The Pope and the Papacy

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...

http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermon+Series/296