Pints With Aquinas - The Anti-Christ and The End of The World (Ralph Martin)

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Ralph Martin is the President of Renewal Ministries, an organization dedicated to Catholic renewal and evangelization. He is also the co-host of the long-running podcast, "The Choices We Face," where he explores important and inspiring topics surrounding faith and life in the Catholic Church. Ralph holds a doctorate in theology from the Angelicum University in Rome and serves as a professor of theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. He has authored several books on spirituality and evangelization, including "The Fulfillment of All Desire" and "A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward." His most recent book, "A Life in the Spirit", is available from the St. Paul Center. Get 20% off Ralph's New Book: https://stpaulcenter.com/martin/ Promo Code: RALPH20 🍺 Get episodes a week early, 🍺 score a free PWA beer stein, and 🍺 enjoy exclusive streams with me! Become an annual supporter at https://mattfradd.locals.com/support 💵 Show Sponsors: Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt  Hallow: https://hallow.com/mattfradd Strive21: https://strive21.com/matt 💻 Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd X: https://www.x.com/@Pints_W_Aquinas TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas 👕 Store: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com/  

Hey guys, it takes a lot of money to keep this podcast going. Please consider supporting us at matfrad.locals.com. When you become an annual supporter, we will send you a free Pints with Aquinas Beerstein. Just pay shipping. You'll get access to our long-form episodes one week before they hit YouTube. You'll also get to interact with me on my exclusive stream for my supporters over at matfrad.locals.com. Thanks! No, this is a brave new world where we create ourselves. We decide ourselves what's right and wrong. We don't need we don't want the church and its rules anymore. We don't want God and its rules. Did she do something at the Eucharistic Congress? I don't know.

Okay. Ready? Ralph Martin. It is an honor, a privilege and a delight. Well, before we get started, I know you said you wanted to address the the nose thing what happened to you Oh, are we on the air? Oh, okay. Yeah, it's not live, but well Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I'm sorry. I'm arriving here today with a bandage on my nose I know it's a bit distracting, but I wasn't expecting it

I wanted to the dermatologist yesterday and there was a little thing in my nose, and she said we should take that off right now. It just turned out to be a little bloodier and a little more band-aid-y than I was expecting it to be. But you know what? It's good for our humility, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

So my wife told me it was good for my humility. So I feel very, very comfortable about doing what we're doing today, and I hope people won't be too distracted by it. Sure. Did it hurt? Did it hurt? Well, a little bit. Not too much, yeah. Yeah, it just happened yesterday, so it's getting better every minute. Yeah. Well, I know that today I'm really looking forward to talking to you about the end times

and the Antichrist. And one of the reasons I'm excited to talk to you know that today I'm really looking forward to talking to you about the end times and the antichrist and one of the reasons I'm excited to talk to you about that is I know that you take the Word of God Seriously, and you avoid the two pitfalls of a sort of lax-e-daisy attitude or a skeptical attitude concerning these things But you also don't hyper fixate on these things To the point of kind of hysteria. Yeah, and I think we need that today But before we get into that, could you tell us about this book that you have? I know St. Paul Center said they're gonna give 25% off

to people who buy it. 20? Good, 20% off. We'll put a link in the description below. That's amazing. Well, recently I've been kind of sharing more of my own personal story about, it's been a long time, it's been a long journey. I've seen a lot of things, done a lot of things, and

Scott Hawn said, you know, he really ought to write your memoir, you know, and he says you've been places and seen people and done things that a lot of people would be interested in. So I did it, and it just came out just a few weeks ago and I'm pretty excited about it. It's actually got some pictures, so people who don't like to read can look at the pictures, you know? And one of my favorite pictures here is, there's all kinds of pictures of me

with so and so and so and so, but one of my favorite pictures is I'm here with all 19 of my grandchildren wearing matching flannel shirts. Come on. Yeah. At a recent birthday, they all decided to surprise me by all wearing matching flannel shirts. Come on. Yeah. At a recent birthday, they all decided to surprise me by all wearing matching flannel shirts.

And so they know I like to wear flannel shirts. I actually brought another sports jacket and a nice dress shirt today in case you wanted me to dress up. But you told me that it was okay. So I feel most comfortable in flannel shirts. Be yourself. You know, just pull that mic in a little bit

just so it's just under your chin if that's all right. So we can hear you. Maybe you can just pull that mic in a little bit, just so it's just under your chin, if that's all right. So we can hear you. Maybe you can just pull it forward like that. Yeah, okay. And then I think, like you just said, people can get this at a 20% discount. You are a good looking man. Give us a look at you.

I used to be, yeah. Well. It happens to all of us, doesn't it? I mean, that's the beautiful thing about getting old. It's like, you get old, you get ugly and sick. If you're lucky, if you don't, you die before that. So, yeah, well, that was when I first started talking about a crisis of truth in the Catholic Church, you know, and it was this.

Sorry. Keep going. OK. I was going to say, was this very edifying to sit down and reflect upon what the Lord has done through your life? It was really interesting. You know, you don't do a lot of research. I asked some people to check on dates and things like that. But it was sort of like, I remembered all kinds of things that were really interesting

that I really had forgotten about. And I could see a little pattern to them type of thing. I could see the hands of the Lord places. And I don't kind of dress this up. I mean, it's the good, the bad and the ugly. There's this pain, this suffering, this failure, this mistakes, there's bad, and the ugly. You know, there's this pain, there's suffering, there's failure, there's mistakes, you know. There's the agony and the ecstasy. And, you know, when you serve the Lord for a long time

and you start off as a very imperfect person, you're still an imperfect person when it's over, but you're improved, you know. You're less imperfect, and you're more able not to make mistakes, and more able to love people, and more able to obey the Lord, more able to hear the Holy Spirit. But it's really an interesting journey that we're all on. In some ways, my story is our story in different kinds of ways. It's just a matter of learning how to say yes to

the Lord and keep saying yes to the Lord as He leads in different kinds of ways. I'm sure tens of thousands or more will read this book, but even if just your grandkids read it, I'm sure it would be so edifying. I mean, I don't know a great deal about my grandfather, but if he had a book and I found out about it, I would add, I would read it with great interest. Yeah. So that's beautiful. And you've been everywhere recently preaching the word.

Well, it's really interesting. This has been the busiest year of my life. And I keep saying, like, what's going on, Lord? I mean, shouldn't I be slowing down or that type of thing? But, yeah, it started off the summer with in Brazil with Scott Hahn. We both went down there together and gave a bunch of talks to a really, really wonderful guy invited us

who's trying to unite all the renewal movements in Brazil. So they had Opus Dei there and they had Charismatic Renewal and they had Folkularian Community and they had everybody under the Sun. It was pretty amazing because these people don't normally come together, but Scott and I were able to kind of speak to them together in a way that they had confidence that we respected their individual charisms, but also we had a lot in common like Orthodoxy, likeodoxy, like holiness, like mission, like witness, you know, that type of thing.

So that's how it started, it was really good. Then I went to Uganda. We've been, Renewal Ministries has been working in Uganda for like 25 years, and it's probably the country that we've had the biggest impact on. More than 2,000 priests and seminarians have gone through Life in the Spirit seminars that we've kind of supported, organized, and out of that about six of them have become bishops. And so they decided they wanted to celebrate everything that was happening, so we had a retreat for 500

priests, you know, from all over East Africa. And it was really wonderful. Bishop Scott McCaig from Canoa. I love him. Yeah, he's part of the big Commonwealth, you know, Aussies and Canadians, and that type of thing. And yeah, he gave five talks, I gave five talks, we did the priest retreat together, and I have to tell you, I haven't heard as good talks ever that I heard Bishop Scott gave about the kerygma, about the battle we're in, about salvation. I just was like, wow, thank God that here's a bishop who's preaching so-

He is criminally underrated. I wish more and more people knew about him. He is one of the most powerful bishops I've ever encountered. Wasn't it interesting, so you know him then, and yeah. Oh yeah, he used to be my spiritual director. Oh my goodness. I used to live in Canada. Yes. and I would say that it was it was him The Lord began to heal me of scrupulosity through him. Yeah, is that great? Yeah

I was really struggling a lot and he he beat it out of me with two sticks One one was Teresa of Lisieux and the other I think it was the sixth session at the Council of Trent on justification Oh, okay until I finally realized that Christ is my righteousness and I am on a mountain There was Therese of Lisieux and the other, I think it was the sixth session at the Council of Trent on justification. Oh, okay. Until I finally realized that Christ is my righteousness and I am on a mountain. Yeah, that's great. And I plan not to jump off that mountain.

Yeah, well, I've seen, I've known him over the years too, and I think he's continuing to grow in power and clarity. Wow. It was really exciting to hear him preach the gospel. And then we also did a big, big rally for like 100,000 people, you know, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Uganda.

And so because the roads are so clogged, they got a police escort for us. And that was really quite an experience too, like weaving through the traffic and going down the wrong side of the road and hoping that the oncoming traffic would get out of the way. But these are really experienced

kind of police people that really know how to do it, but they said it would have taken us three hours to get from one location to another if we didn't have a police escort, so that was a interesting little feature of it. Did you meet a fella called Fred? I forget his last name. I've been to Uganda to preach and it was an honor. Fred's the fella who headed up NET Uganda. You know, I don't know. I forget his last name, unfortunately. Yeah, I spent most of the time with the priest.

The big rally was sort of like, big rally, and people came up and said hello and everything like that, but it was kind of like... I'm glad to hear that, because when I was there, they said there is a lot of evangelicals who are drawing Catholics out of the church. Yes. And that was sad to see. No, all over the world this is a challenge like in Brazil too, you know, and well in Africa too, you know, so it's really important that the Catholic Church present a very dynamic public witness that us Catholics believe in the Lord, us Catholics are filled with the Holy Spirit, us Catholics, you know, believe in the Bible, you know, us Catholics believe in the Lord, us Catholics are filled with the Holy Spirit, us Catholics believe in the Bible, us Catholics don't worship Mary, but we love her. So yeah, it's really important.

That's why we started Fire Rally so many years ago with Father Mike Scanlon. We wanted to give a public witness that you don't have to be an evangelical or a Pentecostal to love Jesus and experience the Holy Spirit. What did the Holy Spirit do in Brazil and Uganda while you were there? Well, I would say in Uganda, particularly, there's just a lot of priests today, despite their own relationship with the Lord, can drift into a certain kind of lukewarmness,

you know, just certain kind of like business as usual and kind of lose some of their fervor for what can happen in terms of what God can do for their people. I think also that, you know, some of the bad stuff that's happening in Europe and Rome has kind of filtered down into some people and they're a little kind of shaken in their faith a little bit under the surface, like what's happening? Are the foundations shaking?

Because the Africans have been so devoted to the pope, they've been so faithful to Rome, but it's a little bit kind of disturbing to them, some of the things that are coming out of Rome. So we were able to kind of say, look, whatever's coming out of Rome, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If you want to know what the Catholic Church teaches, and you hear some confusing things, it's in the Catholic

Church, so trying to reestablish their confidence in the truth of the faith. And I think we did that. I think the Lord did that. I think a lot of people left kind of like, you know, say, yeah, yes, this is the truth, and yes, the Catholic Church is founded by Christ, and yes, this is the truth. And yes, the Catholic Church is founded by Christ. And yes, this is the gospel. And yes, I want to preach it. So I think we were able to help restore confidence in being a Catholic. Well, your book, A Church in Crisis, did that. I remember reading it and I was so grateful that you were able to look at the scandals in the church, the scandals coming out of the Vatican. And you looked at them right in the eye.

You didn't pretend they weren't there because that is just infuriating. When you know that things aren't right, when Pope Francis says however you wanna phrase it or reinterpret it about different paths leading to God, we know that there's something wrong. And when you look around and all of our leaders go, no, quit freaking out, you psycho, you're the problem.

That is gaslighting in the extreme, I think, for people. And so I think we do, we need to go, no, it's worse than you think, and it's better than you think somehow. What do you think? No, I think that's really, really true, man. And I think it's really important. I'm teaching a class right now at the seminary,

just had one yesterday afternoon. In fact, the class said, would you please give us a shout outout when you do that, Fred? So this is for Sacred Heart Major Seminary. This is for the theology of the New Evangelization class. This is for all the transitional deacons in class who are going to be ordained priests next spring, and it's for the three lay people in class as well. So yeah, they watch your show and they were excited that I was going to be here today. They asked to do a shout-out, so I'm glad I remembered.

But anyway, there's a certain tendency in the seminary not to want to look at what's going on and are afraid about it could shake people's faith, or like even parishioners come up to some of these guys who are deacons and they say, you know, gee, Pope Francis just said this, what do you think? And there's a temptation to say, well, you know, he really meant this or that type of thing. And maybe he did, we just don't know. But the ordinary person, when they hear these things,

hears something that seems discordant with what they know as the truth. So I say, look, yeah, there are some problems there, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The Catholic Church is founded by Christ. There's no doubt about what we believe about these things. It's in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and even if certain cardinals are saying,

we need to change the Catechism, and it hasn't happened yet, if it does happen, we're in trouble, but the truth is the truth, and it remains the truth. So acknowledging that there's difficulties, but then reaffirming people and having confidence in Christ in the church and the truth of the faith. Yeah, typically.

Yeah. Yeah, that's really good. That's really good. I think a lot of Catholics are just really scared right now. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a hard line to walk. Cause I mean, I've heard Ed Faizer put it this way.

He's gonna be on the show soon. I can't wait. Yeah, he's been a brave person in addressing the issue of capital punishment and other things as well. One thing he said was, when I get to heaven, Christ will not ask me how the Pope failed or how the bishops failed. They'll ask me what I did, and if the priests and the bishop and church leaders fail to proclaim the truth about certain things or you know tell souls this is a danger if they fail that does not alleviate me of the responsibility to do it. No, absolutely and you know we got to turn over to the Lord what's going on in Rome

you know we got to pray but there's not much we can do about who gets appointed Cardinal, you know? But we have a lot to do with what we do when we get up every day and love our family and be a good witness in our work environments and be merciful in our neighborhood. You know, like, we need to do our mission. Our mission doesn't change because this confusion is somebody else's mission. You know, our mission is still very, very clear. We're supposed to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbors, ourselves. So there's no rule against that. There's no problem that's preventing you from doing that. So let's get on doing that.

Do you think this papacy will change the way we understand the papacy going forward, or the emphasis we put on the papacy going forward? No, absolutely. Well, it's already changing that. I mean, like, we had St. John the 23rd, we had St. Paul the 6th, we had St. John Paul the 2nd, we had very holy Pope Benedict. Maybe a doctor of the church one day, Pope Benedict. Yeah, yeah, could be, you know. And then unfortunately, we have somebody who has a strategy, which seems to be making a mess. He's pretty much told us that we should make a mess and I think he maybe thinks that that's a good idea. That kind of shakes things up and out of that will come something good.

But it's very different from what we've just recently experienced. And we really have had such a high regard for the papacy and a high trust in it. But if you look back over 2,000 years, it's been a mess lots of times. I just gave a talk yesterday, actually I showed a YouTube video that I did titled, Is This the Worst Crisis the Church Has Ever Had? And my answer is no.

And so I went into John Henry Newman's account of the Aryan heresy in the fourth century, and it's just like, it's crazy at one point, almost all the bishops in the church were signing on to a document that was ambiguous and, you know, kind of wasn't really that clear about whether Christ was really God or not type of thing. And lots of subtlety and formulations and a lot of,

kind of, not wanting to look under the surface and wanting to make peace at any price type of thing. And Athanasius, who kept saying, no, Jesus is fully of the same nature of God, he got exiled six times, you know. And, you know, they kept replacing him with Arian bishops who didn't really believe in the divinity of Christ. And of course, that's one of the things that St. John says in his first letter, that a sign of the Antichrist is saying, Jesus is not the Lord. Jesus is not God. Jesus didn't come in the flesh.

So it's sort of like, no, we've had really terrible times in the history of the Church. Or like in the English Reformation, only two bishops resisted Henry VIII. All the others signed on to him as the head of the church and abandoned their link with the Pope, with Rome. Or during the French Revolution, so many of the clergy and bishops kind of came under the power of the state

and signed something that was a civil consultation of the clergy. Those who resisted were put on prison ships off the coast of France, and hundreds and hundreds of them died. So we have this witness of some people kind of caving in, and some people dying for the faith, and that's how it's always been from the beginning, and that's how it's going to be again. But that's why people need to wake up today and get clear who they love, who they believe, who they trust, who they're going to follow, who they're going to depend on for the strength to remain faithful when the pressure that's already there is increasing to deny Christ.

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We had a whole camera crew come and film this. And I think it'll be a real help to you. And it's also not an isolated course that you go through on your own, because literally tens of thousands of men have now gone through this course. And as you go through the different videos, there's comments from men all around the world

encouraging each other, offering to be each other's accountability partners and things like that. Strive21, that's strive21.com slash Matt, or as I say, Text STRIVE to 66866 to get started today. You won't regret it. Where should we start? The end of the world or the Antichrist? I suppose the Antichrist, since he will proceed the end of the world. Well, he sort of has already come up naturally, you know? Yeah. So in John's first letter, I'm not going to like read, worry some long scripture passages, but it's important.

No, it's good that we go straight to the Word of God. Yeah, it's important that people know this is the Word of God. But you know, Matt, I do cite scripture a lot, but what I find out is I have to remind Catholics that it's in the inspired word of God, it's the inerrant word of God. You know, what Vatican II really teaches about how us Catholics approach sacred Scripture, like, you know, the Constitution and sacred revelation, it says, you know, God is the primary author of sacred Scripture. Now that's a really strong statement, that the primary person moving this is God. It says He uses human instruments, He uses people's culture, mentality, psychology, and

their limitations and their strengths and everything. But what He inspires them to teach is really inspired by God Himself. So in the Constitution on Divine Revelation from Vatican II, in section 11, it says, everything asserted by the sacred authors should be considered to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, to teach faithfully, firmly, and without error those truths that God wished to consign to the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation. Our salvation depends on hearing what God is saying to us and recognizing that it's God that's saying it to us and not just treating it as an opinion to take into account along with my own feelings and things I just read

recently what other theologians say. This is like our salvation depends on hearing what God is telling us about what we must do to be saved. So anyway, here's the Word of God. Can I pause on that for a moment? Because I think that is so crucial. Something I've been thinking about a lot lately is how, you know, you'll take your car in to get an adjustment of the tires because it's veering one way or the other. What's that called? Gosh, I just escaped my mind. Alignment. Thank you, a wheel alignment. Yeah. And I've been saying this a lot lately, it makes a lot of sense to me that when we stop reading the Word of God, we're left with our own devious heart and our earthly philosophies.

And then we start to come to opinions that seem airtight to us like God would never allow someone to go to hell. Right. Or Jesus hates me. Or maybe he puts up with me in an obligatory sense, but He doesn't love me. Yeah, opposite directions. Yeah. And then you start reading the Scripture, and it's like cold water in the face. And you're like, oh, so we cannot depart from the Word of God. We do so at our own peril. No, and you know, in this book, A Church in Crisis, I talk about how right after Vatican II, there was already some signs that we were not comfortable with certain parts of Scripture. And Paul VI decided to eliminate about a hundred verses from the Brewery that were disturbing

in the Psalms type of thing because it would be psychologically difficult for people. Now, who knows whether it's him or his advisors, but he approved that type of thing. And so, we had a good discussion in class yesterday about psychological difficulty. All of us have psychological difficulty with certain things that Jesus says, you know? I mean, Peter Crave wrote that book called Jesus Shock, and he says, if you're not shocked by what Jesus says, you're really not paying attention. I think that's really true. I think that's really true. If you're not shocked by what Jesus says sometimes, you're really not listening to what he's saying. So anyway, there's a tendency for all of us to kind of try to conform the Word of God to how we feel about

something, you know? And things we like, things we don't like, things we find too hard to believe could be true, and just sort of adjusting it. And this is a big thing going on right now in the church. You know, a lot of people are saying things like, well, you know, if my, quote, person who's engaging in an act of homosexuality isn't going to heaven, I don't believe in a God like that, you know? quote, person who's engaging in active homosexuality isn't going to heaven, I

don't believe in a God like that, you know? So, I mean, we're kind of like, kind of judging God by our own idea of what's just, what's right, what's merciful type of thing, and this becomes very close to making an idol, you know, making a God in our own image, a God that suits our beliefs, and our beliefs can be really noble from our human point of view, but they could be foolish from a God point of view. In fact, He tells us, you know, my thoughts are so far above your thoughts, just as the sky is above the earth, and my ways are above your ways. And so what we need to do is basically be still and pay attention

and let Him speak to us. And sometimes I find with priests, I talk to priests a lot, and they're a little worried about when they read certain things about how are people going to accept this. I say, don't worry about that. That's the second step. The first step is, how can I accept this? Take the time to really let yourself

be formed by the Word of God. It's going to be painful because the certain thing is about it you don't like, certain things about it you're afraid of, certain things that you're disturbed by. So the first job for us is to be taking on the biblical worldview, really taking on the mind and heart of Christ about human beings, about life, about death, about the future, about heaven, about hell, about mercy, about death, about the future, about heaven, about hell, about mercy, about forgiveness, about sin, you know, we need to actually know the truth about these things and we'll never know the truth if we kind of keep worrying about

how people are going to take it. We need to take it first. Amen. I have an analogy that might seem like a divergent point, but when I was about six years old, I loved a particular cartoon and I recorded the cartoon on VHS and I had fallen in love with this one female cartoon character. And as a six year old, I took that VHS down to the shed and I broke it open with a hammer so I could meet the girl. Oh yeah. Which is just so beautiful.

I mean, go six year old Matt Fratt, what a champion move. My point is this. I had many false beliefs as a child. I used to think that all cats were female, all dogs were male. I had many beliefs that seemed obvious to me. And I needed a higher authority to be like, no, actually you'll destroy this cassette, which you probably want if you do that, right? And I think there's an analogy there. that actually you'll destroy this cassette which you probably want if you do that, right?

And I think there's an analogy there. We are so tempted to mutilate the Word of God to fit our philosophies as opposed to submitting our philosophies to the Word of God and allowing ourselves to be formed by that. And that's always true, not just when we're new to the faith. Right, right. And there's so much pressure in our culture today that doesn't want us to believe that certain things are true. Like, for example, the purpose of marriage and sexuality. You know, God created us, male and female, for the purpose of coming together in holy marriage, open to life.

That really is the purpose. How do we know that? Because God said it, but also He did it. He did it. That's what we are. We can't change our DNA. We're a man or a woman, and our bodies are meant for each other, you know? And so it's just so many different ways in which that's being revealed to us. And so, when people have gender dysphoria, I have no question about this pain, this confusion, there's agony, there's looking for a solution, but the solution is to find a solution in harmony with who we are, who God made us. And one of the really bad medical malpractice thing going on right now, is people don't even get serious

psychological help sometimes before they're rushed off to a gender transition. Like, that's criminal. I mean, that's really criminal. That's child abuse type of thing. And people need help with their gender dysphoria, not to be sold a false solution that if you cut off parts of your body, you're going to feel better. Yeah. All right.

So the Word of God. Yes. We've established this. So this is what we're going to turn to, to understand who the Antichrist is. Not Hollywood, not chat GPT, the Word of God. And that left behind novels. Yeah. Although, I mean, it's good stuff.

I never read them. Yeah. So I'll take you with me. Here it is. Okay. First letter of John, chapter 2, verse 18. Children, it is the last hour. And of course, what this means is that we have entered into the last phase of salvation

history. The time between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ is the last age of the world. Because when the age of the church comes to an end, Jesus is returning in glory, and there's going to be a new heaven, and there's going to be a new earth, there's going to be the end of the world that you talked about. We're going to talk about what Scripture says about that. So it's the last hour, and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. So this has kind of been part of their

apostolic teaching from the beginning. He says, as you've heard, Antichrist is coming, but now many Antichrists have come. Therefore, we know it is the last hour, like the final battle has begun, you know, like the opposition to God's kingdom is really in full swing. They went out from us, but they were not of us. So, these are people who maybe started off as Christians, maybe started off as part of the church, but then came under deception and then began to put themselves in the service of the Antichrist, maybe without even realizing, without knowing. Maybe they just thought they had a better idea than the Bible. Maybe they just thought they had a better idea than the Apostles. Maybe they just thought that had a better idea than the Bible. Maybe they just thought they had a better idea than the Apostles.

Maybe they just thought that Greek philosophy, a little bit of Greek philosophy, a little bit of this, a little bit that, makes a more convincing philosophical mixture type of thing. And so, they went out from us, but they are not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might be plain that they all are not of us. This is kind of hard already to read this, that you know, what about inclusion, you know? You know, what about diversity? You know, what about being a welcoming church?

You know, one of the things we see in Scripture that's a little hard for anybody to take these days is that Jesus says in Matthew chapter 13 that there's children right now of the devil and there's children right now of God, and they're mingled together. San Agustin talked about right now there's two nations, there's two peoples that are mixed together on earth, you know, and they're going to be revealed on the last day

and the final judgment, you know. But there is a separation already by what people give their heart to. Some people give their heart to the lives of the evil one, and they become under his power. They become actually pretty strong statement from Jesus, children of the devil. Of course, he didn't shy away from even calling the religion leaders that. You know, some of the shocking things he says to the Pharisees in Matthew 23, you know, they say, our Father is Abraham.

And then, would you believe what Jesus said? No, your Father's the devil. My goodness. You know, talk about... A priest would be defruct for that. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, a lot of people want to kind of... A lot of people being trained today not to rock the boat,

not to call it disturbance. Bishops don't want their priests to have any trouble in the parish, so, you know, kind of recognize that there's a diversity there. Unfortunately, there's a diversity in Catholic parishes today with people who believe and people who don't believe. You know? There really is, you know? Some of my deacons were just telling me yesterday that they actually preached on

the gospel about divorce in their parish, even though they knew that there were divorced and remarried people there, maybe who didn't have annulments, and maybe were in their second or third marriage type of thing. And they just felt like they needed to pass on faithfully the Word of God. They did it gently, they did it lovingly, and they got actually a standing ovation. lovingly, and they got actually a standing ovation. Even people who aren't living it sometimes can respect when they know that deep down what the truth is, and when it's actually spoken, when somebody has the courage to say what's true, even though they're having trouble living it themselves. Same with some of the other issues, you know. So these new young deacons that are going to be priests next year, really, they're going to do a good job. They're balanced people. They're

They're not going to hammer people over the head, but they're not going to skip the hard parts because the hard parts are really love parts. The hard parts are there because Jesus loves us. The hard parts are there because Jesus wants us to know what will make us unhappy in this life and will lead us to eternal misery. So anyway, here's the identity of the Antichrist. Who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist. He who denies the Father and the Son.

And one who denies the Son does not have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father. who denies the Son does not have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father." So this is pretty strong that if you don't profess Jesus, you're not really related to the Father, like the Father wants you to be related to Him. Jesus Himself says, nobody's seen the Father except the Son, and nobody knows the Son except the Father, and those whom the Lord invites and shows themselves to. Of course, He wants everybody to know the Father, but it's by knowing the Son. So anyway, that's... So He's talking about the Antichrist as if the Antichrist is present.

Is that fair in saying? So what do we mean by Antichrist? Are we talking about a spirit? Are we talking about a particular? Are we talking about a particular figure that will one day reveal himself? We're talking about the kingdom of darkness that has existed on the face of the earth since the angels fell. We believe that some really beautiful angels turned against God and got turned into demons,

and they've been around, and they have a leader who's Satan. And so there's many antichrists who are working against Christ under his influence, but it does talk about at the end of the age, there's going to be the appearance of a certain individual called the lawless one that's going to actually get the whole world under his control as much as possible, and that's talked about in 2 Thessalonians 2. Now, before we need to get into 2 Thessalonians 2, because a lot's being said there, but before I do, one of the reasons why I started to pay attention

to 2 Thessalonians chapter two is because of something John Paul II said. This is familiar, a lot of people probably heard this, but they may not have heard the connection to 2 Thessalonians chapter two. So John Paul II, when he was here in the United States at the Eucharistic Congress in 1976 says, we are now standing in the face

of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of American society or wider circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation. That's really a pretty shocking statement, the final confrontation between the church and the anti-church.

A fake church? An institution, an organization that's disguised as the church but really isn't the church, that's really against the church, between the Gospel and the anti-Gospel? You know, Jesus Himself warned many times about false prophets and false teachers who are going to be teaching a false Gospel. Paul and the apostles warned about it, too.

So, imitations of the truth have always been there, and the Lord has allowed that for some reason. The final confrontation also between Christ and the anti-Christ. This confrontation confrontation also between Christ and the Antichrist. This confrontation though lies within the plans of divine providence, but it's a trial which the whole church must take up a face courageously.

Now, when John Paul II actually put this in book form, and a lot of people don't realize he put it in book form, it was a book called The Sign of Contradiction. It was a series of retreats he gave to Pope Paul VI. Now, the title of the book is interesting. Where does that come from? It comes from how Jesus was revealed as a baby,

when he was brought into the temple, Luke chapter 2, his parents are bringing him to the temple, and Simeon has received a prophetic word from the Lord that he's not going to die before he sees the Messiah, and Simeon has received a prophetic word from the Lord that he's not going to die before he sees the Messiah. And Anna's there too, so two of my favorite saints now are Simeon and Anna, like they just persevered, they kept on believing, they kept on hoping, they kept on praying, and they were able to recognize the Messiah. So all of us do too, you know, so even as we get older, like Simeon and Anna, we need to keep alive in the Lord,

keep attentive to prayer. So anyway, Simeon comes in and he prophesies. He says, this child will be a sign of contradiction. So that's where the title of John Paul II's book comes from. That's where the substance of what he just said comes from. This child will be a sign of contradiction. He'll be the cause for the rise and the fall of many in Israel. We don't recognize that Jesus is going to actually provoke

salvation or the rejection of salvation. God is now putting the human race to the final test. I'm giving you a chance, I'm giving everybody a chance for everlasting life and everlasting happiness. But I respect human freedom. I've created you in my own image. I want you to have the capacity of freely choosing to love because it won't be love unless it's freely chosen.

So there can't be friendship, there can't be love unless it's free. And because it's free, it means that people can sometimes say no. So you might say, well, gee, I don't know why the Lord set things up like that, but He did. That's how He set it up. He's willing to accept casualties, probably because of the amazing beauty of just one human being saying yes.

And that's what Scripture says, you know, there's such joy in heaven when only one person repents. The angels rejoice when only one person repents. It's so beautiful when a fallen human being passes from being a child of wrath, like it says in Ephesians chapter 2, to become a child of God. What a special thing that is.

We're so used to the language these days, we don't understand how special it is and what the price that was paid for us to become children of God. So anyway, Simeon, this child will be a cause for the rise and the fall of many of Israel. He'll reveal the secrets of hearts. Now, what secrets are revealed? Jesus, when He's talking about, it's not what goes into you that makes you unclean. It's what comes out of you. It's the fornication, it's the lying, it's the idolatry, it's the adultery, it's the

thieving. That's what makes you unclean. So what comes out of us is a revelation of our fallen, sinful nature that God reveals because He wants to cleanse us and heal us of those wounds. He wants to bring us to repentance. He wants to bring us to healing. And so Simeon, he was prophesying that Jesus is

actually going to reveal what's in our heart, but it's going to cause a reaction. It's either going to result in a reaction of humility, saying, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner, and God's going to lift us up and put a cloak on us and have a feast for us. Or it's going to result in, I love my sin. I don't want to repent.

I don't want to submit to anybody. I don't want to submit to God. I'd rather die and go to hell and choose it myself than to submit to the Savior. So, honestly, the whole mission of Jesus, the whole shocking mission of Jesus is revealed in Simeon's prophecy. And then he turns to Mary and says,

a sword will pierce your heart, the sword of the crucifixion, the sword of the rejection of Jesus. You know, He came unto His own, John chapter 1, but His own received them not. How sad are those words? He came unto His own. He came unto His own people, but His own received them not. But whoever did receive Him, He gave the power to become sons and daughters of

God. There's a tremendous gift being offered to the whole human race, the gift of becoming sons and daughters of God, but it has to be received, it has to be responded to. There's a tremendous mercy being offered to the human race, like the Divine Mercy devotion is, what a gift that is, what a profound impact it's having on the whole world. The divine mercy image is everywhere. The divine mercy chaplet is everywhere. But people don't pay attention to everything that Jesus told St. Faustina about the mercy.

So many times Jesus said, I'm giving people mercy, and the greatest of all sinners is most entitled to my mercy, and nobody should hesitate, no matter how horrible their sins are, to come to me for mercy. But if they don't respond to my mercy, they will perish. And then another time Jesus said to St. Faustina, so many souls are perishing because they're not responding to my mercy.

And then, this is interesting, Mary said to St. Faustina, the Lord has chosen you to prepare the way for the second coming of my son. So here we're in at the end times again. Here we're at with second coming again. Mary's saying you're supposed to prepare people for the second coming of Jesus. And if you keep silent now, you're going to be answerable for a great number of souls on that day, talking about the Day of Judgment, the Final Judgment, the return of the Lord, the defeat of the Antichrist. So, these themes are appearing and reappearing in Scripture, in apparitions, in revelations. And so, you know, I think people have an image of Jesus that doesn't really pay attention

to what Simeon prophesied, and doesn't really pay attention to what actually happened in Jesus' life. Some received Him, but others hated Him. Others felt like they were a threat to their own autonomy, not recognizing that they actually don't have any autonomy, that they're totally dependent on God for everything about themselves. They wouldn't exist without Him. They wouldn't be sustaining existence without Him.

Yeah, I'm thinking of that verse, whoever sins is a slave to sin as well. But it seems often that we become enslaved to our sins and think that those sins are the things that give us life. We have it exactly backwards. Yeah, and it's an illusion. It's a deception. There's so many warnings in Scripture. Don't let anybody deceive you. You know, like 1 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul says, don't let anybody deceive you. The immoral will not enter the kingdom of God. Now talk about a clear assertion of Scripture.

Don't let anybody deceive you. Lots of people are being deceived today saying, well, you know what? I can do whatever I want. And the Lord's so merciful, He'll never let anybody be lost, which is a lie. It's a horrible delusion designed to lead people to eternal destruction.

Right. Yeah. I want to share this verse with you Designed to lead people to eternal destruction right yeah I want to share this verse with you and Get your take on it This comes from our blessed Lord in Luke chapter 21 verse 34, but watch yourselves Lest your hearts be weighed down With dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. Here's what struck me or strikes me when I read this. He's saying that the cause of our exhaustion of our hearts being weighed down is dissipation and drunkenness in part.

Which sounds like the reason we're going to these things. It's, it's, we, we, I have it backwards. I feel downcast. I feel exhausted. My heart is weighed down. And then the temptation is to go to dissipation and drunkenness. But Christ is saying the opposite. He's saying your heart is like sin does that to you.

Sin will weigh your heart down. So the very thing that we're going for as a cure ends up exhausting us. Yeah, yeah. He also adds in there about the cares of this life. Yeah. And it's really interesting. I think it's Matthew 24. Jesus says, it's going to be just like it was in the day of Noah when I returned. So here we are back again to the final things again. In the day of Noah, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving and marrying, giving and marriage. Another one of the synoptic gospels talks about buying and selling right up until the day to the flood came and destroyed them all. So sometimes scripture talks about wickedness growing

to such a point, like in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, which we still need to get to. But here it's just talking about indifference, indifference to the things of God, being weighed down by the cares of life, just focusing on things of this world and missing the prophetic warning that God was giving through Noah building the ark. And I do think that the Lord is giving prophetic warnings today, trying to wake people up. I think divine mercy devotion is one. I think the chosen is another. I think this amazing story of Jesus that is being translated

into so many languages around the world, and it's not the first time this has happened. You know, Campus Crusade, when it used to be called Campus Crusade, did that with their Jesus film. And Whitecliffe Bible translators have been translating into all the languages of the world, the Bible. There's a tremendous opportunity being given people

to know who Jesus is and to love Him. And you probably had Jonathan Rumi on, have you on the show? Yeah. I mean, just so many people are being touched by the chosen, you know, and so I think the Lord is giving these opportunities for people to believe and to escape the wrath that's coming.

Now, this is another crazy thing. Wrath, what's that? You know, it's Father Francis Martin described it once as, it's the experience of God's love by somebody who hates Him. It's the experience of God's love by somebody who's rejecting Him, somebody who's resenting Him. What it actually means when you look it up, it's the punishment for sin.

It's actually the punishment for sin, the wrath of God. And so many times the Scripture says, save yourself from the wrath to come. That's what Peter said on the day of Pentecost, save yourself for this wicked generation, save yourself from the wrath to come. There's a book that's just recently been published, I don't know, I think, am I talking too much now? No, I'm enjoying it. I'll interrupt if I get bored, but that's unlikely to happen. Okay, yeah. Don't interrupt not only if you get bored, but if you like to change the subject. Sure. Yeah.

But there's a book that came out by a really well-known, kind of moderate biblical scholar named Father... God, what's his name? Anyway, he did the Sacra Pagina Volume on Romans, which is one of the most difficult books to do a commentary on, but he just came up with a book called The Salvation Economy of Paul, looking at St. Paul in light of the final coming, the last judgment. He says, I'll remember his name at a certain point, but he says that everything Paul is writing

is in light of the final judgment. There's so many references to it. Once you kind of wake up to that, you kind of start seeing it everywhere, but he's always saying, get ready for the day, prepare yourself for the day. So it's just really kind of supposed to be part of the way we look at the world. We're supposed to know that life is short, and that only one thing is necessary to become a friend of Jesus, and stay a friend of Jesus, and die a friend of Jesus. And if you do that, your life's going to have a tremendous success, no matter what else

didn't go right. Yeah, yeah. Man, do you feel stuck in old idols or burdened by the pharaohs of our time? Do you know that you're capable of so much more than you're giving today? Exodus 90 is the number one freedom app to help you become the man you were created to be. Exodus 90 is a powerful 90-day journey to freedom in Jesus Christ, and it starts on January 20th. I've met so many men from all around the world who have been blessed by Exodus 90. So download the Exodus 90 app today

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Exodus90.com slash Matt to learn more about Exodus 90. That's Exodus90.com slash Matt to join tens of thousands of men from all around the world for Exodus 90, starting Monday January 20th and leading up to Easter Sunday. All right, well let's look at 2 Thessalonians then. Yeah, okay. Well, Paul is saying that don't be alarmed by so-called prophecies or rumors about the Lord's return, because the Lord will not return until two things happen. The first thing that Paul mentions is the great apostasy or the mass apostasy. So what's an apostasy? It isn't something that pagans do, it's something that Christians do. It's a turning away from faith on the part of those who once had it.

It's a turning away from faith on the part of those who once had it. Now, there's been kind of lots of kind of ups and downs in church history. There's been times of faith has been growing and faith has been declining and everything like that. But there's no question about it that for the last 200 years, the Christian heartland, the Europe particularly, but also other Western nations like Australia and Canada and other countries to a lesser extent the United States, but still some significantly, have been repudiating their faith. And more and more boldly, more and more animatedly kind of saying, no, we don't want that stuff anymore.

No, this is a brave new world where we create ourselves, we decide ourselves what's right and wrong. We don't need, we don't want the Church and its rules anymore. We don't want God and its rules. We want to be liberated people. And so what you have is in the statistics, you see a tremendous statistical fall off in people who identify as Catholics, people who go to church every Sunday, people who believe what the church teaches. Now even lots of Catholics who go to church anymore don't even believe what the church teaches because they're being formed more by the world and by social pressure and by media and by bullying, really, than by the Word of God. So we do have a mass apostasy, whether it's the final apostasy or not, I don't know.

John Paul II seemed something final was happening, but we won't know until we see whether it happens or not. In this book that you said he wrote that got into that, did he explain any of that? I would love to have pulled him aside and went, wait, okay, exactly what is the anti-church and what do you mean by final? Yeah, well I think he actually had communism in mind as a primary, you know, like atheistic materialism that was dominating the world. Of course we know that the Soviet Union collapsed, but atheistic materialism didn't collapse. It actually came in the back door into the West, and now it's the reigning philosophy really of our culture, atheistic materialism. And Russia hasn't converted yet,

so there's all that kind of stuff about Fatima. But anyway, he didn't say a lot about it, but he did try to illuminate what he was saying there by referring us to 2 Thessalonians 2. 2 Thessalonians 2 is definitely talking about the second coming of Jesus, the appearance of the Antichrist, and the final judgment, the last things. So the first thing is the great apostasy.

Is that what's happening now? I don't know. We really won't know until we see if the Antichrist appears and Christ slays him and defeats him and ushers in the kingdom. So, people who set dates, they shouldn't be setting dates. Jesus said, nobody knows the day or hour. He did say, nevertheless, be awake. So, a lot of times people say, well, we're not supposed to set the day or hour, so we don't know what's going to happen. So, I don't even want to think about the second coming.

We're supposed to think about the second coming. Paul says, comfort each other with the fact that Jesus is returning. Comfort each other with the fact that Jesus has won the victory, and you're going to see the victory. He's going to be standing on the earth, and you're going to see the victory. You're going to see His kingdom come.

You're going to see evil definitively punished. You're going to see His kingdom come. You're going to see evil definitively punished. You're going to see justice finally done. So we're supposed to be encouraged by these final things, where Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 13, said, all your hope on the gift that will be yours when Christ Jesus appears. What a gift we're going to get. Resurrected bodies, no more suffering, no more pain.

Perfect love, all the ways in which we miss each other and fail each other and don't love each other perfectly, all those impediments are gonna be removed and it's gonna be just perfect, amazing communion of love with each other and with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So Peter says, set all your hope on that. Make sure that's what you're aiming for. Make sure that's what you're aiming for. Make sure that's what you're living for. Make sure that that's the choices you're making

that's leading you in that direction rather than in a direction that would forever cut you off from the fulfillment of all desire. Yeah, so anyway, 2 Thessalonians 2 goes on and he says, the second thing that needs to happen before the Lord returns is that there's something restraining evil right now. At a certain point, that restrainer is going to be removed, and you're going to see unrestrained evil and lawlessness. And at that point, the man of lawlessness that most

commentators think is talking about the Antichrist will appear. Now, we certainly are living in a time where all kinds of that most commentators think is talking about the Antichrist will appear. Now, we certainly are living in a time where all kinds of restraints on evil are being removed. You know, the legality of abortion, of euthanasia, some of the horrible medical things we see going on with children, the whole total repudiation of God's purpose for marriage

and family life, just being boldly rejected and celebrated. So we're seeing a lot of restraints on evil removed. And I would have to say that, you know, we can get tired about hearing about abortion, but it's a terrible thing to kill little babies. It really, really is. And it really is a terrible, terrible thing that people do that.

And it's really, really a terrible thing that millions and millions and millions of little babies are being cut to pieces or poisoned in their wounds. I think that we can't... We can't, we can't. I remember when my children first understood what abortion was, I felt the shock and horror that I suppose I should continue to feel, except that I've been numb to it. It's shocking to children that somebody

would be killing a baby, you know? And a lot of times- And my poor children, as shocked as they are by it, I haven't, for good reason, spoke to them about how they kill him. Right. How we dismember them, how we burn them alive. Right.

With acid, I mean, this sort of stuff. And you just got to ask, you know, you know, how much worse can it get? And then, and then you think about the wars. I mean, what's happening in Ukraine and Russia, what's happening in the Middle East? Hundreds of thousands of people being killed, being maimed, being wounded. And yes, there's a right to self-defense, but there's such a mixture of motives, there's such a mixture of players,

there's such a manipulation by the big powers. There's so many things we don't know going on behind the scenes, but one of the things that Mary said to St. Jacinta when she was dying in the hospital in Lisbon, she appeared to her there several times. One of the things she said is that wars are a punishment for sin. Boy, they really are. They're a horrible punishment, a horrible, horrible punishment. But then we think about Jesus' prophecy over His own city.

He was weeping because they were missing the hour of their visitation. And Jesus said, you know, because you're missing the hour of your visitation, the armies are going to come. They're going to surround you. They're going to set siege to you. They're not going to leave a stone standing upon a stone, because you've missed me.

You rejected me. And now we know 37 years later, or whatever the dating you choose is, in the year 70 for sure, the Roman Emperor's son Titus arrived in Jerusalem, set siege to the city, and the Jewish historian Josephus, who served as a translator to Titus,

kept a daily diary of what was happening, and his descriptions of the agonizing deaths of the people in the temple, and how the whole temple was torn down, he said about a million people died in the destruction of Jerusalem. Now, these accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem. Now, these accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem are intermingled with accounts of the final judgment,

and Scripture scholars say it's because the destruction of Jerusalem, which is real, which was historical, which is documented, is a type of destruction at the end of the world. And you say, wow, how could a good God do that? And those are questions that normally come to people's minds. How could that be just?

How could that be compassionate? Again, right now, I don't think we'll ever completely understand, but we have to trust because God is God. When Job didn't understand, and when he finally said, what the heck's going on, the Lord didn't give him a philosophical answer. He said, where were you when the universe was created?

Where were you when the depths of the earth were formed? Where were you? Tell me if you know. And then Job didn't get a philosophical answer to his question about justice, but Job got an answer that God is God and you are not. And then Job said, I covered my mouth over, I've spoken foolishly once, I'm going to repent and dust the ashes, I won't speak foolishly again. So we will never know with our current human understanding,

even with divine revelation, we can guess, we can speculate, theologians do that. But the thing we need to take as a practical lesson from this, seeing the judgments of God in history, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul says, these things are recorded as a warning to you, lest the same thing happen to you. And then he goes on some of the Old Testament judgments. things are recorded as a warning to you, lest the same thing happen to you." And then he goes on to some of the Old Testament judgments.

They engaged in morality, and 23,000 of them died the same day, and this happened, and that happened. Paul says, these are recorded and preserved in Scripture as a mercy to you so that the same thing doesn't happen to you. Even Jesus, when people said, hey, did you hear what Pilate did? He slaughtered people and mixed their blood together. And Jesus said, well, you know,

those people weren't worse than anybody else, but take heed lest the same thing happen to you. Or the tower that fell on people and killed people, Jesus said, they weren't more evil than anybody else in Israel, but take heed lest the same thing happen to you. So Jesus wants us to be shocked into repentance, shocked into conversion by, quote, natural disasters and worse than natural disasters, yeah. Let me read through this and we'll pause every so often because I definitely have a couple of

questions. Second Thessalonians chapter two. Yeah, we still got more to do there. Yeah, concerning the coming of our Lord, I'll read it from the beginning just so we can keep going here and get a more holistic view of it because we're stopping and starting. Considering the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to Him, we ask you brothers and sisters not to become easily unsettled and alarmed by the teaching, allegedly from us, whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by literacy, the devil has already come. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way.

For that day will not come until the rebellion occurs. And this is what we're talking about. The mass apostasy translated different ways. Yep. The man of lawlessness is revealed. The man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped. This is the bit I didn't understand and I'd love some clarity on so that he that is the Antrist, sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. Well, there's lots of speculation about that,

that at a certain point the Antichrist is going to declare himself to be divine. You know, we have precedent for that, and the Roman emperors declaring themselves to be divine. We have precedence for for during the French Revolution them enshrining the goddess of reason in the Notre Dame Cathedral. So there's a drive in people who are rebelling against God to declare themselves God, so it wouldn't be unusual for the Antichrist to move in that direction too. You know, when we read this, it sounds like some extraordinary event that would take place in history,

in the sense that all of us will be aware of it. But I suppose that doesn't have to be the case, does it? No, no. It's like the frog in the water. It could be a very gradual thing. What the Catechism of the Catholic Church actually says about this particular text is really interesting. Would you like to? Please. Yeah, okay. Well, in section 675 of the Catechism, it says, Before Christ's second coming, the church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.

And this is a citation to Luke 18 and Matthew 24. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth, and more citations from Scripture, will unveil the mystery of iniquity in the form of a religious deception, offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth." So it's saying that basically the world's going to be in tough shape, they're going to be looking for a savior, they're going to be looking for somebody who they think can kind of actually save the world.

You know, a dictator, I don't know, whatever. This supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-Messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and as Messiah come in the flesh. Well, this is going on big time, man glorifying himself in place of God. You know, we can handle this. You know, a Microsoft engineer a couple of years ago said,

if you can just live another five years, you'll be able to forever upload your consciousness into a supercomputer. And, you know, like, we're going to conquer death, we're going to do everything, we're going to conquer every disease, you know, we got the money, we got the intelligence, it's just the right people need to be running the world. Then in section 676 of the Catechism it says, the Antichrist deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that Messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment, the final judgment of good and bad.

The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the intrinsically perverse political form of a secular messianism. That's how it could take shape like that, as like, you know, the world needs a leader, or the world needs somebody to put an end to all this fighting amongst nations. The world needs somebody, and somebody could emerge that actually is satanically inspired, is the Antichrist. And then finally, section 677 of the Catechism. The Church will enter the glory of the Kingdom only through this final Passover.

So basically it says, one of the things that 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 says, things aren't going to gradually get better. They're going to get a lot worse before the Lord comes. We'll kind of finish 2 Thessalonians 2. It talks about how bad it's going to get. The kingdom will be fulfilled. The church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover,

when she will follow her Lord in His death and resurrection. It's going to seem like the church is dying even. You know, Father Ratzinger's prophecy when she will follow her Lord in His death and resurrection." It's going to seem like the church is dying even. You know, Father Ratzinger's prophecy from so many years ago, way back in the late 50s or 60s, where he says, most people don't realize it yet, but the church is going to go through a terrible time. It's going to lose its power. It's going to lose its money.

It's going to lose its buildings. It's going to lose its people. It's going to lose its influence. It's going to lose its buildings, it's going to lose its people, it's going to lose its influence, it's going to be like a little flock again, but out of that little flock, it's going to become a renewed church that's really full of Christ. And modern man, unspeakably lonely in technological society, when they encounter this little flock,

will find the home that they never thought existed. Wow, that's what he said, towards the end there as well. He really did, yeah, he really did. And it's pretty amazing. I mean, it's a pretty amazing description of the trajectory of European Catholicism, you know, that type of thing. And it's still going on, of course.

We're still losing buildings, we're still losing people. We're still losing money. That bit about modern man being lonely and seeing community, seeing Christ being worshipped in a community of believers. Yes, yes. So every little community out there is precious. Every little community out there is valuable. Every little collection of brothers and sisters

in Christ who are helping each other and supporting each other is really the way to go, you know? You know, even, you know, I just got the CARA Institute annual report of all the statistics in the church type of thing. really the way to go, you know? You know, even, you know, I just got the CARA Institute annual report of all the statistics in the church type of thing. Even last year, the church paid out $300 million connected with the clergy sex abuse scandal. Not that there were that many new cases,

but there's still people filing claims. There's still money being paid off. There's still, you know, it's just crazy, the billions of dollars. And Cardinal Dolan, you know, it's just crazy, the billions of dollars. And Cardinal Dolan, you know, at the Eucharistic Congress in a retreat for bishops, said, let's face it, guys, nobody's paying any attention to us anymore.

I can't tell anybody how to vote. You know, we're losing our money, we're losing our buildings, we're losing our influence. And it's really true. People don't care anymore what the Catholic bishops say, because they know that the Catholic people don't follow the Catholic bishops, for the most part. Nobody pays attention to the statements

that the bishops publish. They know there isn't such a thing as a Catholic vote, really, anymore. So it's really a sad day, but it's heading towards a renewed church. There's nothing happening that isn't happening under the promise of God. Oh boy, is it ever tough love. Is it ever tough love? But do we see evidence in the Scriptures when it talks about the Antichrist and the end of the world

that there will be a renewal among a smaller flock, or should we not expect that towards the very end? No, it does talk about a remnant. It does talk about if even the elect would be lost. The days are shortened, so even the elect won't be lost. So God's going to like, keep this overpowering assault on the faith from destroying the faith of those who are the elect. The elect are those who have said yes to the Lord. The elect of those who... So according to a biblical view of history and the future of humanity, if we take it seriously and we trust it, what we should expect to see, if we're faithful Christians, is not, towards the end,

a worldwide resurgence and acceptance in and of Christianity. If the Bible's right, what we should expect is a dwindling of Christianity and unbelief being predominant. Yeah. Let's just take a look at the end. Let's get all Seth and Thessalonians 2 and the table. But there's a sub-stream of Marian prophecy that presents a somewhat different picture

we need to take a little look at, you know. It's not in the Bible, but there's a little twist on the end times. So anyway, it goes on to say, the colony of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power. And here's where, how he's going to get his power So anyway, it goes on to say, the colony of the lawless one, by the activity of Satan, will be with all power. And here's where, how he's going to get his power,

how he's going to get people under his influence, how he's going to get the world under his influence, with pretended signs and wonders, and with every wicked deception for those who are to perish. Another translation, for those destined to perish. Now, who's destined to perish? We know that God doesn't want anybody to perish.

We know that Jesus shed His blood for everybody. We're not Calvinists. We don't believe in double predestination. We believe that God sent His Son for everybody. So who's going to perish? It tells us. Because they refuse to love the truth. Which verse are we in? We're on verse 10.

Okay. Because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. Yes. And then it goes on, the consequence of not loving the truth, God sends upon them a strong delusion to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure

in unrighteousness." Now this is totally shocking. It is shocking because it sounds like God is forcing their damnation. He's sending a delusion upon them precisely so they will not be able to believe. Yeah, he's saying this is really tricky. Most people, most theologians would interpret it as God permits them to experience the consequences of their lack of love for the truth. And so they go into a darkness and the darkness keeps getting deeper because maybe this is what

the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit is, where you actually seal yourself off from the light of God. And so you're just locking yourself into a deeper and deeper darkness. It's not as easy as that though, because there's nothing that happens without the will of God. So even if God doesn't positively push people into this deeper darkness as a consequence for their rejection of the truth, their lack of love for the truth, He's at least willing that it happen indirectly. Permitting it. Yeah, He's permitting it type of thing. But this is really serious because this also relates to the whole question of universalism

in a way, like, you know, Vatican II teaches that under certain circumstances it's possible for people to be saved without hearing the gospel and responding to it if they are inculpably ignorant of the gospel, if they're trying to know who God is, if they're trying to seek God, if they're trying to live according to the light of their conscience, assisted by grace, but it says very often that's not the case. So, and there's a footnote there in Lumen Gentium 16, which talks about not any kind of unconscious or implicit desire for truth is salvific.

It has to involve in it, if you knew what the truth was, unconscious or implicit desire for truth is salvific. It has to involve in it, if you knew what the truth was, you would really assent to it and you would be baptized. There's another great book that just came out from a young Jesuit, teaches the Gregorian about baptism of desire. And he basically says, these are all interesting topics. I don't know if it's okay to do this or not,

but you have baptism and desire. There's a lot of people kind of pin a lot on baptism and desire. Well, there's a lot of people who don't know the Lord, but they probably desire to know Him type of thing. If they knew Him, they'd really surrender to Him, be baptized. So this young Jesuit has done a whole history

on the history of baptism and desire. The first time it appears in history is when Ambrose preaches a funeral sermon for the Emperor Valentinian who was enrolled in the catechumenate. He had said, I want to be a Christian, I want to be baptized. He was enrolled in the catechumenon, and he died before he could get baptized. So Ambrose says, I think we can think that he's in a good place. The Lord took his desire for baptism and gave it to him type of thing. But this Jesuit, Father Louis Vardy, says that the tradition has been extremely cautious

about applying baptism of desire in a very broad way. And his own conclusions, you know, it's a very long book, but you can read the last chapter if you want. His own conclusion is that any baptism of desire would have to be based on the kind of desire that had implicit in it an abandonment to the will of God if they only knew it, which would include to be baptized type of thing. So there's a lot of people though that exchanged, you know, Dan the Lumen, Gen. 16, we talked about this before,

they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, they worship the creature rather than the Creator, so they pass from love to truth to glorifying the creature rather than the Creator. And so they're in this kind of situation that 2 Thessalonians 2 is talking about. They don't really love the truth. They've exchanged the truth for a lie.

They've decided to believe something that suits them, that endorses their immoral behavior. Jesus says people don't come to the light because they're doing deeds of darkness. They don't want those deeds exposed. So this is unfortunately a real situation of people today in 2 Thessalonians talks about the danger of exchanging the truth of God for a lie,

the danger of not loving the truth. So, hey, Lord, have mercy, and may more and more people preach the gospel, may more and more people proclaim the glorious gift that God has given to the human race in Jesus, the glorious opportunity for eternal life. Okay. Where do we go from here?

For this reason, God sends him a powerful delusion so that they will believe a lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth, but the light. I think what's so difficult when thinking about the Antichrist is whenever you give me could you sum them up like in bullet point form? Like, what are we going to expect before the Antichrist is whenever you give me... could you sum them up like in bullet point form? Like what are we going to expect before the Antichrist arrives? A great apostasy? Let me read one more section from the Catechism. It kind of basically says it. The Church will enter the glory of the Kingdom only through this final Passover when she will follow her Lord in His death and resurrection. The Kingdom will be fulfilled then not by a historic

triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause this bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the result of evil will take the form of the last judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world." Yeah, that's who I was referring to a moment ago. Because if you really love Scripture, we wouldn't despair when we saw this great apostasy. I mean, we would despair in one sense because we, like God, hopefully want all to be saved.

We'd grieve for the loss, but all his judgments are just, all his judgments are true, all his words are reliable. It's all about love and mercy We can't put it all together right now, but yeah all his words are true and what I was gonna say It was difficult about this is it seems like these things that we should expect before the Antichrist in the end of the world have happened Dozens if not hundreds if not thousands of times throughout church history And it feels like there could be all of those times for throughout church history that you could point to what seemed to be the great apostasy, etc., etc. No, no question about it. And people have done that. People when the year 1000 came,

declared Vincent Ferrer, a canonized saint of the church, thought it was like the second coming was coming, the final judgment was coming, that he was actually one of the four angels of the Apocalypse given a mission, you know, to prepare the world for the Final Judgment. But Scripture and the Church clearly teach that this is how it's going to be at the end when it really happens. Now we see a lot of things happening right now that could be moving in that direction, but like I said several times, we won't know until whether we get there or not. But just Pope Benedict's prophecy when he was a young priest is pretty remarkable. It's sort of like reading the signs of the times.

He's saying, I'm reading the signs of the times, and you know what? We've lost the Savior, we've lost our salt, and it's just going to be thrown out. You know, there's nothing there anymore that's really vital and dynamic to really impact the culture. But let me tell you this other little Marian thing. It's a little wrinkle on this. Yeah.

There's been some Marian prophecies that some people put a lot of store by. I don't know what to think of it. It's a different picture. It's a little wrinkle on this. It basically says that there is going to be a triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and after that, it's going to become a time of peace.

Now, some people say the time of peace came already. You know, we've already had the time of peace. You know, it was, you know, we didn't have World Wars for, you know, a've already had the time of peace. And, you know, it was, you know, we hadn't didn't have world wars for, you know, a lot of years and everything like that. But anyway, the prophecy is that there's going to be the triumph of the immaculate heart of Mary. This could be a time of peace. But after that, the anti-crisis thing going to appear and all this other stuff is going to happen. Okay. So who knows?

God does. How many years have you had to guess? Do you have left to live? Me personally? Well, my dad left till the till 91. What does that give you? That gives me another 10 years. Right. I reckon, you know, I might not have another five minutes. That's true. I'm driving at something with this. So I'm 40.

I might have, I'm going to say 30 years left to live. Right. So for all into it, like for me, the end of the world comes in 30 years. Christ returns in a sense in 30 years. Here's my point. If you and I knew and felt as clearly about, as we do about the end of our earthly lives, about the end of history, and if someone told you the end of the world will be in ten years, most people would take their life much more seriously. How they vacation, how they raise their children, how they live, how they pray. Do you know what I mean? So like for me, if the end of the world was in 30 years, why don't I live like that now as if I believe Christ would actually, His second coming would be in 30 years?

Yeah. Well, I think Scripture tells us we're supposed to live like that. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. You know, I don't think we could, but I think we also need to recognize that we can't go by actuar aerial tables. The Lord could come for us at any time, so we have to live ready to meet the Lord at any time. Now some people point out that the Apostles believed that the end of the world was going to be within their lifetime, that Christ may have prophesied as much, and that this is an argument against Christianity as a whole.

Yeah, there's a lot of debate about that too, you know, about what this generation will not pass away before they see these things. Some say he was really referring to the coming in judgment that happened in the destruction of Jerusalem, or some say he was talking about the, the coming of Pentecost, you know, the coming of the kingdom in Pentecost. So yeah, it's, it's, it's a debatable thing. It's one of the unclear things that people scramble trying to figure out what it means, you know, type of thing.

Yeah. Anything else you want to touch on? Because I have questions here from our local supporters. I'd love to get to, but if we haven't touched on things, maybe the end of the world or the Antichrist or something else you want to touch on. Well, let's do the description of the end of the world that Scripture gives us. That's in 2 Peter chapter 2. Sorry? No, this is fine. So, there's different emphases and speculations about what the end of the world is going to be like.

Some say it's going to be very much like, you know, after Jesus comes and the final judgment and everything, that the world is going to be very much like it is like right now, and it's going to be like an improved world type of thing. There's another picture we get from 2 Peter chapter 3, where Peter says, the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it

will be burned up. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God? Because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, the elements will melt with fire, because according to his promise,

we wait for our new heavens and a new earth in which the righteousness of God dwells. So, you know, it's always hard to know exactly what to do with images of fire. This certainly sounds a little bit more cataclysmic rather than just kind of having the lion lay down with the lamb, you know, type of thing. It sounds like some major recreation or reconstruction going on. Matt, we're not gonna know until we see it happen. Right, right. And in the meantime, we should love each other

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Hello.com.slash.matfrad. I think one thing I find troubling is I'm a Catholic. So I, that's not what I find troubling. I believe that Christ established a church that he gave that church Authority that that church wasn't invisible in the first century or the second century all the way up to now I accept it and I want my Protestant brothers and sisters to become Catholic, etc, etc But I also find it hard. I Find it hard to believe let's let's say someone is right now just just kind

of coming out of the woke fever dream. They're finally getting over what the new atheists had to say. They finally realizing there's actually no good arguments for atheism. And I believe in God. And maybe they're looking at more political figures, you know, like Tucker Carlson or Elon Musk who recently said, well, there must be something. We had to come from somewhere. And they're like, okay, I'm open to it now. Right. And so here they are. They want to know the truth. They really do. And maybe they look at this Catholic parish up the road and they think, oh, that can't be it. The priest doesn't even seem like he wants to be there. The people don't seem inspired. But look, there's this Bible church up the road, and they really seem like they're trying. They emphasize fasting, they emphasize Bible reading, or Orthodox church, or what have you. I find it hard to believe that those people will be damned. How could they?

R. Yeah, well, I would say fortunately we don't have to decide that. Only God can decide say fortunately we don't have to decide that. Only God can decide the culpability of somebody and their conscience. I would say though, just to kind of broaden out a little bit, there may be a parish like that in the town, but there may be another parish that's better, you know, and there are sometimes, there are some towns where all the parishes are pretty good, you know, the type of thing. So it depends on what the local situation is, but no, I don't have any trouble understanding somebody coming to a depressed Catholic parish where there isn't dynamic preaching, and the priest doesn't seem like he's in love with Jesus, and the people aren't friendly and don't welcome people, and there's no way of trying to understand more what's going

on, saying, I'm not finding what I'm looking for there, and going to a place where at least he finds the Lord, at least he finds the Bible, at least he finds, hopefully, morality, at least he finds some support in actually persevering and following the Lord. You know, it was a little bit like the same situation when Christianity came to the New World, you know, the Franciscan friars came, but the conquistadores also came. And this is a real question that theologians at the time asked, could people actually hear the gospel properly when people were being slaughtered, when Aztecs were being killed by the conquistadores?

Is this Christianity type of thing? So it really wasn't until Mary kind of took things into her own hands and actually came and showed herself and showed her son that significant conversions began to happen. So yes, there's always a question about whether people have adequately heard. There's always a question about whether people have adequately been told the truth so that they actually had a fair chance to respond to it or not. We can't judge that, but I have no trouble understanding that.

Lots of people who... Because I have people, they'll say to me, listen, if I really believe this was the Church, I would join it. And I'm not God, I don't know their heart, but I 1,000% believe them. If you put them up to a lie detector, they would absolutely pass. I think what gets so complicated for us today is, you know, we have all the world's knowledge at our disposal through a few taps or clicks,

and it gets complicated really quickly. So you've got someone who's looking between orthodoxy or Catholicism, and all of a sudden there's a million names and a million councils and a million different historical things that you may not have known. And you just feel kind of, you know, analysis paralysis. We like there's no way I can figure this out. And I think to myself, well, well, the one thing surely we know is that God did not become man, bleed and die on a cross, and rise again to get people on a kind of historical

technicality like that. Oh no, no, no, absolutely not. But I feel like we need to say that more. And maybe the reason I think we need to say that more is it seems to me that as there's more and more chaos unfolding in the church, there's more of a desire to say very black and white and very clearly what we mean. And I support that and I try to do that myself. And yet we don't want to do that at the expense of these truths. Yeah, well we don't want to be unrealistic and out of touch with reality about what many Catholic parishes actually are like. And quite honestly, some pastors are not teaching the truth, you know? What do you say about that? I mean, do you really want somebody to be fed error, be fed deception, and to be, quote,

in that parish? I don't think so. My wife recently went on a week-long retreat, I won't say where, for the sake of this priest, and she said the priest was just so upset to see them there, and when they would kneel to receive Eucharist, you could tell he was really upset by that. And my wife has a lot of health issues. She really can only eat meat when she eats other things. It's not good, right? So the first day, you know, she told him that and received a gluten-free host. And the second day, he didn't have one there.

So he kind of got really snooty with her. And he went back, got a gluten-free host and just like shoved it at her like this. And she ducked her head and received it on the tongue. But yeah, I think back to the original point is just I think a lot of people see sloppy Catholicism and, you know, and it's disheartening. And we want to take our faith seriously if we're going to enter it at all. If an atheist right now is returning to the faith, I mean, he really wants to, he wants to be serious. And so sometimes when

you encounter unserious Catholicism, it's perfectly reasonable to me that that person would then go to another church, like the Orthodox Church or the Pentecostal Church or some other church. Yes, but you know, I think that there's enough good parishes and good priests around, so if somebody sincerely wants to be a Catholic, we can actually get them connected to somebody. I agree, but I'm talking about somebody who's not yet connected to anyone who's Catholic. They're just like, I'm interested. Somebody looking from the outside type of thing. Yeah, exactly. Like, I wouldn't blame them if they went to a church that didn't seem

to be taking their faith seriously, and then they go to a Protestant church that did. How could you possibly blame them unless they knew better? And that's the other thing. I know we teach that someone who is not culpable of their ignorance won't necessarily be damned. But I wonder what does that mean? Does that just mean, like if I played the Apostles Creed to you and you would listen to it, are you now culpable of your ignorance or is it more than just hearing it? Well, you know, so much depends on what's going on in a person's mind or heart. We can't, we can't judge. Is it fair to say that you cannot judge if a person is culpable for the ignorance?

No, it's very hard to judge that. So in other words, if I say to you, Jesus Christ is God, Mr. Atheist, and you say, well, I don't believe it. I can't then say, well, you're no longer inculcated. Well, I would say, you know, only God could really say that to tell you the truth. You know, who knows? I mean, maybe the Lord anointed that particular bold

statement with actually an invitation coming from Him and the Holy Spirit that actually pierced the heart. And the person was so shocked, he didn't want to accept it that something was imparted to him that came from God himself. So, you know, we don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. So we're going to take some questions from our local supporter. When you become an annual supporter at mattfrad.locals.com we will send you a free pints with Aquinas Bierstein.

You just have to pay for shipping. You will get these long form episodes one week early before they hit YouTube. You'll also get access to exclusive streams from me and much more besides. Thanks for considering matfrad.locals.com. Here is a question from one of our supporters. Michael says, has he read Lord of the World? Yes. What did you think? I thought it was fascinating, I thought it was great. I thought it was

really a wonderful, wonderfully imaginative depiction of how the whole thing could come down, yeah. Simon Pius says, if there is no one converting to the faith, is that a sign that we are at the end of the world and that it is clear we are not there because lots of people are becoming Catholic right now? Thank you. Well, I think it's possible that the remnant can still be growing and people being added to it, but we also be near the end of the world. So, you know, only the Lord can figure that one out. But yeah, I don't think there's anything that scripture says that nobody's going to be converted, you know,

just before the Lord returns. Okay. Reminence logic says, what are your thoughts on the three days of darkness? Yeah. I think there's a lot of like private revelation that you can easily get lost in, you know, and I think there's some some solid kind of grounds for something like that being said by solid people in the tradition, like maybe Edmund Campion said something that could be interpreted that way.

But St. Faustina definitely did. She definitely did talk about a time of darkness coming on the world and the sign of Jesus appearing in the sky and the crucifix and things like that. So there are some respected holy saints that have prophesied something like that. When it gets to, you know, don't open the window or the demons will get you or only blessed candles will get you through. I don't know about that, to tell you the truth. I just think that, hey, if the Lord's going to give a special mercy to the world, give an illumination of conscience and give a shocking warning to people, giving them a chance to repent, wonderful. But if

He doesn't, we still have to get on with preaching the gospel ourselves. You know, we shouldn't be sitting around waiting for three days of darkness or hovering in fear because of the three-day darkness. If we're the Lord, we don't have anything to fear. And Peterson says, what facet of the church do you think is in most need of reform or renewal today? basic truth, basic doctrine, basic morality, basic inspiration of Scripture. I think the foundations are shaking and we need to reaffirm the truth of the foundations, you know. We need to believe the creed and we need to particularly believe what we're talking about today. He's coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

Yep. Yep. Becca Davis says, I am a convert to Catholicism, and I understand that the Catholic Church doesn't believe in the Rapture. But as someone who had nightmares about being left behind as a little girl, I would like to know more about what the Church does believe about the end of the world. Can you give a brief overview? Well, I can say something about the rapture and where that comes from. In Thessalonians, I believe, not 2 Thessalonians, but another part in Thessalonians, talks about when the Lord returns, we're going to be kind of caught up in the air with them. The Christians who are alive on the earth are going to be caught up with the air in the Lord, and then after that, those who died in the Lord will be raised and joined to them. And the word for caught up in Latin is raptus, so that

being caught up in the air has been called rapture. The Catholic Church understands that as the thing that happens to accompany the end of the world and the Lord coming, not as a separate event to take the Christians out of the world, then leaving other people to kind of go through the tribulation or the darkness type of thing. Yeah, and my understanding is that this modern Protestant, not that all Protestants believe it, view of the Rapture is something rather recent from a Scottish theologian or something like that, within a couple hundred years ago or something. Yeah, no, it's a totally a modern Protestant. And ought to be rejected.

Yes, it isn't what the Catholic Church teaches. And it seems to be clearly talking about the events accompanying the wrapping up of things with the Lord's returning and glory. Matthew Cantrell says, oh, and this is the final question. Over this past year, there has been a lot of questioning of the validity of the charismatic gifts, particularly the gift of tongues. How can we better understand this gift and the charismatic gifts overall? Yeah, well I think paying attention to the various teachings of the Pope's on it, paying attention to the teaching of Vatican II and the charisms

of which there's very many, but I could give a little thumbnail about how to understand speaking in tongues. Please? Yeah, there's actually three kinds of speaking in tongues talked about in the New Testament. There's the kind of speaking in tongues that we experience in the day of Pentecost when the apostles went out, and they either spoke in languages they didn't understand, or they spoke in their ordinary language, and people understood it in the languages that they knew. So, sort of a miraculous gift of recognizing speech or speaking speech that you don't naturally know. Every now and then that happens. It's not common, but every now and then it happens. You'll be running to somebody who says,

he had a prayer meeting. Gee, I didn't know you knew medieval Arabic. And the person says, I have no idea what I'm saying. I'm just praying in the Lord type of thing. I have no idea what I'm saying. I'm just praying in the Lord type of thing. Second kind of speaking in tongues talks about 1 Corinthians chapter 12 where it talks about does everybody heal, does everybody prophesy, does everybody work miracles, does everybody speak in tongues, does everybody interpret.

So it's talking about a ministry gift, a gift that's supposed to build up the body of Christ, and how I've experienced that, how I've seen that, is somebody will feel inspired in a devotional setting, in a prayer meeting or something, to speak out in a language they don't know, in words they don't know what they mean. Somebody else will be immediately inspired to interpret that in English or whatever the vernacular language is and it's sort of just something that kind of happens it's sort of like inspiring for people it's startling for people

whatever but the most common kind of speaking in tongues is what Paul talks about in 1st Corinthians chapter 14 and says, I speak in tongues more than any of you, and I want you all to pray in tongues, but especially to prophesy. The person who speaks in tongues speaks mysteries unto God. And people don't understand what you're saying. It's like a personal prayer type thing. It's sort of like a connection, a deeper

level of your being being released. And I think it's a little bit like what Paul also says in Romans chapter 8, where he says, we don't know how to pray properly, but the Spirit of God within us, with groans and sighs too deep for words, intercedes for God's will for us. Thanks be to God. I don't know sometimes what to pray for, you know, type of thing. But so I think that this kind of devotional speaking in tongues is the most common kind of speaking in tongues. It's clearly scriptural, it's clearly something

that Paul exhorts us to do, and it seems to be something that releases levels of our being that are more than conscious or something like that, you know? So I think that's what it is. Is there any evidence of this third way of speaking in tongues, which Paul teaches, in the early Church Fathers?

Is there some kind of... Yeah, there is. There's a whole study on early Christian initiation by Father George Montague and Father Killian MacDonald, like a big 500-page book, where they study all the accounts of Christian initiation in the early church, and almost every time people experience something like being baptized in the Spirit or some manifestation of charisms. Augustine himself talks about people jubilating, you know, making

sounds and things like that, you know. So people debate, say, well, is that really speaking in tongues or is that something else? So anyway, it's there. Then Teresa of Avila, when she's writing to her sister, she says sometimes some sister will begin to speak out in a language she doesn't understand, and that inspires everybody else, and we're all kind of, this could go on for days, we're just kind of like, oh wow, yeah, that type of thing. So every now and then something pops up. How would you then distinguish this third type of tongues from someone who just prays for the Lord and then starts groaning? Is there a distinction? I would say it's related. I would say it wouldn't be the same thing.

So how is it not the same thing? Well, I would say that, you know, different times when I've had a chance to visit with John Paul the second, you know, in his chapel for mass before the day begins, we'd come into the chapel and he'd be there praying, and he'd be groaning. Mm-hmm. He'd be... You have heard this. Yeah, definitely.

You know, he'd just really be groaning, and he doesn't even know if people have come in type of thing, you know, he'd just really be groaning, and he doesn't even know if people have come in, type of thing, you know, type of thing. So I would say that would be groaning. On another occasion, he asked Cardinal Cantalamesa, he wasn't a cardinal at the time, saying, I'd really like this other gift of tongues, you know, could you pray for me? And so, Father Cantalamesa,

the preacher to the papal household, prayed for him, and then later on, the pope came running down the hallway to him saying, I got it, I got it, thank you. I've heard this too, yeah. But I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, you know, when people feel free to, if you need more, when I hear about the gift of tongues and I see the way in which I've seen people try to get it, quote unquote. They treat it like they have no control over it, or it's something that, oh, I didn't have yesterday, but now I have it today. But the way you're describing it for me, it just sounds like someone can choose at any point to start babbling and to expressing themselves in an incoherent

way so as to sort of... Yeah, I would say that if it's not you just making up sounds, and people sometimes do say just start speaking out and it will start flowing type of thing, it was not just you making up sounds. sounds, something does kind of happen that makes you feel connected to the Lord in some way because of the sound you're making that wouldn't be just you making up sounds. Yeah, I've never experienced that. I mean, I could see if somebody said, you know, when you praise God, you tell him he's good, powerful, almighty, and etc. I can see how you run out of words, and just in a sort of an enthusiastic fit of love and overflowing praise, you just start to mumble and groan. I guess what I've never understood is how that's not this gift of tongues, because it seems very subjective

to say, well, you know it's tongues if you feel something. Well, I would say what you just described there was probably moving into what's described as speaking in tongues. You're moving into a beyond Okay. Yeah. Expression to God, you know? Yeah. Okay. Next time it happens, just let it go. Well, thank you very much for being on the show. Yeah. And people can pick up your new book, A Life in the Spirit, a memoir. We'll put the link in the description below. And I believe there will be a promo code. They get 20% off. Yeah Yeah I think people down the road there, St. Paul Center, are offering a special promo code for the book. Yeah, Ralph20. I hope people remember that. Yeah, we'll put it below in the description as well. Okay. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. Well thank you Matt.