Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 21, 2024


Ep 1055 ｜ Former Catholic on Why He Left Catholicism ｜ Guest： Mike Gendron


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 1 minute

Words per minute

161.09305

Word count

9,843

Sentence count

685

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

31

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Mike Gindran is the head of Proclaiming the Gospel Ministries. He was born and raised a Roman Catholic. When he started reading his Bible at the age of 35, he realized he did not know the gospel. He has spent the past 50 years of his life sharing the gospel and teaching those in the Catholic Church what the Word of God says about salvation.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.980 Mike Gindran is the head of Proclaiming the Gospel Ministries.
00:00:04.960 He was born and raised a Roman Catholic.
00:00:08.000 When he started reading his Bible at the age of 35, he realized he did not know the gospel,
00:00:14.380 and he has spent the past 50 years of his life sharing the gospel and teaching those
00:00:20.160 in the Catholic Church what the Word of God says about salvation.
00:00:24.240 I understand this is going to be a controversial episode.
00:00:27.140 I've got a lot of beloved Catholics, not only in my life, but also in this audience.
00:00:32.740 And while I know that many, most of you, will not agree with what's said here, understand
00:00:38.360 that what Mr. Gindran is saying, he is saying from a place of love for Catholics, this is
00:00:45.680 not about hate.
00:00:47.080 This is not an attack.
00:00:48.900 Even if you do vehemently disagree, I urge you to be respectful.
00:00:53.360 My Catholic friends have lots of episodes, lots of conversations out there about the
00:00:59.440 errors that they see in Protestantism, and I don't see those as an attack, and I encourage
00:01:06.820 you to listen to, watch this conversation with the same spirit.
00:01:12.960 You are welcome, as always, to comment your thoughts and your disagreements.
00:01:17.780 I encourage you to do so, but remain respectful, remain thoughtful, and remain open to what
00:01:26.220 he is saying today.
00:01:27.420 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
00:01:29.620 Go to GoodRanchers.com.
00:01:31.100 Use code Allie at checkout. 1.00
00:01:32.160 That's GoodRanchers.com, code Allie.
00:01:43.720 Mr. Gindran, thanks so much for taking the time to join Relatable.
00:01:47.060 Could you tell everyone who you are and what you do?
00:01:50.100 Sure.
00:01:50.280 My name is Mike Gindran, and for 33 years, I've directed a ministry called Proclaiming
00:01:56.100 the Gospel, and we have a great love and compassion for Roman Catholics, and I was one for 35 years,
00:02:04.640 and so I lived it, and it wasn't until I opened the Bible and began reading it that I had a crisis
00:02:11.020 of faith and realized that I was outside of Christ, that I needed to repent and believe
00:02:16.920 the gospel.
00:02:17.720 And so it's been quite a spiritual journey.
00:02:20.060 The Lord has taken us all over the world, especially in countries that are dominated 1.00
00:02:24.300 by Roman Catholicism.
00:02:26.060 I had the opportunity to speak in many different seminaries and churches and conferences, and
00:02:31.720 it's really been a joy to proclaim the gospel for a living.
00:02:35.120 Wow.
00:02:35.780 Well, I've got a million questions for you.
00:02:37.480 I want to go all the way back in your life.
00:02:39.520 You were born and raised Roman Catholic?
00:02:42.080 I was.
00:02:42.940 Okay.
00:02:43.340 And how many generations before do you know was your family Catholic?
00:02:48.000 As far back as you can go.
00:02:50.220 My family was originally from Montreal, French-Canadian, and so I was one of five children.
00:02:59.520 My dad was an army colonel.
00:03:01.560 His brother was a Roman Catholic priest who ministered in the jungles of Rangoon, Burma,
00:03:08.100 now called Myanmar, and so he actually put in for an assignment to be with his brother,
00:03:13.720 and he took the whole family with him, and as a young 13, 14-year-old, I was really amazed
00:03:19.880 that a man would give up his life to serve in the jungles to convert people to Catholicism.
00:03:25.640 And 50 years later, the Lord took me back to Myanmar, and I was able to preach the true
00:03:33.440 gospel to 81 students there that were learning how to be effective witnesses.
00:03:39.000 So in my family upbringing, I was an altar boy for seven years and learned the Latin and
00:03:45.820 the responses to the priest and the mass.
00:03:48.700 Later on, I was responsible for bringing the first Little Rock Scripture study to a Dallas
00:03:55.080 church.
00:03:55.660 In fact, it was St. Patrick's Catholic Church, and it was then that I began reading the Bible
00:04:01.920 for the first time, and for 35 years, I owned a Bible, but it just sat on the coffee table
00:04:07.740 collecting dust because the priest told us, don't even try reading it.
00:04:12.700 It's too difficult.
00:04:14.340 If you have any questions, just come to us.
00:04:16.300 So when I opened it and began reading it, I had a crisis of faith because what I was reading
00:04:23.720 as far as plan of salvation was diametrically opposed to what the Catholic Church had taught
00:04:31.940 me for those 30 years.
00:04:34.100 And so I did the wrong thing.
00:04:36.540 I called my uncle the priest, and I said, Father Charles, why does the Catholic Church 1.00
00:04:42.620 teach a different way of salvation than the Bible?
00:04:45.980 And he said, well, Mike, that's just not true.
00:04:48.520 I said, well, for example, in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, Paul writes, for by grace you have
00:04:54.520 been saved through faith.
00:04:56.020 It's not of yourselves.
00:04:57.320 It's the gift of God, not of works so that no one may boast.
00:05:01.900 And he said, oh, Mike, God doesn't really mean what he's saying there.
00:05:07.420 And so I thought, wow, how does he know what God really means?
00:05:10.420 And so I began reading more and more, and I came to a verse that has just become my favorite
00:05:15.820 verse, 2 Corinthians 5, 21, where it reads, Jesus, he that knew no sin became sin for us
00:05:23.920 that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
00:05:27.020 And I looked at it as the greatest exchange in human history.
00:05:32.200 By faith, Christ takes all of my sin, all of my guilt, all of my punishment, and what
00:05:38.160 does he give me in return?
00:05:39.840 His perfect righteousness.
00:05:41.540 And so I understood the doctrine of justification, that by one offering, he has made perfect
00:05:47.640 forever those who are being sanctified.
00:05:50.720 And so I don't know the exact day or month that the Lord saved me.
00:05:57.020 But I was understanding the scriptures more and more.
00:06:01.220 And I came to a conclusion that the nature of deception is that people do not know they're
00:06:08.440 deceived until they're confronted with the truth.
00:06:11.140 And here I was with an open Bible discovering the truth.
00:06:14.740 I was reading the truth, and it was confronting me in my deception.
00:06:18.800 And so God granted me repentance.
00:06:20.740 He gave me eyes to see the light of the gospel and the glory of Christ and literally turned
00:06:26.160 my life upside down.
00:06:28.040 I left the Catholic church.
00:06:30.120 And I remember going to a Bible study, a different Bible study, every morning of the
00:06:35.260 week before going to work.
00:06:36.680 I couldn't get enough of God's Word.
00:06:38.780 It was like I had been a dry sponge in a desert for 30 years plus.
00:06:43.440 And I just wanted to absorb everything I could.
00:06:46.740 Yeah.
00:06:46.920 And that wasn't enough.
00:06:48.000 So I ended up enrolling in Dallas Theological Seminary so I could learn the Bible.
00:06:53.880 And our last semester at Dallas Seminary, I was introduced to a video that featured former
00:07:01.280 priests and former nuns that were sharing the gospel with Catholics.
00:07:05.920 And I brought it home to my wife, who's also a former Catholic.
00:07:09.940 We watched it together, and we said, we've got to share this with every Roman Catholic we
00:07:15.020 know.
00:07:15.980 So for the next three months, every Tuesday night, we invited Roman Catholics over to
00:07:22.280 our house.
00:07:23.480 And within three months, 17 people exchanged their religion for a relationship with Christ.
00:07:30.440 Well, what do you do with new babes in Christ? 1.00
00:07:32.660 We invited them back over on Wednesday night to help them grow in the grace and knowledge
00:07:36.920 of our Lord.
00:07:38.200 So that was the beginning of what we do today.
00:07:40.760 It was the genesis of the ministry of proclaiming the gospel.
00:07:45.220 Shortly after that, Tommy Nelson at Denton Bible invited me in to address 3,000 people there
00:07:51.820 at Denton Bible.
00:07:52.760 And I thought I was only reaching those people.
00:07:56.160 Little did I know he had a cassette ministry that went out all over the world.
00:08:00.040 Right.
00:08:00.220 So the next thing you know, we're getting requests to go into different churches and seminaries.
00:08:06.320 And we literally stand in awe of what God has done with a couple of broken vessels that
00:08:12.280 love him and love Roman Catholics.
00:08:15.160 I've got so many questions for you.
00:08:17.240 As someone who was raised in the Bible Belt, I wasn't raised around many Catholics at all.
00:08:21.680 I maybe knew one or two.
00:08:23.120 I think I knew more Jewish people than I did Catholics.
00:08:25.840 It wasn't until I got to college that I befriended some Catholics and I started to learn a little
00:08:31.300 bit more about the distinctions in Catholicism.
00:08:35.740 And one of them was this just complete, among a lot of them, I can't paint a broad brush,
00:08:44.080 disinterest with scripture.
00:08:47.600 And no real knowledge of even something like John 3.16.
00:08:52.980 I still remember I saw John 3.16, just the reference written somewhere.
00:08:58.320 And then someone who lived on my hall freshman year who was also a devout Catholic, she said,
00:09:03.300 what does that mean?
00:09:04.140 She didn't even recognize the format of a scripture reference.
00:09:09.920 And I remember talking to some Catholics in college and this idea of having a relationship
00:09:14.980 with Christ was something that they thought that you could have after you died, but not
00:09:22.560 necessarily something that you had to worry about when you were on earth.
00:09:26.500 And I don't know if everyone who professes to be Catholic thinks that way.
00:09:32.160 They probably don't.
00:09:33.820 But I'm curious, just to get your insight, is that something that is actually descriptive
00:09:38.680 of Catholic doctrines?
00:09:40.800 And is that kind of a popular mentality among people who were raised Catholic?
00:09:46.920 Well, as a Roman Catholic, we trusted Roman Catholic priests as our mediators between us
00:09:52.680 and God.
00:09:53.200 And so we never had a relationship with Christ.
00:09:57.660 Our relationship was with the priest.
00:10:00.440 And so as I was studying the Bible, I realized in 1 Timothy 2.5, there's one mediator between
00:10:06.200 God and man.
00:10:07.040 That's the man, Christ Jesus.
00:10:09.100 And then I read where when Jesus gave up his spirit, the veil separating the holy of holies
00:10:14.440 from sinful man was ripped open from top to bottom, showing that now through faith in the
00:10:20.040 shed blood of Jesus, we have direct access to the Father.
00:10:23.200 We no longer need priests offering sacrifices that can never take away sin.
00:10:28.540 And so by putting my complete trust in Christ as my mediator, I had direct access to the Father.
00:10:36.000 And so a lot of Catholics don't realize that the Roman Catholic priesthood is really superfluous.
00:10:41.740 Because Jesus is the perfect high priest who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to a perfect God
00:10:49.200 who demands perfection.
00:10:51.460 And then he cried out, it is finished.
00:10:53.300 And so there are no more offerings for sin.
00:10:56.800 Christ offered himself once for all sin, for all time.
00:11:00.580 And the more I read the Bible, the more I realized that the Roman Catholic religion had really 1.00
00:11:08.260 kept me in spiritual bondage.
00:11:10.180 I really didn't know the truth.
00:11:13.140 And so I went through everything the Catholic Church required of me because I really looked 0.95
00:11:20.220 at God as a God who graded on the curve rather than the cross.
00:11:24.600 And so I was doing all the good works I could in the hopes that my good works would outweigh my sin.
00:11:30.960 In fact, I even went to Mass every day during Lent during college because I wanted those good works.
00:11:38.520 And, you know, I shared Ephesians 2, 8, 9.
00:11:41.680 Well, the very next verse is Ephesians 2, 10.
00:11:44.860 And that tells us that once we are new creatures in Christ, once we've been regenerated and born again,
00:11:51.440 then we do the works that God has prepared for us to walk in.
00:11:55.560 And so I looked at good works before and after my salvation experience.
00:12:01.100 As a Catholic, I was doing good works in order to be saved.
00:12:04.640 And now that I have been saved, I do good works out of love and appreciation for God saving me.
00:12:11.500 And so the motivation and the timing of good works is very important.
00:12:15.540 And I just wish that Roman Catholics could understand that.
00:12:19.280 We are saved by grace apart from works, faith apart from works, and Christ alone.
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00:13:05.900 You mentioned that your priest, who was your uncle, I think that you said, said,
00:13:15.020 you know what, the Bible, you don't need to worry about what the Bible says.
00:13:18.460 God didn't really mean that.
00:13:19.740 You were told growing up by your priest that the Bible is just too complicated.
00:13:23.300 If you've got a question, go directly to the priest.
00:13:26.040 Can you explain where that idea comes from?
00:13:29.360 Why is it discouraged?
00:13:31.560 I'm not sure if it's this way anymore, but why is it largely discouraged within the Catholic
00:13:37.400 Church to take the Bible into your own hands to read it and to understand it?
00:13:42.600 Well, Allie, Beth, I think you have to go back to the Reformation.
00:13:45.200 Yeah.
00:13:45.680 Because it was the Reformers who began reading the Bible. 0.99
00:13:49.120 And the more they read the Bible, the more the truth set them free.
00:13:52.880 And so many of the Reformers ended up leaving the Catholic Church.
00:13:58.100 Some of them tried to reform it before they left, but the truth set them free from religious 1.00
00:14:03.460 deception and religious bondage.
00:14:06.520 And so at the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church actually placed the Bible on the list
00:14:12.120 of forbidden books because they recognized as people were reading it, the truth was setting
00:14:17.420 them free.
00:14:18.740 And so I think modern day Catholicism doesn't discourage the reading of the Bible.
00:14:25.320 In fact, they have their own scripture studies now, but for the longest time, they actually
00:14:30.940 had the Bible on the list of forbidden books and discouraged people from reading it.
00:14:36.180 Now, they would say, I think, well, look what the Reformation caused. 0.54
00:14:41.100 Look what the Bible being in the hands of the common person caused and being translated into 0.99
00:14:45.260 common language.
00:14:46.640 Look at all the division.
00:14:48.040 Look at all the denomination.
00:14:49.580 See, it was a mistake.
00:14:50.640 Maybe they would say the Roman Catholic Church was trying to protect the sacredness of scripture
00:14:55.400 and the sacred united interpretation of scripture by banning it.
00:15:00.360 And they would say the fruit of Protestantism has been progressivism, has been liberalism,
00:15:05.560 has been the corruption of the Word of God and the divorcing of the church.
00:15:10.820 How do we respond to that?
00:15:13.220 That's a good question.
00:15:14.380 And we have to look at the fact that it's not Roman Catholicism versus Protestantism.
00:15:20.900 It's looking through every church and denomination through the lens of scripture.
00:15:25.960 Does it line up with scripture?
00:15:28.080 And yes, there are many Protestant denominations and Protestant churches that have drifted away
00:15:33.840 from the authority of scripture and they began teaching another gospel.
00:15:38.060 And so that's called apostasy, departing from the gospel, departing from Christ.
00:15:42.440 So there are Protestant denominations that have gone into apostasy.
00:15:47.280 So it's not an issue of us versus them.
00:15:50.720 It's an issue of what does the Bible say?
00:15:52.960 And can that be our final authority in all matters of faith?
00:15:56.440 One of the verses that impacted me early on was Acts 17, 11.
00:16:01.080 And that's where Paul was preaching in the synagogues of Berea.
00:16:04.220 And he noticed that as he was preaching, his listeners were searching the scriptures daily
00:16:09.540 to find out if Paul was teaching them the truth.
00:16:13.380 They were testing the veracity of an apostle with the scriptures.
00:16:18.320 And so that shows that scripture needs to be the supreme authority.
00:16:23.280 That's why we have it here today.
00:16:25.900 It's the only infallible source for truth we have on this earth.
00:16:29.080 And so we can still test every man's teaching using God's inspired word.
00:16:35.160 And if a preacher agrees with the scriptures, then we receive it.
00:16:39.000 If it goes against the scripture, then we reject it.
00:16:42.480 And so I would encourage every Roman Catholic to test the teaching of their pope
00:16:48.300 and their bishops and their priest.
00:16:50.000 Does it line up with scripture?
00:16:52.140 That's the principle that we learned from Acts 17, 11.
00:16:54.980 And of course, Catholics believe that the church really has equal authority with scripture.
00:17:00.740 They reject sola scriptura.
00:17:02.380 They might even reject prima scriptura, putting scripture first.
00:17:06.720 And they'll say, I've gotten this before.
00:17:09.560 Well, where in the Bible does it say sola scriptura?
00:17:12.820 And if the Bible doesn't say it, then how can you say sola scriptura is correct?
00:17:17.260 How do we respond to that?
00:17:18.400 That's a question we get all the time.
00:17:20.520 And it really comes down to this.
00:17:22.380 I would agree with Catholics that sola scriptura is a Protestant tradition.
00:17:27.460 You won't find it in the Bible.
00:17:29.140 And that's because it wasn't necessary in the Bible.
00:17:32.900 See, it was at the Council of Trent that the Catholic Church elevated their tradition
00:17:37.540 to be equal in authority with scripture.
00:17:40.420 And that's why the reformers said, no, it's got to be scripture alone.
00:17:45.280 That is our supreme authority.
00:17:47.580 And when you look at Almighty God, there is no higher power than he.
00:17:51.420 And he's revealed himself through his inspired, inerrant, infallible word.
00:17:58.180 And so, yes, there are traditions in the scriptures that we are to follow,
00:18:03.360 but they're apostolic traditions.
00:18:05.560 They're not the traditions that the Roman Catholic Church follows today.
00:18:09.300 And so, I'm reminded of what Jude, the reason he wrote his epistle,
00:18:15.180 it was to contend earnestly for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.
00:18:21.720 The verb tense is important.
00:18:24.000 The body of truth that we are to contend for today, it was delivered to the saints in the first century.
00:18:29.560 So, anything that comes against that, we are to reject.
00:18:33.920 In many of the Roman Catholic traditions today, you won't find in the first century church.
00:18:39.720 For example, you don't find priests offering sacrifices for sin in the first century church.
00:18:45.640 You don't find indulgences for the remission of temporal punishment.
00:18:50.120 You don't find venial sins.
00:18:52.620 You don't find purgatory.
00:18:54.800 You don't find sacraments as a means of salvation.
00:19:00.980 And you don't find the church headquartered in Rome.
00:19:03.660 So, the church that the Roman Catholic Church has today does not resemble the first century church.
00:19:11.120 And we hear a lot, I hear a lot from Catholics, well, this is the church that Jesus Christ established,
00:19:17.140 that we can trace the papacy all the way back to Peter,
00:19:21.400 and that what was passed down to the apostles by Jesus has continued to be passed down to the priests.
00:19:27.800 So, they would say that it is the apostolic tradition.
00:19:31.360 I've had Trent Horn on this podcast.
00:19:33.260 He was a very kind person and a good apologist for Catholicism.
00:19:37.000 But he said, I just want to practice Christianity the way the earliest Christians did. 1.00
00:19:42.060 But, of course, that would be my contention, too.
00:19:43.780 Like, which early Christians?
00:19:45.160 Because I don't see that in Scripture.
00:19:47.360 I'm not even sure that I see that, as you said, in the history of the early church.
00:19:53.460 So true.
00:19:54.980 And we have to recognize what Paul said in 1 Timothy 4.
00:20:00.360 He said, in latter times, some will depart from the faith and follow doctrines of demons.
00:20:05.260 And then he even lists one of the doctrines, and that's forbidding people to marry.
00:20:11.240 And so you look at the Catholic clergy, and they're forbidden to marry.
00:20:14.960 But I think you even go back to the Garden of Eden, when God told Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit.
00:20:24.360 And so Satan comes along, and he immediately questions God's Word.
00:20:29.080 Did God really say?
00:20:30.240 And then he said, if you eat of the fruit, if you break God's command, you surely shall not die.
00:20:37.560 Well, the Catholic Church has taken the first lie of the devil in the garden to create the doctrine of venial sin.
00:20:44.900 In the Catholic Church, if you commit venial sins, you surely shall not die.
00:20:50.140 You only have temporal punishment.
00:20:51.760 So now that you have this doctrine of demons in the garden, what happens when Catholics die in venial sin?
00:21:00.740 Well, you need to create a place for them to go.
00:21:03.060 So they created purgatory.
00:21:05.140 And that's where Catholics who die in venial sin go to have their sins purified or purged away. 0.74
00:21:12.040 And it might be where you or I go, according to them, too, right?
00:21:15.560 Because we don't have, they would say, the fullness of truth within the Catholic Church.
00:21:19.080 So now that you have Catholics in purgatory, now you need a means to get them out. 1.00
00:21:26.400 So they created indulgences.
00:21:28.980 And that's the remission of temporal punishment for sin.
00:21:33.140 So the first lie of the devil in the garden perpetuated through the doctrine of venial sins
00:21:39.140 ends up creating purgatory and then indulgences.
00:21:42.920 We know that all sins are mortal.
00:21:45.260 The wages of sin is death.
00:21:46.820 The soul that sins will surely die.
00:21:49.080 And so there's no such thing as venial sin.
00:21:53.100 And so as we share the gospel with Catholics, we need to recognize that.
00:21:57.700 John MacArthur calls it a safety net for Catholics.
00:22:00.280 They don't believe they've done anything serious enough to be labeled a mortal sin.
00:22:05.980 So most Catholics rationalize and say, well, that's only a venial sin.
00:22:11.180 It doesn't cause death, only temporal punishment and purgatory.
00:22:14.960 And then some Catholics will say, well, we get our idea of purgatory from the books of the Bible that Martin Luther removed.
00:22:23.580 And they're referring to the Apocrypha, not a part of the 66 books that we have.
00:22:29.680 What do we make of those?
00:22:31.600 Why aren't they included in our Bible?
00:22:34.600 Well, the bottom line is because they contain historical, geographical, and theological errors.
00:22:40.240 And so we know that they cannot be inspired by God because God's word is inerrant.
00:22:44.660 And they weren't added to the Catholic canon until the Council of Trent.
00:22:50.040 And the reason it was added then is because they needed some justification for the doctrine of purgatory and indulgences.
00:22:57.660 And so in 2 Maccabees, they saw when the Maccabeans were killed, many of them were wearing pagan amulets around their neck.
00:23:10.820 And so they sent alms back to Jerusalem for the repose of their soul. 0.84
00:23:15.680 So the Catholic Church said, see there, there is an intermediate place, and we can offer alms for the dead in order to get them out of an intermediate place.
00:23:26.040 And so they added the Apocrypha in order to try and support their doctrine of venial sin, purgatory, and indulgences.
00:23:34.300 But we don't do things just because the Jews did them. 0.58
00:23:37.780 The Jews did a lot of things that went against Scripture and went against God. 0.89
00:23:41.680 In fact, they even rejected the Messiah.
00:23:44.180 So we don't emulate the Jews just because it's in one of their books.
00:23:48.540 And the Apocryphal books, they were the intertestament books.
00:23:51.760 The canon was closed 400 years before Christ.
00:23:56.040 And then you had the Apocryphal books during that period of time.
00:24:01.280 When you were growing up, what did you learn, if anything, about Martin Luther and Protestants?
00:24:08.020 I'll never forget my uncle.
00:24:09.780 He was so angry with Martin Luther.
00:24:11.580 He said he divided the church.
00:24:14.520 But you know what, Allie Beth?
00:24:16.000 That's what the gospel does.
00:24:17.720 It divides believers from unbelievers. 0.96
00:24:20.260 Jesus said, I came to divide father against son, mother against daughter.
00:24:25.580 That's how powerful the gospel is.
00:24:28.080 And so, yes, the church was divided at that time because the gospel was being proclaimed,
00:24:33.960 and people were repenting and believing it,
00:24:36.520 and they became new creatures in Christ, born again of the Spirit.
00:24:40.200 All right.
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00:25:25.760 You mentioned before we started rolling that you were once a rocket scientist, correct?
00:25:30.920 That's correct.
00:25:31.360 Can you tell us kind of what happened between you, you know, leaving home, going to school,
00:25:37.140 and then before you started reading the Bible for yourself, I think you said at age 35.
00:25:42.640 Tell us about that time period, what your career was before that.
00:25:47.220 Well, sure.
00:25:47.660 I went to undergraduate school at University of Southwestern Louisiana,
00:25:52.860 which is now called the University of Louisiana.
00:25:55.940 Played baseball for the Ragin' Cajuns.
00:25:58.280 Got a degree in math.
00:25:59.680 And so my assignment at Cape Kennedy, Florida was to use my math degree, my math ability.
00:26:07.840 We created impact lines for if we had to destroy the missile,
00:26:12.500 we had to take into consideration all the drag coefficients of all the pieces, the wind velocities.
00:26:18.380 We had to protect the population from Cape Kennedy all the way down to Africa. 0.93
00:26:23.300 And so I really enjoyed my job.
00:26:25.720 I had a house right on the beach there in Cape Kennedy, Florida.
00:26:29.840 And shortly after that, after my career there, Ross Perot recruited me to Dallas and went to work for him,
00:26:38.900 selling computers all over the country.
00:26:40.660 And I'll never forget, every time I got on a plane Monday morning, I always had this great fear.
00:26:48.120 If the plane goes down, will I end up in purgatory or hell?
00:26:52.880 Because heaven wasn't an option.
00:26:55.660 Why?
00:26:56.300 Why?
00:26:56.800 Because even the popes believe they have to spend time in purgatory.
00:27:03.500 Oh, really?
00:27:03.980 Yeah, when the last couple of popes died, they had other cardinals come in and perform the sacrifice of the mass
00:27:11.200 for the purpose of getting the Holy Fathers out of a place called purgatory.
00:27:16.640 Is that the repose of the soul?
00:27:19.420 Is that what that means?
00:27:20.760 Right.
00:27:20.960 They were offering sacrifices for the sins of the popes.
00:27:27.020 And so, yeah, there was not an option to go to heaven directly.
00:27:30.980 You had to go through the purging fire of purgatory.
00:27:34.400 And now I get on a plane and travel all over the world.
00:27:37.100 I know if the plane goes down, immediately I'm in the presence of my Savior.
00:27:41.960 And that's because I have the assurance of eternal life.
00:27:45.920 And Roman Catholics don't have that assurance. 1.00
00:27:48.740 They have conditional life.
00:27:51.160 And, Allie, the difference between having assurance and not is the difference between what are you trusting in?
00:27:58.320 You see, the Catholic Church teaches you must do things to appease God and to merit heaven.
00:28:06.520 The Bible says Christ has done it all.
00:28:09.800 And so if you put all of your trust in what Christ has done, then you can have the assurance of eternal life.
00:28:15.660 As long as you're trusting in what you must do, there can be no assurance.
00:28:19.560 Because how do you know if you've ever done enough?
00:28:21.520 But when you trust the perfect sacrifice of Christ and His righteousness, that He canceled the eternal sin debt, that God no longer counts our sins against us.
00:28:32.560 And now He sees us perfectly righteous because the imputation of Christ's righteousness to every believer.
00:28:39.780 And so, you know, the gospel calls this good news.
00:28:42.560 I call it the greatest news a condemned sinner on death row could ever hear, that Christ died as a substitute so that you could go free.
00:28:52.400 What would a Catholic priest say the gospel is, if you were to ask?
00:29:00.020 It's a good question.
00:29:02.040 Well, you may remember the famous golfer Bruce Litsky.
00:29:08.160 We had a chance to witness to his wife, Rose.
00:29:11.720 She had her kids at Trinity Christian Academy.
00:29:15.820 That's where I went.
00:29:17.140 I went there, kindergarten through 12th grade, yep.
00:29:19.640 Well, her kids came home one day and said, Mom, the kids at school are saying, if you're a Catholic, you have no hope of going to heaven.
00:29:26.540 And so she was very distraught.
00:29:28.980 And through a mutual friend, she found out about our ministry.
00:29:31.760 And so we went over to her house and sat down with an open Bible.
00:29:36.840 And every time she asked a question, we let God answer the question for her.
00:29:41.820 And the more questions she asked, the more questions God answered.
00:29:46.240 She just kept going.
00:29:47.540 And then I remember about three hours into it, she said, how can I have the same peace that you and your wife have?
00:29:55.020 I said, the peace comes from knowing Christ Jesus as my Savior and knowing that the moment I die, I'm going to be in his presence.
00:30:03.780 And so she said, well, how can I receive that?
00:30:07.600 I said, well, let's let God answer that question, too.
00:30:10.840 So I turned to Mark 1.7.
00:30:13.760 Mark 1.15.
00:30:15.020 I said, read this.
00:30:17.820 The first command of Jesus was repent and believe the gospel.
00:30:21.600 And so the word repent means you need to change your mind about the former way that you were believing you could get to heaven and put your faith in the true gospel.
00:30:32.880 And then I took her to Romans 10, verses 9 and 10.
00:30:36.560 I asked her to read it.
00:30:37.820 If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.
00:30:45.560 I said, Rose, look at verse 13.
00:30:48.040 Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
00:30:51.660 And so she cried out to the Lord to save her.
00:30:54.760 And then she said, well, what am I going to do now?
00:30:57.240 I've just been named fundraiser at All Saints Catholic Church, and my son's an altar boy.
00:31:03.220 I've got to go talk to the priest.
00:31:05.880 And so she set up an appointment, asked if I would go with her.
00:31:09.260 And I said, sure, because I'm aware of the parable of the seed.
00:31:13.740 It was sown on her heart.
00:31:15.980 I didn't want to leave her one-on-one with a priest that could pluck it away.
00:31:21.140 And so I walked in.
00:31:23.920 I introduced myself to the priest, and I said, could you share with Rose how she has any hope of going to heaven?
00:31:30.440 And so he started listing the requirements.
00:31:33.600 Well, she has to be baptized.
00:31:36.320 That's the sacrament of regeneration and justification.
00:31:40.500 Then she has to receive the sacraments.
00:31:42.800 They are required for salvation.
00:31:45.160 She has to attend the weekly sacrifice of the mass.
00:31:49.440 She has to do good works in order to be justified.
00:31:52.620 She has to keep the law.
00:31:54.660 So I saw a Bible on his desk, and I said, could you open to the book of Romans?
00:31:59.980 And I'd like you to read a couple of verses.
00:32:03.600 And so he did.
00:32:05.060 And I said, how are you going to reconcile what God has just said with what you told Rose?
00:32:10.300 Well, now he knew why I was there.
00:32:12.400 He didn't like it.
00:32:13.580 No, he said, this meeting is over.
00:32:16.200 I said, no, there's nothing more important than settling this woman's eternal destiny.
00:32:21.100 And so for the next 15 minutes, he tried to reconcile God's Word with the Catholic plan of salvation.
00:32:27.160 And each time he did, I brought up another verse that refuted what he just said.
00:32:32.820 And he was just getting so frustrated and so angry to the point where he said, look, this meeting is over.
00:32:39.140 And so we got up, we walked out, and I opened my Bible to 2 Corinthians 4, too.
00:32:46.200 I said, Rose, look at this.
00:32:48.140 God presents the truth plainly to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
00:32:53.000 We don't rely on the bishops to interpret the Scriptures for us.
00:32:57.600 The Scriptures weren't written to bishops.
00:33:00.100 They were written to the saints at individual churches.
00:33:02.900 She said, oh, Mike, I know I can never go back to this church.
00:33:07.160 Here was a man with a collar on.
00:33:09.300 He couldn't even tell me how to get to heaven.
00:33:12.080 So a long answer to your question, but that's the Catholic gospel.
00:33:16.560 And priests say they don't have the authority to interpret the Scriptures.
00:33:21.640 They have to rely on their bishops.
00:33:22.980 By the way, the Catholic Church teaches the bishops are the only authentic interpreters of God's Word.
00:33:29.800 That's why whenever I witness to a priest, I say, you've got to come back home to Holy Mother the Church
00:33:34.600 because you have no authority to interpret the Scriptures on your own.
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00:34:22.280 I'm so curious to hear your insight into Marian doctrine because I've talked about this with Catholics, with Trent Horn.
00:34:33.980 We really got into it on the doctrine of Mary.
00:34:36.940 And this is something that I've found a lot of my Catholic friends are very defensive about.
00:34:43.380 They will say, we do not worship Mary.
00:34:46.000 We don't pray to Mary or pray to any saints.
00:34:49.240 We pray through them.
00:34:50.980 And because they are spiritually alive in heaven, then it's fine to pray to them.
00:34:56.260 And why not pray through Mary since she is the closest to Jesus and he will never refuse her?
00:35:04.380 That's the kind of language that I hear.
00:35:08.400 So, I mean, I won't give my thoughts and I have my own thoughts, but what's your take on that?
00:35:14.040 The Catholic Church gives Mary a lot of attributes that are reserved for God alone.
00:35:19.500 And, in fact, in the Catechism, it teaches that Mary was the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race.
00:35:28.680 And she continues to bring us the gifts of salvation.
00:35:32.700 And it's interesting because if she's the cause of salvation for herself, that means she was a sinner that needed salvation.
00:35:41.180 But yet the Catholic Church esteems Mary as sinless.
00:35:44.580 They teach the Immaculate Conception, that she was conceived without sin.
00:35:49.860 And then they teach that she lived a life without sin.
00:35:53.960 And so that was pronounced in 1854, the dogma of Immaculate Conception.
00:36:01.280 Well, Catholics began asking the question, well, if Mary never sinned and sin is what causes death, where's Mary?
00:36:09.520 And so in 1950, they had to come up with another infallible dogma, that Mary was miraculously assumed into heaven.
00:36:19.200 So she never died.
00:36:20.600 She was assumed into heaven.
00:36:22.200 And she was a perpetual virgin, they say, right?
00:36:24.760 They didn't, that she didn't have children, which I'm not sure how they square that with Scripture that says that Joseph and Mary did not consummate their marriage until, until,
00:36:37.520 until Jesus was born.
00:36:40.100 And then there's also, I mean, there is, there are references to Jesus' brothers and sisters in Scripture.
00:36:48.180 But the retort that I hear is that that's just a misinterpretation.
00:36:51.680 It's really sad.
00:36:54.460 In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul talks about how Eve was tempted by Satan.
00:37:01.600 And he said, I'm concerned that your devotion to Christ, your pure devotion to Christ, may be led astray.
00:37:09.120 And how is pure devotion to Christ led astray?
00:37:12.660 By venerating or turning to other people such as Mary and the saints.
00:37:18.820 You know, Christ is worthy of all honor and glory and blessing and dominion and on and on.
00:37:25.600 Mary, she was blessed to be the mother of Jesus, but she has no special case as far as devotion or praying to.
00:37:36.680 You know, they have a rosary.
00:37:39.220 53 of the prayers are to Mary, and only a few of the prayers are to the triune God.
00:37:44.180 And so you can see the emphasis is more toward Mary.
00:37:47.500 I don't understand why.
00:37:50.920 Why did they establish this Marian doctrine?
00:37:54.720 Why did they decide that Mary is someone that you pray through?
00:37:59.140 Where does that come from?
00:38:00.140 It does not come from Scripture.
00:38:02.120 I've asked very smart Catholics to show me even where Scripture alludes to that.
00:38:08.840 And I do not get a response.
00:38:11.720 I've never gotten a response.
00:38:12.580 So where does that doctrine come from?
00:38:14.140 Allie, Beth, it goes back to once you no longer submit to the supreme authority of God's Word, then you allow religious traditions to come in.
00:38:23.860 And this is what happened down through the years.
00:38:28.280 They started elevating Mary.
00:38:31.000 And, you know, you look at the Queen of Heaven.
00:38:33.700 It's in Jeremiah 44.
00:38:35.280 It was a pagan goddess.
00:38:36.440 And yet they call Mary the Queen of Heaven because Jesus is the King of Heaven.
00:38:42.300 Jesus is an advocate, so they elevate Mary to be an advocate.
00:38:47.640 Now, Jesus is the only sinless mediator, clearly stated in 1 Timothy 2.5.
00:38:53.160 But yet they declare Mary was also a sinless mediatrix of all grace.
00:38:57.440 And so where did it come from?
00:39:00.600 Through not submitting to the authority of God's Word to allow traditions to come into the church.
00:39:06.700 And, you know, we talked about Jesus only starting one church.
00:39:10.220 Yes, He started your church and my church and the Catholic church.
00:39:15.100 We can all trace our roots back to Matthew 16, 18, where Jesus said,
00:39:19.920 I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
00:39:24.600 So what is the nature of the church of Jesus Christ?
00:39:28.520 You're not baptized by water in order to gain entrance.
00:39:33.320 You're baptized by the Holy Spirit.
00:39:35.640 We see that in 1 Corinthians 12, 13.
00:39:38.400 We are baptized by one spirit into one body.
00:39:41.140 That is the church of Christ.
00:39:43.500 And it has one head.
00:39:44.900 The Catholic church has two heads.
00:39:47.260 They submit to the Pope as head as well.
00:39:49.920 And we look at the true church.
00:39:54.000 Every member of the true church of Jesus Christ, their name is enrolled in heaven.
00:39:59.520 Well, that disqualifies the Catholic church because they would be the first to admit that not all Catholics will go to heaven.
00:40:06.020 If they die in the state of mortal sin, then they'll go to hell.
00:40:10.600 And so, again, that goes against the whole doctrine of justification.
00:40:15.740 So who do they believe goes to heaven immediately?
00:40:19.520 Anyone?
00:40:20.580 No.
00:40:21.420 Not even someone that they elevate to the place of saint?
00:40:25.280 No.
00:40:25.960 It's just some people spend longer time in purgatory to be purged of our sinfulness.
00:40:32.140 Even the Pope, you said.
00:40:33.600 Yes.
00:40:33.920 Even the Pope had venial sins that had to be purged away.
00:40:37.040 So Jesus' death did not earn salvation for anyone, really, according to that doctrine.
00:40:43.360 Because if after you die, you still have to be cleansed of your sin, then the sacrifice was insufficient, right?
00:40:49.000 That's right.
00:40:50.520 Yeah.
00:40:50.740 When you get right down to it, the Jesus of the Catholic church merely opened the gates of heaven. 0.68
00:40:56.920 And now Catholics must do their part to get through those gates.
00:41:00.540 It all depends on what they do and whether or not they can die in the state of grace, albeit venial sins instead of mortal sin.
00:41:10.320 And so you look at the Jesus of the Catholic church, and it's not the Jesus that's gloriously revealed in Scripture.
00:41:18.560 I don't know if you're aware, but the Jesus of the Catholic church did not finish the work of redemption.
00:41:26.900 And yet we see in Hebrews 9 that when he obtained eternal redemption, he entered into heaven.
00:41:33.980 But the Catholic church says, no, Jesus must come back down from heaven at the beck and call of a priest
00:41:40.340 and be transubstantiated into a wafer so that he can be offered again on Catholic altars.
00:41:49.780 And that offering is for the sins committed by Catholics in the previous week. 0.99
00:41:55.800 We know that Jesus canceled the eternal sin debt for all sins of all believers.
00:42:02.520 But the work of redemption continues on Catholic altars, and he didn't satisfy divine justice, the Catholic Jesus.
00:42:09.420 He doesn't offer eternal life.
00:42:12.200 He offers only conditional life.
00:42:14.100 And so the Catholics need to read about the true Jesus as he's gloriously revealed in Scripture.
00:42:20.820 There are a lot of icons and images used within the Catholic church, much more than within the Protestant church.
00:42:27.020 Obviously, you've got the crucifix, and then you've also got Mary.
00:42:30.320 You've got the rosary.
00:42:31.980 There are statues and votive candles of depictions of saints.
00:42:36.860 And do Catholics have a response to, well, what about the second commandment? 0.79
00:42:43.440 What about the prohibition against graven images?
00:42:45.960 We're certainly not supposed to pray to graven images.
00:42:49.080 I mean, of course, we see that in Israel and the Old Testament, that they wanted a graven image to pray to and to idolize.
00:42:58.120 Surely someone has contended with that, though, within the Catholic church.
00:43:02.800 What's their response to that?
00:43:04.340 Well, they removed the second commandment from their catechism and turned the last commandment into two.
00:43:13.000 You know, the second commandment is do not create an image of anything in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters below, or bow down and worship them.
00:43:20.880 And when you look at the Catholic religion, that's all they have is icons and images and statues.
00:43:26.780 And you see pictures of popes bowing down to statues of Mary.
00:43:31.340 And it just goes against the second commandment.
00:43:34.600 And you go into any Catholic bookstore and you see statues and icons everywhere.
00:43:40.500 And so, again, it's heartbreaking to see that the pure devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ is not practiced by many Roman Catholics.
00:43:48.780 Okay.
00:43:51.100 You said that they removed the second commandment from their catechism and turned the last commandment into two?
00:43:57.160 Right.
00:43:57.700 I don't think I realized that.
00:43:58.960 Can you explain that?
00:44:00.000 Yeah.
00:44:00.340 Just open any catechism of the Catholic church and you'll see the traditional Ten Commandments on one side of the page and then the Roman Catholic commandments.
00:44:08.920 And you'll see a blank space where the second commandment is.
00:44:12.980 And then you go down and you see they created two commandments for the last one.
00:44:18.140 They shall not covet their neighbor's goods or their neighbor's wife.
00:44:22.340 They turn that into two.
00:44:24.320 So they can say that it's the Ten Commandments still.
00:44:28.380 So they have to split up.
00:44:29.260 So how do they get around the prohibition against necromancy?
00:44:36.320 Would you say that praying to or through Mary or the saints is the same thing as trying to be a medium or necromancy, which is clearly prohibited to Israel in the Old Testament?
00:44:48.360 Yeah, you look at Deuteronomy 18 and it's an abomination to God if you consult the dead.
00:44:55.500 So when you pray to Mary and the saints, you're consulting the dead.
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00:45:57.300 What about the Eucharist?
00:45:59.340 That is one that I hear a lot, actually, people who go from Protestant to Catholic.
00:46:04.180 I hear, well, it was really the Eucharist, having the real presence of Christ.
00:46:09.460 You hear Catholics say that they yearn for that.
00:46:13.700 That's why they go to Mass every day.
00:46:15.740 Satisfies them spiritually to have the real body and the real blood of Christ that has been transubstantiated in these physical objects.
00:46:25.240 Talk about that, why that's important to Catholic doctrine and why we don't believe it.
00:46:29.280 It's really amazing.
00:46:31.160 The imprimatur of the Catholic Church is given on this statement.
00:46:35.040 When the priest speaks the words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens and brings Christ down from his throne.
00:46:42.520 It's a power greater than saints and angels.
00:46:45.620 He speaks and, lo, Christ, the omnipotent God, bows his head in humble submission to the priest's command.
00:46:53.040 And so that's what the Catholic Church believes.
00:46:55.540 The priest calls Jesus down from heaven through the, quote-unquote, miracle of transubstantiation.
00:47:01.880 The wafer becomes his physical body and blood, soul and divinity.
00:47:06.580 And so he's offered up again on an altar.
00:47:10.000 It's a propitiatory sacrifice.
00:47:13.520 And Catholics gather around the altar on Sundays to have their sins that were committed in the previous week forgiven
00:47:21.600 by this propitiatory sacrifice of the Eucharist.
00:47:25.000 So, what do we say to Catholics?
00:47:29.200 It's got to be a false Christ by the authority of Scripture.
00:47:32.640 Because in Acts 3.21, we see that Jesus must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything.
00:47:41.560 In Hebrews 9.28, we read,
00:47:44.200 He will return a second time and not to deal with sin.
00:47:47.560 So, the Jesus that the priest has said to be calling down,
00:47:53.020 He's coming back down to deal with sin on Catholic altars.
00:47:56.580 The Bible tells us when He's going to return after the tribulation,
00:48:01.100 how He's going to return with power and great glory.
00:48:05.260 He's also going to return the same way He left, according to Acts 1.11.
00:48:08.960 He left in a body, a physical body, and that's the way He's going to return.
00:48:14.300 He's going to return to the Mount of Olives.
00:48:16.640 And so we have all these Scriptures that show the Eucharistic Christ is a false Christ.
00:48:22.740 And I must warn Catholics that when you worship the Eucharist, 1.00
00:48:27.660 it's the same sin of idolatry as the Israelites who worshiped the golden calf 0.99
00:48:33.680 as the true God that delivered them out of Egypt.
00:48:37.020 You know, when the priest holds up the Eucharist and says,
00:48:39.600 Body of Christ, Jesus said,
00:48:42.480 If anybody says that, don't believe them.
00:48:45.020 The Lord Himself said that.
00:48:47.860 And yet, every time Catholic priests lift that up and say,
00:48:50.940 The body of Christ, Catholics say, Amen.
00:48:53.900 They believe it to be true.
00:48:56.020 So it's really heartbreaking.
00:48:57.960 If only Catholics would read their Scriptures. 1.00
00:49:01.120 What do you make of prominent figures, especially in conservative media,
00:49:06.280 now publicly converting to Catholicism?
00:49:08.780 You've got Jordan Peterson and his wife.
00:49:10.900 You've got Candace Owens.
00:49:12.800 There's a handful of others that I can think of.
00:49:15.880 And obviously, there are a lot of very prominent Catholics
00:49:18.880 in the conservative media sphere.
00:49:21.100 I'm very thankful for those people.
00:49:22.500 I'm friends with those people.
00:49:24.320 But what do you think about that seeming shift,
00:49:28.680 at least in the public world of prominent people going towards Catholicism?
00:49:34.540 Well, there's two things to consider.
00:49:36.320 In fact, even the vice president candidate, J.D. Vance,
00:49:42.040 converted to Catholicism three years ago.
00:49:44.580 And if you read his testimony,
00:49:46.020 it was because he read the early church fathers.
00:49:48.440 And that's one of the calling cards of many Protestants
00:49:51.380 that leave to join the Catholic Church.
00:49:53.700 They're encouraged by Catholic apologists not to read the Bible,
00:49:57.460 but to read the early church fathers.
00:49:59.580 And they stress the importance of the Eucharist.
00:50:02.340 You must receive the Eucharist to have the fullness of salvation.
00:50:06.620 That's what is taught.
00:50:07.600 And so it really comes down to this, Allie Beth.
00:50:11.040 Should we trust the uninspired words of men,
00:50:15.320 i.e. the early church fathers,
00:50:17.060 or the inspired word of God?
00:50:19.180 It really comes down to that.
00:50:21.540 And, you know, at the end of the Apostle Paul's ministry,
00:50:24.380 when he was standing before the Ephesian elders,
00:50:27.160 he was very concerned.
00:50:29.760 He said,
00:50:30.680 even from your own number,
00:50:32.440 men will arise to distort the truth
00:50:34.620 in order to lead people astray.
00:50:37.360 So when a Catholic apologist tells me
00:50:39.340 to read the early church fathers,
00:50:41.540 I say, how do you know
00:50:42.800 that the fathers you want me to read
00:50:45.060 are not the very people Paul warned us about
00:50:47.380 that would even rise up among the Ephesian elder board
00:50:50.560 for the purpose of leading people astray?
00:50:52.920 No, we must trust the inspired word of God
00:50:56.020 over the uninspired words of men.
00:50:59.400 And give us just a quick breakdown
00:51:01.060 of how we know that the 66 books that we have
00:51:04.320 are the inspired, inerrant word,
00:51:07.000 and not the works of the church fathers,
00:51:08.940 not the Catholic apocrypha.
00:51:10.840 Yeah, good question.
00:51:13.020 The early church was persecuted for their faith,
00:51:17.540 and their faith came from reading the scriptures.
00:51:20.160 The scriptures were passed around from church to church.
00:51:26.060 The apostle Peter said the writings of Paul were scripture.
00:51:31.040 So the early church knew what the inspired word of God was,
00:51:34.440 and that's why they were willing to die for their faith.
00:51:37.600 Now, the canons that came along later,
00:51:39.900 they were primarily to eliminate any spurious books
00:51:43.040 that were vying for canonicity.
00:51:45.860 About the first 300 years of the church,
00:51:47.820 they knew what the 66 books were.
00:51:50.820 You know, the Old Testament canon was closed 400 years
00:51:53.420 before the Catholic church even existed,
00:51:56.560 if you suggest that they were started in the first century.
00:52:00.880 I believe, more importantly,
00:52:02.540 it was started years later
00:52:04.180 when they departed from the authority of scripture.
00:52:07.180 But anyway, yeah, the canon was closed
00:52:09.540 from the Old Testament 400 years before,
00:52:12.620 and then the early church knew
00:52:15.380 what the New Testament writings were.
00:52:18.980 And you said that when you started reading the Bible
00:52:23.300 when you were 35 years old,
00:52:26.140 and all of this was kind of revealed to you,
00:52:30.740 I guess for the first time,
00:52:32.660 and you talked to your uncle
00:52:34.720 who kind of tried to talk you back.
00:52:36.720 Tell me a little bit about the immediate aftermath of that.
00:52:41.620 Your wife, your family, I'm sure you have children.
00:52:45.500 Tell me about that process
00:52:47.200 because there's a lot of people listening right now.
00:52:50.080 Maybe the Holy Spirit is convicting them,
00:52:52.300 but they've got their church,
00:52:53.780 they've got their spouse,
00:52:54.820 they've got their kids,
00:52:55.700 they've got their coworkers,
00:52:56.740 they've maybe got their audience,
00:52:58.120 and they're thinking,
00:52:59.140 how in the world am I gonna turn from that?
00:53:01.260 Yes, we get emails and phone calls
00:53:04.160 on that issue every day, every week.
00:53:07.720 And it's heartbreaking
00:53:08.580 because I can't think of anything worse
00:53:11.720 than to be unequally yoked with your spouse,
00:53:14.580 to have one believer and one unbeliever.
00:53:17.360 And sometimes that comes about
00:53:18.980 because one of them converted
00:53:20.460 and the other one didn't.
00:53:21.980 But oftentimes it's because
00:53:23.860 people that don't know
00:53:28.100 that Catholicism may be an apostate form
00:53:31.080 of Christianity end up marrying a Catholic
00:53:33.980 not knowing that they're gonna be unequally yoked.
00:53:37.680 And so it goes back to what Paul wrote
00:53:40.640 in 2 Corinthians 6, 14 to 18,
00:53:43.640 that we cannot be unequally yoked.
00:53:46.280 We cannot share a relationship
00:53:50.400 with unbelievers in marriage.
00:53:52.540 What does light have in common with darkness?
00:53:54.880 What do believers have in common with unbelievers? 0.99
00:53:57.720 What does Christ have in common with Belial? 1.00
00:54:00.040 And so we have to remain sanctified by the truth.
00:54:04.020 But once a situation develops
00:54:06.600 where you have a believing spouse
00:54:08.760 and an unbelieving spouse,
00:54:10.660 we have to encourage people to pray
00:54:14.120 that the Spirit of God would bring conviction
00:54:16.240 and illumination as the Word of God is shared.
00:54:19.820 And we often say that just as in a physical birth,
00:54:24.980 you need two ingredients,
00:54:26.160 the sperm and the egg,
00:54:27.080 and spiritual birth,
00:54:28.140 you need two ingredients also.
00:54:29.940 You need the Word of God and the Spirit of God.
00:54:32.500 Well, we can't control the Spirit of God,
00:54:34.600 but we can control the Word of God.
00:54:37.560 And so Peter called the Word of God
00:54:39.520 the imperishable seed that brings forth life.
00:54:41.900 And so we have to keep sowing the seed
00:54:44.960 in these relationships
00:54:46.440 and pray that the Spirit of God
00:54:48.360 would bring conviction and illumination.
00:54:51.980 And it's really difficult
00:54:52.920 when we just got a call two days ago
00:54:55.460 of a man who was a Catholic,
00:54:59.400 married to a Catholic,
00:55:00.660 brought up the five children as Catholic,
00:55:03.200 and now he is just,
00:55:05.220 after watching one of our videos,
00:55:07.100 he called out to the Lord to save him,
00:55:09.680 he repented of the false way he was on,
00:55:11.720 and said,
00:55:13.020 what am I going to do now
00:55:14.060 with my wife and my kids?
00:55:16.160 They don't want to talk to me about it.
00:55:17.760 They shut me down.
00:55:19.420 He said, you've got to pray.
00:55:21.380 And I encouraged him to get a copy of my book,
00:55:23.680 Preparing for Eternity,
00:55:25.040 and encouraged his wife to read it
00:55:27.340 and even say that you'll read one of her books.
00:55:29.720 Exactly.
00:55:30.300 You know, if she's cutting off the conversation,
00:55:32.380 why don't we share books with one another
00:55:34.520 and that way there's no interruption.
00:55:36.760 So yeah, when I wrote Preparing for Eternity,
00:55:39.980 I wrote it because of the fact that
00:55:43.580 it comes down to
00:55:45.780 what does the Word of God say
00:55:48.160 versus what does religion say?
00:55:50.720 What does the inspired Word of God say
00:55:52.840 versus what does the uninspired words of men say?
00:55:55.680 And so in the book,
00:55:56.540 I just lay it out,
00:55:57.920 God's Word versus the Catholic teaching.
00:56:00.320 And so it forces a Catholic to choose.
00:56:03.280 Should I trust God and His Word
00:56:05.360 or the teachings of my religion?
00:56:07.720 So it set many Roman Catholics free. 1.00
00:56:10.500 And we praise God for all the opportunities
00:56:13.460 we've had to make this book available.
00:56:17.080 There's a lot of beauty,
00:56:19.800 even just aesthetic beauty,
00:56:21.160 I would say within the Catholic Church.
00:56:24.000 And obviously the tradition,
00:56:25.740 there is at least some kind of sense of unity
00:56:28.440 when it comes to the catechism
00:56:29.940 and the homilies,
00:56:31.980 which are the same everywhere,
00:56:33.900 every week,
00:56:35.160 the same routine of mass,
00:56:38.120 the sacraments.
00:56:38.880 There's something that seems tangible there.
00:56:42.260 There's something that offers
00:56:44.720 kind of seeming stability
00:56:47.160 and routine.
00:56:48.340 And in a world that is so progressive
00:56:50.300 and chaotic,
00:56:51.440 I think that is attractive to some people.
00:56:53.900 And then when you see
00:56:54.940 some Protestant evangelical churches,
00:56:57.640 ones that you and I would not go to
00:56:59.380 because they're not moored by the Word of God
00:57:01.400 that are preaching all kinds of crazy things,
00:57:03.580 either progressive things,
00:57:04.560 prosperity gospel,
00:57:05.740 or they're really just
00:57:06.620 some kind of smoke show.
00:57:08.080 They're not even real.
00:57:09.880 They're not even preaching the Word.
00:57:11.820 I think it's easy for some people
00:57:13.540 and some Catholics 0.60
00:57:14.280 to look at that craziness
00:57:16.180 on the Protestant side, 0.91
00:57:18.120 if you can even call it that,
00:57:19.160 and say,
00:57:19.440 oh, I'm going to stick to this old stuff.
00:57:22.360 I'm going to stick to the more traditional stuff.
00:57:25.160 There is an aspect there
00:57:26.200 that's attractive and beautiful.
00:57:27.620 So how do we contend with that?
00:57:30.180 Yeah, it's really interesting
00:57:31.460 because there are a lot of,
00:57:33.580 I call them seeker-friendly churches,
00:57:36.820 that the pastor is more interested
00:57:39.680 in making people happy
00:57:40.980 instead of holy
00:57:41.860 and tickling their ears
00:57:43.100 with feel-good messages.
00:57:44.840 And so then they look at the formality
00:57:47.140 of the Catholic Church,
00:57:48.100 as you so well described,
00:57:50.160 and that's an attraction
00:57:51.080 because a lot of Protestant churches
00:57:53.740 are very informal.
00:57:54.800 But the Catholic Church teaches
00:57:57.200 that you must first see
00:57:59.260 and then you'll believe.
00:58:00.900 Jesus said you must first believe 0.66
00:58:02.600 and then you will see.
00:58:04.680 And so there's a big difference there.
00:58:06.920 But I would just encourage,
00:58:10.500 you know,
00:58:11.180 it's so difficult going back
00:58:12.940 to the question you just asked
00:58:14.300 because, you know,
00:58:16.020 we see that the natural man
00:58:17.420 cannot discern the things of God
00:58:19.040 because they're spiritually appraised,
00:58:21.100 what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2.
00:58:23.080 So as we're sharing the gospel
00:58:25.320 with unbelievers
00:58:26.260 and they are not spiritually appraising
00:58:28.880 what we're sharing from God's Word,
00:58:31.320 we need to pray more than ever
00:58:32.660 that the Spirit of God
00:58:33.960 would give them eyes to see.
00:58:36.540 You know, we see in 2 Corinthians 4
00:58:38.520 that the God of this world
00:58:40.780 has blinded the minds of unbelievers 0.99
00:58:42.800 so they cannot see the light
00:58:44.800 of the gospel of the glory of Christ.
00:58:47.020 We have to recognize
00:58:48.220 when we're witnessing to people
00:58:50.100 that are blinded
00:58:51.560 from the light of the gospel
00:58:52.660 that the only hope
00:58:53.740 is the Spirit of God
00:58:55.360 to shine in their heart
00:58:57.380 and reveal the truth to them.
00:58:59.780 But I'm amazed
00:59:00.560 the preceding chapter,
00:59:02.360 Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3.18,
00:59:05.100 the veil of blindness
00:59:06.180 remains on every man's heart
00:59:07.960 until they turn to Christ.
00:59:10.460 So as long as a Catholic 1.00
00:59:11.940 is turning to his priest
00:59:13.820 or his bishop or his pope,
00:59:16.720 the veil of blindness remains.
00:59:18.480 But when they turn to Christ,
00:59:21.620 the veil will be removed.
00:59:23.320 And I love John 14.6.
00:59:25.220 Jesus said,
00:59:25.900 I am the way, the truth, and the life.
00:59:28.060 No one comes to the Father
00:59:29.300 except through me.
00:59:30.580 That's because he's the way
00:59:32.020 for those who are lost.
00:59:33.440 He's the truth
00:59:34.260 for those who are deceived.
00:59:36.120 And he's the very life
00:59:37.900 for those who are dead in their sins.
00:59:40.180 We need to look to Christ.
00:59:42.340 Amen.
00:59:43.000 Thank you so much.
00:59:44.120 And if people want to find out more
00:59:45.640 about your ministry,
00:59:46.980 what you've written,
00:59:47.600 where can they go?
00:59:49.020 They can go to our website,
00:59:50.700 proclaimingthegospel.org,
00:59:53.160 or they can call us
00:59:55.020 at 817-379-5300.
00:59:59.860 And we man the phones 24-7.
01:00:02.440 You can call any time of the day.
01:00:04.800 And we're there to
01:00:05.740 not only equip the body of Christ
01:00:08.200 to be faithful and effective witnesses
01:00:10.140 to this huge mission field,
01:00:11.600 but we're there for people
01:00:13.320 who have questions about
01:00:14.600 whether or not they're
01:00:15.920 on the way to heaven.
01:00:17.460 And so we just want to serve
01:00:19.020 the body of Christ
01:00:19.880 in whatever way we can.
01:00:21.780 So our website,
01:00:22.940 proclaimingthegospel.org,
01:00:25.040 and our phone number,
01:00:26.220 817-379-5300.
01:00:29.580 And we're there to help people out
01:00:31.220 in any way we can.
01:00:32.760 Thank you so much.
01:00:33.580 I really appreciate it.
01:00:34.720 Thank you for the wonderful privilege.
01:00:36.180 Bye bye.
01:00:39.400 Bye bye.
01:00:41.040 Bye bye.
01:00:42.140 Bye bye.
01:00:42.980 Bye bye.
01:00:43.460 Bye bye.
01:00:43.980 Bye bye.
01:00:44.760 Bye bye bye.
01:00:44.920 Bye bye.
01:00:45.520 Bye bye.
01:00:45.920 Bye bye.
01:00:46.760 Bye bye bye.
01:00:47.080 Bye bye.
01:00:49.720 Bye bye bye.
01:00:53.360 Bye bye bye.
01:00:55.100 Bye bye.
01:01:00.000 Bye bye bye.
01:01:04.720 Bye bye bye bye.