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Alright, we're here in John chapter 1. John chapter 1, and the name of this sermon is Catholic Born, Catholic Bread, and When I Die I'll Be Twice Dead. So I'm preaching against the Catholic Church, and obviously as a Baptist Church, you know, we reject the Catholic Church completely. They preach a false gospel, and probably many people in this room grew up Catholic, or at the very least a lot of your family is Catholic. My wife grew up Catholic in Pampanga, where she saw people crucify themselves every year. We know the Catholic Church is false, but what I'm specifically preaching on is this idea from some Catholics that, well, the reason why I'm Catholic is my mom's Catholic. My dad's Catholic. My grandparents. I mean, we've got hundreds of years of Catholic lineage in us, so that means we're just a Catholic family. Now, it doesn't matter what your mom or your dad or your grandparents believe, but sometimes we run into Catholics that the whole reason why they're Catholic is this is what their family believes. But salvation is an individual thing. It's not about your family. It is your choice, regardless of what religion you're raised in. Okay? Now, notice what it says in John chapter 1, and I would say this, that probably every person in this room has unsaved Catholic family. Probably every single one of us has unsaved. Now, I didn't, but then I married into some unsaved Catholic family, okay? Because the United States is not really that Catholic compared to here in the Philippines, but all of us have lost loved ones that are Catholic and are on their way to hell because they've been lied to and they've been taught false doctrine, okay? And so in John chapter 1, notice what it says in verse 12, John 1 verse 12, but as many as received him, talking about receiving Jesus Christ as your savior, to them gave you power to become the sons of God. And see, a lot of people think that we're all children of God, but the Bible says you must become a son or a daughter of God. He must be born again, the Bible says, okay? We're all God's creation. That doesn't mean we're all God's children. You must put your faith in Jesus to become God's child. How do you do that? Well, then it says, even to them that believe on his name. So by believing on Jesus Christ, you become a child of God. Very plain and simple in verse 12. Now verse 13 is going to list a lot of things that do not get you born again. Verse 12 said, by believing you're born again, then in verse 13, many things are listed that do not get you born again. And what it says here in verse 13 is this, which were born not of blood, okay? Now when it says not of blood, what it's saying is it doesn't matter what blood runs through your veins from your mom and your dad. That doesn't matter. Basically, not of blood means it does not matter whether your dad is the greatest Christian in the world or whether or not he's an atheist. It doesn't matter if your mom is a Satan worshiper or whether she's an independent fundamental Baptist. It doesn't matter in terms of your salvation. See your salvation is an individual thing. It doesn't matter what your family believes. It matters what you believe. Many of us in this room, you know, just because we're saved, that doesn't mean our brothers and sisters and parents are saved. Probably for most of us, we have some lost loved ones in our immediate family of the family we grew up in, we had dinner with every single night, and yet some of them are following a false religion, probably Catholicism, and they're on their way to hell, okay? That's the reality. But look, when it comes to salvation, it's not of blood. It doesn't matter what blood runs through your veins, and it does not matter if your family has been Catholic for 700 years, for 1,000 years. Every single generation is Catholic, Catholic, Catholic, but we run into people that we talk to going soul winning, door to door, and in the parks, and they say they're Catholic. We say, why? Well, you know, my family's Catholic, and they have no interest in the gospel because they're just a Catholic family no matter what. That's foolishness. That's ridiculous because salvation is an individual thing. Turn to Luke 1, Luke 1. Now what's interesting about Catholicism is very rarely does anybody convert to Catholicism. It's very rare for someone who was not raised Catholic to become a Catholic. Really the only way that happens is, you know, a Baptist guy marries a Catholic girl and basically says, you know, we'll just raise our kids Catholic because I don't want to offend my wife. It's like, well, you shouldn't have married her if she was Catholic, but usually unless you marry into Catholicism, nobody really converts to Catholicism. Now the reason why the Catholic church grew so much through history is, for one, you would get killed if you didn't become Catholic. If you tried to actually practice real religion and salvation by grace through faith, the Catholic church would kill you for not going along with the program. So look, if your family's been Catholic for 800 years, you probably have some great, great, great, great grandparents that the only reason why they were Catholic is because they might have been killed if they weren't. That's the reality of the matter. In fact, everyone in the Philippines, the only reason why anyone here is Catholic is because they forced everyone to be Catholic. Because Spain took over and just said, and look, I'm not saying that Lapu-Lapu and the people of the Philippines were Bible-believing Christians, but I'm just saying the reason why Catholicism came here is it was forced. So it's kind of foolish to say I'm going to be Catholic because my great, great, great, great grandmother or great, great, great, great grandfather was Catholic, because here's the thing. If you go back far enough, the only reason why they were Catholic is because they were forced to be Catholic, and the religion was forced upon this country, okay? It wasn't a free will choice from your great grandparents. It was forced, okay? And so it's not like everyone in your family tree chose to be Catholic. Originally it started because they were forced to be Catholic, okay? So the Catholic Church, they grew by force. They murdered tens of millions of people throughout human history. But also the other way they grew is because historically the Catholic Church was very against birth control. So Catholic families were very large families, okay? They had lots of kids and they grew. And look, you know, I believe honestly that's a great way to build new people that love the Lord. My wife and I will have as many kids as God blesses us with, okay? You know, we love our kids, we'll have as many as God blesses us with, okay? But that is historically how the Catholic Church grew is by force and because they were against birth control, so pretty much everyone had these large families, okay? Now in today's world the Catholic Church has changed, but that's historically the reason why, okay? Now in Luke 1 we're going to see this story where basically, well, let me just read you verse 59 to start. Luke 1 verse 59, Luke 1 verse 59, man, you thought John chapter 1 was a long chapter. You're lucky I didn't have Dustin read Luke chapter 1, okay? That's a really, really long chapter, okay? Luke 1 verse 59, and it came to pass that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. The child being mentioned is John the Baptist, okay, at the age of eight days. And they called him Zacharias after the name of his father. Now it's not his parents calling him Zacharias. It's the neighbors and the cousins, the Bible says. So basically the neighbors and the cousins, they didn't really care what his actual name was. They just said, well, we're going to call him Zacharias. That is going to be his name. Now, I'm dead serious on this. The reason why my wife and I do not tell people the names of our children until they're born is because of the fact what I've seen, and I knew this took place just in churches and things like that, but then I saw this in the Bible and it's like, man, it made a lot of sense that if you tell people, and you can do what you want, it's up to you, but if you tell people the name of your child before that child's born, people will try to change your mind. They'll say, well, you know, why don't you call your child this instead, okay? Now I've seen it before. So my wife and I said, you know what, we're just not going to tell anybody until it's already been signed. It's official. It's the birth certificate. It's like if you don't like the name, that's your problem, because that is legally the binding name. It cannot be changed, okay? Now in this case, they say, you know what, how about Zacharias? Verse 60, and his mother answered and said, not so, but he shall be called John, okay? Now you would think people would just respect what she said, right? No, because that's not the way people are, okay? Verse 61, and they said unto her, there is none of thy kindred that is called by this name. Now the thing is, you don't have any brothers or sisters or cousins or aunts or uncles or grandparents that are called by this name, and if your family doesn't go by the name of John, your child should not go by the name of John. Now this is not referring to religion, but it's the same sort of concept. This idea, even from believers, because you would presume a lot of those neighbors and cousins that they're close with were probably saved people. We don't know that for sure, but I'd imagine a lot of them probably were, and basically even them having the idea, well, wait a minute. If your family doesn't go by this name, then your child shouldn't either, okay? It doesn't matter what your family chooses, okay? Notice what it says in verse 62, and they made signs to his father how he would have them called, because remember John the Baptist, John the Baptist's father Zacharias, he cannot speak because he doubted what God said about having a child, because his wife was past the age to have children. So he doubted, and since he didn't believe, he was struck basically where he could not speak for a period of time. And so he hasn't spoken for months and months and months, a long time period, okay? And they're asking him, well, what should we have him called, and he asks for a writing table. So he's going to write on the table the name John, okay, because that's the name that they chose. They're going to write on the table. He's going to write the name John, and then all of a sudden, and Rhodes sang, his name is John, and they marveled all. And so basically, he writes, but then it actually comes out of his mouth, his name is John, and everyone's like, whoa, you know, he hasn't spoke for, you know, a long time. And so they're just kind of like, okay, all right, that's the name, that's fine, okay? We're not going to argue with this, okay? So I want you to see here that in Luke chapter one, you're seeing the same sort of concept that basically, if your family goes a certain way, you should as well, okay? Turn to Acts 16, Acts 16, Acts chapter 16, and you know, I've seen this in my personal life. I remember somebody I knew back when I was a teenager, it was an elderly lady in the neighborhood we lived in, and I used to mow her grass and shovel the snow and things such as that for her because she was around 90 plus years old at the time. She actually lived to be, I was at her 100th birthday party. She lived a really, really, you know, long life. She just always stayed active. She's always walking around and everything like that. But I remember, you know, I knew her when I was a teenager and I was not saved, you know, when I was 13, 14, 15 years old. And I remember, you know, I got saved in college and so I started to talk about the Bible and that was my interest in life. And I remember she asked me this because I used to visit her from time to time to talk about, talk to her, and she'd tell me old stories about how when she was a child, what the culture was like. She grew up in Scotland and how the world had changed so much. And she was of the Anglican religion, basically the same as the Episcopalians. The Church of England was basically her religion. And I remember her telling me, she's like, you know, why are you a Baptist? She's like, your family are Methodists, so you should be a Methodist. That's what she told me. It was the same sort of idea, well, it's like, well, wait a minute, it's cool if you're religious and all, but your family are Methodists, so you should be one too. But look, salvation has nothing to do with what your parents believe or your grandparents. And when you stand before God, if your excuse is, well, my dad was also a Catholic, my mom was also a Catholic, you know, all my relatives throughout human history were Catholic, that's not going to be an excuse that's going to work. Okay? Notice what it says in Acts 16, verse 30, Acts 16, verse 30. And they brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? They said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house. And so this Philippian jailer asks, what do I have to do to be saved? And Paul and Silas say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou, you, shall be saved individually. Then he says, in thy house, okay? I've had people ask me the question, does that mean everybody in his house automatically gets saved if he believes? That's not what that's saying. What it's saying is this, that you individually, if you believe on Jesus, you get saved. But you know, the same thing happens to your wife and your kids and all of your household. They individually must make that choice to believe or not. Now I do believe they mentioned in thy house because they're wanting to get an opportunity to preach the gospel to his house. And it works because they end up preaching the gospel and the family gets saved. And I mean, that is a seasoned and experienced soul winner right there, Paul the Apostle, because he gets in and gives the whole family the gospel, okay? Notice verse 32, and they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. So basically it works, they go to his house and they preach the gospel to all that are in his house, verse 33. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized, he in all his straight way. So they all get baptized. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them and rejoiced, believing in God with all of his house. So everyone in that house also believes, okay? Now I've had some opportunities to preach the gospel to a family, like in their living room. You know, you get invited in and you preach the gospel to a lot of people. You know, the reality is that, you know what, if you're talking to a husband and wife and there's four kids, they're probably all going to pray at the end, especially if the husband and wife are listening. That doesn't mean all of them are getting saved though. And some of those children, and here's the thing, I've seen moms and dads that get saved and then sometimes you get the opportunity, you say, is there anyone else in the house I can talk to? Sometimes they give you a chance to talk to the people in the house and sometimes they have kids and some of them are old enough to understand and then they'll have like a four year old or something like that. And it gets to the end of the time to pray and the father's like, no, you got to pray. And it's just like, because they're excited about their child, they want their child to believe, but they don't necessarily understand, you know, that at that age they're probably not going to. I just want you to see here though, when it comes to this thing of salvation, it doesn't matter what your bloodline or your house believes, okay? It matters what you individually believe. Now turn in your Bible back to John, or John, actually turn to Acts 8, Acts 8. Actually go to John 1, sorry about that. Go back to John 1, John 1, and we'll go to Acts 8 in a second. John chapter 1, John chapter 1. And in John 1, what it said was this, it says, not of blood, then it says, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, okay? It says, not by the will of man, okay? Now we're going to talk about both these things here in a second, but I want you to go now to Acts chapter 8 as we're talking about not being by the will of man, okay? Now not of blood means it does not matter what your bloodline is. Not by the will of man is referencing it doesn't matter what things that man puts upon you that you must do this to go to heaven. You know, the Catholic church throughout history says you got to keep the sacraments, you got to do indulgences, and all these things that are unscriptural. It doesn't matter if that's legally the law, it matters what the Bible says. It doesn't matter what the will of man is, okay? Now one thing that they required throughout human history is for babies to be baptized or they will have original sin and they will go to hell according to the Catholic church. And so the Catholic church will always baptize babies and look, I didn't grow up Catholic, but guess what? The Protestants do the same thing. So when I was a few weeks old, I had water sprinkling on my head as well, okay? Because Protestants are basically like Catholics, okay? But notice what the Bible says here in Acts chapter 8 about baptism. Verse 36, Acts chapter 8 verse 36, and as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water and the eunuch said, see here's water, what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philippus preached the gospel to the eunuch and the eunuch is asking, hey, here's water, can I get baptized basically, okay? Now if you have an NIV, you do not have verse 37 because in the NIV they just took it out of the Bible, okay? The reason why is it's lining up with Catholic doctrine, okay? But here it's asked, what stops me from being baptized? And verse 37 is a very important verse. And Philippus 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. Now let me ask you a question, is it possible for a baby to believe with all their heart? No, a baby can't understand these things, okay? It's not possible for a two-year-old or a three-year-old. And you know, probably for most people it's not even possible at the age of four. And I'm not saying it's impossible for someone to get saved at that age, but I'm just saying for most people they're just not going to be able to understand at a really young age, okay? And so the Bible says here that basically you must believe first, okay? Now in verse 38, notice what it says, and he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philipp and the eunuch, and he baptized him. So going into the water is showing that it's by immersion, okay? Now at almost all churches that baptize babies, they don't do it by immersion. They don't go under the water. Now go to Galatians chapter one, Galatians one. Now I will say this, there is one exception to this that I'm aware of, and that is the Orthodox Church, the Orthodox religion. There are roughly 260 million, I think, Orthodox worldwide. Russia is an Orthodox country. I think Ethiopia is. A lot of the countries that were part of the USSR before they broke up, you know, the Soviet Union, are Orthodox countries. And they do baptism for babies by immersion, okay? If you've ever seen that online, it's really weird, okay? Because what you see with Orthodox babies, they basically just slam those babies, okay? And they do it three times. In the name of the Father, and in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Ghost. They slam those babies underneath. And here's what's interesting about this. The parents obviously have no idea what's going to happen. Because whenever they see this, they're just like horrified because the Orthodox priest has their baby. And I don't understand, I don't know if they're trying to do it as hard as possible. Because with a baby, you'd think they'd be very careful with like the nose and slowly place it. But they're just like, boom, just slamming those babies underneath. You're like, oh man, you feel bad for those babies, okay? The reason why the Orthodox Church does that is because they say, well, baptism means by immersion. So if we're going to baptize, we're going to baptize, okay? But see, the Bible does not teach this idea that babies are supposed to be baptized, okay? Now turn to Galatians 1, Galatians chapter 1, and I want you to see here in Galatians chapter 1 verse 13 is we're talking about not by the will of man. Not by the will of man. Notice what it says in Galatians 1 verse 13, for ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it, and profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. And what Paul the Apostle says is I was more successful as a Jew, as a Pharisee, because of the fact I was more zealous of the traditions of my fathers. Things that were not biblical. We're talking about things that are the will of man. Things the Bible doesn't teach, but basically just the church or the religious leaders say you must do this, and people just blindly do it without even thinking about it. Because usually we just assume our spiritual leaders are not lying to us. That is not always the case though, okay? Now turn to 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy chapter 2. And so another idea, not just infant baptism, but another big part of the Catholic church which is basically the will of man is this idea of confession. Confession is not something found in the Bible, okay? Notice what it says in 1 Timothy 2 verse 5, 1 Timothy 2 verse 5, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And see the Bible says that the only mediator between us and God is Christ Jesus, the Son of God, God in the flesh, okay? He is our mediator. So when we pray and we talk to God, we say in the name of Jesus or in Jesus' name, okay? We don't have to go through a priest or a man or anybody. There's one mediator, okay? Now the Catholic church likes to say there's one mediator and one mediatrix is what they say referring to Mary, okay? Because we can also go to Mary to have our prayers answered. Now that's ridiculous, okay? That's kind of off the scope of this sermon, but look, the Catholic church, they worship Mary in case you're not aware of it. They can lie about it, it's the truth. They worship Mary. And look, here's the thing. Anybody who gets saved that used to be Catholic, they're like, yeah, you know what? I really did worship Mary. I really did worship all those idols and everything. They'll say that after they get saved, but when they're not saved, they're blinded. They're like me, okay? If I don't have my glasses on, they spiritually just cannot see, okay? They're blinded, okay? But the Bible says one mediator, which means there can be, and this is referring to, because they want to say mediatrix, but referring to men, which means priests, which are men, look, they can't be our mediator to God because there's one mediator, and that is Jesus Christ. And so to say that some Catholic priest can be the mediator, and here's the thing, if you want to talk to me about something in the Bible or you've got questions, I'll give my advice, but realize you can go to God before me because I'm not your mediator. If you want advice or my opinion, I'll give you my opinion, but look, I'm not your mediator, okay? You don't confess your sins to me. I don't want to hear about your sins, okay? We don't have some little special box or whatever. You can come in. There's a blockage. It's like, well, tell me your sins, son. Look, we're not going to do that at a church. That's weird. That's bizarre, and it's unbiblical, and there's one mediator, okay? And that is the man Christ Jesus, okay? Now turn to John 6, John 6, John chapter 6, but here's the thing, with Catholics, they just say, wow, this is what my parents believe, or I've just been doing these traditions my whole life. You know, I was born Catholic, and I was raised Catholic. I grew up with these traditions, confession, infant baptism, follow the sacraments, all of these things, okay? Taking communion with wine every single week, okay? At a young age, just getting a little bit, you know, boozed, right, or a little bit tipsy. They start that tradition at a young age, okay? But where's that in the Bible? It doesn't matter what the will of man is. Does the Bible teach this? John chapter 6, John 6, let's look at verse 48 first, John chapter 6, verse 48. This is the big chapter where the Catholics talk about the Eucharist, that you must actually take the body of Jesus to be saved, and they say literally at communion that that wafer turns into the body of Jesus in your mouth, okay? Now here's what they say. If you pull out that bread, or whatever it is, out of your mouth, it's not the body of Jesus. But whenever it's in the mouth, it is the body of Jesus. So basically, once you close your mouth, it's the body of Jesus. Once you take it out, oh, it's not the body of Jesus. Body of Jesus? Not the body of Jesus. That's what they teach. So basically, if you're drinking the wine that they have, we use grape juice, but they use full wine, okay? If you were to spit that out, it's just wine. But once it's in the mouth, it's the blood of Jesus. That's what they teach to try to get around these verses. Because obviously, people have tested this, okay? They're like, is it really the body of Jesus? Let me test. Nope. And they say, well, when it's inside your mouth, it just chemically reacts. There's this magic thing that takes place, and boom, you know, it's the body of Jesus. That's what they teach, okay? John chapter 6, verse 48, I am that bread of life. And remember, Jesus said, if you don't eat my flesh, you shall not go to heaven, okay? What Catholics don't realize is some things are symbolic in the Bible. And see, verse 48, you can understand if you go to verse 47. Because verse 47 says, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. And the Bible's saying it's just by believing to receive everlasting life. And what it's trying to teach you is this, that receiving Jesus is as easy as eating a slice of bread. That's how easy it is. And he also uses the example that he's the living water. Receiving Jesus is as easy as drinking a glass of water. My son is two years old. Did you know that he can eat bread on his own? He can drink water on his own. They learn at a young age. Jesus says, I am the door. Look, it's not that hard to open a door, okay? And my son, you know, now that he's tall enough, he can start to turn that knob. They figure it out. Those things aren't hard to do. And so the Bible's just trying to show you receiving Jesus is as easy as eating a slice of bread because there's a lot of symbolism in the Bible. It's not saying literally you must eat the body of Jesus to go to heaven, okay? Now turn to John 14, John 14, John chapter 14. And so look, it doesn't matter what your family believes. It's not by blood. It's not the will of man. And it's also not the will of the flesh. And the will of the flesh is about your individual actions and what you do. It's not what you desire to do or what you do do. It's by believing in Jesus. That's what it said in John 1-12. Now John 14, verse 15, I want you to see something. It says, if ye love me, John 14, verse 15, keep my commandments, okay? This is an important verse and here's what you need to understand because the Bible said it's not the will of the flesh, so it's not what you do. John 14, verse 15 does not say in order to go to heaven, keep the commandments. It says if ye love me, keep my commandments. Look, my son is always going to be my son, but whether or not he loves and respects me, the proof of that is going to be when he grows up, does he listen to what I have to say? If he doesn't listen to what I have to say, you're going to say he doesn't really respect or love me very much, right? But is he still my son? Absolutely. It's the same thing with God. Look, a lot of saved people never read the Bible, they never pray, they never go to church. That does not mean they're not saved. What it means is they're just not keeping the commandments of God. Now, we should strive to love God as much as possible, but the reality is none of us always keep God's commandments. I can't say I have perfect love for God. I am striving to get better and better each day and all of you are doing the same thing and none of us are ever even going to come close to that point, okay? You don't have to keep God's commandments to be saved though. That's the proof of whether or not you love God, but to be saved, whosoever believeth in him should not perish but of everlasting life. So it's not of blood or the will of the man or the will of the flesh. Now, turn to Revelation 21, Revelation 21. And so when we talk to Catholics, a lot of, and here's the thing, most Catholics are receptive to the gospel, but you do run into these Catholics that say, well, my parents are Catholics, my grandparents are Catholics, my aunt, my uncle, so I'm just going to be a Catholic. And then you also run into people that say this, okay, they get saved but they'll pretend to be a Catholic because they don't want to offend their parents or their grandparents. They'll just never go to any church. And as long as you don't go to church, it's okay with the Catholic church, as long as you don't come to like a Baptist church, okay? But they'll just kind of pretend like they're not against the Catholic church anymore because they don't want to offend family. It's the same way with anyone, really, because when you go against the religion of your parents, it offends them. That's what takes place. And the reality is, you know, people get saved and oftentimes they don't come to church or church like this because of the fact they're worried about what their mom and their dad and their grandparents think. But look, salvation's an individual thing but also living for God is an individual thing. You have the choice to read the Bible every day. You have the choice to pray every day. It has nothing to do with your family and you shouldn't let that stop you from coming to a good church, okay? And there are people that want to come to our church but don't come to church. And the reason why is because their parents don't want them to come to our church. And I understand if you're younger and living under the roof of your parents, you might not have a way around this. But look, it comes to a certain age where it's like, it's time for you to make your own choices, okay? And if you want to come to church, you come to church, okay? Now notice what it says in Revelation 21 and the next thing we're going to talk about is purgatory because the Catholics that have this idea, well, my family's Catholic, so I don't really care about the Gospel, they believe in purgatory. And so they kind of have this attitude, no matter what we do in our lives, it doesn't really matter because we're all going to just go to purgatory anyway and kind of work out our sins in purgatory because they believe purgatory is the cleansing process before you get to heaven. Because Catholics, if you follow what they believe, they don't believe anybody goes to heaven when they die. They believe that you go to purgatory and the better Catholic you are, the less time you spend in purgatory because you've got to be cleansed of your sins first, okay? And what it says in Revelation 21 and 27, and this is their big verse that they use to argue, one of their big verses, it says, Revelation 21 verse 27, and they're showing no wise to enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. And they say, well, you can't make it to heaven if you just make a lie. So basically, since you've lied in your life, you've got to go to purgatory first. That's what they teach. They use this verse and say, you can't go to heaven if you've ever lied before. Now we agree you can't go to heaven if you've lied, but when you believe on Jesus, spiritually you're cleansed and all your sins are forgiven. They say, well, you've got to go to purgatory. With the idea and the belief of purgatory, you're not really that interested in the gospel because it doesn't really matter as long as you try to live a good life, you're going to go to purgatory anyway. Okay, now that's their number one argument for purgatory, and I've got to be honest, it doesn't even mention the word purgatory. It doesn't mention spending any time in between heaven and hell. And look, when it comes to salvation, that is your spiritual life. Physically you're alive or dead. Spiritually, you're alive or you're dead, okay? It's either spiritual, or spiritual. Those are the only two options, okay? There's no in between, well, I'm half alive and half dead. No, it's one or the other, okay? Now the second big argument they have is in 2 Maccabees, and we don't believe in the apocrypha, so that's a whole other argument, okay? But that's not as good, that's their second argument, so obviously that's not as good of an argument to them as Revelation 21, which is a pretty bad argument. So let's go to Matthew 12, which will have the third argument. Matthew chapter 12, Matthew chapter 12, Matthew chapter 12. And in Matthew chapter 12 verse 32, Matthew 12 verse 32, it says this, And whosoever speaketh the word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. And so what Catholics say in this verse is that this world would be while you're alive, and they say the world to come is purgatory, okay? Now it doesn't say purgatory, it just says the world to come, but they say the world to come, when it's mentioned in the Bible, is referencing purgatory, okay? You say, well, how do we disprove that? Well go to Hebrews 6, we'll disprove what the world to come, that it's not referring to purgatory. Hebrews chapter 6, Hebrews 6. If you believe weird false doctrine, you've got to come up with some verse that you're going to claim is referring to purgatory, because people will ask you about that. People will ask their priests, where does the Bible mention purgatory? And then they'll just say the world to come, and usually people will say, oh, okay, and they won't think about it anymore. If you're actually reading the Bible to find out what it means, though, you're going to look at it and say, well, that doesn't teach purgatory, the world to come. But in Hebrews 6, we can tell the world to come is not referring to purgatory, okay? I want you to, because let me ask you a question. Is purgatory a good thing or a bad thing, according to what Catholics believe it is? It's torture, right? They believe you're being tortured for some time until you get to heaven. That doesn't sound like a place I want to go, right? That's not a fun place to go. You're being cleansed for your sin. How do you get cleansed from your sin in purgatory? You burn. That's what they teach. You're being tortured in purgatory. That's not a good place, okay? Well, notice what it says in Hebrews 6, verse 4, for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, okay? Now being enlightened, is that good or bad? It's good, right? Light is good. Darkness is bad in the Bible, right? Being enlightened is a good thing, okay? Notice what it says, and have tasted of the heavenly gift. Heavenly gift, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It's a good thing, right? Heavenly gift. Being enlightened, heavenly gift. And were made partakers of the Holy Ghost. Is the Holy Ghost good? I hope you say yes on that, okay? Obviously the Holy Ghost is good, right? And have tasted the good word of God. Is the word of God, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It's a good thing. So realize, as we're just looking at this grammatically, it mentions all these things that are good, good, good, good. These are all going to line up together. So what's being mentioned next better be a good thing, okay? Then the powers of the world to come. Well, if this isn't place you burn, that doesn't sound so good to me. It mentions being enlightened, the word of God, the Holy Ghost, and being on fire. One of those doesn't fit, okay? So if the world to come is referring to a place where you're burning, then it just doesn't fit with Hebrews 6, because that's a bad place. It's not a good place for us to be on fire, to be burning. I'd rather just be here than being burning for like 100 years or whatever, okay? It's ridiculous, okay? Now turn to Matthew 25, Matthew 25. Now we're coming to a point with the Catholic Church that nobody really believes what they teach anyway. I mean, probably half of Catholics don't believe in the Eucharist. They don't really believe it's the body of Jesus. Half of them don't believe in purgatory. Whenever I'm preaching the gospel, I will tell people that, you know, physically you're alive or dead, spiritually you're alive or dead, and they're like, yeah, you know, that makes sense, right? So it's not really hard to disprove purgatory, because all the verses we show out, soul winning, they're talking about either going to heaven or hell. There's only two options. And we could turn to a lot of verses that say this, but in Matthew 25 verse 46, what the Bible says is this, Matthew 25 verse 46, and these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal, okay? Notice how there's just two things here, life eternal, eternal life, or everlasting punishment. Now how long is everlasting? It's forever. So here's the thing, if you're going to purgatory to burn, then that's going to last forever. Why? Because the punishment lasts forever. It doesn't end after 50 years or 100 years. See when you die, you're going to spend forever in one of two places, heaven or hell. That's what the Bible teaches. Okay, now turn to Romans 6, Romans 6. Now here's the reason why a lot of people like to believe in things like purgatory though, because here's the thing, nobody wants to think that their family is unsaved and in hell. They want to think they have a second chance and they can work their way up to heaven or something such as that. And here's the reality, like I mentioned, all of us have an unsaved family. People that we could say that person just is probably not saved. And here's the thing, if they die, let's say they die next week, you're going to wish that person had a chance to make it to heaven. The idea of hell is terrible for us as saved people. Now obviously we know that God is righteous and holy and it is just, but when you just stop and meditate on hell for a little while, I mean it's a terrible thought. That's my biggest motivation to go soul winning, because I don't want to see people go to hell. I think of family, I think of friends, I think of people that I used to play soccer with and go to school with and things like that, and the vast majority of them are on their way to hell. That's a terrifying thought. And here's the thing, most people just don't want to think that. And I've seen people that have unsaved relatives that died that are clearly just not saved. Like I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday that my granddad died an atheist, okay? There's no way he's saved. There's no way he believed in Jesus. There's no way he's in heaven. But you know what I've seen is some people when they have people that die in their family or people that aren't dead but are alive, they just want to assume, well, they might have gotten saved. Like someone who's a die hard Catholic. And they'll say, well maybe they got saved when they were a child, okay, but they worship Mary, they worship all these things, and they're a hardcore Catholic. Look, they're not saved. And that might be a harsh reality, but here's why you need to know that. Because if you lie to yourself and think they are saved, you're never going to try to get them saved. You need to just realize, you know what? Those people probably aren't saved. Because here's the thing, when we go soul winning, we determine if somebody's saved based on what they believe. And here's the thing, some of the people in our families that we like to think might be saved, if we ran into them out soul winning, we'd say they're not saved. Right? I mean, they tell us you got to live a good life, be baptized, do the rosary beads, and go to confession. You say, well, maybe they got saved as a child. You would never say that if they weren't your family member. And the reason why this is important is because of the fact you will never try to get them saved if you keep this thought in your head, maybe they already are saved. Just realize they're not saved. Why? Because if you're not willing to admit that, you'll never even try to get them saved. We must just come to grips with it. As saved people, we need to just be honest with ourselves, that some of our family, people we know, they're just not saved. And the reason why we need to know that is because otherwise we'll never try to get them saved. Notice what it says in Romans 6, verse 23. Romans 6, verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Once again, a good place and a bad place. Good thing and a bad thing. And throughout the Bible, it's one or the other. There is no purgatory in the Bible. There's no second chance. And the unsaved family you have, if they happen to die, it's game over. No second chance. Now turn in your Bible to Matthew 3. And I'll try to be fast on this last point, Matthew 3. And look, this is the religion of our country, the Catholic Church. And I do believe that there's some people that get saved in the Catholic Church and maybe they never start going to church or maybe they're wrong on some doctrines. But here's the thing. If they're just like a die-hard Catholic, they're just not saved. That's the reality. Because when you get saved, you're indwelled with the Holy Spirit, which is also called the Spirit of Truth. And look, when someone tells you, you know what, I believe like the Pope is just like a really godly person. Look, they are not saved, okay? If they can't understand that the Catholic Church is lying and they think, oh, it's perfectly fine, you know, all the teachings that you got to get, well, I mean, yeah, they teach you got to be baptized to go to heaven, but they're still preaching about Jesus. It's like, you know, do you understand what salvation is? Because here's the thing. I don't hate Catholic people, but I hate the religion. We don't hate unsaved people. We love unsaved people. But we need to hate the false religions that are sending them to hell, okay? We need to just be realized that that Catholic religion, it's sending people to hell, many of our own family members, especially here in the Philippines, okay? And so the last thing I want you to see is this in Matthew 3, as we're going to talk about repentance and this idea of repentance meaning changing what you believe and believing on Jesus Christ, that when it comes to changing what you believe and believing on Jesus Christ, every single person, no matter how they're raised, must do this because nobody is born saved. You're born safe in the fact that a baby will go to heaven because they're not held accountable. They're safe, but they're not safe, if you understand the difference, because God will keep them. He'll let them go to heaven because they can't understand these things, like if one of my children died, they would go straight to heaven, but once they reach an age where they can understand, they're guilty just like Adam and Eve were. They need a savior, and they must be born again. So here's the thing. Even if you were not raised Catholic, all of us, we changed our mind about what we believed about the Gospel at some point in our lives. I was raised United Methodist. Many people in here were actually raised Baptist. Many people in here were raised Catholic, but all of us, when we got saved, we made a decision to believe on Jesus and quit trusting our works and what we do and say, I'm just going to believe on Jesus Christ. Matthew 3, verse 1, in those days came John the Baptist preaching the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now notice he doesn't say repent of your sins. He's not saying quit drinking, quit smoking, but what he's saying is basically, change your mind. Believe on Jesus Christ. Quit trusting what you're believing before and believe on Jesus Christ. Matthew 21, Matthew 21. So here's the thing. When a Catholic would tell us, well, my family's Catholic, so I'm going to be Catholic. Well here's the thing. I didn't grow up saved. I got saved at the age of 18, and I grew up United Methodist, Protestant, and I changed my mind about what I believed. All of us had to make that decision where we changed our mind. We believed on Jesus Christ. It is true that if a child is born in a good church that they can hear the gospel from their parents quite a bit, but for most of us that wasn't the case. For most of us, we believed in a false religion before and then we believed on Jesus, and quite honestly, a lot of people in this room actually were raised Baptist but believed a false belief. Just because you're Baptist doesn't mean you're going to heaven, because there's people that are Baptist born, Baptist bred, but they're not going to go to heaven because they didn't believe on Jesus. Just being in a church doesn't make you saved. We had 50 plus people here on Sunday morning, but look, I'm sure that there was people, at least someone probably, who wasn't saved. Just because you're walking into a church doesn't mean you're saved. What are you trusting to get to heaven? Are you believing on Jesus? Because you can't trust in a church or a religion. You got to trust on Jesus Christ. Put your faith in Jesus. Matthew 21 verse 32, Matthew 21 verse 32, for John came unto you in the way of righteousness and ye believed him not. What's being spoken of here is that John the Baptist was preaching and they did not believe. That is what sends you to hell if you do not believe, but notice how he gives more information as he puts a semicolon after ye believed him not, but the publicans and the harlots believed him. So I want you to see something that you have one group of people that does not believe and one group that does believe. Now the group that believes are the publicans and harlots. Publicans are not the greatest people and harlots, that's a prostitute. That's a whore. That's not exactly a good term. But do you realize there's people that are drunks and drug dealers and prostitutes that we will see in heaven one day? And praise the Lord that Jesus died for everybody. Because here's the thing, none of us are so great ourselves either. We've all sinned, even if we haven't done things such as that, it's not like we're innocent. Everybody's guilty, it's just some people are more guilty than others, but anybody can believe on Jesus and be saved. Jesus died for everyone and they believe on him. They're saved and on their way to heaven, the Bible says. If somebody believes, they will be saved and all their sins are forgiven. And so I want you to see here where it says the publicans and harlots believed him and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward that ye might believe him. They're saying, you know what, you cannot believe because you did not repent. Okay, once again, this is not repentance of sins. What it's saying is basically you're trusting the wrong way to get to heaven and the only way to believe on Jesus is change your mind about what you believe and believe on Jesus. Okay, so all of us, when we got saved, we repented of what we were trusting. I was trusting my works, my lifestyle. I was trusting that to get me to heaven and what did I have to do? I had to change my mind about what I was believing to believe on Jesus. You cannot believe on Jesus when you're still believing in yourself to get to heaven. And see, everybody must change their mind or repent of what they believe. Change their mind about trusting their works, quit trusting their baptism or their lifestyle or their good deeds, and this group of people, he says, you did not repent. You did not change your mind and because you didn't change your mind, it's impossible to believe on Jesus when you're still trusting the same thing. And look, when it comes to religions like Hinduism that believes in lots of gods, if you preach the gospel to a Hindu, they will always accept Jesus, but it doesn't mean they're going to reject Hinduism and believe on Jesus. For someone to be saved, they've got to reject their false way to get to heaven first. And if we preach the gospel to a Catholic and they say, man, that sounds good, but they still believe they've got to keep the sacraments and get baptized and live a good life, they did not understand the gospel and they didn't get saved. They've got to change their mind about what they're trusting according to Matthew chapter 21. That's what repentance is, okay? Acts 19, Acts 19, Acts chapter 19, and in Acts chapter 19, we're going to see something pretty similar here. Acts chapter 19. And I want you to notice here in Acts chapter 19, verse 1, and it came to pass that while Paul was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper coast, came to Ephesus and finding certain disciples, he said unto them, have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto them, we have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And so Paul's trying to talk to them to make sure they understand the gospel and they're like, what's the Holy Ghost? And so Paul's wondering, did they even get saved? Because John the Baptist, he preached to a lot of people. And what probably took place and did with this group of people is many people are hearing his message and they're like, man, that sounds good. I believe that. It doesn't mean they actually did believe it, though, because he's preaching to lots of large crowds. A lot of people were probably saying, man, that's good. I agree with that. That's different than the Pharisees. It doesn't mean they individually believe because some just didn't understand, okay? You're preaching to large crowds, they're less likely to understand, okay? If you're preaching to one person or two people's soul winning, they're more likely to understand, okay? Verse number three, and he said unto them, unto what then were ye baptized? And they said unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, okay? Now he's referring here not to, because they're talking about baptism. They're thinking of like water baptism and Paul's bringing it back to basically a spiritual baptism because baptized means to immerse, means to go in, basically when it comes to water, you're fully immersed in the water. But when you believe on Jesus, the Bible uses the terminology you're baptized into Jesus Christ because you fully trust Jesus Christ. You're fully immersed in that. You fully believe that, okay? So the word baptized basically means to immerse. Usually it's referring to water in the Bible, but not always, okay? You have to look at the context here. And so Paul says the baptism of repentance. Now obviously that's not water, okay? Baptism of repentance. But then he clarifies what is the baptism of repentance? Saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him. That is on Christ Jesus. So what was it that John the Baptist was preaching according to Paul? He's telling people, yeah, you know what? You need to repent. And when he explained that, what he said is, believe on Jesus Christ. Change what you're believing in, believe on Jesus Christ. So it's very possible. Some people heard John saying, you must repent. But they didn't understand the clarification that he's making. To believe on Jesus, you've got to quit trusting what you were trusting before, okay? The baptism of repentance. Turn to 1 Thessalonians 1. We'll look at one last place. First Thessalonians chapter 1. He said, what do my Catholic relatives need to do? Well, they need to change their mind about what they believe. Otherwise they will go to hell, okay? Not because of the fact they walked into a Catholic church, like that's your death, but because of the fact if they're trusting in the Catholic church to get them to heaven, which has the sacraments, baptism, confession, last rites, just name the list, okay? Just lots of different things. And it's changed throughout human history. Because the Catholic church has added new doctrines and changed doctrines, and it's okay to them because the pope just gets to make up whatever he wants. And whatever the pope says, he's infallible. He's perfect to court. Not sinless, but basically when he preaches doctrine, he never makes any mistakes. It's kind of funny because I thought they were all sinners, because I do make mistakes. I'm sure that if you looked at everything I preach, God would say, you know what, Brother Stuckey's wrong about that. He's wrong about that. Why? Because I'm not perfect. We make mistakes. We're not 100% perfect, okay? But the Catholic church says popes are infallible. They don't make mistakes. Well, the problem with that is the popes contradict each other. Because Pope Francis teaches that if an atheist is a good atheist, they go to heaven. He said that. There's this little kid who came up to Pope Francis, and he was crying. He said, I'm so worried that my dad's in hell. He didn't believe in God. And Pope Francis said, was he a good man? Was he a good man? And he's like, yeah. What's the kid going to say about his father? He's like, yeah, he was a good man. And he's like, don't worry, son. He's in heaven. That's not what the Catholic church used to teach, though. See, the Catholic church used to say, no salvation outside of the Catholic church. That you must become a member and be part of the Catholic church fully to go to heaven. Now though, the Catholic church accepts Protestant baptisms. They accept baptisms from other churches. Because of the fact the Catholic church is ushering in the new world order. Bring all the religions of the world together. You can go online on YouTube or Google, you can see the Pope praying with Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. It's funny because I've never been invited to those things, to pray with Muslims and Hindus. For some reason, I don't know, they don't like me very much. But the Pope is just ushering in this into the end times. And the Pope will, and Pope Francis is liked by a lot of people. He's a lot different than other Popes. But the Pope today, he's very liberal. He's pro LGBT. He says, you don't have to be Catholic to go to heaven. And he's praying with Muslims and Hindus and Jews and oh, they get to go to heaven too. That's what he's teaching now. You don't even have to believe in God to go to heaven according to him, as long as you're a good atheist. Look the Catholic church has changed, but that's not what they used to teach. And so to say they're infallible doesn't make sense because they contradict one another. And so to say this Pope, whatever he says is true, the problem is he's contradicted lots of other Popes. Now notice what it says in First Thessalonians one verse nine. First Thessalonians chapter one verse nine, for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had on you and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Now I want to spend a few minutes talking about this because I've heard people use this first to say you must turn from your sins. And they'll use this and say, well, see, you have to quit drinking, quit smoking and do these things to go to heaven. What it says is they turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Here's what you need to understand in First Thessalonians one verse nine. Many people that are all about idolatry, they're actually trusting in those idols to get to heaven because that is part of their religion. Okay? Look, a Catholic that has all these statues in their house, they don't have to get rid of the statues to go to heaven. But the reality is that if they have all those statues, they're probably trusting in that as part of their religion to get to heaven. They're trusting in those idols to get to heaven. And so you've got to turn or change your mind about what you believe. You've got to turn from trusting in idolatry and believe on Jesus Christ. So that lines up with the Catholic Church because many Catholics, they are trusting in those idols and their religion to get to heaven. That's part of their religion. That's part of the Catholic Church. The Feast of the Black Nazarene, these big Catholic statues, that is part of their religion and they must trust in that to get to heaven as well. And so what he's saying here is that you had to turn from your idols to trust in the living God. Because if you're trusting in idols, you're not going to put your trust in Jesus Christ. But I don't want you to misunderstand me. If a Catholic gets saved, that does not mean they're going to get rid of all their idols from day one. To get saved, you've got to quit trusting in those idols to get to heaven. But I promise you, there's many Catholics that get saved and they don't just immediately burn up their idols. See, for us as people that love God, the tough thing for us was to get rid of our music CDs or movies, right? When you're living for God, you say, man, some of these music CDs are wrong and ungodly. And it took some time after salvation to say, I'm going to get rid of these rock CDs. For Catholics, it's the idols. They get saved and they say, man, but I've had this statue of Buddha in my house. And I say that because I know a lot of Catholics with Buddha statues. I don't understand, but somehow that's part of Catholicism too now. But they have all these statues and it's like, man, I spent like, you know, I don't know, like 30,000 pesos on this big statue of Mary. It's like, I'm not just going to get rid of it. That cost me money. You know, maybe I can go and sell it, you know, online or something like that. They don't want to get rid of it because they've invested a lot into it. So I'm not saying that somebody gets saved that's Catholic. They just immediately have full understanding of all these things. But they do need to quit trusting in their idols and trusting in their religion to believe on Jesus. They've got to quit trusting in what they were before. And so what we're talking about in this sermon, Catholic born, Catholic bred, and when I die, I'll be twice dead. We're talking about the Catholics we run into that they just are going to stay with their religion no matter what. And unfortunately, with people like this, it really doesn't even matter what we say. They're probably just going to die a Catholic like they say they want to. Because they say Catholic born, Catholic bred, and when I die, I'll be Catholic bred. And it's like, yeah, you know what? You will be Catholic dead. Catholic born, Catholic bred, and when I die, I'll be Catholic dead. Yeah, you will be Catholic dead. You'll be twice dead. Because the Catholic Church is a false religion and people that are trusting it, they're going to die and go to hell. And just to remind us, we need to realize with our relatives that are these diehard Catholics or diehard any religion with a false gospel, they're probably not saved. And you should probably preach the gospel to them because if you don't, they have no second chance. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and just getting to see your word on this topic and help us to realize this because all of us, you know, we have unsafe family and this is just a good reminder for all of us, including myself, that we must put in an effort to preach the gospel to these people because if we don't, they probably do not have any hope. They're not going to learn this from their churches. We need to make it an effort to try to get them saved, God. We just pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.