Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1055 | Former Catholic on Why He Left Catholicism | Guest: Mike Gendron

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Today, we sit down with Mike Gendron, a former Catholic who discovered the truth in the Bible and left the Catholic Church after 35 years. As the founder of Proclaiming the Gospel ministry, Mike has developed numerous resources to equip and encourage Christians to be effective witnesses to Roman Catholics. In this episode, Mike shares his deeply personal journey, revealing how reading the scriptures opened his eyes to the significant differences between Catholic doctrine and biblical truth. We dive into some highly controversial topics, such as: Was Mary truly a virgin her entire life? What does it take for a Catholic to get into heaven? Does even the pope make it into heaven? Whether you're Catholic, Protestant, or simply curious about these beliefs, this episode offers insightful perspectives on faith, tradition, and the pursuit of truth. Get your tickets for Share the Arrows: https://www.sharethearrows.com/ Pre-order Allie's new book: https://a.co/d/4COtBxy --- Timecodes: (02:00) Introduction and Background (05:00) Mike Gendron’s Journey from Catholicism to Christianity (10:00) Differences Between Catholicism and Protestantism (18:00) The Bible vs. Catholic Teachings (21:00) Venial Sin and Purgatory  (24:00) Apostolic Tradition and Catholic Practices (34:00) The Marian Doctrine & Immaculate Conception (44:30) The Eucharist and Transubstantiation (51:00) Advice for Those Struggling with Faith Transitions --- Today's Sponsors: Jase Medical - Enter now for a chance to win a Jase Case for life at https://www.jase.com/allie , and use promo code “ALLIE” at checkout for a discount—giveaway ends August 31st! A’del — try A'del's hand-crafted, artisan, small-batch cosmetics and use promo code ALLIE 25% off your first time purchase at AdelNaturalCosmetics.com Birch Gold — protect your future with gold. Text 'ALLIE' to 989898 for a free, zero obligation info kit on diversifying and protecting your savings with gold. Seven Weeks - Experience the best coffee while supporting the pro-life movement with Seven Weeks Coffee; use code ALLIE at https://www.sevenweekscoffee.com to save up to 25% and help save lives. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 997 | Why Do Catholics Pray to Mary? | Guest: Trent Horn https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-997-why-do-catholics-pray-to-mary-guest-trent-horn/id1359249098?i=1000654720287 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Mike Jindran is the head of proclaiming the gospel ministries. He was born and raised a Roman Catholic. When he started reading his Bible at the age of 35, he realized he did not know the gospel. And he has spent the past 50 years of his life sharing the gospel and teaching those in the Catholic Church what the Word of God says about salvation. I understand this is going to be a controversial episode. I've got a lot of beloved Catholics, not only in my life, but. also in this audience. And while I know that many, most of you will not agree with what said here, understand that what Mr. Gingerin is saying, he is saying from a place of love for Catholics, this is not about hate, this is not an attack. Even if you do vehemently disagree, I urge you to be respectful.

My Catholic friends have lots of episodes, lots of conversations out there about the errors that they see in Protestantism. And I don't see those as an attack. And I encourage you to listen to, watch this conversation with the same spirit. You are welcome, as always, to comment your thoughts and your disagreements. I encourage you to do so. But remain respectful, remain thoughtful, and remain open to what he is saying today. This episode is brought to you by friends at Good Ranchers, go to good ranchers.com. Use code alia. Check out this good ranchers.com code alley. Mr. Gendron, thanks so much for taking the time to join Relatable. Could you tell everyone who you are and what you do? Sure. My name is Mike Gendron. And for 33 years, I've directed a ministry

called Proclaiming the Gospel. And we have a great love and compassion for Roman Catholics. And I was one for 35 years. And so I lived it. And it wasn't until I opened the Bible. and began reading it that I had a crisis of faith and realized that I was outside of Christ that I needed to repent and believe the gospel. And so it's been quite a spiritual journey. The Lord has taken us all over the world, especially in countries that are dominated by Roman Catholicism,

had the opportunity to speak in many different seminaries and churches and conferences. And it's really been a joy to proclaim the gospel for a living. Wow. Well, I've got a million questions for you. I want to go all the way back in your life. You were born and raised, Roman Catholic. I was.

Okay. And how many generations before do you know was your family Catholic? As far back as you can go, my family was originally from Montreal, French Canadian. And so I was one of five children. My dad was an army colonel. His brother was a Roman Catholic priest who ministered in the jungles of Rangoon, Burman. now called Myanmar. And so he actually put in for an assignment to be with his brother.

And he took the whole family with him. And as a young 13, 14 year old, I was really amazed that a man would give up his life to serve in the jungles to convert people to Catholicism. And 50 years later, the Lord took me back to Myanmar. Wow. And I was able to preach the true gospel to 81 students there that were learning how to be effective witnesses. So in my family upbringing, I was an altar boy for seven years and learned the Latin and the responses to the priest and the mass. Later on, I was responsible for bringing the

first Little Rock Scripture study to a Dallas church. In fact, it was St. Patrick's Catholic Church. And it was then that I began reading the Bible for the first time. And for 35 years, I owned a Bible, but it just sat on the coffee table, collecting dust, because the priest told us, don't even try reading it. It's too difficult. If you have any questions, just come to us. So when I opened it and began reading it,

I had a crisis of faith because what I was reading, as far as plan of salvation, was diametrically opposed to what the Catholic Church had taught me for those 30 years. And so I did, the wrong thing, I called my uncle the priest. And I said, Father Charles, why does the Catholic

Church teach a different way of salvation than the Bible? And he said, well, Mike, that's just not true. I said, well, for example, in Ephesians 28 and 9, Paul writes, for by grace, you have been saved through faith. It's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of work, so that no one may boast. and he said, oh, my God doesn't really mean what he's saying there. And so I thought, wow, how does he know what God really means? And so I began reading more and more, and I came to a verse that has just become my favorite verse, 2 Corinthians 521, where it reads Jesus, He that knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God and Him.

And I looked at as the greatest exchange in human history. By faith, Christ takes all of my sin, all of my guilt, all of my punishment, and what does he give me in return? His perfect righteousness. And so I understood the doctrine of justification that by one offering, he has made perfect forever those who are being sanctified. And so I don't know the exact day or month that the Lord saved me. But I was understanding the scriptures more and more.

And I came to a conclusion that the nature of deception is that people do not know they're deceived until they're confronted with the truth. And here I was with an open Bible discovering the truth. I was reading the truth, and it was confronting me in my deception. And so God granted me repentance. He gave me eyes to see the light of the gospel and the glory of Christ and literally turned my life upside down. I left the Catholic Church, and I remember going to a Bible study, a different Bible study every morning of the week before going to work. I couldn't get enough

of God's word. It was like I had been a dry sponge in a desert for 30 years plus, and I just wanted to absorb everything I could. Yeah. And that wasn't enough. So I ended up enrolling in Dallas theological seminary so I could learn the Bible. Yeah. And our last semester, at Dallas Seminary, I was introduced to a video that featured former priest and former nuns that were sharing the gospel with Catholics. And I brought it home to my wife, who's also a former Catholic. We watched it together, and we said, we've got to share this with every Roman Catholic we know. So for the next three months, every Tuesday night, we invited Roman Catholics over to our house.

and within three months, 17 people exchanged their religion for a relationship with Christ. Well, what do you do with New Babes in Christ? We invited them back over on Wednesday night to help them grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord. So that was the beginning of what we do today. It was the genesis of the ministry of proclaiming the gospel. Shortly after that, Tommy Nelson at Denton Bible invited me in to address 3,000 people there at Denton Bible. And I thought I was only reaching those people. Little did I know he had a cassette ministry that went out all over the world.

Right. And so the next thing you know, we're getting request to go into different churches and seminaries. And we literally stand in awe of what God has done with a couple of broken vessels that love him and love Roman Catholics. I've got so many questions for you. As someone who was raised in the Bible bell, I wasn't raised around many Catholics at all. I maybe knew one or two. I think I knew more Jewish people than I did Catholics. It wasn't until I got to college that I befriended some Catholics,

and I started to learn a little bit more about the distinctions in Catholicism. And one of them was this just complete, among a lot of them, I can't paint a broad brush, disinterest with scripture. and no real knowledge of even something like John 316. I still remember I saw John 316, just the reference written somewhere, and then someone who lived on my hall freshman year who was also a devout Catholic, she said, what does that mean? She didn't even recognize the format of a scripture reference.

And I remember talking to some Catholics in college, and this idea of having a relationship with Christ was something that. they thought that you could have after you died, but not necessarily something that you had to worry about when you were on earth. And I don't know if everyone who professes to be Catholic thinks that way. They probably don't, but I'm curious just to get your insight, is that something that is actually descriptive of Catholic doctrines? And is that kind of a popular mentality among people who were raised Catholic. Well, as a Roman Catholic, we trusted Roman Catholic priest as our mediators between us and God.

And so we never had a relationship with Christ. Our relationship was with the priest. And so as I was studying the Bible, I realized in 1st Timothy 2.5, there's one mediator between God and man. That's the man, Christ, Jesus. And then I read where when Jesus gave up his spirit, the veil separating the Holy of Holies from sinful man was ripped open from top to bottom, showing that now, through faith in the shed blood of Jesus, we have direct access to the Father. We no longer need priests offering sacrifices that can never take away sin. And so by putting my complete trust in Christ as my mediator, I had direct

access to the Father. And so a lot of Catholics don't realize that the Roman Catholic priesthood is really superfluous, because Jesus is the perfect high priest who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to a perfect God who demands perfection. And then he cried out, it is finished. And so there are no more offerings for sin. Christ offered himself once for all sin for all time. And the more I read the Bible, the more I realized that the Roman Catholic religion had really kept me in spiritual bondage, I really didn't know the truth. And so I went through everything the Catholic Church required of me because I really looked at God as a God who graded on the curve rather than the cross. And so I was doing all the good works I could in the hopes that my good works would outweigh

my sin. In fact, I even went to Mass every day during Lent, during college, because I wanted that those good works. And, you know, I shared Ephesians 2,8, 9. Well, the very next verse is Ephesians 210. And that tells us that once we are new creatures in Christ, once we've been regenerated and born again, then we do the works that God has prepared for us to walk in. And so I looked at good works before and after my salvation experience. As a Catholic, I was doing good works in order to be saved. Now that I have been saved, now that I have been saved. I do good works out of love and appreciation for God saving me. And so the motivation and the timing of good works is very important. And I just wish that Roman Catholics could understand that.

We are saved by grace apart from works, faith apart from works in Christ alone. All right, quick pause to tell you about our first sponsor for the day. And that is Adele Natural Cosmetics. It's a family-run holistic, handcrafted, toxin-free skincare and cosmetic company. Everything is made in the U.S. They're unapologetic. pro-life. I absolutely love Adele. They are going to be at our event. Share the Aeroes at the end of September. You can go to ShareTheAros.com to learn more about that. But Adel is going to be there. And so you'll be able to check out their skincare, which I use every day. I love it. I love that it's all natural. I love that this is a Christian pro-life company. They're just amazing. Go to adele

Natural Cosmetics.com. Use code Allie for 25% off your first time purchase. Adel Natural Cosmetics.com code Allie. You mentioned that your priest, who was your uncle, I think, you said, said, you know what the Bible, you don't need to worry about what the Bible says. God didn't really mean that. You were told growing up by your priest that the Bible is just too complicated. If you've got a question, go directly to the priest. Can you explain where that idea comes from? Why is it discouraged? I'm not sure if it's this way anymore, but why is it largely discouraged within the Catholic Church to take the Bible into your own hands to read it and to understand it.

Well, Alibeth, I think you have to go back to the Reformation. Yeah. Because it was the reformers who began reading the Bible. And the more they read the Bible, the more the truth set them free. And so many of the reformers ended up leaving the Catholic Church. Some of them tried to reform it before they left. But the truth set them free from religious deception and religious bondage. And so at the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church actually,

place the Bible on the list of forbidden books because they recognized as people were reading it, the truth was setting them free. And so I think modern day Catholicism doesn't discourage the reading of the Bible. In fact, they have their own scripture studies now. But for the longest time, they actually had the Bible on the list of forbidden books and discouraged people from reading it. Now, they would say, I think, well, look what the Reformation caused. Look what the Bible being in the hands of the common person caused and being translated into common language. Look at all the division. Look at all the denomination. See, it was a mistake. Maybe they would say the Roman Catholic Church was trying to protect the sacredness of scripture and the sacred united interpretation of scripture by banning it. And they would say the fruit of Protestantism has been progressivism, has been liberalism, has been liberalism. has been the corruption of the Word of God and the divorcing of the church. How do we respond to that? That's a good question.

And we have to look at the fact that it's not Roman Catholicism versus Protestantism. It's looking through every church and denomination through the lens of Scripture. Does it line up with Scripture? And yes, there are many Protestant denominations and Protestant churches that have drifted away from the authority of Scripture. and they began teaching another gospel. And so that's called apostasy, departing from the gospel, departing from Christ. So there are Protestant denominations that have gone into apostasy. So it's not an issue of us versus them.

It's an issue of what does the Bible say? And can that be our final authority in all matters of faith? One of the verses that impacted me early on was Acts 1711. And that's where Paul was preaching in the synagogues of Berea. And he noticed that as he was preaching, his listeners were searching the scriptures daily to find out if Paul was teaching them the truth. They were testing the veracity of an apostle with the scriptures. And so that shows that scripture needs to be the supreme authority. That's why we have it here today.

It's the only infallible source for truth we have on this earth. And so we can still test every man's teaching using God's inspired words. word. And if a preacher agrees with the scriptures, then we receive it. If it goes against the scripture, then we reject it. And so I would encourage every Roman Catholic to test the teaching of their pope and their bishops and their priest. Does it line up with scripture? That's the principle that we learned from Acts 1711. And of course, Catholics believe that the church really has equal authority with scripture. They reject Sola scripture. They might even reject prima scripture putting scripture first. And they'll say, I've gotten this before. Well,

where in the Bible does it say Soliscriptura? And if the Bible doesn't say it, then how can you say Soliscriptura is correct? How do we respond to that? That's a question we get all the time. And it really comes down to this. I would agree with Catholics that Soliscriptura is a Protestant tradition. You won't find it in the Bible. And that's because it wasn't necessary in the Bible. See, it was at the Council of Trent that the Catholic Church elevated their tradition to be equal in authority with Scripture. And that's why the reformers said, no, it's got to be Scripture alone. That is our supreme authority. And when you look at Almighty God, there is no higher power than he. And he's revealed himself through his inspired, inerrant, infallible word.

And so, yes, there are traditions in the scriptures that we are to find. but they're apostolic traditions. They're not the traditions that the Roman Catholic Church follows today. And so I'm reminded of what Jude, the reason he wrote his epistle, it was to contend earnestly for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints. The verb tense is important. The body of truth that we are to contend for today, it was delivered to the saints in the first century. So anything that comes against that, we are to reject. in many of the Roman Catholic traditions today, you won't find in the first century church. For example, you don't find priest offering sacrifices for sin in the first century church.

You don't find indulgences for the remission of temporal punishment. You don't find venial sins. You don't find purgatory. You don't find sacraments as a means of salvation. and you don't find the church headquartered in Rome. So the church that the Roman Catholic Church has today does not resemble the first century church. And we hear a lot. I hear a lot from Catholics.

Well, this is the church that Jesus Christ established, that we can trace the papacy all the way back to Peter, and that what was passed down to the apostles by Jesus has continued to be passed down to the priest. So they would say that it is the apostolic tradition. I've had Trent Horn on this podcast. It was a very kind person and a good apologist for Catholicism. But he said, I just want to practice Christianity the way the earliest Christians did. But of course, that would be my contention, too, like which early Christians?

Because I don't see that in scripture. I'm not even sure that I see that, as you said, and the history of the early church. So true. And we have to recognize what. Paul said in 1st Timothy chapter 4, he said, on latter times, some will depart from the faith and follow doctrines of demons. And then he even lists one of the doctrines, and that's forbidding people to marry. And so you look at the Catholic clergy and they're forbidden to marry. But I think you even go back to the Garden of Eden when God told Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit. And so Satan

comes along and he immediately questions God's word. Did God really say? And then he said, if you eat of the fruit, if you break God's command, you surely shall not die. Well, the Catholic Church has taken the first lie of the devil in the garden to create the doctrine of venial sin. And the Catholic Church, if you commit venial sins, you surely shall not die. You only have temporal punishment. So now that you have this doctrine of demons in the garden, what happens when Catholics die in venial sin? Well, you need to create a place for them to go. So they created purgatory. And that's where Catholics who die in venial sin go to have their sins purified or purged away. And it might be where you or I go according to them too, right? Because we don't have,

they would say, the fullness of truth within the Catholic Church. So now that you have, Catholics in purgatory, now you need a means to get them out. So they created indulgences. And that's the remission of temporal punishment for sin. So the first lie of the devil in the garden perpetuated through the doctrine of venial sins ends up creating purgatory and then indulgences. We know that all sins are mortal. The wages of sin is death. The soul that sins will surely die. And so there's no such thing as venial sin. And so as we share the gospel with Catholics, we need to recognize that. John MacArthur calls it a safety net for Catholics. They don't believe they've done anything serious enough to be labeled a mortal sin. So most Catholics rationalize

and say, well, that's only a venial sin. It doesn't cause death, only temporal punishment and purgatory. Then some Catholics will say, well, we get our idea of purgatory from the books of the Bible that Martin Luther removed, and they're referring to the apocrypha, not a part of the 66 books that we have. What do we make of those? Why aren't they included in our Bible? Well, the bottom line is because they contain historical, geographical, and theological errors. And so we know that they cannot be inspired by God because God's word is an error. And they weren't added to the Catholic canon until the Council of Trent. And the reason it was added then is because they needed some justification for the doctrine of purgatory and indulgences.

And so in Second Maccabees, they slough when the Maccabians were killed, many of them were wearing pagan amulets around their neck. And so they sent alms back to Jerusalem for the repose of their soul. So the Catholic Church said, see, there, there is an intermediate place, and we can offer alms for the dead in order to get them out of an intermediate place. And so they added the apocry in order to try and support their doctrine of venial sin, purgatory, and indulgences. But we don't do things just because the Jews did them. The Jews did a lot of things that went against Scripture and went against God. In fact, they even rejected the Messiah. So we don't emulate the Jews just because it's in one of their books.

And the Apocryphal books, they were the Inter Testament books. The canon was closed 400 years before Christ, and then you had the apocryphal books during that period of time. When you were growing up, what did you learn, if anything, about Martin Luther and Protestants? I never forget my uncle, he was so angry with Martin Luther. He said he divided the church. But you know what, Ali Beth, that's what the gospel does. It divides believers from unbelievers. Jesus said, I came to divide father against son, mother against daughter.

That's how powerful the gospel is. And so, yes, the church was divided at that time because the gospel was being proclaimed and people were repenting and believing it. and they became new creatures in Christ, born again of the spirit. All right. I absolutely love seven weeks coffee. Seven weeks coffee tastes so good. It's so high quality.

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Go to 7weeks Coffee.com code Alley. You mentioned before we started rolling that you were once a rocket scientist, correct? That's correct. So can you tell us kind of what happened between you, you know, leaving home, going to school, and then before you started reading the Bible for yourself, I think you said at age 35. Tell us about that time period, what your career was before that. Well, sure. I went to undergraduate school at University of Southwestern Louisiana, which is now called

the University of Louisiana, played baseball for the Raging Cajuns, got a degree in mass, and so my assignment at Cape Kennedy, Florida, was to use my math degree, my math ability. We created impact lines for, if we had to destroy the missile, We had to take into consideration all the drag coefficients of all the pieces, the wind velocities. We had to protect the population from Cape Kennedy all the way down to Africa. And so I really enjoyed my job. I had a house right on the beach there in Cape Kennedy, Florida. And shortly after that, after my career there, Ross Perrault recruited me to Dallas

and went to work for him, selling computers all over the country. and I'll never forget, every time I got on a plane Monday morning, I always had this great fear. If the plane goes down, will I end up in purgatory or hell? Because heaven wasn't an option. Why? Why? Because even the popes believe they have to spend time in purgatory. Oh, really?

Yeah. When the last couple of popes died, they had other cardinals come in and perform the sacrifice of the Mass for the purpose of getting the Holy Fathers out of a place called purgatory. Is that the repose of the soul? Is that what that means? Right. They were offering sacrifices for the sins of the popes. And so, yeah, there was not an option to go to heaven directly. You had to go through the purging fire of purgatory. And now I get on a plane and travel all over the world. I know if the plane goes down, immediately I'm in the presence of my Savior. And that's because I have the assurance of eternal life. And Roman Catholics

don't have that assurance. They have conditional life. And Ali, the difference between having assurance and not is the difference between what are you trusting in. You see, the Catholic Church teaches you must do things to appease God and to merit heaven. The Bible says Christ has done it all. And so if you put all of your trust in what Christ has done, then you can have the assurance of eternal life. As long as you're trusting in what you must do, there can be no assurance. Because how do you know if you've ever done enough? But when you trust the perfect sacrifice of Christ in his righteousness, that he canceled the eternal sin debt, that God no longer counts our sins against us.

And now he sees us perfectly righteous because the imputation of Christ's righteousness to every believer. And so, you know, the gospel calls this good news. I call it the greatest news that condemned sinner on death row could ever hear. That Christ died as a substitute so that you could go free. What would a Catholic priest say the gospel is

if you were to ask? It's a good question. Well, you may remember the famous golfer, Bruce Litsky, We had a chance to witness to his wife, Rose. She had her kids at Trinity Christian Academy. That's where I went. I went there, kindergarten through 12th grade, yep. Well, her kids came home one day and said,

Mom, the kids at school are saying, if you're a Catholic, you have no hope of going to heaven. And so she was very distraught. And through a mutual friend, she found out about our ministry. And so we went over to her house and sat down with an open Bible. and every time she asked a question, we let God answer the question for her. And the more questions she asked, the more questions God answered. She just kept going.

And then I remember about three hours into it, she said, how can I have the same peace that you and your wife have? I said the peace comes from knowing Christ Jesus as my Savior and knowing that the moment I die, I'm going to be in his presence. And so she said, well, how can I receive? received that. I said, well, let's let God answer that question too. So I turned to Mark 117, Mark 115. I said, read this. The first command of Jesus was repent and believe the gospel. And so the word repent means you need to change your mind about the former way that you were

believing you could get to heaven and put your faith in the true gospel. And then I took her to Romans 10 verses 9 and 10, I asked her to read it. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. I said, Rose, look at verse 13. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. And so she cried out to the Lord to save her. And then she said, well, what am I going to do now? I've just been named fundraiser at All Saints Catholic Church. And my son's an altar boy. I've got to go. talk to the priest. And so she set up an appointment, asked if I would go with her. And I said, sure, because I'm aware of the parable of the seed, it was sown on her heart. I didn't want to

leave her one-on-one with a priest that could pluck it away. And so I walked in, I introduced myself to the priest, and I said, could you share with Rose how she has any hope of going to heaven? and so he started listing the requirements. Well, she has to be baptized. That's the sacrament of regeneration and justification. Then she has to receive the sacraments. They are required for salvation. She has to attend the weekly sacrifice of the Mass.

She has to do good works in order to be justified. She has to keep the law. So I saw a Bible on his desk, and I said, could you open to the book of Romans and I'd like to you to read a couple of verses? And so he did. And I said, how are you going to reconcile what God has just said with what you told Rose? Well, now he knew why I was there. He didn't like it. No, he said, this meeting is over. I said, no, there's nothing more important in settling this woman's eternal destiny. And so for the next 15 minutes, he tried to reconcile God's word with the Catholic plan of salvation. And

And each time he did, I brought up another verse that refuted what he just said. And he was just getting so frustrated and so angry to the point where he said, look, this meeting is over. And so we got up, we walked out, and I opened my Bible to 2nd Corinthians 4-2. I said, Rose, look at this. God presents the truth plainly to every man's conscience in the sight of God. we don't rely on the bishops to interpret the scriptures for us. The scriptures weren't written to bishops. They were written to the saints at individual churches. She said, oh, Mike, I know I can never

go back to this church. Here was a man with a collar on. He couldn't even tell me how to get to heaven. So a long answer to your question, but that's the Catholic gospel. And priests say they don't have the authority to interpret the scriptures. They have to rely on their bishops. By the way, the Catholic Church teaches the bishops are the only authentic interpreters of God's word. That's why whenever I witness to a priest, they say, you've got to come back home to Holy Mother the church because you have no authority to interpret the scriptures on your own. Okay, y'all, let me tell you about Birch Gold. In these crazy times, there is peace of mind in security, security for our country, security for our leaders. You also want to be, you also want to make sure

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thousands of happy customers. Text Allie to 9-8-9-8. I'm so curious to hear your insight into Mary. Marian doctrine because I've talked about this with Catholics, with Trent Horn. We really got into it on the doctrine of Mary. And this is something that I found a lot of my Catholic friends are very defensive about. They will say we do not worship Mary. We don't pray to Mary or pray to any saints.

We pray through them. And because they are spiritually alive in heaven, then it's fine to pray to them. and why not pray through Mary since she is the closest to Jesus and he will never refuse her? That's the kind of language that I hear. So, I mean, I won't give my thoughts and I have my own thoughts, but what's your take on that? The Catholic Church gives Mary a lot of attributes that are reserved for God alone. In fact, in the catechism, it teaches that Mary was the cause of salvation for herself in the whole human race, and she continues to bring us the gifts of salvation.

And it's interesting because if she's the cause of salvation for herself, that means she was a sinner that needed salvation, but yet the Catholic Church esteems Mary as sinless. They teach the immaculate conception that she was conceived without sin, and then they teach that she lived a life without sin. And so that was pronounced in 1854, the dogma of immaculate conception. Well, Catholics began asking a question, well, if Mary never sinned and sin is what causes death, where's Mary? And so in 1950, they had to come up with another infallible dogma that Mary was miraculously

assumed into heaven. So she never died. She was assumed into heaven. And she was a perpetual virgin, they say, right? They didn't, that she didn't have children, which I'm not sure how they square that with scripture that says that Joseph and Mary did not consummate their marriage until Jesus was born. And then there's also, I mean, there is, there are references to Jesus' brothers and sisters in Scripture. But the retort that I hear is that that's just a misinterpretation.

Mm-hmm. It's really sad. In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul talks about how Eve was tempted by Satan, and he said, I'm concerned that your devotion to Christ, your pure devotion to Christ may be led astray. And how is pure devotion to Christ led astray by venerating or turning to other people such as Mary and the Saints? know, Christ is worthy of all honor and glory and blessing and dominion and on and on. Mary, she was blessed to be the mother of Jesus, but she has no special case as far as devotion or praying to. You know, they have a rosary. Fifty-three of the prayers are to Mary, and only a few of the prayers are to the triune God. And so you can see the emphasis is more toward Mary. I don't understand why. Why did they establish this Marian doctrine? Why did they decide that Mary is someone that you pray through? Where does that come from? It does not come from Scripture. I've asked very smart Catholics to show me even where Scripture alludes to that. And I do not get a response. I've never gotten a response. So where does that doctrine come from?

Ali Beth, it goes back to once you no longer submit to the supreme authority of God's word, then you allow religious traditions to come in. And this is what happened down through the years. They started elevating Mary. And you know, you look at the queen of heaven. It's in Jeremiah 44. It was a pagan goddess. And yet they call Mary the queen of heaven because Jesus is the king of heaven. Jesus is an advocate, so they elevate Mary to be an advocate. Now, Jesus is the only sinless mediator, clearly stated in 1st Timothy 2.5, but yet they declare Mary was also a sinless mediocratics of all grace.

And so where did it come from? Through not submitting to the authority of God's word to allow traditions to come into the church. and, you know, we talked about Jesus only starting one church. Yes, he started your church and my church and the Catholic Church. We can all trace our roots back to Matthew 16, 18, where Jesus said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So what is the nature of the church of Jesus Christ? You're not baptized by water in order to gain entrance. You're baptized by the Holy Spirit. We see that in first Corinthians 1213, we are baptized by one spirit into one body. That is the Church of Christ. And it has one head. The Catholic Church has two heads. They submit to the Pope as head as well.

And we look at the true church. Every member of the true church of Jesus Christ, their name is enrolled in heaven. Well, that disqualifies the Catholic Church because they would be the first to admit that not all Catholics will go to heaven. If they die in the state of mortal sin, then they'll go to hell. And so again, that goes against the whole doctrine of justification. So who do they believe goes to heaven immediately? Anyone? No.

Not even someone that they elevate to the place of saint. No. It's just some people spend longer time in purgatory to be purged of our sinfulness, even the Pope, you said. Yes, even the Pope had venial sin. that had to be purged away. So Jesus's death did not earn salvation for anyone, really according to that doctrine, because if after you die, you still have to be cleansed of your sin, then the sacrifice was insufficient, right? That's right. Yeah, when you get right down to it, the Jesus of the Catholic Church merely opened the gates of heaven. Now Catholics must do their part to get through those

gates. It all depends on what they do and whether or not they can die in the state of grace, albeit venial sins instead of mortal sin. So you look at the Jesus of the Catholic Church, and it's not the Jesus that's gloriously revealed in Scripture. I don't know if you're aware, but the Jesus of the Catholic Church did not finish the work of redemption. And yet we see in Hebrews 9 that when he obtained eternal redemption, he entered into heaven. But the Catholic Church says, no, Jesus must come back down from heaven at the beck and call of a priest and be transubstantiated into a wafer so that he can be offered again on Catholic altars. And that offering is for the sins committed by Catholics in the previous week.

we know that Jesus canceled the eternal sin debt for all sins of all believers. But the work of redemption continues on Catholic altars. And he didn't satisfy divine justice, the Catholic Jesus. He doesn't offer eternal life. He offers only conditional life. And so the Catholics need to read about the true Jesus as he's gloriously revealed in Scripture. There are a lot of icons and images used within the Catholic Church, much more than within the Protestant church.

Obviously, you've got the crucifix, and then you've also got Mary, you've got the rosary, there are statues and votive candles of depictions of saints. And do Catholics have a response to, well, what about the Second Commandment? What about the prohibition against graven images? We're certainly not supposed to pray to graven images. I mean, of course, we see that in Israel, in the Old Testament, that they wanted a graven image to pray to and to idolize. Surely someone has contended with that, though, within the Catholic Church. What's their response to that? They remove the Second Commandment from their Catechism and

turn the last commandment into two. You know, the Second Commandment is do not create an image of anything in the heavens above the earth beneath or the waters below or bow down and worship them. and when you look at the Catholic religion, that's all they have is icons and images and statues. And you see pictures of popes bowing down to statues of Mary. And it just goes against the Second Commandment. And you go into any Catholic bookstore and you see statues and icons everywhere. And so, again, it's heartbreaking to see that the pure devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ is not practiced by many Roman Catholics. Okay. You said that they remove the second commandment from their catechism and turn the last

commandment into two? I don't think I realize that. Can you explain that? Yeah, just open any catechism of the Catholic Church and you'll see the traditional 10 commandments on one side of the page and then the Roman Catholic commandments and you'll see a blank space where the second commandment is. And then you go down and you see they've created two commandments for the last one. They'll not, they'll shall not covet their neighbor's goods or their neighbor's wife. They turn that into two. So they can say that it's the ten commandments still. So they have to split up. How do they get around the prohibition against necromancy? Would you say that praying to or through Mary or the Saints is the same thing as trying to be a medium or necromancy, which is clearly

prohibited to Israel and the Old Testament? Yeah, you look at Deuteronomy 18 and it's an abomination to God if you consult the dead. So when you pray to Mary and the Saints, you're consulting the dead. Last sponsor for the day is Jace Medical. If you want to make sure that your family is taking care of when it comes to their medical emergencies, then you need to get a Jace case from Jace Medical. It comes with all different kinds of common antibiotics. You can add Tamiflu, Ivermactin, and,

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You'll get a discount on your purchase when you do. Jays.com slash Ali code alley. What about the Eucharist? That is one that I hear a lot, actually, people who go from Protestant to Catholic, I hear, well, it was really the Eucharist. Having the real presence of Christ, you hear Catholics say that they, or they yearn for that. That's why they go to Mass every day, satisfies them spiritually,

to have the real body and the real blood of Christ that has been transubstantiated in these physical objects. talk about that, why that's important to Catholic doctrine and why we don't believe it. It's really amazing. The imprimatur of the Catholic Church is given on this statement, when the priest speaks the words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens and brings Christ down from his throne. It's a power greater than saints than angels. He speaks and lo, Christ, the omnipotent God bows his head in humble submission to the priest's command. And so that's what the Catholic Church believes.

The priest calls Jesus down from heaven through the quote-unquote miracle of transubstantiation. The wafer becomes his physical body and blood, soul and divinity. And so he's offered up again on an altar. It's a propitatory sacrifice. And Catholics gather around the altar on Sundays to have their sins that were committed in the previous week forgiven by this propitatory sacrifice of the Eucharist. So what do we say to Catholics? It's got to be a false Christ by the authority of Scripture.

Because in Acts 321, we see that Jesus must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything. In Hebrews 928, we read, He will return a second time and not to deal with sin. So the Jesus that the priest has said, be calling down, he's coming back down to deal with sin on Catholic altars. The Bible tells us when he's going to return after the tribulation, how he's going to return with power and great glory. He's also going to return the same way he left, according to Acts 111. He left in a body,

a physical body, and that's the way he's going to return. He's going to return to the Mount of of Olives. And so we have all these scriptures that show the Eucharistic Christ, is a false Christ. And I must warn Catholics that when you worship the Eucharist, it's the same sin of idolatry as the Israelites who worshiped the golden calf as the true God that delivered them out of Egypt. You know, when the priest holds up the Eucharist and says, Body of Christ, Jesus said, if anybody says that, don't believe them. The Lord himself said that. And yet every time Catholic priests lift that up and say, body of Christ, Catholics say amen. They believe it to be true.

So it's really heartbreaking. If only Catholics would read their scriptures. What do you make of prominent figures, especially in conservative media, now publicly converting to Catholicism? You've got Jordan Peterson and his wife. You've got Candace Owens. There's a handful of others that I can think of. And obviously there are a lot of very prominent Catholics in the conservative media sphere. I'm very thankful for those people.

I'm friends with those people. But what do you think about that seeming shift, at least in the public world of prominent people, going towards Catholicism? Well, there's two things to consider. In fact, even the vice president candidate, J.D. Vance, converted to Catholicism three years ago. And if you read his testimony, it was because he read the early church fathers. And that's one of the calling cards of many Protestants that leave to join the Catholic Church. They're encouraged by Catholic apologists, not to read the Bible, but to read the early church fathers. And they stress the importance of the Eucharist.

You must receive the Eucharist to have the fullness of salvation. That's what is taught. And so it really comes down to this, Allie Beth. Should we trust the uninspired, words of men, i.e. the early church fathers, or the inspired word of God. It really comes down to that. And, you know, at the end of the apostle Paul's ministry, when he was standing before the Ephesian elders, he was very concerned. He said, even from your own number, men will arise to distort the truth in order to lead people astray. So when a Catholic apologist tells me to read

the early church fathers, I say, how do you know that the father? you want me to read are not the very people Paul warned us about that would even rise up among the Ephesian Elder Board for the purpose of leading people astray. No, we must trust the inspired word of God over the uninspired words of men. And to give us just a quick breakdown of how we know that the 66 books that we have are the inspired inerrant word and not the works of the Church Fathers, not the Catholic Apocrypha. Yeah, good question. The early church, was persecuted for their faith. And their faith came from reading the scriptures. The scriptures were passed around from church to church. The Apostle Peter said the writings of Paul were scripture.

So the early church knew what the inspired word of God was, and that's why they were willing to die for their faith. Now, the canons that came along later, they were primarily to eliminate any spurious books that were vying for canonicity. But the first 300 years of the church, they knew what the 66 books were. You know, the Old Testament canon was closed 400 years before the Catholic Church even existed.

If you suggest that they were started in the first century, I believe, more importantly, it was started years later when they departed from the authority of Scripture. But anyway, yeah, the canon was closed from the Old Testament 400 years before, And then the early church knew what the New Testament writings were.

And you said that when you started reading the Bible, when you were 35 years old, and all of this was kind of revealed to you, I guess, for the first time. And you talked to your uncle who kind of tried to talk you back. Tell me a little bit about the immediate aftermath of that. your wife, your family, I'm sure you have children. Tell me about that process because there's a lot of people listening right now. Maybe the Holy Spirit is convicting them, but they've got their church, they've got their spouse, they've got their kids, they've got their coworkers, they've maybe got their audience,

and they're thinking, how in the world am I going to turn from that? Yes. We get emails and phone calls on that issue every day, every week, and it's heartbreaking because I can't think of anything worse than to be unequally yoked with your spouse, to have one believer and one unbeliever. And sometimes that comes about because one of them converted and the other one didn't. But oftentimes it's because people that don't know that Catholicism may be an apostate form of Christianity end up marrying a Catholic not knowing that they're going to be unequally yoked.

And so it goes back to what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6, 14 to 18, that we cannot be unequally yoke. We cannot share a relationship with unbelievers in marriage. What does light have in common with darkness? What do believers have in common with unbelievers? What does Christ have in common with Belial? And so we have to remain sanctified by the truth. But once a situation develops where you have a believing spouse and an unbelieving spouse,

we have to encourage people to pray that the Spirit of God would bring conviction and illumination as the Word of God is shared. And we often say that just as in a physical birth, you need two ingredients, the sperm and the egg, and spiritual birth you need two ingredients also. You need the Word of God and the Spirit of God. Well, we can't control the Spirit of God, but we can control the Word of God. And so Peter called the Word of God the imperishable seed that brings forth life. And so we have to keep sowing the seed in these relationships and pray that the Spirit of God

would bring conviction and illumination. And it's really difficult when we just got a call two days ago of a man who was a Catholic, married to a Catholic, brought up the five children as Catholic. And now he is just, after watching one of our videos, he called out to the Lord to save him, who repented of the false way he was on. And so what am I going to do now with my wife and my kids? They don't want to talk to me about it.

They shut me down. He said, you've got to pray. And I encouraged him to get a copy of my book, preparing for eternity, and encourage his wife to read it, and even say that you'll read one of her books. Exactly. You know, if she's cutting off the conversation, why don't we share books with one another, and that way there's no interruption?

So, yeah, when I wrote Preparing for Eternity, I wrote it because of the fact that it comes down to what does the word of God say versus what does religion say. What is the inspired word of God say versus what is the uninspired words of men say? And so in the book, I just lay it out, God's Word versus the Catholic teaching. And so it forces a Catholic to choose. Should I trust God in His Word or the teachings of my religion? So it set many Roman Catholics free. And we praise God for all the opportunities we've had to make this book available. There's a lot of beauty, even just aesthetic beauty, I would say, within the Catholic Church.

And obviously, the tradition, there is at least some kind of sense of unity when it comes to the catechism. and the homilies, which are the same everywhere, every week, the same routine of mass, the sacraments. There's something that seems tangible there. There's something that offers kind of seeming stability and routine. And in a world that is so progressive and chaotic, I think that is attractive to some people. And then when you see some Protestant evangelical churches, ones that you and I would not go to because they're not more. by the word of God that are preaching all kinds of crazy things, either progressive things, prosperity gospel, or they're really just some kind of smoke show. They're not even real.

They're not even preaching the word. I think it's easy for some people and some Catholics to look at that craziness on the Protestant side, if you can even call it that and say, I'm going to stick to this old stuff. I'm going to stick to the more traditional stuff. There is an aspect there that's attractive and beautiful. So how do we contend with that? Yeah, it's really interesting because there are a lot of, I call them seeker-friendly churches that the pastor is more interested in making people happy instead of holy and tickling their ears with feel-good messages. And so then they look at the formality of the Catholic Church, as you so well described.

And that's an attraction because a lot of Protestant churches are very informal. But the Catholic Church teaches that you must foresee, and then you'll believe. Jesus said you must first believe, and then you will see. So there's a big difference there. But I would just encourage, you know, it's so difficult going back to the question you just asked because, you know, we see that the natural man cannot discern the things of God because they're spiritually appraised, what Paul wrote in First Corinthians too.

So as we're sharing the gospel with unbelievers, and they are not spiritually appraising what we're sharing from God's word. We need to pray more than ever that the Spirit of God would give them eyes to see. You know, we see in 2 Corinthians 4 that the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. We have to recognize when we're witnessing to people that are blinded from the light of the gospel that the only hope is the Spirit of God to shine in their heart and reveal the truth to them. But I'm amazed the preceding chapter, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 318, the veil of blindness remains on every man's heart until they turn to Christ.

So as long as a Catholic is turning to his priest or his bishop or his pope, the veil of blindness remains. But when they turn to Christ, the veil will be removed. And I love John 14.6. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. no one comes to the Father except through me. That's because he's the way for those who are lost. He's the truth for those who are deceived.

And he's the very life for those who are dead in their sins. We need to look to Christ. Amen. Thank you so much. And if people want to find out more about your ministry, what you've written, where can they go? They can go to our website, proclaiming the gospel.org. Or they can call us at 817-379. 5300, and we man the phones 24-7. You can call any time of the day, and we're there to not only equip

the body of Christ to be faithful and effective witnesses to this huge mission field, but we're there for people who have questions about whether or not they're on the way to heaven. And so we just want to serve the body of Christ in whatever way we can. So our website, proclaiming the gospel.org, and our phone number 817-379, 5300, and we're there to help people out in any way we can. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you for the wonderful privilege.