you know. Have you noticed, like, many of the lyrics in modern music today are terrible and are awful and nobody likes them? But when they sing it, they somehow like it, right? And it's like, they figured that out with the Koran. The Koran was way before rap music. It was like, hey, if we just sing this trash, then maybe people will like it. But you know, if we just read it out loud, people would be like, this is horrible. Okay. Slay them! You know, your women are tilth. You know, it's like, that just sounds like a rap song. You know, they just know how to change the lyrics or whatever a little bit. Talking trash on women. I mean, you know, that's the Muslims for you, okay? Whereas the Bible's not like that. So reject the Apocrypha. Here's another thing that's really big and really obvious, probably the most obvious thing the Catholics do, is they worship graven images. They have giant statues of Mary. And not just Mary. The whole pantheon of false gods and false religion that they have out there. And it's just like, how do you excuse this? And they'll say, well, look, we're not worshiping Mary. You constantly falsely accuse us Catholics of worshiping Mary. Well, let me explain what the word worship means. Kneel. And you know what, I can just type on Google, Catholics praying to Mary, and you know what I'll see all over? People kneeling and bowing down to a statue of Mary praying to Mary. If that is not worshiping Mary, then you don't even know what reality is. That is the literal definition of worshiping an idol. Worshiping a false god. And God specifically did not want us to ever do this. He said, but, you know, there's nothing wrong with Mary. Look, there is nothing wrong with Mary. There's nothing wrong with saints that are true, like St. Peter or St. Paul. There's nothing wrong with these individuals. There's nothing wrong with Jesus Christ. But you know what he doesn't want? He doesn't want a rock to be kneeled at and worshipped that represents any of these people because it doesn't truly represent them. So he gave us clear commandments. Look at Deuteronomy 4, verse 15. The Bible says, Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves, for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire. So he's saying, I want you to understand something. You never saw me. You don't know what I look like. You saw, you didn't even see a figure. You don't even know what the similitude of me is. Okay? Why? Verse 16. Lest ye corrupt yourselves and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flyeth in the air, the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth, and lest thou lift up thine eyes into heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars even, all the hosts of heaven shouldest be driven to worship them and serve them which the Lord thy God hath divided under all nations under the whole heaven. So he's saying, don't make any graven images or any, you know, statues of a man, of a woman, of a bird, like a dove, or a fish, or even just an insect or a creeping thing, or of even the heavenly bodies. Just don't make them. Don't bow down to them. Don't kneel. In fact, I specifically didn't want to show up and you see the similitude of a man and then you make a graven image looking exactly like me, albeit, and then worship it. He wants us to worship him in spirit and in truth. And you know what the Catholics do? They have little shrines of Mary in their homes. Not only that, go to this restaurant called Boca de Beppo and they have these little shrines everywhere. I went to one and they had like a Catholic pope head in the middle of the table. I didn't know it was a Catholic restaurant, okay, so I plead ignorance, but you show up and it's just like these shrines everywhere and it's all dark and creepy and satanic seeming and I'm just thinking like, and of course it's an Italian restaurant, why? Because the Catholic Church is Roman and everything's coming from Rome. And look, I love, I'm going to embrace the Italian food, okay. I love raviolis and lasagna and, yes, chicken parm, oh man, I'm hungry, okay. But, you know what, I'm going to reject the Catholic religion and reject the graven images. And is it, I mean, this is in the Ten Commandments, folks. But, you know, how is it that the Catholics literally get baptism, one of the most basic things is baptism wrong. They get the statues wrong. They're worshiping these images. And they're all different, too. It's not even like they have consistency in their imaging. Mary looks completely different. Maria looks different in all kinds of different ways. But, again, they just don't believe the Bible. They have their tradition, let's have images of Mary and let's bow down and worship that, whereas the Bible says have no graven images. Don't have them. Don't even touch them. I don't care what they represent because it's wrong. Go to Matthew chapter 23, go to Matthew 23. That's why I believe, you know, we shouldn't have anything like that. The Statue of Liberty is wicked. First of all, it's a dude in a dress, anyways, if you realize. People think that, like, the tranny stuff came, like, recently. That came at the beginning. You know what they should have said? Was it the French that gave it to us? We should have just thrown that in the river. We talk about throwing the tea in the river. Throw the tranny in the river. You want to save America? Throw trannies in the river. End of the sea and destroy them, especially the Statue of Liberty. You know, that doesn't give you liberty. It's not freeing for a man to wear a dress. It's restrictive. I like pants, all right? But, you know, we don't need graven images. We don't need these idols. We don't need these statues. You know, we shouldn't have any of that. We don't need any of that. God doesn't like that. God wants us to honor the Bible. You know what God wants us to decorate with? The words of God. Not some statue. Not some picture. And you'll even go to Christian churches and they have all kinds of statues and graven images. And I'm not saying that they are trying to do something wrong on purpose, but it's wrong. And I don't like it and I don't want it. Our church isn't going to have that. I don't want any kind of graven images or statues or pictures. We're not going to put a big moon on the top, like the Muslims of our church. And worship the moon. Worship darkness. Oh, I wonder, what does the moon have? Is it darkness? Hmm. I wonder what kind of religion literally symbolizes their religion with darkness. Satan. That's who that is, okay? And Satan loves to worship things that are in the sky. Right? Because that's how he is. But, you know, our religion, you know what we worship? This. We worship the word of God. We worship the Bible. And we like to decorate with the Bible. Why? Because we believe the Bible is not tradition. Now, here's another one that's really big and really obvious, honestly, is their leader, their cult leader, probably the biggest cult in the world, Catholicism, is the Pope. Now, because we're speaking English, that word maybe doesn't stick out to us as much as it should, but Pope is basically like Papa. If you kind of understood the root of that word. It's like Papa or Father, okay? Now, look what the Bible says in Matthew 23, verse number 9. And call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father which is in heaven. Now, again, what does this mean? This is not saying that you can't call your dad dad. This is talking about in a spiritual sense. You should never call someone a spiritual father of yours because you only have one spiritual father and that is God the Father in heaven. Whereas the Catholics are constantly giving that title unto the Pope by calling him the Pope and by calling him Papa and by calling him their father. And it's like, here's the really clear commandment. And then you have to ask yourself, well, Catholics call their dad father and then they're calling the Catholic priest father. It's like, how are they even applying this verse? Does this verse mean nothing to you, Catholics? Does it mean nothing? Because, you know what, it should mean a lot to us. And, you know, that's why we have pastors in the church. We don't have fathers. You know what, it's sick, it's gross every time you go and hang around with Catholics and they say, oh, Father so-and-so said this. He's not my father and he's not your father. You know what? That's a stepfather of Satan, okay? The father of lies. He's an underfather of him. But you know what? Call no man father. You know, we shouldn't be using that title in a way to honor any kind of individual, spiritually speaking, that is off limits. It's wrong. It is limited to the one Father in heaven. I mean, think about how Jesus even prayed, our father, which art in heaven. I love that prayer and it's almost like he knew how Catholics could twist that so he made it clear, in heaven, right? Because think about it, these Catholics, they love to pray to their father so-and-so at their church or whatever. Our father which art in heaven. And notice he said father singular. He didn't say our fathers which are in heaven. Our father which art in heaven. The God the Father is in heaven. You have one Father. Go if you would to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Go back to Matthew just a second. So I've only covered five so far. I'm going to speed up because for the sake of time I don't have time to get through all these. You could preach like a whole sermon on every single one of these points. But have you seen the pattern so far? How the most basic, easy, simple doctrines Catholics just are screwing up. They just don't believe the Bible. And I'm not saying that the vast majority of Catholics are like this because the vast majority of Catholics don't even know anything. The vast majority of Catholics don't even hardly understand any of the doctrine. They're just kind of going through the motions. In fact most Catholics told me they're Catholic because they like the parties. They're like well we have all these quinceaneras at church and we just hang out and we drink beer and we just do whatever. It's like they just like going to have parties. They don't even know what the Catholics believe about anything. I've had so many conversations where I'm telling Catholics what they believe and they're like we don't teach that or believe that. Obviously when you're having a kegger you might not have been teaching that. Okay, I get it. But that's really what your doctrine teaches. That's what your church teaches. I'll even pull it up on their site and be like oh man I'm going to have to ask Father and so and so about this. No, don't ask Father and so and so anything ever again. Because he might be a pedophile. That's a separate point. Here's another thing that you can't find in your Bible. Purgatory. So they embrace tradition over the Bible. They get baptism wrong. They include the apocrypha when it's not in the Bible. They have grave inhibitions when the Bible says no. They call the Pope, Pope when they shouldn't. They believe in a thing called purgatory. Also not found in the Bible. I'm also annoying another theme. A lot of things not found in the Bible. Purgatory. It's this idea of you going and suffering a little bit to get cleaned up so you can go to heaven. It's like basically that you're not quite good enough yet. So we just got to kind of burn off the ends a little bit. Just sear you a little bit. Get you all cleaned up and shiny. And then you can go to heaven. But wait a minute, where does the Bible ever say that? Nowhere. Again, here's the pattern between Catholics and us. They don't believe the Bible. They have this weird tradition. You know I was thinking about a verse in Revelation where the prophet in the book of life was cast in the lake of fire. There is no intermediate. It's just you're either in the book of life or you're in heaven. You're not in the book of life, you're in the lake of fire. It's that simple. Plus, you know, I don't need to be cleaned up a little bit because when I believed in Jesus Christ I was made new and there's no sin in my new man. So that new man is going straight to heaven when I die. I don't need any like intermediate stage. The problem is the devil lied to them and said, hey, purgatory is just a temporary thing. It's not. It's just hell. Purgatory is just this curtain in front of hell. And they think that they're going to purgatory. Oh, no, it's hell, sorry. You're burning for all of eternity. And here's the reason why a lot of people want to stay Catholic is because they start thinking about how all their grandparents and uncles and aunts that have died are in hell if what we're saying is true. And they don't want to believe that. But, you know, you need to believe that because just like the rich man, he went to hell and he couldn't get out, but then he said, well, I wish at least my family wouldn't go. And I know that your family doesn't want you to go to hell. Even if you don't want to be separated from them, they want to be separated from you because they don't want you to suffer. It's funny, we tried to prove that to one guy recently, me and Jornelle, and this guy's like, no, I want my whole family to go to hell with me. What's wrong with you? You're worse than the rich guy. Here's another thing they do, the Eucharist. Now, the Eucharist is where, it's basically where they have communion, but they think that the body and the blood literally turn into the body and blood of Jesus in their service. And I mean it in the most literal way possible. It's so funny to me how Catholics think that everything's a metaphor. Like, literally, they think everything's a metaphor, but then when you get to the Eucharist, where it's clearly a metaphor, and then they make it the most literal thing ever, where you have to eat and drink the body and the blood of Christ, okay? And it's like, why would you even want that to be true? Like, it's just a weird doctrine, right? Especially since the Bible says over and over not to eat blood, not to drink blood. And then it's like, hey, let's just drink some blood. And you know what they really drink? Alcohol. And so they're just drinking alcohol. And it's like, what's wrong with these people? Look at 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23, though. The Bible says, For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, notice this phrase, took bread. Took bread. And when he had given thanks, he break it and said, Take, eat, this is my body. Notice, it's clearly a metaphor for bread. He didn't say, this is literally my body. You know what? His body was still intact. He was handing them just bread. He wasn't handing them his literal finger. He didn't, like, chop off his finger and hand them his finger and say, Take this, eat. No, he took bread and gave that to them. So when we have communion, you know we eat bread. We eat the fruit of the vine, which is just juice. It also says, At the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye as often as you drink it, and remembrance of me. So we're remembering the body and blood of Christ by eating bread and wine. And of course it would be non-fermented, considering the fact that no leaven was allowed to be in their houses during this time. Okay. So it's super clear. Go to Matthew chapter 6. Go to Matthew chapter number 6. The Eucharist is just, is blasphemy. Why do they have to keep crucifying Jesus every single time they have communion? You know, it doesn't, it has nothing to do with the Bible. They're twisting John chapter number 6, and it's just funny to me that they act like they really understand the Bible well, but then when it's a super clear metaphor, then they make it a literal interpretation. And then there'll be lots of times where there's a literal interpretation, and then they make it a metaphor. And it's just like, you know why? He that is of God heareth God's words. Ye therefore hear them not, because you're not of God. There's a reason why someone's wrong on every doctrine, because they're not saved. Okay. You can't be saved and then just wrong on every other doctrine. Like, you can be screwed up. You can get things wrong. You can be ignorant. But when someone just has an entire theology and religion based on just nothing in the Bible, everything is wrong, literally, including salvation, they're not saved. It's that simple. And you know what kind of doctrines I want to learn from Catholics? None. Zero. I'm going to be aware of their philosophy. I'm going to be aware of their leaven. And I've been in Baptist churches where the guest preacher literally got up and praised Catholics, said they were saved. Billy Graham has gotten up and said that they're saved. All kinds of individuals that I know personally will tell me, oh, I think Catholics are saved. Why? Based on what? They're literally wrong on every doctrine. So explain to me how this person's saved. Like, what are they doing that's saving them? Well, they go to Mass. Yeah, where they're worshiping graven images? Where they're drinking alcohol and thinking it's literally the body of Christ and the blood of Christ? Where they're sprinkling people? They're sprinkling babies? Where they're using the Apocrypha? I mean, at what point is that any different than just another completely false religion? How is it different than Islam? Or Hinduism? Or just sitting and watching TV, watching football? At least, you know, the football game, every once in a while, they have John 3.16 from one of the fans in the stands. I mean, you might be getting better theology from watching the football game than the Catholic church. I don't know what these people are thinking, okay? And the more someone's Catholic, the harder they are to get saved. Real Catholics are almost impossible to get saved, from my personal experience. The people that don't go to Catholic church, they're real easy. The ones that have been catechized and sucked into this trap, boy, it's like it's over for them. It's kind of, you know, a lot of animals do this where the method of killing is strangling. Snakes, even kangaroos is kind of weird, but lots of, you know, Venus fly trap, all kinds of different stuff, they smother and they strangle. And it's like, that's what the Catholic church does. When you first get in there, you might still be kicking a little bit, but they just smother you until you're just done kicking. And then you're just this NPC. Then you're just basically dead inside and there's just no kicking and critical thought process anymore. And, boy, those people, it's just hard to get saved. It's just like a Mormon, just like a Jehovah's Witness. All these cults, they do the same thing. They basically just strangle a person until there's just no life left in them and where they just can't think anymore. And, you know, we have to try and rescue people before they get in there. Here's some other things that you screw up. How about just prayer in general? Matthew chapter 6, look at verse 6. I mean, Catholics are notorious for saying, I'm gonna do 50 Hail Marys and live and do them publicly. And it's like you're doing the exact opposite of what he told you. Not only that, they pray to saints, not praying to their father. The Bible's really clear that there's only one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. So they're screwing up confession. They go to confession to confess their sins to a priest. And then you wonder why these priests are so messed up in their head and why they're like the worst people. You know, no one should be just hearing everybody's sins. And let me tell you, as pastor of this church, I don't really want to know about your sins any more than I have to, okay? Obviously, you know, people talk to me and they might give me, like, a high level, like, hey, I'm struggling with this or I have this issue or whatever. But it's like, I don't want to know the details. I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty. It's like, hey, I know how to deal with that with just the one word, whatever the sin was, okay? I don't need to know any more than that. I don't want to know any more than that. And, you know, you're not coming to confess sins to me. It would only just be to ask for some help or something. But you know who you should be confessing that to is Jesus. And you can also ask him for the help. You know, you don't need human help necessarily. I'm not against helping people. I've counseled a lot of people, and I'm pro-counseling in general. But you know what? You don't need me. You have Jesus as your main counselor, as your main intermediary, and that's who you go through, not through Mary, not through Peter. And think about it, they're like, yeah, but Peter's like really close to God. You know who's closer? Jesus. Well, but Mary was like the mother of Jesus. Yeah, but you know who's still closer? Jesus. So even by your logic, why wouldn't I just go to the person that's the closest? It's not like Jesus is too busy. It's not like he has unread email or something. You just go straight to Jesus, okay? Plus, if you think about it, who do you think's more busy? With a billion Catholics praying to Mary right now, or the people that are actually saved praying to Jesus, it might be less, you know? Mary's probably way busier, all right? So pick up the line that no one's using, the one called Jesus. Skip down to verse 17. But when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not in them in a fast, but in thy Father which is in secret. Yet then they proclaim their biggest lint. Let's all have a giant fast and tell everybody about it, and let's have Ash Wednesday, where we literally put ashes on our forehead. Like, this is the Catholic playbook. Whatever the Bible says not to do, we're gonna do exactly that. And then whatever the Bible tells us to do, we're never gonna do that. Like, that's almost the Catholic playbook. And you would think, like, who would do such a thing? The devil. The devil is obviously getting these people to do these kind of things. Go to Luke 20. I'm just gonna read a couple. They think Mary is still a virgin. Sorry, she was not a virgin her whole life. She was a virgin when she gave birth. But, you know, the Bible does say this in Matthew 1, verse 25, about Joseph, and he knew her not till she had brought forth. But let me say something. Joseph knew Mary. Sorry, Catholics. She's not a virgin. She's no longer a virgin. She hasn't been a virgin for 2,000 years. Now, I'm not saying she was a whore or anything. She was a godly Christian woman. She was a faithful wife. She was a great mother. But you know what? She's not a virgin. She doesn't need to be a virgin. She's a mother. It's okay. She was married. You know what? Praise God. She wasn't a virgin and being married. And you know what? Catholics sometimes practice this, where they try to abstain in marriage. That's weird. You know why people get married? To not be virgin. That is the reason. You'd say, like, what was the main goal here? To not be virgin anymore. That is the number one main reason. That is the goal of marriage. Okay? There wasn't another, like, for men, there wasn't another thing on the list. It was like, here's my list. This one. For her, it's like, you know, Providing and security and friendship and emotional support. And you're like, oh, man. And she's like, let me see your list. And you're like, no. It's like, come on. Oh, she was still a virgin. Well, poor Joseph. You know? I mean, what a weird doctrine to have. They think that, they even say this, that Mary ascended into heaven. And I saw someone trying to argue why. It was like, well, you have to understand that after Jesus' birth, still parts of Jesus' cells were left behind and are still there. So she's going to ascend up. Well, how about, you know, the comb that Jesus used? Did it ascend, too? Because a few of his hair follicles were left in the comb. I mean, did everything that touched Jesus just ascend? I mean, did his coat ascend into heaven, too? The person that got his coat after they cast lots, is he now, like, floating up into heaven when Jesus is, too? Because I guarantee some of his dead skin follicles and dandruff or whatever, you know, I'm sure some parts of his body were still on that coat. Right? I mean, what a stupid idea. Oh, Mary ascended into heaven. That's blasphemous. Because the Bible says no man has ascended up in heaven. Except for Jesus Christ. That's the only person ever ascended up into heaven. Here's another thing they have. Long robes. Look at Luke chapter 20, verse 46. Verse 46. Beware of the scribes which desire to walk in long robes and love greetings in the market. This is Catholics. Catholics walk around in their long robes in their black garment with some kind of a white collar that's really visible, and you can just point out a Catholic just out of a room. You just know exactly who that is. Whereas us as Baptists, no one would be like, oh, there's the Baptist. We just look like normal people. And why would we want that? Oh, I need recognition because I'm a Catholic priest. Yeah, to stay away from you because you're probably a pedophile. I stay away from dudes in long dresses. All of them. Whether it's the Statue of Liberty, whether it's trannies or Catholics, or, you know, I guess that's why they love the Supreme Court so much, so they can be in long robes again. Because guess who the Supreme Court is? Oh, it's Jews and Catholics. Why? Because both religions emphasize tradition and not the Bible. They basically reject the Bible. Not only that, they're screwed up on Bible translation. They have the wrong translation of the Bible. Not only that, their priests are not allowed to marry. Weird. When the Bible says that the bishop is supposed to be the husband of one wife. And then, of course, probably the worst thing is they believe salvation is by works. Which is like, what doctrine are the Catholics right on? I mean, it's... And then this is what some people say. Well, but they're really good on the Trinity. And I'm like, let's just think about this for a second. They're wrong on salvation, so they're not saved. Not only that, they emphasize tradition over the Bible. They're screwed up on baptism. They're screwed up on the Apocrypha. They call their cult leader, Father, Pope. They believe in purgatory. Not only that, they use the Eucharist, which is blasphemous. They pray like vain repetitions over and over. They tell everybody about their fasting. They have men in long dresses and robes. They think Mary is still a virgin. They think Mary ascended into heaven. They have the wrong Bible. They confess their sins to the priests and not to Jesus. Their priests aren't even married. They believe salvation by works. In their history, they sold indulgences, killed heretics, wouldn't let people have a Bible. But, boy, they're good on the Trinity. What? And, I mean, who in here thinks that the Trinity is the easiest doctrine in the Bible? I'm pretty sure it's one of the hardest. One of the most difficult things to wrap your mind around is how three persons can be one God and how they all exist in eternity in all infinite, you know, reality. And how the Bible says that great is the mystery of godliness, God is manifest in the flesh. I don't think these things are the most basic, simple things. Now, again, believing that there's one God and three persons is somewhat of a core tenet. It's one of the more basic doctrines. But when we think about this and talk about this, this is one of the deepest subjects, one of the more difficult subjects. Why would I then suppose that somehow people that don't have anything right are going to get right that? It just makes no sense, folks. But this is what I see some Christians doing, is they're getting sucked into philosophy, they're getting sucked into vain deceit, and like, well, but what did the church fathers think? All the guys burning in hell? I don't care what they thought. What about Saint Augustine? We have to understand something about Saint Augustine. He was a philosopher before he got saved. And so who did he study? Oh, all of those Greek philosophers, Plato and Socrates. He already had his ideas of who God was before he even got saved. And then he superimposed that on the Bible. He superimposed all of his philosophy in vain deceit, and the guy basically did not believe anything in the Bible. I'm just going to give you a quick rundown of some of the things he believed. And if you would, just go to Ephesians 2. But Saint Augustine said this, that unformed fetuses do not have a soul and is therefore not murder in cases of abortion. You thought that was a modern doctrine. That's Saint Augustine. What a wonderful doctrine. He comes up with the idea of fetuses. Now, he would say, well, I disagree with abortion, but it's not murder. Wow. Because it doesn't have a soul. Maybe you don't have a soul. Not only that, Saint Augustine quoted scripture, Sirach 18.1. Who has that in their Bible? You need to get a new Bible. It's funny, the few times you actually see him quoting scripture, it's never the actual Bible. It's Sirach 18.1. Sirach 18.1 was translated at his time by him as saying that God created everything at the same time. So he actually rejected six days' creation. He believed that God created everything simultaneous, and then he recreated it six days in a row, over and over and over again. So both are true, but technically he created everything simultaneously. And the reason why he had to do it six days in a row was so that scoffers who would think like, uh, I don't really think that, you know, God could create everything in six days, you know, he would, or could create everything at once, he had to create it in six days. Which I'm thinking like, yeah, atheists were like, you know, I would reject the Bible if it said God created everything at once. But if he did it in six days, that makes more sense. That was his logic. The scoffers would be more likely to embrace salvation than everything at once. So that's what he believed. Not only did he believe that, but he also believed that Adam and Eve were mortal before the fall. He also believed that eternal fate, meaning where you're going to go when you die, is decided only when you die and if you're still in communion with the church. That sounds like salvation by faith, doesn't it? He believed that Mary was an eternal virgin. He believed that any time there's a literal interpretation of the Bible that somehow contradicts modern human reasoning or science, then it has to be a metaphor. What happened with the Eucharist? Like, how does that work? You know, that's a dangerous idea. Any time a literal interpretation would defy your reasoning, it's somehow a metaphor. Well, then how are you going to believe in any of the miracles of the Bible? That's not a good way to interpret the Bible. Now, he says this man had no free will to believe in Christ. He said, I in fact strove on behalf of the free choice of the human will, but God's grace conquered. So he's actually the father of Calvinism, too. How wonderful. Now, he originally thought people had free will and believed that, but then, after studying for so long, he ended up realizing there is no free will and that you have no choice. Not only that, he believed that marital intimacy is evil. What wife did he have? I don't even think he was married. I don't know. He believed that we should all just abstain from marriage. Oh, you know who taught that? The doctrines of devils in 1 Timothy 4. Commanding to abstain from marriage. Hey, forbidding to marry into commanding abstain from meat, sacrifice, and idols, or commanding abstain from meats, the Bible says that, you know what, marriage is a good thing. Marriage is honorable and all, and the bed undefiled. So there's nothing wrong with marriage. But he literally taught that every time a husband and wife had intimacy, as the Bible prescribes it, nothing weird, that it had to be evil. And because of that, then your baby was born in sin. And if you did not get your baby baptized in the Catholic Church, it would go to hell. Where is that in the Bible? Again, he said, before the fall, intimacy was a passionless affair. You know, these people are always perverts. And they're always dreaming up the weirdest perversion. The weirdest ideas. And again, it's like, no, God doesn't give us things that are just evil and then tell us to do them. That doesn't really make any sense. Why would God force us to constantly do this evil against his will within marriage? And you know, that's why Catholics are really screwed up in their relationships. They have all kinds of weird views when it comes to intimacy. You know what would be the worst person to ever get marriage counseling from? Anyone Catholic. Do not get marriage advice. Do not get any kind of advice from Catholics. They do not believe the Bible. And they're screwed up on these doctrines. I heard some other famous Catholics online even saying things about how, you know, basically intimacy was weird, it was wrong. I heard one guy saying that, like, being intimate with a woman is homosexual. Some famous Catholic. And I'm thinking, like, no? You might be, okay? But I'm like, if you're going to equate those two, there's something wrong with you. I don't care if you were joking or not. That's a weird joke. It's a gross joke. Now, I have a few minutes. I just want to read this. This is what's so funny. I don't really care about St. Augustine, you know, because he's burning in hell. He's not saved. He didn't believe anything right. And he's basically the father of Catholicism. You want to know where Catholicism came? It came a lot from St. Augustine. And, you know, of course, I don't think that very many of us are probably going to get sucked into, actually, the Catholic Church. But what you could get sucked into is philosophy. And a lot of times, the philosophy ties back to Catholic. What do the Church Fathers teach? I don't care. Because first of all, I call no man father, but my Heavenly Father. Okay? And all these, quote, fathers, they didn't even believe what I believed, so I don't really care. They killed my spiritual ancestors. Like William Tyndale. They burned them at the stake for believing in salvation by faith. First, he maintained that faith alone justifies. Okay. I mean, it sounds like William Tyndale's probably saved. And he was killed for being saved. You know, I don't want to go back to what the Catholics were believing when they're killing people who are saved. But this is what's so funny. You go to the Catholic website, CatholicAnswers.com, and they have an article. Or is it a process? Okay. And then they have a Catholic person debating with someone. And I was like, this just sounds like they're talking to, like, one of us. Okay. This is like a conversation I would have with every Catholic. And it's just so funny. Okay. So this is what it says. This is on the doctrine of salvation. Catholic. It seems that many non-Catholics in America misunderstand the Catholic doctrine of salvation. They think the Church teaches salvation by works, This frustrates knowledgeable Catholics because we know that the Church does not teach salvation by our good works. You know, I had to put the word knowledgeable there because when you run into every single Catholic, they say it's by works. I go door-knocking, and you go door-knocking every single week of every single year. And you know what every single Catholic says? Salvation by works! That's funny how you all don't teach that, but then everybody that goes to your church believes that. Oh, it's also funny how your doctrinal statement from one of their council sessions, one of their struggle sessions, Council of Trent's Sixth Session, it says this, If anyone sayeth that a man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believes himself to be absolved and justified, or that no one is truly justified, but he who believes himself justified, and that by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected, let him be anathema. So it says anybody who thinks that they're saved by just their faith alone, they're an anathema, they're cursed of God, they cannot be a part of the church, so then how can they get up and say, oh, we believe in faith alone? They don't believe in faith alone. They're liars. Now, this is what the objector would say. Just picture Pastor Shelley, all right? Perhaps the reason is that we hear this view from so many Catholics. Hey, you want to know why we think that y'all believe this? Because you all say it! This is their own article, okay? When we ask them how they hope to get to heaven, they tell us that if they are good, they will be in heaven with God for eternity. I'm reading what they wrote. This is not me just talking. But I do know better. I know the Catholic Church teaches salvation by grace coming from God through faith in Christ. Now, I wouldn't have ever said that. The Catholic, I'm so glad to hear you say that. I would never say that. Objector, nevertheless, I still think that the church compromises the true gospel of Jesus Christ by its belief that salvation is a process rather than a one-time act of God. In essence, the Catholic doctrine is semi-Pelagian. It believes that salvation is a cooperation between God and man in which man plays at least as important a role as God does. Catholic, we believe that salvation is a process by which we come closer to God throughout our whole life as we participate in the sacraments and the grace that comes through them. But it is not true that man plays as important a role as God. God the Father planned our salvation, not man. God the Son gained our salvation by His death and resurrection. No one else did these things. And God the Holy Spirit infused the very love of God into our hearts by His presence. This is beyond our human ability. Still, we must cooperate with God's grace to find eternal happiness with God. If we don't, we will be cut off from God forever. In contrast, semi-Pelagianism is only a weakened form of Pelagianism which taught that a person could save himself. To be semi-Pelagian is to believe that we could save ourselves, but God just helps us to make it easier. So they're saying, hey, you think that man has his role in salvation just like God does? And they're like, no, no, no, no. We think that God has a bigger role. Oh, okay. But you still believe that man has a role in salvation by following the teachings of the Catholic Church by the sacraments' objector. But that seems to me to be exactly what the Catholic Church teaches when it says that we must work with God to achieve our salvation. It takes glory away from God the Savior. I like this objector so far. Catholic. No, the Church teaches that only God can save us. If that weren't true, then Christ died for nothing. Exactly. All that we do is respond with faith and obedience to God's offer of grace in Christ. We insist that this is a lifelong commitment that should grow over time. God's grace grows within us as we trust in God more and follow His commandments. The final outcome of a life of faith and obedience is eternal life with God. So notice the final outcome of a life of faith and obedience is eternal life. Objector. What you describe sounds like a compromise. How can salvation be a process when Acts 16, 31 says, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved? Paul affirms that the same decisive act of salvation, Romans 10, 9, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. They're using a modern version, but says the same thing. Catholic. The Church affirms the teaching of these texts They are calling us to decisively trust in Christ. We affirm that trust in Christ is essential to salvation. But are faith in and confession of Christ a one-time event? Yes. Or are faith and verbal confession necessary for one's eternal life? We believe the Bible teaches that one cannot just profess faith once and then be eternally secure, as it were. One must live out this faith by a life of obedience and good works. And boy, does that sum up every conversation you're going to have with false religion. They use the same words but different meanings. When we say faith, we mean a one-time trust. When they say faith, they think a lifetime of works and obedience. That's why you can't always just go based on the terminology they use. You have to use wording that's on their level. Hey, is this a one-time decision or is this a lifelong commitment? And when they're not saved, you know what they always pick? Lifelong commitment. The Catholic. The Catholic. The Church affirms the teachings of these texts. I'm sorry, the objector. Anyone who takes the Bible seriously must affirm that obedience and works flow from true faith. What is objectionable is that the Catholic faith confuses faith and works by making both of them necessary for salvation. Exactly. Catholic. Wouldn't you say that works are necessary? Doesn't James 2.17 teach that faith that works is dead? Oh, isn't that every Catholic? Yeah, it does say that faith that works is dead. But that's nothing new in salvation. Objector, of course, works are necessary as evidence that the faith of the person believing is real and genuine, but that is different from believing as the Catholic faith teaches. Notice he doesn't actually address the question. He keeps springing up. Aren't you saying works are necessary? And he's like, well, doesn't James say that? Meaning what? They believe in faith and works. But at the very beginning, he's like, oh, some people think that we believe in works because we all say that. And then when you corner me on it, I keep saying that. Catholic. We do believe that works are evidence of true faith, but that it is not only the role they play, works also play a role in our final justification. If we take Paul's statements about Abraham being justified by faith in Galatians 3.6 and Romans 4.3 and 4 and put them together with James' statement about Abraham being justified by his work, of offering up Isaac in James 2.21, we rightly conclude that salvation is a process with many points of justification along the path of heaven. You know why you're wrong again? Because you're not saved. Objector, that cannot be right, because justification is an act of God's grace. This means that God justifies us when we believe in Christ. He declares us righteous for Christ's sake, not because of our own merits. James is saying that Abraham's offering of Isaac was a work that justified his faith. Sanctification, or the pursuit of holiness, is essential to prove our faith, but is not what saves us. Christ saves us. But sanctification is Christ actively saving us. You say that Abraham's work of offering up Isaac justified his faith as being real. James 2.21 asks, Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac upon the altar? From this, James concludes that in verse 22, you see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by works. The language of active along with or works completing faith is the language of cooperation. So again, this is like the only thing Catholics can cling to is James 2. But you know, obviously the reason why it says that he was justified is he was justified being called the friend of God. He was not justified for salvation. That's why Romans 4 says he wasn't justified by works. And in James 2, it even says that he was saved by his faith. But I'm not going to preach the whole sermon on James 2. Objector, I agree that we must cooperate with God in our sanctification because it is a process that lasts a lifetime. But sanctification is not what really saves us. What saves us is the merits of Christ being credited to our account. This credit exchange takes place in justification and act of God's grace that occurs when we believe in Christ and trust Him completely. Now, there's a few more passages. I'm not going to read them for the sake of time. But here's the thing. He basically just keeps proving, well, what about the Bible where it says we know we have assurance of salvation? 1 John 5.13. And it's funny because it's like every verse that a soul owner uses. You have 13 out of context. You have to read the whole passage or whatever. But here's what I want to get from this conversation. When you talk to a real Catholic, you can show them all the points and they're just going to keep digging in. Here's a really important soul winning tip and a tip that you need to understand with all individuals. Here's a question you'd ask. Do you believe the Bible? Because Catholics already prove to us they don't believe the Bible. You don't want to waste just hours and hours arguing on these points because they're not going to be won over. I show anybody the Gospel and a few verses, but if I'm getting a sense that this person is not picking up what I'm putting down, I'll often ask them, do you believe the Bible? And they'll be like, oh, it's written by man. Oh, you can't necessarily trust that. Oh, I go over what the Catholic church teaches over what the Bible says. At that point, you need to realize you need to stop that conversation. You need to just say like, well, I think the Bible is the word of God. If I could prove that or if I could show you something different, would you believe this? And if they say no, then you're pretty much just wasting your time at that point. You've got to realize that our faith starts with the Bible and someone that's not willing to trust this can't get saved and they can't understand any doctrine whatsoever that the Scripture teaches. Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 says, And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Catholics are boasting in their works today. They think because they're Catholic, they're better than other people, they're going to get to heaven, just like the Pharisees. The Pharisees love to boast and brag when they pray. Oh, I thank thee that I'm not like other men. Right? And that is the same Catholic philosophy. They think they're better, they think they're smarter, but you know, we need to be like the church at Colossae and we need to be comforted with the Bible. Hey, I know everything I need to know from the Bible. I don't need to go and get a doctorate of philosophy. I don't need to get a PhD. I don't need to go and study what the church fathers have taught me before because they're dead and burning in hell. And when someone creeps along and they say, hey, don't listen to this person about the doctrine, have you read what St. Augustine wrote? No. Well, do you know that that's the doctrine of Pelagianism? Did you know that this is Nestorianism? Did you know this is Arianism? Did you know that this is... I don't care what you said because I only care what the Bible says and I'm not going to learn my doctrine from a bunch of dead Catholics. I don't care what they think. I'm not going for tradition, what does this say? If someone's going to prove me wrong, prove me with this. Not some creed, not some doctrinal statement, not what some church father wrote. Show me how this says something different. And that's where you see the rubber meeting the road with false doctrine. And I'm telling you, I'm going to preach about it this evening, though. There's a lot of people that want to twist your mind and infect you and cause you to start doubting what your church teaches or what the Bible teaches with their philosophy, with their ideas, okay? And we need to make sure... Hey, what source is this? Oh, there's this Catholic. Matt Walsh. I'm not going to listen to Matt Walsh on doctrine. Oh, you know, here's Father so-and-so. I don't care what Father so-and-so says. Saint Augustine. He's not a saint. He's in hell. Quit calling him saint. You got all these saints and none of them are real saints. They're just transforming themselves into angels of light. But really, they're burning in hell right now. Augustine is screaming right now, okay? He's on fire, burning, and I don't care what he believes about anything. I don't care what any Catholic believes about anything. I feel 100% safe with this. Well, how can I know that, you know, you're right, Pastor Shelley. What does this say? How can I... You're in a cult. You go to a church where the pastor tells you what to believe. No, believe this. If I have a tradition or an idea or an opinion that's different than this, you always believe this. And anybody that tries to change your mind on something, they better have a lot of this to change your mind. Don't get away from this ever. Don't let men spoil you. Beware of them. Why would he tell this church beware if it wasn't a reality? You're not going to get sucked into the Catholic church. I don't believe that. But you could get sucked into their bad ideas. You could get sucked out of this church and go to the internet bozo land church. Don't do it. Okay? I'll preach about that tonight, all right? Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us the Bible and giving us all the knowledge and wisdom we could possibly want in the scripture. I pray that we would study it, that we read it, that we would get our hearts and minds invested in the scripture and not in what man has to say about his reasoning or his understanding. I pray that we get all of our doctrines from the Bible and from the text that you've delivered to us, that faithful men died preserving, that faithful men died translating, that faithful men died producing, that faithful men have given us. I pray that we would cherish the Bible that we have. Even though it's so free today, I pray that we would look at it as a treasure that we don't want to lose. And I pray that we wouldn't let someone trick us, deceive us, and draw us away after some dumb philosophy. I pray that we would rather just trust the scripture. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, well, before we have a baptism, we're going to sing 207, Only a Sinner. 207, Only a Sinner. 207, Only a Sinner. Not have I gotten but what I receive. Grace hath bestowed it since I have believed. Boasting, excluded, pride I apace. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. This is my glory to God be the glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Once I was foolish, then sin ruled my heart, causing my footsteps from God to depart. Jesus who found me hath be my case. I now am a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. This is my glory to God be the glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Tears unavailing, no merit had I. Mercy had saved me or else I must die. Sin had alarmed me, fearing God's face. But now I'm a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. This is my story to God be the glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Suffer a sinner whose heart overflows, loving his Savior to tell what he knows. Once more to tell him would I embrace. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. This is my story to God be the glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. All right, we have a sinner only saved by grace coming for baptism. Brother Cassidy, have you chosen Christ as your Savior? A million percent. Then I baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost buried in the likeness of his death, raised to walk in newness of life. Make sure to congratulate our baptism. You are dismissed.