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 Purita