There are 1.1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide based on Vatican figures, with more than 40% of them living in Latin America. According to their website, Roman Catholics attain salvation by keeping seven sacraments, two of which they claim have more importance. But are the tenets of Catholicism in unison with orthodox Christianity? Are you aware of the Papacy’s Vatican II Ecumenical Council in the mid 1960’s declaring all faiths equal? What impact does this have on modern-day followers of Catholicism? Carl takes the time to review six of the more common teachings in Catholicism, comparing them to Holy Scripture, tune in now…

Here is a complete transcript of the podcast…(below)

Today I’m going to talk about the Catholic Church and whether or not their doctrine of salvation is the same doctrine that Jesus and the Apostles preached. How exactly does one get to heaven if you’re a Catholic? Friend, this is a touchy subject to say the least. There are approximately 1.1 billion Catholics worldwide and I sincerely believe there are true believers in Christ that reside within its organization no doubt. Many of them love God and God loves them, but it’s the doctrines and leadership I’m going to address today.

Did you know the term Catholic, comes from the Greek word “katholikos” which means ‘universal’. Friend, the greatest threat to true Christianity today is the repression of biblical truth for the sake of unity but unfortunately this is the ecumenical path many churches have gone down. The Papacy’s Vatican II Ecumenical Council in the mid 1960’s was where these heretical decrees toward ecumenicity were formulated. These doctrines later funneled the Catholic Church into finally acknowledging all faiths of the world, as equal when Pope John Paul II and even Mother Theresa later stated that Catholics and Muslims serve the same God, which is a lie. No friend this is simply more evidence of apostasy from true Biblical orthodoxy.

The Encyclopedia Britannica further expounds upon this apostasy by saying “the church is called catholic on the ground of its worldwide extension, its doctrinal completeness, its adaptation to the needs of men of every kind, and its moral and spiritual perfection.” Clearly it chooses to adapt or pander to the needs of men, more than it cares about God’s Holy Word and this my friend, is certainly not spiritual perfection or at least by God’s standard. Now, if you go to the catholic website, they outline 7 sacraments and by keeping these sacraments in one’s lifetime, then one can make it to heaven. They are:

1) Baptism: in which according to them removes original sin.
2) Penance: in which one confesses his/her sins to a priest, not Jesus I might add.
3) The Eucharist: considered the reception and consumption of the actual body and blood of Christ.
4) Confirmation: a formal acceptance into the church.
5) Anointing of the sick: performed by a priest only and never a lay person.
6) Holy Orders: the process by which men are ordained to clergy.
7) Matrimony: which provides special grace to a couple.

Did you notice something missing from the list friend? There is no mention of repentance, becoming born again or being baptized into Christ. There is no mention of believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ. This is my concern for all Catholics. Now certainly there are traditions that Protestants follow like Catholics, that include confirmation and praying for the sick, but these don’t provide salvation. Also, one needs to perpetually participate in these sacraments, otherwise they claim you’ll fall into disfavor with God, and this reinforces their works-based salvation.

Now of all the seven sacraments that I’ve mentioned, two of them specifically are said to be requisite by the Roman Catholic Church to attain eternal life: and these are baptism and communion. Because of the Roman Catholic Church’s belief that baptism is required for salvation, Catholics maintain that it’s important to baptize infants. But nowhere in Scripture can you find even a single example of this, and neither are we commanded to do so.

Friend, we do believe in baptizing in water because the bible commands us to do so, after we’re saved. It’s a symbolic act of our death, burial and resurrection with Christ Jesus. It’s also symbolic of our past life being buried and resurrected into newness of life, just as Israel passed through the Red Sea and entered into the Promised Land. But friend, we know from Christ’s account on the cross that baptism is not necessary for salvation. It’s certainly a command of our Lord as an act of allegiance and obedience to Him but our salvation is not dependent upon it. For example, when Jesus was crucified between two thieves on the cross, one of them said, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom (Lk 23:42)“, to which the Lord answered, “climb down from the cross friend, find a bathtub, fill it, and baptize yourself, then you will join me in paradise.” No, no no, my friend, he didn’t say that you simply need to repent and believe upon the Lord Jesus.

Now let’s talk a bit about some of the actual false teachings within Roman Catholicism.

1. Calling priests, Father: As you know the Priests in Catholicism are called Father, but this is strictly forbidden in scripture. Remember Jesus warned his disciples against this when he said, “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9).
2. Idol worship: – The worship of statues and idols goes directly against the second commandment. In most Catholic churches there are idols and statues everywhere and even saints are venerated or worshipped on par with God. This goes against Holy Scripture, ^“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth^{” (}Exodus 20:4).
3. Praying repetitive prayers with beads. Friend, what possible benefit is there in saying the Rosary a hundred times with the same chant, over and over again?” Hail Mary mother of God blessed art thou amongst women and the fruit of thy womb Jesus.” This is nothing but vain-less repetition. Jesus warned against this in Matthew 6:7 ^7 “But when you pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen does: for they think that they’ll be heard for their much speaking.”
4. The Virgin Mary on par with God: Roman Catholics teach the Virgin Mary never had sex after Jesus was born and that Jesus had no brothers and sisters, which we know, is a lie. Newsflash, Mary is no longer a virgin folks. In fact, Mary was in the Upper Room in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and got Spirit filled, just like the other 119 people on that day. Now the Pope teaches that Mary is the mediator between God and man, but this friend is shear blasphemy. Jesus is our mediator and intercessor not Mary. Catholics also engage in more praising of and praying to Mary than Jesus Christ himself. The Rosary most often ends with “Hail, Holy Queen” to Mary, not God. This is the personification of the worship of the Queen of Heaven that down the ages has posed as Ashtoreth, Diana and Semiramis. This is mother worship and has nothing to do with true Christianity.
5. Saints are determined by the ruling Papacy and not by the word of God: Friend, the Bible makes it clear, we are all saints, kings and priests, in God’s sight but according to the Papacy only ‘special’ people who’ve done tremendous services for the Holy Mother Church like Mother Theresa or Augustine can be called saints. This is a lie. In Rev 1:6 and Rev 5:10, Christ calls the church kings and priests, in his sight. Also, in the NT we the church are addressed as saints on 62 occasions.
6. Catholics are taught that only the priests can understand the Bible and the common man in the pew is clueless to interpret it, without the priest’s help. But friend, a 12 yr. old can understand the bible. William Tyndale speaking to a Catholic priest said this, “If God spare my life many years, I will cause the boy that drives the plow to know more of the scriptures than you” and they burned him at the stake for saying that. The sad fact is the Catholic priests of the Middle Ages would withhold the true doctrine that Christ redeemed mankind, and all they had to do was repent, put their trust in him and be saved by Grace through Faith as Ephesians 2:8-8 outlines. Instead, these Catholic priests would use the laities lack of knowledge as a weapon against them, through several forms of false doctrines, in order to control them. If ever the truth got out to the common man about Jesus wanting to save every one of their sins, then the Catholic Church would lose its power and that’s exactly what happened during the Protestant Reformation. Once the printing press was invented by Johann Gutenburg in 1450 and Bibles got into the hands of the common people, the Catholics power waned throughout Europe. Sixty years later these Bible publications in the German language enabled Martin Luther to come to the full realization of saving Grace through faith.

Friend, there’s a reason Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the church door at Wittenberg in Germany in 1517, after immense frustration, commencing the Protestant Reformation. Luther was sick and tired of the bondage that Catholicism held people in, and that bondage still exists today unfortunately. They made up doctrines like purgatory in the 13th century, which is supposedly a middle ground between heaven and hell, having no basis in the word of God.

They claimed that because some people are not fit for the afterlife, they had to undergo a transformative purification until the priest assured the relatives, they had completed this purification. And guess what, if the priests were paid money by the relatives, this would speed up the process of transformation. What a coincidence! So, you had a bunch of innocent yet ignorant people who didn’t have a Bible in their own language, paying priests to get their dead loved ones out of purgatory.

These so-called indulgences in the form of payment; would offer remission from temporal punishment due to sin, in purgatory. This perverse doctrine reached a crescendo when Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar and seller of indulgences at the time of Luther, declared, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.” No wonder that Luther protested against this sickening and degenerate practice of indulgences as a descent into the worst kind of works-righteousness possible by stating Eph 2:8-9 was the remedy for this malpractice. Luther was obviously confronted by the Papacy for his perceived attack on the Catholic church and was asked to recant his views, but Luther held his ground by saying, ” Unless I can be instructed and convinced with evidence from the Holy Scriptures or with open, clear, and distinct grounds of reasoning … then I cannot and will not recant, because it’s neither safe nor wise to act against conscience.” Friend, Luther boldly chose to take a stand and would not injure his conscience, because the truth of God’s word was out, and the Holy See could no longer control the Vox Populi through ignorance of God’s word.

Courageous men like Martin Luther, John Huss, John Wycliffe, Desiderius Erasmus and William Tyndale wanted to get the bible into the hands of the common man but the Papacy’s insistence that only Priests could rightly interpret the bible caused the Papacy to hunt, kill and even burn many commoners at the stake, for their godly desire of reading the Holy Writ in their own language. As I said, this included William Tyndale, who was an English Bible translator. Tyndale was strangled and burned to death and his dying words were “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes“, and sure enough King Henry VIII ordered the Bible of Miles Coverdale to be used in every parish in the land, shortly thereafter. Later King James published the paragon of God’s word, the King James Bible. Thank God for these brave men.

Now the shocking statistic I’m about to share with you, reveals the bloodthirstiness of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the ages, who in my opinion have been utilized by satanic forces on occasion to quench the true Gospel. John Dowling documented this in his fine work, — “History of Romanism,” published in 1871.and I quote…

“From the birth of Popery in 606AD to the present time, it’s estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than fifty million of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors, an average of more than forty thousand religious murders for every year of the existence of popery.”

Friend, this is simply ridiculous, tragic, shocking, devastating and I’m lost for words upon hearing the amount, of martyrs that suffered at the hands of the medieval Catholic Church, but God knows. I urge you friend, to share the Gospel with your Catholic friends. Let them know that no amount, of sacramental observances will ever be good enough in the sight of God because there is none righteous, no not one. Friend this is a difficult topic to cover, but like I said, no topic is off the table, and we must always defend the truth, no matter what.

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