When it comes to what we believe as a church, being Baptists, and understanding we did not
come from the Catholic Church, the Protestants came from the Catholic Church, which means
since they claim to come from the Catholic Church, and they did, and we didn't come from
the Catholic Church, that means we didn't come from the Protestants either, okay?
We were never Catholics, you know, Catholicism teaches a different gospel, they believe different
things, and I grew up Protestant, and we believe the exact same thing as Catholics, even though
we kind of thought we believed something different, okay?
So when we're talking about the Protestant Reformation, this is not something we praise
at this church.
See, at most churches that talk about church history, they would say the Protestant Reformation
was so great, Martin Luther stood against the Catholic Church, he nailed those 95 theses
against the wall, well, next week as we talk about Martin Luther, we're gonna see what
the reality actually was, okay?
Because Martin Luther was on record saying, I never left the Catholic Church, the Catholic
Church left me, because he claimed to be a Catholic, and he said the Catholic Church
had gone astray.
I was never part of what we talked about last week, the great war of Babylon, as it's
referred to in the book of Revelation, okay?
So we're gonna go over some foundational thoughts here today, and then next week we're gonna
start going to the different branches of the Protestant religion, okay?
So the first point is this, no man, no woman is the head of Christianity.
No man, no woman is the head of Christianity.
See, in the Catholic Church, they've got a pope, right?
And the pope is basically God on earth, okay?
Because what they say about the pope is he's not sinless, but when he speaks doctrine,
he doesn't make any mistakes.
He's perfect with his interpretation.
Let me be honest with you, I make mistakes when I preach sermons.
That's why I always encourage you to read the Bible on your own, because you know what?
If you're saved, you've got the spirit of truth inside of you, and I'm not gonna be
perfect, I'm gonna make mistakes.
And look, at our church, we don't shy away from people reading the Bible.
Look, we're trying to get you to memorize the entire book of Romans.
I'm not afraid of the things I preach, because if you're saved and you're reading the Bible,
you know what, you're gonna say, yeah, that's exactly what Brother Stuckey preached.
Will I make mistakes from time to time?
Of course, because I'm a man and I am sinful.
I do make mistakes.
But according to the Catholic Church, the pope doesn't make any mistakes.
He's the vicar of Christ on earth.
He's infallible when he teaches.
Is that the truth, though?
I mean, in the Bible, you see Paul making mistakes.
I talked about that a couple weeks ago.
You see Peter making mistakes.
Well, the verse they go to is Matthew 16, verse 18.
This is really the whole verse with the Catholic Church.
And if you disprove this verse, you disprove Catholicism and Protestantism, okay?
Matthew 16, verse 18, and I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock
I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
So in Matthew 16, verse 18, when it says upon this rock I will build my church, the Catholic
Church says that's referring to Peter.
That Peter is the rock which the church was built on, so he was the head of Christianity.
When he died, somebody else took over.
Well, by the way, Peter was married, according to the Bible.
Popes aren't married, so I mean, obviously there's something wrong with that.
But look, the rock is not referring to Peter in that verse.
See there's a reason, when we sing songs at this church, I don't know if you realize this,
but the songs line up with what the sermon's about.
There's a reason why we sung on Christ the solid rock I stand, okay?
All other ground is sinking sand.
Why?
Because we're trying to drive home the point of what the sermon is about, okay?
I let the guys who lead the music pick songs, but you can ask Brother Prince, I said yesterday,
these are going to be two of the songs you sang, because I knew I was going to be talking
about the rock and I want to drive home the point, we don't believe Peter was the rock
here.
You say, well, how do you know that?
Well, here's the problem people do.
They quote this verse, but they don't look at the context of what's being talked about.
Go back to verse number 13, Matthew 16, verse 13.
Because here's the thing, if the rock is referring to Jesus as I believe and as I hope you believe,
this disproves the Catholic church.
That means there is no head of Christianity on earth.
And the Protestants came from the Catholic church.
And so obviously they agreed with that.
So look, if you prove in verse 18 is talking about Jesus, that gets rid of the Catholic
church and the Protestant religion, the United Methodist, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and the
Episcopalians as well.
Verse number 13, Matthew 16, verse 13.
When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples saying, whom
do men say that I, the son of man am?
Now what Jesus is trying to do here in Matthew 16, he's trying to really drive home the point
who he is.
Now we know Jesus Christ was the son of God, the Messiah, the Christ, in him dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
He was God on earth.
He lived a perfect life.
He died for our sins.
And Jesus is trying to drive home the point, I am different than any man who has ever lived.
Verse number 14, and they said, some say thou art John the Baptist.
Was John the Baptist a good guy?
The Bible says there's not anyone better who was born among women.
And everybody's born from a woman, not a guy.
So he's the greatest man who ever lived is what it's saying outside of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
It says, some say thou art John the Baptist.
Some Elias, which is Elijah.
Was Elijah a good man of God?
Yeah, not too many people basically get taken home to heaven while they're still alive.
He went up in a chariot, right?
I mean, obviously he's a great guy.
We believe he's going to be here during the end times.
He's one of the greatest characters in the Bible.
John the Baptist, Elijah, and others, Jeremiah.
Look, Jeremiah is the second longest book of the Bible behind the book of Psalms.
And Jeremiah also wrote the book of Lamentations.
He's obviously a great man of God.
John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, great people of God.
And then they say, or one of the prophets.
Obviously any prophet of God was hand chosen by God to be a prophet.
That's a great person, right?
Verse 15, he saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am?
So Jesus is saying, some people out there are saying, hey, this is John the Baptist.
This is Elijah.
This is Jeremiah.
This is one of the prophets.
But whom do ye say that I am?
Ye is plural for you in the Bible.
Ye is always plural.
You is always plural.
Thee and thou are singular.
Thee and thou singular, ye and you plural in the Bible.
So when he says, whom say ye that I am?
He's speaking to all of his disciples.
He's not just speaking to Peter, okay?
Speaking to all of them, okay?
Because what the Catholic church would say is this, that basically, you know, he's speaking
to all these people and he hand selects Peter and says, you know what, I'm going to build
the church upon you, not upon anybody else in this crowd.
It's like that doesn't really make sense with the context where Jesus would lift somebody
up full of pride.
But I want you to understand, Jesus is saying how he's better than anybody else.
Verse 16, and Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God.
So you have Jesus over here who was perfect, who's sinless, the Messiah, the Christ, the
Savior, the Son of God who lived a perfect life.
Then you have Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, or any of the prophets or anyone
who's ever lived.
Why?
Because every single one of us needs a Savior, right?
The Bible says none of us are perfect.
We've all sinned.
We all need a Savior.
But Jesus is perfect.
He's God in the flesh.
He's making a distinction between man and God, right?
I mean, it makes sense from the context.
Peter said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Verse 17, and Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for
flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Look, Jesus has just explained how everybody is a sinner, okay?
And he's God in the flesh.
Would it really make sense after he said how he's better than anyone?
But you, Peter, I'm going to bring you over here by me, okay?
It doesn't make any sense, okay?
Because he's saying how he is different than any man.
And what he's telling Peter is this, upon this rock I will build my church.
This rock, referring to himself.
How do you know that?
Because throughout the Bible, who's the rock?
Jesus Christ.
I mean, look throughout the Old Testament in the book of Psalms, Jesus is the rock.
Jesus is the rock.
That's why we sing all those songs.
It's not because it sounds cool, oh, on Christ the solid rock, no, because the Bible refers
to Jesus as the rock.
It never refers to Peter as the rock.
And so Catholics go to this one verse, but in the context, he's making a distinction
between man and God, between man and the rock, Jesus Christ, our salvation.
So he's not saying, you know, hey, you're Simon, and upon this rock I will build my
church.
No, he's saying upon this rock I will build my church.
That is what Jesus is saying.
So clearly here in Matthew 16 verse 18, he's not telling Peter I'm going to build the church
upon you.
I mean, quite honestly, Peter would have been a pretty bad selection if that's who he picked.
Because Peter does a lot of great things and he's talking to a group of people and Peter's
the one who has the boldness to stand up and speak the truth here.
But you know, Peter puts his foot in his mouth quite a bit in the Bible.
He makes a lot of mistakes.
Why?
Because he's a sinner.
He's a man.
He gets rebuked for having the wrong beliefs by Paul the Apostle.
He gets rebuked in the Bible.
Has the pope ever been rebuked by the cardinals?
No, because he is the vicar of Christ on earth.
But Peter gets rebuked.
He's not the rock.
I mean, he makes a lot of mistakes in the Bible.
Why?
Because he's a sinner.
He's a man.
Verse 19, and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom and whatsoever thou shalt bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven.
So what Jesus is saying is upon this rock I will build my church, but I will give you
the keys.
The keys.
Why?
Because he's giving the authority to men to run churches, okay?
Individual churches.
He's talking about an individual local church and then new churches start, okay?
No man is the head of Christianity because Jesus is the rock.
That is what the Bible is teaching, all right?
Now turn in your Bible to Acts chapter nine, Acts nine.
See, I want you to understand, you know, a professional wrestler is not the rock either,
but I do want you to understand that is about the most blasphemous name you could give yourself.
You're basically saying you're the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm the rock.
That's a blasphemous title and look, I know he's a very famous Hollywood actor.
You know, Dwayne Johnson, I think is his real name.
The Rock.
That is a blasphemous title to call yourself.
Not only that, I mean, you know, and look, I'm admitting my faults one to another.
When I was a kid, I was pro wrestling, okay?
But I want you to understand he also called himself the Brahma bull.
I mean, that's one of the gods of Hinduism, right?
Brahman is their main God.
That is God.
And then God manifests himself in different ways.
Brahman is the name of that God.
When he called himself the Brahma bull, he's basically calling himself the Hindu God.
Okay?
Look, those are, I mean, obviously we don't believe in that's a different religion, but
what I'm saying is he's not a godly person.
And for anyone to call themselves the Rock, that's blasphemous.
Jesus Christ is the Rock.
It's not Peter.
It certainly isn't a pro wrestler, okay?
Jesus Christ is the Rock.
So here's the thing.
If there's no head of Christianity on Earth, then guess what?
The Catholic Church has already proven wrong.
And that means the Protestants are proven wrong as well because they say they came from
the Catholic Church.
Okay?
And point number two, not only is there no head of Christianity, but there is no universal
church.
There's no need for the head of Christianity because we have local churches.
We don't have a universal church that we're all members of.
Because, you know, most people would say that, you know, we're all part of the same church
worldwide.
No, we're not.
Because the church is something that's local.
Acts chapter nine, verse 31.
Acts nine, verse 31.
Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified.
And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied.
Notice in verse 31, then had the churches rest.
So what is that saying?
That's saying there's multiple churches, not just one church.
We're not all part of this one mega church.
Verity Baptist Church Manila is a church.
Verity Baptist Church Pampanga is a church.
Verity Baptist Church Fresno in Fresno, California is a church.
Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, California is a church, okay?
There's different churches and they're all over the world.
Different churches that are like-minded.
See, the Bible says here there's churches.
Go to Acts 15.
Acts 15.
And look, there's so many verses I could use to prove this, but I'm going to stay in the
book of Acts to just kind of show you and drive home this point that the Bible also
mentions churches, various churches over and over again.
Acts 15, verse 41.
Acts chapter 15, verse 41.
And he went through Syria and Cilicia confirming the churches, okay?
There's churches, multiple churches in those areas.
There's churches that are spread all over.
Go to Acts 16.
Acts chapter 16.
Acts chapter 16, verse 5.
And so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily.
Go to Acts 19.
Acts 19.
You say, Brother Stuckey, this is really repetitive.
I'm trying to drive home a point.
It's not one church that we're a part of.
There's churches, okay?
Acts 19, verse 37.
For you have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers
of your goddess.
Notice once again it says churches, okay?
In the Bible, there's something known as the church epistles because there are epistles
that are written by Paul to specific churches, okay?
The Church of Corinth, the Church of Galatia, the Church of Ephesus, the Church of Philippi,
Church of Thessalonica.
There's a lot of church epistles that are written to individual churches, okay?
Now that stuff still applies to us, but it's specifically written.
The book of Corinthians had a specific purpose.
Not every church has a guy sleeping with his dad's wife, okay?
The Church of Corinth, they had that problem.
So he specifically writes to that church, okay?
Because there's individual churches.
There's not this worldwide church we're a member of, okay?
Go to Psalms 22, Psalms 22.
It's right in the middle of your Bible, you'll get to the book of Psalms if you turn right
to the middle.
Psalms chapter 22, verse 22.
You say, Brother Stuckey, I don't know if I agree with that.
I think that there's individual churches and then this big universal worldwide church.
There's both of these things, because that's what the Catholic Church would say, that they've
got their church here, but then they've got their Catholic Church, this mega universal,
because Catholic means universal, this worldwide church that they're a part of.
You talk to people from the Catholic Church and you ask, what church do you go to?
I go to the Catholic Church.
Honestly, you wouldn't say we go to the Baptist Church because we're different churches, right?
They say I go to the Catholic Church because they think of it as this universal thing.
I'm a Catholic, okay, rather than individual churches.
But notice what it says in Psalms 22.
Psalms 22.
Psalms 22, verse 22.
I will declare thy name onto my brethren.
Psalms 22, verse 22.
I will declare thy name onto my brethren.
In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
Okay, this is a very important verse here, because in the Old Testament it says, in the
midst of the congregation, okay?
Now the word church appears first in Matthew chapter 16, but it quotes from this verse.
Go to Hebrews chapter two in your New Testament.
Hebrews chapter two.
Hebrews two, and remember the verse we just looked at, Psalms 22.
Hebrews chapter two.
What Psalms 22 said was, I will declare thy name onto my brethren.
In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
That's what Psalms 22 said.
Hebrews chapter two.
Hebrews chapter two, verse number 12.
Hebrews two, verse 12.
It's toward the end of your Bible, before Revelation, before Jude, before third, second
and first John, before second and first Peter.
Hebrews chapter two, verse 12, saying I will declare thy name onto my brethren.
In the midst of the church will I sing praise onto thee.
See Hebrews chapter two, verse 12, it quotes from Psalms 22, but do you notice how it changes
the word congregation to church?
It changes it.
Why?
Because what the Bible is is a built in dictionary.
It's teaching you what does that word mean.
What is a church?
It's a congregation, meaning you're congregated together.
Okay?
Look, we're not congregated with Christian people that live in South Korea right now.
They live in another country.
We're not congregated with Christian people that live 20 miles from here.
You're congregated in an area.
That's what a church is.
So look, when people are living in a different location, they're not part of the same church.
A church is a congregation, meaning you're congregated together.
Okay?
And so look, you know, if you're not in this area, if you're not a part of this church,
you know you're not in this church.
You're part of another church.
Right?
I mean, I know great Christians all over the world that love God.
I have Christian friends that live in Sacramento, California.
They're at a different church than we are because it's in a different location because
the church is a congregation.
So here's what I want you to understand.
If there's this universal worldwide church, here's the problem.
Are we congregated with people in Europe right now?
I mean, look, we love Brother Matthias.
You know, he came from Europe, but look, he was not part of our church, you know, eight
months ago or whenever.
Right?
I mean, he lived in another country.
He lived in another continent.
Okay?
It's a different part of the world.
A church is a congregation.
Okay?
Some people have this idea, well, I listen to sermons online, so I'm part of that church.
It's like, no, you're not.
And I understand right now with the lockdown, people are only able to listen.
I understand that.
But I'm just saying, you know, there's people that are obsessed with the online ministry
and they listen to sermons.
But it's like, you know, if you're not in that church, you're not a member of that church.
Okay?
Another terminology the Bible gives is this.
A church is a body.
Okay?
A church is a body.
Okay?
Now think about your body.
Okay?
You have two eyes.
Right?
Would it really do you much good if one of your eyes stayed at home today and you only
brought one of your eyes?
I mean, there'd be a bit of a problem there, right?
I mean, your body must be together.
Right?
I mean, I moved from the US.
What if I left one of my ears behind?
It's like, I'm going to have a big problem, right?
Because a body needs to be together.
There's a reason why God uses these terminologies about a church body.
A local church is a body, which means you must be congregated together.
Okay?
And so look, there is no universal church taught in the Bible anywhere.
Okay?
The Bible does not teach a universal church.
What it teaches is local churches.
Okay?
Go to Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews 12.
So look, if there is no universal church, there is no need for the head of this universal
church that we're all part of.
What there is is individual churches, and at those churches, there are heads of those
churches underneath the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to run those churches.
Okay?
That's different.
Because obviously you need to have somebody who's the head running things.
If we showed up here today and just, we said, we're going to take a vote on everything we
do.
What time do we want to start the church service?
What chapter are we going to preach from?
What's the sermon going to be about?
Are we going to teach work salvation here today or salvation by grace through faith?
That's not how you run a church.
Okay?
Now that's how they started the Catholic religion.
They brought a bunch of pastors that are so called Christians together to decide what
they believe.
That's not how you actually run a church, though.
Okay?
And so I want you to understand that somebody has to be the head of this.
But since there is no universal church, we don't need a vicar of Christ on Earth.
We don't need Peter running the church worldwide.
And if you watch documentaries on Christianity, they'll say that Peter was the head of the
church.
It's like, no, he wasn't.
Okay?
There's individual churches.
And look at the Church of Jerusalem.
James was the pastor as it was anyway.
Okay?
So there's individual churches.
There's not this universal church that we're all members of.
Hebrews 12 verse 23.
Now I'll be honest with you.
There is one verse in the Bible that does speak about this church of the firstborn.
And sometimes people will quote this verse to try to say we're all part of this church
of the firstborn.
But I'll explain to you what this verse is talking about here.
So Hebrews 12 verse 23.
To the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven and
to God the judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect.
So it talks about the church of the firstborn and people say, well, see, we're all part
of this church of the firstborn.
But I want you to understand this is referring to in heaven.
In heaven, when you die, you're going to be congregated together with the other people
up in heaven.
We're not in heaven right now.
And notice what it said in this verse to the general assembly.
What is an assembly?
It's a congregation.
Right?
I mean, in school, they take assembly at the beginning of the day to make sure everybody's
there.
Why?
It's a congregation, an assembly.
So here's what I want you to understand.
One day we will be part of this worldwide church when we're up in heaven congregated
with those people.
Once we're all raptured up to heaven, yeah, we're part of that church.
But look, I'm not in heaven right now.
So the church I'm a part of is right here, Verity Baptist Church Manila, not up in heaven.
So yes, one day we're going to be part of that church, but we're not up in heaven right
now.
The difference is they're congregated together up in heaven.
Now what we are is we're all part of the same family worldwide with other believers.
We're brothers and sisters in Christ.
I'm a son of God.
If you're saved here today, you're either a son of God or a daughter of God.
And look, saved people in any country around the world, they are also children of God.
So we're part of the same family.
We're brothers and sisters in Christ, but we're not part of the same church.
That's the difference there.
And so if we're not part of the same church, there is no need to have a head of this universal
church.
Turn to Acts chapter one, Acts chapter one, Acts chapter one.
So point number one, we looked at, there is no Pope of Christianity.
And point number two, there's no need to have a Pope because there is no universal church.
There's local churches.
Point number three, I want you to understand this, there have always been good churches.
There have always been good churches because what people try to teach you and what history
tries to teach you is this, that basically the only Christianity in the world was the
Catholic church.
And every Christian was a Catholic.
That's what they try to teach you.
Now they tried to force every Christian to be a Catholic, but not every Christian was
a Catholic.
What they try to teach you is all there was was Catholicism, so the Protestant Reformation
is good because now we have an alternative to the Catholic church.
That's not the truth.
There have always been good churches.
Acts chapter one, verse eight, Acts one, verse eight, but ye shall receive power after that
the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses on me both in Jerusalem
and in all Judea and in Samaria and onto the uttermost part of the earth.
So after Jesus rose again, he motivates them to go soul winning, and he says, I want you
to reach the world with the gospel.
I want you to go first here in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, and onto the uttermost
part of the earth.
If you were to apply that to us here, it would be like first Manila, then Pampanga, then
Bulacan, then Cavite.
You slowly spread out, right?
That's what it's teaching here.
We'll go to Acts chapter eight, Acts chapter eight, Acts chapter eight.
See what the Catholic Church teaches is this, that on October 27th, 312 AD, Constantine
had this vision up in the sky of a cross.
Okay, now I don't know if he was on drugs.
I don't know if he was drunk.
I don't know if he was possessed.
He might have actually seen something.
I personally think he probably did see something.
I could be wrong, but I think the devil kind of handpicked him to basically promote this
false religion.
I could be wrong, but that's what I believe.
But in October 27th, 312 AD, Constantine gets this vision of this cross, and he has the
idea that, you know what, here's what's going to happen.
We're going to be saved in this battle.
We're going to win this battle, and he uses this to start Christianity.
And so the Roman Catholic Church starts, but here's the thing.
It was never a Christian religion.
What they did is they took Roman paganism and said, well, this is Christian, and they
kind of just morphed it a little bit.
I mean, think of all these idols the Catholic Church has.
Where did those idols come from?
You say it just started with the Catholic Church.
No, it started with the Roman gods.
It's no different with the Roman religion who took part of the Greek religion and had
these false gods that they worshiped.
That's all those idols are.
And so they've always been worshiping idols and images and these things.
So I want you to understand, the Catholic Church was never Christian.
They had this big meeting, and they got together to decide, what do we believe?
And then Constantine said, well, this is what Christianity believes.
Here's the reality.
If I lived during that time period, I wouldn't show up for the meeting.
You say, why?
They'd probably kill me if I showed up at the meeting.
I'd be like, no, I refuse to believe in a preacher of rapture.
I believe it's post-trip.
What do you want me to do?
It's like, I'm not going to say it's pre-trip.
And so basically they made a state-run government religion, and you're forced to obey that religion.
In a lot of countries around the world, you're pretty much forced to be a Muslim.
And you must believe this, they say.
Now that doesn't change the fact what you actually believe, but they will try to force
you to believe something.
That's what the Catholic Church did.
And so people have this idea, well, every Christian just was a Catholic then.
No, because real Christians would have denied that.
And look, there have always been safe people.
In Acts chapter one, what he said is, I want you to reach the world.
Well, in Acts chapter eight, we see basically the result of this.
The persecution comes, and then they obey.
Acts chapter eight, verse one, and Saul was consenting onto his death, and at that time
there's a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem.
So in Acts eight, verse one, you say, well, there's a great persecution against the church,
which is at Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem, there was great persecution.
The result of that was, since they weren't starting churches like God told them to, the
persecution forced them to go to these other areas and get churches started because they're
going to get killed in Jerusalem.
So it makes sense if you live in a city and they're going to kill you, flee to another
city, right?
Start a church in another city rather than just dying here in Jerusalem.
They already got a church there, just move on and go to another place.
Go where it's open, just like God told you to do.
And so there's great persecution in the church, which is at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered
abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.
So they spread out and new churches are started.
Turn to Acts nine, Acts chapter nine, Acts chapter nine.
Now next week, we're going to start getting really specific as we look at the Lutherans
and Martin Luther and the branch that started there, but we're kind of giving some foundational
thoughts because this is going to be an eight week series, I believe, and you kind of need
to understand these foundational principles because this will help you understand why
you're a Baptist and what the difference is because many Baptists here in the Philippines
will tell you they're Protestants.
We're not Protestants.
We did not come from the Catholic Church.
We don't agree with the Protestants.
They taught a work salvation.
We're going to prove that over the next couple of weeks, but I want you to understand that
these things are important.
You need to know where your heritage is from, why you're Baptist.
Acts nine verse 31, then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and
Samaria and were edified and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the
Holy Ghost were multiplied.
So what you see in Acts chapter nine verse 31, now all of a sudden you have these churches
that are spread out.
So ever since this time period, churches have been started all over the world.
Look, this is only a couple hundred years before the Catholic Church, okay?
Do you mean to tell me that all these churches were just gone in 312 AD when the Catholic
Church started?
No, they weren't.
They were still around and look, the Catholic Church has persecuted and killed people throughout
the ages, but let me tell you something, there have always been true believers and true churches
that have existed, okay?
Now as time goes by, memory kind of fades.
The internet did not exist 600 years ago, but look, you can look back to the time of
the Protestant Reformation and you hear about plenty of our brethren in the faith that lived
during that time period.
You hear about Anabaptists, you hear about Waldensians, you hear about various people
and look, they might have had some heretics within them and had some false beliefs.
Maybe they don't believe exactly what we do, but there were saved people during that time
period that were persecuted by both the Catholics and the Protestants during that time period.
Turn to 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
And so what you see here in Acts chapter 9, what you saw was there's churches.
And so guess what?
In the fourth century, in 312 AD, there was plenty of churches that were out there.
There was not just, well, there's no Christians in the world, but now everyone becomes a Catholic.
No, there were churches that existed during that time period, okay?
So the fourth point I want you to understand, and this kind of goes along with the last
point is this, that there were not just the Catholics and the Protestants that existed
500 years ago, okay?
First Corinthians chapter 12 verse 25, it says that there should be no schism in the
body, but that the members should have the same care one for another.
Now this is a very famous verse in the Bible when you look at Catholic history or whatever,
or Christian history so-called, because there was an event in the 11th century known as
the Great Schism, okay?
The Great Schism was the separation between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.
260 million people, one out of 30 worldwide, are part of the Orthodox Church in Russia
and a lot of different countries.
And this event was known as the Great Schism.
Now the main reason why they separated was it was a difference between authority.
The Catholic Church said this, we want all authority to come from Rome, and the Orthodox
Church basically had five points of authority worldwide, so that they'd have one man that
would run this area of the world, one man would run this area, one man would run this
area, and then basically reached a point where the Catholic Church says, no, we don't want
to have 20% of the pie, we want 100% of the pie because Rome's more powerful than any
other place in the world.
And so basically there's that separation, the Great Schism, and it was mainly a separation
over power, not on doctrine.
Why?
Because the Orthodox Church believes the exact same things as the Catholic Church.
They didn't really separate in beliefs, they separated due to authority because they wanted
to be the heads of Christianity in the world and to basically control nations.
So basically the Catholic Church said we want all authority, and the Orthodox Church didn't
go along with it, and so that's the Great Schism and the 11th century AD.
So in the 11th century AD, guess what?
There's the Orthodox Church.
So look, during the time of the Catholics and the Protestants, there's also a big church
worldwide known as the Orthodox Church with over 200 million people worldwide, okay?
Now just so you understand that the Catholic Church and the Orthodox believe the exact
same things, as far as I know, there's really only a couple differences between those religions.
Now the Orthodox Church worships Mary, just like the Catholic Church does.
The only main difference I know is this.
The Bible was written in Greek, the New Testament, right?
And you have the Greek Orthodox Church.
Now there's other countries that have Orthodox, but that was the main one, the Greek Orthodox.
So here's the separation between the Catholics and the Orthodox.
The Greek Orthodox Church said, well, the word baptize in the Greek is baptizo, which
means to immerse, which means when you get baptized, you need to be fully in the water,
immersed, fully submerged under the water because the Greek word, we speak Greek, the
New Testament was written in Greek, hey, this word baptizo, this means to immerse.
So we can't just sprinkle head on a baby, right?
Because that would be wrong.
I mean, you're not immersing, you know, you got to be immersed.
But here's what's funny about it.
The Greek Orthodox Church still baptized babies, even though you never see a baby baptized
in the Bible.
So guess how they baptized them?
They baptized them fully under the water.
What's funny about this is, and you can watch this on YouTube, I mean, it's part of it,
you know, is, I mean, you almost want to cry, but you almost you laugh at the same time.
It's one of these things, you don't know how you're supposed to react.
But they do it three times in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Ghost.
So you'll see these Greek Orthodox priests, and they'll take this baby and most of these
parents have don't understand what happens at a baptism.
So watch these videos and the parents are like horrified, because they'll take these
babies and say, in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of
the Holy Ghost.
And it's like these parents are like horrified, like some try to grab their baby, the moms
are all crying and everything.
It's like, because look, it's not healthy for a baby that's a few weeks old to be slammed
in water.
And it's like, I laugh too.
I mean, I feel kind of guilty about it, because then I do feel sorry for those babies.
But that's really the only difference between the Catholics and the Orthodox, because they
have a head of their religion now as well, from what I understand, but basically they
still baptize babies.
Is that in the Bible?
No.
The only difference is they dunk those babies under water.
So it's probably more of a cult than the Catholic Church.
One other difference I know between the Catholics and the Orthodox, the Catholic Church used
to forbid people to read the Bible, right?
They would kill you if you read the Bible.
That's why it's known as the Dark Ages, because there's no source of knowledge.
Not only was there no internet, they wouldn't let you read the Bible.
Now, I know someone who's a missionary in an Orthodox country, in the country of Georgia,
and he said it was like this, where basically you were allowed to read what the Orthodox
religion taught, and they'd give you certain things to read, but you were not allowed to
read basically the Bible by itself.
And they would basically say to you that if you read it, you're going to damn your soul
to hell.
Okay?
Because I heard a story.
This missionary went to Georgia.
He preached at my old church in West Virginia, and he went there, and this guy wanted to
ask him a question, but he was afraid, because he had once asked his Orthodox priest a question,
and the Orthodox priest said, you know, if you ever do this again, you have no hope of
going to heaven.
So basically, he was scaring him into not actually reading, okay?
So what I've seen, though, from the Orthodox religion is this.
Sometimes they'll let you read the Bible, but they give you kind of a reading plan.
I mentioned this in a sermon in the US, because it's really funny, because they'll go to a
chapter in the Bible, and they'll say, you know, you're reading plan for this week.
Read Matthew 16, verses one through three, verses six through eight, verses ten and eleven.
They would skip verses along the way.
It's like, what kind of a Bible reading plan is that?
So basically, you're reading a chapter, but you have all these gaps in the chapter that
you're not supposed to read.
It's like, what a bizarre thing to do.
No, just read your Bible, right?
I'm not afraid of you reading the Bible.
Read the Bible.
Read all of it.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
Read it all.
All of the word of God is good.
The Bible says God's law is holy and just and good, his commandments.
So here in 1 Corinthians 12, we see schism, and this is where you get the term, the great
schism, the separation from the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.
Now notice how it says, in the body, what you have to understand is Paul is talking
to a specific church in Corinth.
He's saying there's strife and fightings and envyings in this specific church, not in this
worldwide body, okay?
He's talking about a specific church.
So the Catholics and the Orthodox, they don't understand what that means, schism in the
body.
This is not this universal body we're a part of, okay?
No, he's talking about a local church, the Church of Corinth.
But what I want you to understand from this verse is this, look, there were other people
that would call themselves Christian, and there were other people that were Christians
that lived during the time of the Protestant Reformation.
And we're going to talk about that in this sermon series, but that's one of the big things
people kind of say, that the only ones that existed were Catholics.
Well first off, there was also the Orthodox, but look, there have been many split offs
of the Catholic Church.
It's just the two big ones are the Orthodox and the Protestant, but there have been many
little split offs along the way from various different religions.
And so, look, these are the countries in the world where over 50% of the people are Orthodox.
Serbia, Greece, Moldova, Transnistria, Cyprus, Georgia, Romania, Montenegro, Belarus, North
Macedonia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Russia.
So look, this is a big religion worldwide.
Now turn in your Bible to Acts chapter 8.
Acts chapter 8.
And see, what I want you to understand is, you know, sometimes people try to put you
in a corner where they'll ask you, are you a Calvinist or an Armenian?
Right?
Who's heard that before?
Are you a Calvinist or you are an Armenian?
It's like, option C. It's like, I'm not a Calvinist.
I mean, certainly, if you heard any of my sermons, I'm not a Calvinist.
But you know, here's the thing, being an Armenian means that you don't understand what Walang
Hangan means.
Right?
It's like, Gano Katagalang Buhaynau Walang Hangan.
It's like, oh, just for like five years.
No, no.
Forever.
Okay.
It's like, they don't understand whatever, because Armenians think you can lose your
salvation.
It's like, how can you lose something that is eternal, that is everlasting, that never
ends?
Okay.
But that doesn't mean I'm a Calvinist because I reject Armenians.
I was raised as a United Methodist, which was the big one where the term Armenians came
from.
From Jacob, Arminius is where that term comes from.
Look, I'm not an Armenian because I believe in eternal security.
Here's the thing, though.
I mean, the Calvinists don't really believe in eternal security either.
They believe in the perseverance of the Saints.
They don't believe in the preservation of the Saints, and we'll talk about that as we
go on during this series.
But I want you to understand, sometimes people try to paint you in a corner.
Are you a Calvinist or Armenian?
It's like, none.
If you've ever seen the YouTube channel Catholic Answers, they'll ask callers that come in,
are you a Catholic or Protestant?
It's like, none.
Neither.
Okay.
And I'm not Orthodox either.
Not Catholic, not Protestant, no, no, I'm just a believer.
I'm saved.
Okay.
It's like, look, saying that you're a Catholic or saying you're a Protestant, what you're
basically saying is this, that you came from the Catholic Church.
I didn't come from the Catholic Church.
Okay.
We come from the believers that lived during the time of Jesus Christ, and churches were
started.
Okay.
Point number five here today is this, Protestants believed in the Catholic Church.
They believed in the Catholic Church.
They agreed with it.
So when they protested, because Protestant means to protest, they protested the Catholic
Church.
They only wanted to make a few changes to it.
And they only made a few changes, because they still baptized babies.
They still do all of these vain rituals.
They didn't make much changes to the Catholic Church.
Okay.
One example is this, Protestants in pretty much every service are going to read the Apostles
Creed.
Who here knows what the Apostles Creed is?
Anybody?
Growing up Protestant, I heard the Apostles Creed every single week.
And part of it is this, we believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church.
Now, why would a Protestant say, we believe in the holy Catholic Church every single week?
Because they do believe in the Catholic Church.
They think the Catholics went wrong.
They think the Catholic Church was true in the 1400s, and then they went wrong.
Okay.
They believe in the Catholic Church, and they still want that title to know we're the Catholics,
not you.
They claim to be Catholics.
Every single week, you'll hear in a Protestant church, we believe in the holy Catholic Church.
Every single week.
Okay.
Why?
Because they believe in Catholicism.
They just think the Catholics kind of got off on doctrine.
They believe in the Catholic Church.
Every single week, they do the Apostles Creed.
Another example is this, as we talked about last week, the Protestants have blasphemous
titles for their leaders.
They call their ministers, reverends, which we saw last week is a blasphemous title, just
like the Catholic Church.
Also in Protestant churches, usually you have the stained glass windows.
Okay.
Who's seen that before?
In churches, you have the stained glass windows and all these pictures.
Guess what you saw at a Protestant church growing up or what I saw?
You see the stained glass windows.
It's like, am I in a Catholic Church?
It's like, yeah, you are pretty much.
Okay.
You're just more old school Catholic than the Catholics are.
Okay.
You see the stained glass windows and look, all Protestants that I'm aware of practice
infant baptism.
And it's like, well, show me that in the Bible, you say, well, how do you know infant baptism
is wrong?
Acts chapter eight, everything we teach at this church, we prove with the Bible, Acts
chapter eight, Acts chapter eight.
I was going soul winning yesterday and I was giving the gospel to someone and you know,
I knocked on his door and I told him that you can know for sure you're going to heaven.
And I said, would you like to hear that?
He's like, I can know.
He's like, he's like, yeah, I want to hear.
And so I was like, oh man, this is going to be great.
I mean, I figured it was going to be very easy and he did end up getting saved, but
it ended up actually being very difficult.
I spent, I mean, brother, brother Prince and brother Tito were probably outside talking
for 20 minutes.
I'm still giving the gospel to this guy and it probably took 35 minutes or so for him
to fully understand the gospel.
He had a lot of questions and he asked me about this.
He's like, well, how do you know infant baptism is wrong?
And I took him to Acts chapter eight.
What does it say in Acts eight verse 36 and as they went on their way, they came onto
a certain water and the eunuch said, see here is water.
What doth hinder me to be baptized?
Now I want you to understand something.
As I mentioned earlier in the sermon, baptisms by immersion, okay?
Now the reason why they're able to baptize is because they're going by water, whether
it's a lake or a river.
It's a big body of water.
Now look, if baptism was just putting water on your head, it'd be pretty easy to do baptisms,
right?
I mean, we can do like 20 baptisms here in like two minutes after the service.
I'll just kind of flick some water this way and this way and this way.
It's like, boom, you got baptized.
I mean, it would be very easy to do baptisms, but it said John the Baptist went where there
was much water.
That's the reason why he preached where he did because he wanted to be able to baptize
people and look, there's not water everywhere, okay?
And so look, if we were just using water then yeah, it'd be pretty easy to baptize people,
but they go by water here in this story and what he's asking, what doth hinder me?
He's saying, what's stopping me?
What's preventing me from getting baptized?
And Phillip said, if thou believeth with all thine heart thou mayest.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
So Phillip said, here's your requirement to getting baptized.
Do you believe?
Now let me ask you a question.
Is my son Zephaniah, is he old enough to understand what I'm saying and to believe on Jesus Christ
for salvation?
He's not even three years old.
A three year old is not going to be able to understand, you know, hell and I mean they
might know the names of hell and heaven and Jesus, but they can't put all these pieces
together.
So a baby that dies, they're innocent.
They go to heaven.
If my son or my daughter die, they're going to go straight to heaven.
Why they're not old enough to be able to fully grasp these things.
And what the Bible said is I was alive without the law once and see a baby is basically kind
of like Adam.
Adam was innocent.
And once he sinned, guess what?
He realized, oh, I'm not wearing any clothes.
I should be wearing clothes.
Okay.
It's the same thing with the child.
A child, if you've ever been around babies, they just run out of the shower just, you
know, without any clothes on.
They don't even realize it's weird, right?
I mean, obviously as an adult, you're not, I hope you wouldn't do something like that.
Okay.
But see a baby, they don't see anything wrong with that.
We let our son play in the water in the bathroom and you know, he runs out and he's all excited,
a big smile on his face.
He's not even wearing any clothes.
We're like, yeah, it's like, no, it's like, let's put a towel around you.
Let's put on the diaper.
Let's put on some clothes.
It's not right.
But they don't understand at that age.
But one day my son will reach an age where he's like, Adam, oh, I'm embarrassed that
I'm not wearing clothes.
And see what the Bible is showing you is that that's the age where now they can recognize,
okay, I need to, you know, it's not appropriate.
It's wrong.
Okay.
That's when you want to start preaching the gospel to your child.
Now my son, I'm going to teach him names.
We read, I try to read the Bible to him.
He hears about Jesus and things like that.
And as he gets older, I'll try to teach him more and more.
But once he recognizes, oh, this is wrong.
That's when I'm going to start really preaching the gospel to him.
Why?
Because he's going to be held accountable if he dies.
See the Catholic church taught in original sin that a baby is guilty and would go to
hell if they didn't get baptized as a baby.
So what the Catholic church has taught historically is that if my son dies, he's going to go straight
to hell because he was not baptized as a baby.
They believe in original sin that you've got to wash away with water.
But look, a baby is not held accountable according to the Bible, okay, until they're old enough
to recognize this, the age of accountability, until that point, my son, my daughter will
go to heaven.
Look, if you're 30 years old or 20 years old or 10 years old, you're old enough to
understand, okay, and you will be held accountable.
So look, the idea of infant baptism, it doesn't make any sense because there is no original
sin.
A baby, yes, they're a sinner.
They do wrong.
They disobey their parents, but they're not held accountable for their sins until they
reach that age of accountability, okay?
Now here's the question.
And why are they not held accountable?
Because they don't have the capacity to believe what I'm saying right now.
They don't have the capacity or the ability to believe on Jesus Christ at the age of two.
And we serve a loving God, not the same God as the Calvinist God.
We serve a loving God.
And my son is not going to be guilty when he cannot understand this yet.
But one day my son will be guilty and then he's going to need a savior.
See when David's son died, he said, I will go to him.
He had confidence his son was in heaven.
Why?
Because babies go to heaven when they die.
That's what the Bible teaches.
And you know, what kind of an evil doctrine would say that your baby goes to hell if it
wasn't baptized?
You know, do you realize that many women lose children?
Look, I mean, my wife and I, you know, it was before they were born, but we had twins
that died.
You know, my wife had a miscarriage and many people do.
And there's, you know, families I know that have a still birth where basically the baby's
born and they passed away.
You know, our friends in Sacramento, California, they had a baby born and the baby died within
a couple of weeks because at that age, the mortality rate is a lot higher.
You know, it's a very dangerous stage of life, but once they kind of lasted those first couple
of years, it's a lot less likely they're going to die.
But what kind of an evil doctrine would say, well, that baby's in hell?
Why would they do that?
Well, here's what they do.
The Catholic church said, well, your baby didn't make it to heaven, but if you pay us
money, indulgences will help pray your child out of purgatory so they can go to heaven.
That's what the Catholic church did.
They used fear to make money.
And what I'm saying is not an opinion or a conspiracy theory.
It's a fact.
That is why they did it.
That's why they taught infant baptism.
That way they could basically take money.
But what the Bible said in Acts chapter eight verse 37, if thou believe is with all thine
heart thou mayest.
And look, a baby is not old enough to believe this.
I think this is very obvious that a baby's not old enough to believe this, but look online
at Catholics and Protestant scholars who will argue, how do you know that a two week old
can't believe this?
In some way, God works faith inside of them.
It's like, I mean, are you a Calvinist?
God works faith inside of them.
But I mean, I've read Martin Luther talk about it.
Martin Luther will argue, he's like, you'll never convince me that a baby cannot believe
this.
I'm just like, if you're too dumb to understand that, it's like, you know, what's the point
of even giving you Bible verses to prove it?
It's like, it's like, obviously, a baby and you can see in the Bible, David's son went
to heaven.
Okay.
David's son was not baptized because there is no original sin.
We're all sinners from the womb, but we're not guilty right when we're born.
You know, a friend of mine that some of you know, Brother Jared Pozarnsky, who runs Verity
Baptist Church, Fresno, he was part of the Lutheran Church.
He was a Protestant before, you know, he ended up getting saved and he, you know, they moved
to Verity Baptist eventually.
And you know, he believed in what the Lutheran Church taught.
And the Lutheran Church baptizes babies.
But you know, when they baptize babies, it's basically, you know, a big celebration, right?
You know, you have family, it's a big event.
And so they'll often do it, you know, several weeks after the baby's born.
But he believed in the Lutheran doctrine that, hey, if this baby dies unbaptized, it's going
to go to hell.
So he was talking to his minister.
He's like, I want you there at the birth to baptize our baby right when it's born.
And they're like, don't you want to have family?
He's like, are you crazy?
It's like, my baby could go to hell if it dies.
No, right when the baby's born, I want you to baptize this baby.
And then they basically thought that, you know, he was crazy.
Like, why would you be that extremist?
Just like, and he said, he thought to one point, he's like, am I the only one who believes
this?
Because if you really believe your baby's going to die and go to hell, if it doesn't
get baptized, doesn't it make sense to have your baby baptized within an hour of being
born?
It's like, absolutely.
I'd pay my minister whatever I needed to, to be there in the waiting room, you know,
to basically baptize that baby right when it's born.
Why?
Because at a young age, babies die sometimes.
So look, I want you to understand that it's, that's just absurd.
That's ridiculous to say that a baby must be baptized to go to heaven.
Because if that's what you believe, I'll be completely honest with you.
You serve an evil God.
And it's not biblical because David's son went to heaven.
But that is what both the Catholics and Protestants teach.
Why?
Because the Protestants are Catholics, as we're talking about in this series.
Two quick points here.
Point number six, I want you to understand, I've talked about this, but I want you to
understand the Protestants, it's not just that they were a false religion.
They were our enemies in the 1500s.
They murdered us in the 1500s.
So you have to understand, Rome basically ran the world.
And so in the areas where Rome ran the world, they would basically force you to be Catholic.
Getting baptized as an adult was punishable by the death penalty in the areas owned by
Rome, which was most of the world.
But when the Protestants came and they protested, Germany was really the country that got behind
Martin Luther and some other countries in Europe.
Basically the Protestants started to get their own power.
And so basically the Protestants ended up owning and controlling some countries or some
cities, some locations.
And all of a sudden, now that the Protestants control, do they get freedom of religion to
worship God?
No, they don't.
They do the exact same thing the Catholics do.
If you get baptized as an adult, you'll be punished by drowning to teach you not to get
baptized in water.
They would basically force you to believe what they did then.
And if you didn't, they would torch you to death.
They would kill you.
And look, if you read any of the stories throughout history, okay, there's plenty of books out
there that talk about all the martyrs.
The Protestants murdered us.
That's part of the documentary, Being Baptist.
It talks about how the Protestants murdered us and persecuted us.
You can read Martin Luther's commentary.
I read his commentary on Romans, and I believe Galatians was his other book.
He would consider us heretics, and he would say we deserve to be punished by the death
penalty.
He considered you a heretic if you didn't believe that that bread, that tinopi, turned
into the body of Jesus Christ.
If you did not believe that that grape juice or wine, as the Catholics and Protestants
would do, if you don't believe that turns into the blood of Jesus, you're a heretic,
and you deserve the death penalty.
That's what he taught.
It's like they were not our friends in the faith.
Martin Luther, if he was here today, it's not like we'd shake hands and go out to lunch
together, go out soul-winning together.
That's not what would have happened.
It's like he would have wanted me dead, and you as well, because you're not just going
to go along with the state-run religion.
Look, you can't force people to believe something.
Do you understand this?
When Jesus Christ is here during the millennium, he will have his rules enforced, but he cannot
force you to believe on him.
That is a free will choice, okay?
And look, if you were the president of this country, and you said people are required
to believe on Jesus, you cannot force people to believe on Jesus.
If you held a gun to their head and said, you must believe this, that would not cause
them to believe, because it has to be something from the inside.
They must actually believe it.
You cannot force people to believe, but that's what both the Catholics and the Protestants
wanted to do.
Last point we have here is this.
You might ask the question, Brother Stuckey, if the Protestants are our enemies, and we're
going to talk about this over this next several weeks, okay?
If the Protestants are our enemies, why is it that some believers did link up with the
Protestants throughout history?
Because that is true.
You could go back 500 years ago, and you will see believers that are basically fellowshipping
with the Protestants, and then oftentimes, they'd end up believing the Protestants, and
then they'd get killed, okay?
Felix Mons was a famous person there.
He was with the Protestants.
He left Oryx-Wingley, and then they had him put to death for being baptized as an adult.
You say, why did some believers fellowship with Protestants?
Well, let me give you a couple thoughts on this.
For one, think about before this church started.
Many of you went to a church where you said you don't even think your pastor's saved.
It's like, why were you fellowshipping with unsaved people, right?
Maybe people couldn't find a good church during that time period.
I mean, it's easier in today's world because you can at least go on the internet and find
out where churches are.
I mean, guess what?
There's probably a lot of people that said, you know what?
I live in Spain.
It's 99% Catholic here.
I guess Protestants better than Catholic.
It doesn't mean they believed all the doctrines.
They certainly didn't believe the same doctrine on salvation.
They were just put in a hard position.
What do I do?
Because I can't find any saved people to fellowship with.
And so guess what some people did?
They said, well, you know what?
I mean, it's better than Catholic, so I guess I'll link up with the Protestants.
You know, I guess this must be right.
Ask Brother Matthias.
This is his story.
He knew Catholic church was wrong.
And he's like, well, I mean, you know, he's saved, but he's like, well, maybe I should
just link up with the Protestants.
And then he realized, wow, this is wrong also.
Okay.
And guess what?
Many people throughout history have done the same thing, especially during that time period
when the Catholic church is murdering believers.
Guess what?
A lot of people are going to say, man, I better link up with the Protestants because they're
protesting against the Catholic church.
What they did not realize is the Protestants didn't really protest that much.
It's like they protested like this much.
And that's why if you ever go to a Protestant church, you're going to feel like you're in
the same church you grew up in if you grew up Catholic, because it's not a whole lot
different.
You'll see the stained glass windows, infant baptism, you'll sing the same songs.
Everything's the exact same.
So look, maybe people couldn't find a good church to go to.
Okay.
Also, you know, people probably understood the dangers of the Catholic church.
They probably didn't realize the Protestants were going to start killing them.
But as we're going to see over these next couple of weeks, the Protestants did the
same things.
They kind of figured this is kind of a safe haven.
It turned out not to be the case.
But you know, another thing is this.
I'll be honest.
When I was a new believer, I tried to fix churches and denominations.
Okay.
When I was a Christian in college, I went to Campus Crusade, which is like this non-denominational
like mega church in the US that does mission trips and stuff like that.
And they bring in Mormons.
Okay.
They bring in Catholics, anybody.
And basically when you bring in everybody, there's no doctrine taught.
And so me and my friends, we figured, and I'd only been saved like less than...
Actually, I started going before I was saved.
They did not give me the gospel.
And then somebody else gave me the gospel, probably because they didn't have the gospel.
Okay.
But I was part of Campus Crusade and me and my friends thought maybe we can motivate people
to go soul winning.
We can maybe try to help teach them doctrines about eternal security and things like that.
And look, many of you probably did the same thing with churches before.
You hoped you could reform your old church.
Didn't work.
Did it?
It never works.
Okay.
I did the same thing.
And guess what people did 500 years ago?
Hey, maybe we can help the Protestants and they're wrong on some things.
Maybe we can help fix them.
And here's the thing.
When I was a new believer, I was naive.
Right.
I was a little bit ignorant.
I didn't know.
And you learn with experience.
And guess what?
Many of our brethren in the faith, they learn the same things.
They tried to fix the Protestants because they knew Catholics were wrong.
And then they realized, man, this is not the right group.
Then they linked up with the Anabaptists and then they got killed by the Catholics and
the Protestants.
That's the truth in history.
So you say, why did believers sometimes link up with Protestants?
Well, mainly because they couldn't find anything better.
And because maybe they just didn't realize all the heresy that the Protestants taught.
I used to do that.
I was part of other churches too.
I was part of a Baptist church when I first got saved.
And they were kind of a non-denominational type Baptist.
They had rock music and things like that.
And I tried to help change that church and bring in soul winning and things like that.
And so did my friends.
And it didn't work.
It didn't help to change all these other organizations either.
It never works.
But the reality is when you first get saved, the thought in the back of your mind is this,
man, if people just knew this message, right, they believe they'd be excited.
They'd want to serve God.
And you kind of feel like everyone's going to have that same zeal.
You start telling your family and friends about this and they're not excited like you
were, right?
That's the reality.
So look, when it comes to the Protestants, this is just kind of a sermon on foundational
thoughts.
I'm just trying to drive home the point to you.
There's no universal church.
There's no need for vicar of Christ or the head of Christianity or the head of Baptists.
And look, when it comes to Baptists, there's denominations of Baptists.
The Southern Baptists in the US, and guess what?
They have a head of the Southern Baptists.
It's like the Bible does not teach having the head of this mega church system worldwide.
There's individual churches.
Look, the Protestants have never been our friends.
They've always been our enemies.
Are there some people that are saved that are in Protestant churches because they don't
realize all the dangers?
Yeah, you know what?
I'm sure that there are some people that are saved.
There's people we get saved that are Catholics that don't leave their Catholic church, and
they don't fully grasp how bad their church is, or they stay there because of their family,
but they're still saved.
That doesn't mean the Catholic church is a good church to go to.
It just means some people get saved, and they're more concerned about what mom and dad think
than what God actually thinks, and so they stay in the Catholic church.
It's the same thing with other denominations as well.
And look, there's plenty of good churches, individual, local churches worldwide, because
I'm not talking about being part of a mega church.
There's individual churches, okay?
And so many of you, you were at a church, it taught false, you decided you believe the
doctrines that we teach at Verity Baptist Church that Pastor Mendez has taught and the
things that I preach, and you said, you know what?
I want to be a part of this church because I believe this stuff, okay?
And worldwide, there are plenty of good churches because they're individual, local churches,
not some mega Protestant or some mega Catholic church or Orthodox worldwide.
Let's go to the word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and just getting to read
your word on some foundational thoughts within the Protestant Reformation and the Protestant
religion and all of those denominations in the Catholic church and the Orthodox as well,
God.
Help us to understand more fully at the end of this series why we are Baptists and all
the dangers.