The Pope and the Papacy

 Selected Scriptures

And for tonight I want to talk about the Pope and the Papacy because it's been in the news so much.  This isn't really going to be a sermon, I'm just going to try to take you through a little bit of an understanding of it.  I want to talk about the Pope himself, and then talk about the Papacy in general.  I'm going to tell you at the beginning what is at stake because of what I am going to say will surely offend those who are devout Catholics.  It will surely offend those who believe that Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ.  Some will read it as unkind and unloving but nothing is more loving than the truth.  To let somebody perish in a false system isn't loving at all.  To rescue people out of a damning and false religion is the only loving thing to do.

And there's a lot at stake here.  Not too many years ago some evangelical Protestants got together, Chuck Colson and some others, Bill Bright and some others and they met with some Roman Catholics and they came up with a document called "Evangelical and Catholics Together." And in that document they celebrated a common faith and a common mission.  And they said we need to embrace each other and carry out this gospel mission together.  This was shocking, to put it mildly, to many...to all of those people who affirm clearly a biblical gospel.  There was immediately a counter to that and all kinds of things brought to bear upon the signers of E.C.T.    Perhaps the most notable, at least in my experience, was a special private session called in Florida where I was locked up with a very formidable group of people for a period of seven hours, including those on the other side, J.I. Packer, Charles Colson being the notable ones, Bill Bright from Campus Crusade.  It was myself and R.C. Sproul, Michael Horton representing the biblical side a reformed theology and for seven hours we talked about this...what is the gospel?  Are the Catholics saved or not saved?  That's really important.  It became a discussion of are the Anglicans saved or not saved?  Does everybody who is within quote/unquote Christendom automatically saved?  Are they saved because they're baptized?  Are they saved because they quote/unquote believe in Jesus?  It was a very heated discussion at many points.

What was at stake?  I'll tell you what was at stake.  What was at stake is whether or not we evangelize Roman Catholics, that's what's at stake.  One billion of them in the world.  Are they a mission field?  Or are they our co-laborers for Christ?  That changes everything..everything.  On the other side, one of the leading evangelicals said, "I think it's so wonderful that we can now see Catholics as Christians because that means millions and millions of people are Christians."  As if somehow by them deciding they were Christians they became Christians.  I was absolutely incredulous, almost fell off my chair.  It was like what a monumental meeting this is, we just redeemed millions of people without leaving the room.   But that is what is at stake in this.

Are Roman Catholics the mission field, or do we embrace them as fellow believers in Jesus Christ?  The mood at evangelicalism today is to embrace them.  That's what all the spokesmen, self-appointed spokesmen for evangelicalism keeps saying in the media.  Some of them evangelists, most of them evangelists by their own definition.  If these people are our brothers and sisters in Christ, indeed the Pope is our brother in Christ, indeed the Pope is the greatest spiritual and moral leader in the last hundred years in the world, is the Pope in heaven?  Of course the Pope is in heaven.  He was good and he suffered, etc.

Reclassifying the Pope, reclassifying the Roman Catholics as believers isn't that simple.  It has massive implications.  It has implications that literally overturn centuries of missionary effort.  It has massive implications that overturn centuries, if not millennia of martyrdom.  In the long war on the truth, the most formidable, relentless and deceptive enemy has been Roman Catholicism.  It is an apostate, corrupt, heretical, false Christianity, it is affront for the kingdom of Satan.  The true church of the Lord Jesus Christ has always understood this.  And even through the Dark Ages from 400 to 1500, prior to the Reformation, genuine Christian believers set themselves apart from that system, and were brutally punished and executed for their rejection of that system.  It's not my purpose tonight to go into all that is Roman Catholicism and we will do that in the fall, we will do that.  We'll take a look at it from many angles.  But those believers throughout those centuries along with genuine and discerning believers today understand this is a false system.  It has a false priesthood.  It has a false source of revelation, tradition and the magisterium.  It has illegitimate power granted to it by this magisterium, this papal curia.  It engages in idolatry by the worship of saints and the veneration of angels.  It conducts a horrific exaltation of Mary above Christ and even God.  It conducts a twisted sacrament of the Mass by which Jesus is sacrificed again and again.  It offers false forgiveness through the confessional.  It calls for the uselessness of infant baptism and other sacraments.

Motivated by money, it has invented Purgatory.  And by the way, Purgatory is what makes the whole system work.  Take out Purgatory and it's a hard sell to be a Catholic.  People hang in there because of the deception of Purgatory.  Purgatory is the safety net, when you die, you don't go to hell.  You go there and get things sorted out and finally get to heaven if you've been a good Catholic.  Take away that safety net, that's a hard sell because in the Catholic system you can never know you're saved, you can never know you're going to heaven.  You just keep trying and trying, as the priest said on the television program the other night, we are all engaged in a long journey toward perfection.  Well if you're engaged in a long journey toward perfection, it's pretty discouraging.  People in that system, guilt-ridden, fear-ridden, no knowledge of whether or not they're going to get into the Kingdom, the threat of a mortal sin which throws you back out again.  And the only thing that makes it work is Purgatory.  If there's no Purgatory, there's no safety net to catch me and give me some opportunity to get into heaven.  It's a second change, it's another chance after death.  I can't buy into this.  So they had to invent Purgatory.  It's just too much without it.

The harm of indulgences, selling forgiveness for money.  The false gospel of works.  You participate in your salvation by your good works.  The abomination of idols and relics, prayers for the dead, the perversion of forced celibacy.  And so it goes.  But at the top of the pile of all of this is the amazing, amazing Papacy.  And the Pope is the one at the top of the Roman Catholic Church who has, in a word, usurped the headship of Christ over His church.  The Reformers have always understood this, with unashamed boldness they understood this and they declared this and they faced death for it.  Martin Luther, 1483 to 1546, Luther proved by the revelations of Daniel and John by the epistles of Paul, Peter and Jude, says the historian, Daubenier(??)  that the reign of Antichrist predicted and described in the Bible was none other than the Papacy.  And all the people said amen.  A holy terror seized their souls.  It was Antichrist whom they beheld seated on the pontifical throne.  This new idea which derived greater strength from the prophetic descriptions launched forth by Luther in to the midst of his contemporaries conflicted the most terrible blow on Rome.  Based on his study of Scripture, Martin Luther finally declared, quote: "We here are of the conviction that the Papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist.  I owe the Pope no other obedience than that I owe to Antichrist."  Luther said, "I am persuaded that if at this time St.  Peter in person should preach all the articles of holy Scripture and only deny the Pope's authority, power and primacy and say that the Pope is not the head of all Christendom, they would cause him to be hanged.  Yet if Christ Himself were again on earth and should preach without all doubt, the Pope would crucify Him again."  John Calvin, 1509 to 1564, "Some persons think us too severe and censorious when we call the Pontiff Antichrist, but those who are of this opinion do not consider that they bring the same charge of presumption against Paul himself after whom we speak and whose language we adopt.  I shall briefly show that Paul's words in 2 Thessalonians 2 are not capable of any other interpretation than that which implies them to the Papacy." They saw in the Antichrist the Papacy, the Pope.

Why?  Because they had some special insight that in fact the final Antichrist was actually to be a Pope?  No.  Because the Pope personified everything that the Scripture described the Antichrist to be.  John Knox, 1505-1572, great Scottish Presbyterian, sought to counteract the tyranny which the Pope himself had for so many ages exercised over the church, he himself said, "The Papacy is the very Antichrist, the Pope being the son of perdition of whom Paul speaks."  Thomas Cranmer(?), one of the great martyrs in England died in 1556 said, "Whereof it follows Rome to be the seat of Antichrist and the Pope to be the very Antichrist himself.  I can prove the same by many scriptures."  The Westminster Confession was written in 1647, the Westminster Confession, the Confession of the Reformers says, "There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ, nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalted himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God."

And again I say, it isn't that he is the final Antichrist but he is in his time and in this age the very embodiment of Antichrist.  And there are, says John, many Antichrists in the world before the final one.  Cotton Mather(???)  again an American Puritan died in 1728, "The oracles of God foretold the rising of an Antichrist in the Christian church.  And in the Pope of Rome, all the characteristics of that Antichrist are so marvelously answered that if any who read the scriptures do not see it, there is a marvelous blindness on them."  And Spurgeon, "It is the bound and duty of every Christian to pray against this Antichrist and as to what Antichrist is no sane man ought to raise a question.  If it be not the popery in the church of Rome, there's nothing in the world that can be called by that name." Again I say, John said there are many Antichrists, here is the supreme embodiment of it to these great leaders, these great Reformed leaders through the ages.  Spurgeon went on to say, "Popery is contrary to Christ's gospel and is the Antichrist and we ought to pray against it.  It should be the daily prayer of every believer that Antichrist might be hurled like a millstone into the flood and for Christ because it wounds Christ, because it robs Christ of His glory, because it puts sacramental efficacy in the place of His atonement and lifts a piece of bread into the place of the Savior and a few drops of water into the place of the Holy Spirit and puts a mere fallible man like ourselves up as the Vicar of Christ on earth.  If we pray against it because it is against Him who shall love the persons though we hate their errors, we shall love their souls though we loathe and detest their dogmas.  And so the breath of our prayers will be sweetened because we turn our faces toward Christ when we pray."

It was 1553 to 1558, a terrible five years in England, the reign of Bloody Mary, it all began seven years after Luther's death.  And Mary came in to England and restored the Pope's authority in England.  Immediately all Bibles were removed from the churches, all Bible printing ceased and was forbidden, became a capital crime.  Eight hundred English ministers fled to Geneva.  Three hundred Protestants were burned at the stake.  The first martyr to Mary was John Rogers, a London minister who translated the wonderful Tyndale-Mathews Bible.  I've held one of those first editions in my own hand.  Ridley and Latimer, the two famous martyrs, burned at the stake at Oxford, and William Tyndale, blessed William Tyndale chased for years and finally martyred for the crime of translating the Bible into English.

All this under the leadership of...and for the satisfaction of the Roman system and the Pope.  Luther in The Small Called Articles wrote this, "All things which the Pope from a power so false, mischievous, blasphemous and arrogant has done and undertaken have been and still are purely diabolical affairs and transactions for the ruin of the entire holy Christian church and for the destruction of the first and chief article concerning the redemption made through Jesus Christ."  Luther didn't mince words.  He said further, "The Pope is the very Antichrist who has exalted himself above and opposed himself against Christ because he will not permit Christians to be saved." Further Luther said, "It is nothing else than the devil himself because above and against God he urges and disseminates his Papal falsehoods concerning Masses, Purgatory, the monastic life, one's own works, fictitious divine worship which is the very Papacy and condemns, murders and tortures all Christians who do not exalt and honor these abominations of the Pope above all things, therefore just as little as we can worship the devil himself as Lord and God, we can endure his apostle the Pope.  For to lie and to kill and destroy body and soul eternally, that is wherein his Papal government really consists."

Back to Spurgeon.  "Of all the dreams that have ever deluded men, and probably of all blasphemies that ever were uttered, there has never been one which is more absurd and which is more fruitful in all manner of mischief than the idea that the Bishop of Rome can be the head of the church of Jesus Christ.  No.  These Popes die, and how could the church live if its head were dead?  The true head ever lives and the church ever lives in Him."  And Spurgeon said, "A man...this is very interesting...a man who deludes other people by degrees comes to delude himself.  The deluder first makes dupes out of others and then becomes a dupe to himself.  I should not wonder but what the Pope really believes that he is infallible and that he ought to be saluted as His Holiness.  It must have taken him a good time to arrive at that eminence of self-deception.  But he's got to it, I daresay by now, and everyone who kisses his toe confirms him in this insane idea.  When everybody else believes a flattering falsehood concerning you, you come at last to believe it yourself.  Or at least to think it may be so.  But the Pharisees being continually called the learned, rabbi, father, the holy scribe, the devout and pious doctor, the sanctified teacher believed the flattering compliments.  They used very grand phrases in those days and doctors of divinity were very common, almost as common as they are now and the crowd of doctors and rabbis help to keep each other in countenance by repeating each other's fine names until they believed they meant something.  Dear friends," says Spurgeon, "it's very difficult to receive honor and expect it and yet to keep your eyesight for men's eyes gradually grow dull through the smoke of the incense which is burned before them.  And when their eyes become dim with self-conceit, their own great selves conceal the cross and make them unable to believe the truth."

Spurgeon said, "Christ did not redeem His church with His blood so the Pope could come in and steal away the glory.  He never came from heaven to earth.  He never poured out his very heart that he might purchase his people.  That a poor sinner, a mere man should be set upon high to be admired by all the nations and to call himself God's representative on earth, Christ has always been the head of His church."  Spurgeon knew what the Reformers knew what any true student of Scripture knows that the Pope stood at the top of an illegitimate system and particularly and specifically at the top of an illegitimate priesthood, and Spurgeon wrote this: "When a fellow comes forward in all sorts of curious garments and says he's a priest, the poorest child of God may say, 'Stand away and don't interfere with my office, I am a priest.  I know not what you may be, you surely must be a priest of Baal.'  But the only mention of the word vestments in Scripture is in connection with the temple of Baal.  The priesthood belongs to all the saints.  They sometimes call you laity, but the Holy Ghost says of all the saints, 'You are God's cleros(??), you are God's clergy.  Every child of God is a clergyman or a clergywoman, there are no priestly distinctions known in Scripture.  Away with them...says Spurgeon...away with them forever'."  The prayer book says, "Then shall the priest say..."  What a pity that word was ever left there.  The very word priest has such a smell of the sulphur of Rome about it that so long as it remains the church of England will give forth an ill savor.  Call yourself a priest, sir.  I wonder men are not ashamed to take the title.  When I collect what priests have done in all ages, what priests connected with the Church of Rome have done, I repeat what I have often said, I would sooner a man pointed at me in the street and called me a devil than call me a priest.  For bad as the devil has been, he has hardly been able to match the crimes and cruelties and villianese(???) that have been transacted under the cover of a special priesthood.  From that may we be delivered.  But the priesthood of God's saints, the priesthood of holiness which offers prayer and praise to God.  This we have because Thou hast made us priests." 

That is what the saints are.  The Roman Empire then is in the view of these men of God through the ages a front line for Satan.  And for Spurgeon, Rome was a deadly enemy, first of all, as well as a mission field.  Spurgeon said, "We must have no truce and make no treaty with Rome."  He said this, "War, war to the knife with her.  Peace there cannot, she cannot have peace with us, we cannot have peace with her.  She hates the true church and we can only say that the hatred is reciprocated.  We would not lay a hand upon her priests.  We would not touch a hair of their heads.  Let them be free but their doctrine we would destroy from the face of the earth as the doctrine of devils.  So let it perish, O God, and let that evil thing become as the fat of lambs, into smoke.  Let it consume.  Yea into smoke let it consume."  You can just hear him preaching that in the tabernacle in London.  He went on to say, "We must fight the Lord's battles against this giant error, whichever shape it takes.  And so must we do with every error that pollutes the church.  Slay it utterly.  Let none escape.  Fight the Lord's battles, even though it be in error that is in the evangelical church, yet we must smite it."  We stand on those shoulders. 

What is our response to this current issue, a truce with Rome?  Are we going to betray the martyrs?  Are we going to betray the history of our faith?  Are we going to betray those who lived and died to get us the truth?  Are we going to betray the Tyndales and the Luthers, Calvins and all the rest?  Are we so senseless?  Are we so blind?  Are we so ignorant?  Are we so faithless?  Are we so cowardly that we will not fight?

The doctrinal ignorance of the evangelical church is shocking, matched only by its cowardice, I fear.  That has certainly been revealed to everybody in the recent response to the death of the Pope and the installation of his successor.  The promotion of Catholicism that we've seen in the media in the last couple of months has had no equal in history.  This is the single greatest promotion of the Roman Catholic system in the history of that system.  The world media has set aside the sickening pedophilia, the abuse issues to parade the pomp and circumstance of this false system as if it were truly all glorious.  It is a classic illustration of the old story of the Emperor's New Clothes, spiritually it's naked.  And here we are at the very time when Roman Catholicism is receiving through the devil's medium since he controls both, its greatest exposure.  It is perpetrating on the world its greatest seduction.  It is bringing to the world its damning delusion as never before.  And Protestants and Evangelical representatives are just embracing it and its damnable heresies.  The media, have you noticed how uncritical they are?  Have you noticed how they don't ever bring up the scandal of the priests?  We hear people say, "Well, Catholicism is a different denomination."  Catholicism isn't a different denomination.  It's a different religion.  I don't think people know the difference between the denomination and a religion.  Has Rome changed?  No.  O Rome morphs, Rome is a chameleon, whatever it needs to be in any nation in any time it will become.  Whatever it takes.  That's how the devil always works.  He moves, changes to become whatever wins over people. 

But here is Protestant/evangelicalism abandoning sound doctrine, shaming the name of Christ.  And all in bold relief so the whole world can see.  And the world was watching the death of Pope John Paul II in an unrivaled spectacle of worship given to a man.  And the question came up, is the Pope in heaven?  And you hear all these people say, "Yes, yes, yes."  People have asked me, "Is the Pope in heaven?"  And my answer is, "Is the Pope Catholic?"  Isn't that the answer?  I think he is, I think the Pope is Catholic.  Does he believe Catholic theology?  Yes.  He is the guardian of Catholic theology.  Do you get to heaven by works, by Mary, by Penance, by Baptism, by confession, by Rosary?  No.  This is another gospel.  This is not the true gospel. 

A couple of weeks ago two messages, we talked about the nature of saving faith, and we reminded you salvation is by faith alone.  Not in Catholicism.  It's by a combination of grace and faith and works.  But we know what the New Testament teaches, "No one," Romans 3:20 says, "will be declared righteous in God's sight by observing the Law."  Romans 3:26, "God justifies those who have faith in Jesus."  Faith alone, Christ alone.  Romans 3:28, "We maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the Law."  Romans 4, Abraham was justified not by works, if he was justified by works, he had something to boast about.  But what does Scripture say?  He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.  Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift but as an obligation.  However, to the man who doesn't work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.  Romans 4, it was not through the Law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise, verses 13 and 14, it was through faith.  Romans 9 verses 30 and 32, "The Gentiles who didn't pursue righteousness have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith." Romans 10:4, "Christ is the end of the Law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes."  Romans 11:5 and 6, "There's a remnant chosen by grace and if by grace it is no longer by works.  If it were, grace would no longer be grace."  Galatians 2:16, "A man is not justified by observing the Law but by faith in Jesus Christ.  So too we have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith, not by observing the Law because by observing the Law no one will be justified."  Galatians 3:10, "And all who rely on observing the Law are under a curse because cursed is everyone who doesn't continue to do everything written in the book of the Law."  The righteous will live by faith.  Ephesians 2:8 and 9, "For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, the gift of God not of works so that no one can boast."  Paul in Philippians 3 gives his testimony, he says, "Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but a righteousness that is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God and is by faith."  Titus 3, "God saved us not because of righteous things which we have done, but because of His mercy.  Having been justified by His grace we have become heirs in the hope of eternal life."  You know all those verses.

Salvation is by faith alone through Christ alone through God's grace alone.  When you put your trust in Jesus Christ, God declares you righteous.  Not because you are, but because He imputes the righteousness of Christ to you, because He imputes your sin to Him.  Christ bears your sin, you receive His righteousness.  This is the glory of the great doctrine of justification.

Roman Catholicism doesn't believe that.  The Council of Trent, 1545 to 1563, came out with statements.  Listen to some of them.  "To those who work well unto the end, and trust in God, eternal life is to be offered." That doesn't sound like anything I just read.  To those who work well unto the end, and trust in God, eternal life is to be offered.  Listen to this.  "It is given as a reward, promised by God Himself to be faithfully given to thei