Transcription
Number one, Roman Catholicism is false and anti-Christian doctrine because of the Mass. I'm going to read to you several. And by the way, I want to be an honest church historian. I did work for many years and have a PhD in church history, and I don't think that you win an argument by misrepresenting or falsely quoting someone. The Word of God stands totally on its own. It does not need any defense. As Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, the Bible is like a caged lion. You don't have to defend it. You just let it out. It works on its own.
So basically, what I'm going to do for you tonight, and I would suggest that if you're a passive listener, that you get active tonight. You dig down in the bottom of that purse, buy all the gum wrappers, and find your pen. You find a pencil or pen and jot down some notes. Underline a few verses in your Bible. Even go so far as to write in the back, "Roman Catholicism," and write a few key verses because you need to be prepared at any time to speak the truth in love to the people that you love, that you live next to, perhaps that live in your home, perhaps that are at all your family parties, at every baby shower and wedding you go to. And God perhaps will give you the opportunity of opening your heart to some of them. And you need to lovingly, firmly, and unapologetically present the truth. Let the lion out of the cage and confront them with the gospel.
Romanism, first of all, is false because of its doctrine of the Mass. And I'd like to read to you from the Creed of Pope Pius the Fourth. Pius, as they say, a pious. I like to call him the Fourth, who summarized the findings of the Great Council of Trent. This fifth article, which is obtainable in probably any library, and definitely to go down here to see Father Nick and ask him, he'd give it to you. But article 5 says this: "The Mass then, in and I quote, the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, there is truly, really, and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Now, in the quote, there for just a second, and tell you that they actually believe that all the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in that host. I'll explain that to you more. I continue quoting: "and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, which conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation. I also confess that under each kind alone, Christ is received whole and entire in a true sacrament." That's an official, and at the end of the quote, an official writing of one of the Popes of Rome, which has not been abrogated, has not been set aside, has not been lessened or diminished. And Vatican II only reaffirmed the absolute concurrence of all the College of Cardinals and all the bishops of the whole Catholic Church with all that the Catholic Church has always believed. There's only window dressing. It was only citing. They put on at Vatican II. They changed the Mass to English instead of Latin, or the vernacular language. They got rid of the kind of difficulties with the fried fish stuff, but they didn't change the poison. No one will go to hell because of the fish on Friday. No one will go to hell because they listen to services in Latin. They'll go to hell if they believe that a man can do this.
And I read to you from a Mass book. This isn't secret stuff. This is obtainable by anyone. Here's what the priests and congregation are instructed at the Mass. After the words of consecration, the priest, kneeling, adores the sacred host. And not talking about the sacred host of God, and having to try an infinite God, the holy angels surrounding him, and the cherubim and seraphim. Talking about this wafer that's produced by an order of nuns in some monastery or some nunnery somewhere, that they have in front of you on that altar. Rising, he elevates it, and looking up at the sacred host with faith and piety and love, says, "My Lord and my God." To that pancake. And then placing it in the corporal again, adores him.
Now, I was just to think for a minute, where is that anywhere in the Bible? That quote, "My Lord and my God," is from the 20th chapter of John's Gospel, and that was when Thomas knelt down, shoved his hand, or at least was invited to, into the Riven side and the wounded hands of Christ. And he seemed believed in Christ, received him, saying, "My Lord and my God." It's one of the greatest affirmations of Christ's deity in the Bible. And Christ said, "Blessed are those, blessed are you." That's great, Thomas. He says, "You see me, you believe." But blessed are those that don't see me and still believe. You know, the Roman Catholic Church has done in the Mass, they've materialized the spiritual. They have, they have made into an object what cannot be comprehended into an object through some "hocus corpus meum" stuff. I've told you before that the Middle Ages were bound in the superstition of magic by and large, greatly because of the Roman Catholic Church taking what everybody knew was just a way for pancake deal. And that priest, many of whom were living a dissipated life. And I'm not criticizing, they're just many dissipated Protestant priests and clergymen as there are Roman ones. But those people that saw him, how he lived all week long, as Chaucer said in the 11th or 12th century, when every road is Canterbury Tales, he said, "If the gold does rust, what will the iron do? If the clergy are wrought, and what are the people like?" And if those people that saw the gold corrupted all week long, saw him take a piece of normal bread and by going "hocus corpus meum," changing into Jesus, and said that's the greatest magic in the world. And that's where our little term "hocus pocus" comes from, from this mystical pagan rite of saying that by incantation of a few words, you can change a pancake into the eternal God. One former Roman Catholic who was born again wrote this: "The priests and the congregation actually worship a little pancake God and call it 'My Lord and my God.' No wonder I can't help but call it the mockery of the Mass."
Let me continue reading from the Council of Trent. Council of Trent, 1545, 1569, something like that, was the codification of Roman Catholicism. The Reformation was in full steam. Martin Luther was seeing the nations of Europe bow before the God of the Bible. And the Roman Catholic Church says, "We've got to stop this." So, a Council of Trent made 120 affirmations of Roman Catholic doctrine. They anathema-sized, you know what that means? They damned anyone who didn't believe what they said. This is what Trent says: "In this divine sacrifice, I'm talking about the priest holding that host, is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, the same Christ who once offered himself in a bloody manner. This is truly propitiatory, for the victim is one and the same, now offering himself by the ministry of priests, not for the sins of the faithful who are living, are not only for the sins of the faithful who are living, but also for those departed in Christ, but not yet fully purified." Does that mean still suffering in purgatory? You realize that the Mass, they purport, has efficacious, salvific, salvation attachments, not just for the people sitting out there that are required to come at least once a year, but also for people that are dead, but it's going to help them get to heaven. Understand why Romanism is the most magnificently crafted religion for human's life. If your Uncle Danny makes it, you can pray them in. If Elda has a little trouble with the bottle, you can burn candles and have masses. That doesn't mean to be trite, that's really what it's about. It's very sad.
I continue reading. "If anyone says that the Mass, and I'm quoting again from the Council of Trent, page 149 of the decrees of Trent, if anyone says that in the Mass a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God by priests who offer Christ's body and Christ's blood, or that the sacrifice of the Mass is not a propitiatory one, that is, bearing and covering and washing away sin, let him be damned." That is Rivas. And that's what the people who could come down School Street believe. That crowd. I don't know how many Masses a week.