Remembering the Reformation and the War Against It Today

Remembering the Reformation and the War Against It Today. That is the topic we'll discuss today right here on the Christian Real View Radio Program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

I'm David Wheaton, the host. The Christian Real View is a listener-supported radio program. Our website is thechristianworldview.org and the rest of our contact information will be given throughout today's program. It says something very destructive about the trajectory of our nation that October 31st is overwhelmingly celebrated as Halloween, a quote, holy day that features the dark supernatural world of evil spirits, death, and paganism. A far more righteous and momentous event occurred on the same date in the year 1517 when a monk named Martin Luther nailed a document known as the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, protesting errant doctrines of the predominant Roman Catholic Church. Luther's protest ignited the Reformation era which led to the recovery of key doctrines of the faith such as justification by God's grace through faith and started a new branch of Christianity called Protestantism. The impact of the Reformation went far beyond ecclesiastical matters into the civil sphere.

European nations such as Britain, Scotland, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Scandinavia became Protestant. And generations later as descendants migrated to America, beliefs and practices from the Reformation shaped the founding documents and culture of our own nation. Mike Gendron, founder and director of Proclaiming the Gospel Ministries and a former Roman Catholic for 35 years, is our guest today on the Christian Royal View. He recently wrote a column on the Reformation that we will discuss. We will also examine how the Marxist assault against our Constitution is really an ideological war against the influence of the Reformation in our country.

Let's get straight to the interview with Mike Gendron. Mike, thank you for coming on the Christian Royal View radio program today. And here we are coming up to the 507th anniversary of the Reformation going back to the year 1517. And that's how you started your column by saying this month we celebrate the 507th anniversary of the Reformation that began setting captives free from religious bondage and deception.

During the dark ages, and you can tell us what that period was like, the scriptures were not available for common people to read. It was ignorance of scriptures that made the Reformation necessary, the recovery of scripture that made the Reformation possible, and the power of the scripture that gave the Reformation its enduring impact. Could you start out by giving us an overview of what the Reformation was about from the time of the early 1500s into the mid-1600s, and how that particular era even impacted our country today?

Well sure, David, it's always good to be with you, because I really respect your ministry and your bold stand for the truth and a biblical worldview. But when we look at the Reformation, it was the Reformers who made a determined motive—that was their motive—to expose the teachings and traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. Many of their traditions opposed the scriptures, and so the Reformers' initial desire was to reform the Catholic Church to the ecclesiology of the true church of the first century. Most historians would point to Martin Luther as a catalyst in Germany, but there were other reformations going on throughout Europe, including Switzerland, the Netherlands, Scotland, and England. And the Reformation affected Western civilization. Many people point to the Reformation as the establishment of the Protestant work ethic, and that is what produced an expanding economy and capitalism. It also influenced the separation of church and state, so we have a lot to owe to the Reformation, not only biblically, but also in the Western civilization. What were the conditions in Europe during those Dark Ages?

How long did that last? That really led to the Reformation taking place and Martin Luther stepping out and nailing those 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. Yeah, David, it's interesting. The Dark Ages are called the Dark Ages because the light of God's Word was not available to the common people. And so during that period preceding the Reformation, Europe was experiencing widespread plagues and severe famines.

There is the discovery of the New World, the spread of Islam. There was heightened superstition that caused people to ask many questions regarding the relationship between the monarchs of Europe and the papacy. And when we looked at the papacy prior to the Reformation, it had become deeply involved in the political life of Western Europe, such that the sale of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins by the clergy was really corrupting what the true church should have been all about. And we know that that was probably the number one catalyst that caused the Reformation, the selling of God's forgiveness through the practice of indulgences. And if your listeners aren't familiar with the term indulgences, the Catholic Church defines it as the remission of temporal punishment for sin. And so that would work in that they would come into a town and people in the town would have relatives who had died, and the Catholic Church would basically say that if you donate to the church, the church will work to get your dead relatives out of purgatory and onto heaven?

Well that's right, and I've called this the trilogy of deception. It all started in the garden when Satan told Eve, you surely shall not die if you break God's command. So the Catholic Church took that and created a doctrine of venial sins that tells Catholics you surely shall not die when you commit venial sins. And so that lie led to another lie, because what happens to Catholics who die in venial sin? They created a place called purgatory, and that's where Catholics go to have their venial sins purged away. Now that Catholics are in purgatory, now they need another lie to get them out. So the Catholic Church created the lie of indulgences, which is the remission of temporal punishment for sin. So that's what removes Catholics from this whole concept of purgatory, the selling of God's forgiveness, to get them out of this fictitious place that we know does not even exist.

Mike Gendron with us today. Mike, in your column, there was a portion of it where you headed it, why was the Reformation necessary? And you wrote four reasons why the Reformation was necessary.

And I'd like to go over each of these because I think they're informative as to what was taking place, and they're still relevant for today. Number one here, you say the Catholic Church had departed from the apostolic faith. In other words, the faith of the apostles in the first century. You say very few traditions of the Catholic Church are found in the first century Church, described in the book of Acts and the Epistles.

The Reformers made it very clear that we are not, quote, to go beyond what is written in Scripture. Rome's apostasy was officially and dogmatically documented at the Council of Trent, with dozens of anathemas that condemn those who do not believe its heretical dogmas. Now Mike, you have a lot of experience within the Roman Catholic Church. Your ministry is really largely geared toward Roman Catholics.

You were a Roman Catholic for 35 years. So give us some history as to how the Roman Catholic Church began. They trace their history all the way back to the Apostle Peter, and they say they're the true Church.

And then how did it evolve? Because it has really changed and evolved over the years to develop—over the centuries, I should say—to having all these different unbiblical doctrines, to the point where we arrive in the early 1500s of completely controlling all religion in Europe, and even the political realm in Europe as well. Well, David, the Apostle Paul foretold what would happen in 1 Timothy 4. He said, in latter times, some will depart from the faith and follow doctrines of demons. I've already mentioned the first doctrine of demons that they follow, and that is venial sins, saying that you surely shall not die. We know all sins are mortal.

All sins cause death. But there's another doctrine that they follow, and that's forbidding people to marry. Paul even expresses that as a doctrine of demons in 1 Timothy 4. But the history of the Catholic Church really goes back to the time of Constantine. That's when its drift into apostasy began.

And we have to recognize apostasy doesn't happen overnight. It's a constant erosion of biblical authority so that people start following pagan traditions and the traditions of men rather than the Word of God. So Constantine made Christianity the state religion in the 4th century, and that's when pagans began entering the Church as false converts through the ritual of water baptism.

There was no call to repentance, no call to faith in Jesus Christ. So pagan temples became places of Church worship, and that's when many of the pagan traditions of the Catholic Church began creeping in at that time. Many believed that the 4th century was the origin of Roman Catholicism, because that's when it departed from the authority of Christ and His Word and submitted to the authority of a pagan Roman king. It was during this time that many pagans came into the Church, not because they were seeking religiosity, but they were actually politically motivated. Constantine said you could not advance in his empire unless you were part of his Church. And so later, as the Roman Empire began to collapse, the Church gained more power.

It actually filled the vacuum of authority in the Roman Empire. Bishops began to rule provinces where pagan governors once ruled, and so this is when the papacy began to gain more and more power and influence, such that Roman emperors would bow their knee to the papacy because they believed that the papacy held the keys to heaven. It was during this time that the Roman pontiff said that you cannot enter into heaven unless you belong to the Roman Catholic Church. They dared to say there was no salvation outside of the Catholic Church.

Well, they're still saying that today. I literally saw what you just said, that there's no salvation outside the Catholic Church on a Catholic Church here in Minnesota, on their board. So this is something that is still being taught by the Roman Catholic Church, even today. Just before we get into the three other aspects of why the Reformation was necessary, Mike, as you talk about Roman Catholicism and do a polemic or critique of it, comparing its doctrines to what the doctrines of Scripture teach, a common reaction can be to pointing out doctrines that are clearly not biblical. Is that, well, you just hate Roman Catholics, or you're really misinterpreting, Mike, what Roman Catholics believe about doctrinal issues like grace.

They would say, we believe in grace and so forth. How should biblical Christians respond to those kinds of retorts from Catholics that, if you point out error, you either hate them or you're just misinterpreting what they're saying? Well, I'm glad you asked that, David, because I love Roman Catholics. I've dedicated the last 33 years of my life to reaching Roman Catholics with the one and only true and pure gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's my love for Catholics that motivates me, my love for our Lord, that we are to expose the evil deeds of darkness and not participate in them. And so when I quote Roman Catholic authority, I'm not quoting a particular Roman Catholic's opinion. I'm going directly to their catechism. And I'm contrasting what the authority of the Catholic Church teaches with what the authority of God's Word teaches. And I'm calling Roman Catholics to repent of their false way and to believe the true path of salvation. Jesus spoke of two paths to eternity. One is narrow. Very few find it.

The other is broad, and many are on it. And so the only hope a Roman Catholic has is for someone to love them enough to show them that they have fallen prey to a false gospel that the Roman Catholic Church teaches. And their only hope is to repent of that false gospel and believe the true gospel of grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, all for the glory of God alone.

And that's why the five solas of the Reformation were so important. Mike Genvin with us today here on the Christian Real View radio program. He's the founder and director of Proclaiming the Gospel, an excellent ministry that we really highly recommend you connect with. Their direct website is proclaimingthegospel.org, or you can find a link at our website, thechristianrealview.org. Mike's written books and tracts and all sorts of resources. You should subscribe to their free newsletter.

It's very informative every single month, so highly recommend you do that. All right, we'll pause briefly to tell you about some ministry updates and resources, but stay tuned. Much more coming up with Mike Gendron as we discuss Remembering the Reformation and the war against it today.

I'm David Wheaton, and you are listening to the Christian Real View radio program. We didn't want our kids doing all these secular games like Elf on the Shelf. We really wanted to put Christ front and center at Christmas, and they actually engineered a wooden manger that's small enough to hide. And then I wrote a family devotional with 25 devotions for every day in December leading up to Christmas, including Christmas Day, that you can do in about seven minutes.

And the devotions are just loaded with the deity of Christ and the gospel. That was Pastor Grant Castleberry describing Manger in Danger, a new daily devotional and game for families with children age 4 to 12. Manger in Danger retails for $40 plus shipping. We are offering it for a donation of $30 or more to the Christian Real View. To order, go to thechristianrealview.org, call 1-888-646-2233, or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. David Wheaton here, host of the Christian Real View radio program. Listeners are often surprised to learn that we as a ministry pay to broadcast on the radio station, website, or app on which you are listening today. That expense is recouped through listeners like you making a donation or becoming a Christian Real View partner. Our aim is to have each broadcast outlet fully supported by the listeners of that outlet. If you'd like to help us in our mission to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, go to thechristianrealview.org and click on donate.

You can also call toll-free 1-888-646-2233, or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Specify how you listen as that helps us decide whether to continue on a given outlet, and be sure to select one of our resources as a thank you for your support. Welcome back to the Christian Real View. I'm David Wheaton. Be sure to visit our website, thechristianrealview.org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print letter, order resources for adults and children, and support the ministry. Our topic today is Remembering the Reformation and the War Against It Today.

Mike Gendron, founder and director of Proclaiming the Gospel, is our guest. Mike, I'm going to join the second and third points of why the Reformation was necessary, because you just came off the last answer talking about the issues of grace and scripture, two of the five solas of the Reformation. You write in your column, the Catholic Church has distorted the gospel of grace and was under divine condemnation. That's why the Reformation was necessary, because they were distorting the heart of the gospel, which is the gospel is by God's grace. His unmerited favor toward us, salvation, is not based on our works at all. It's completely on God's grace. Secondly, the Reformation was necessary.

This is point three in your column. The Catholic popes had usurped or taken the supreme authority of God's word. Wherever scripture is not the supreme, the final authority is what you're saying here.

Christ will be dishonored, faith will be misplaced, people will be deceived, the church will be ineffective, and men will steal glory from God. So talk about, Mike, these two issues, the gospel of grace as opposed to adding works to it, and scripture alone as the final authority. Why are these so important for biblical Christians to accurately handle the word of truth on?

Good question, David. Catholics believe that they are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The word alone is so important as we minister to Roman Catholics. When you look at the Catholic definition of grace, and I'm quoting from paragraph 2027 of the catechism, Catholics must merit the graces necessary to obtain eternal life.

And so how do you merit the unmerited favor of God? And so it's so important that we understand that Catholics have distorted the definition not only of grace, but even of justification. When you look at the Catholic Church distorting the gospel of grace, they believe that there are many different requirements necessary in order to be saved. Most Catholics enter into salvation, according to their teaching, through the sacrament of baptism. That is said to be the sacrament of regeneration, as well as the sacrament of justification. Well, we know that justification requires faith, but the Catholic Church circumvents this by saying it's not the individual's faith, but it's the faith of the parents. And so we need to tell Catholics that God doesn't have any grandchildren, that faith must be personal.

It must be the faith of the individual. But once a Catholic is baptized, they're said to be regenerated and justified, but then they must receive sacraments in order to maintain their salvation. And they also need to attend the sacrifice of the mass. They also need to do good works in order to be re-justified. If they ever commit a mortal sin, now they need to be re-justified through good works. And so it's a very complicated system that Catholics must go through in order to be saved.

This is why the Reformers called for the five solas. By the authority of Scripture, we can look to Galatians 1, 6 to 9, and that's where the Judaizers had come into town saying, we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe in his death, burial, and resurrection according to Scriptures. But if you're a Gentile, you not only need to believe that, but you also need to be circumcised. So Paul didn't say, let's have unity with all these professing Judaizers and Christians. He said, let them be anathema, which means let them be turned over to God for destruction. And so when you look at the Catholic plan of salvation, it has added many more requirements to the gospel of grace. And so every Roman Catholic clergy member is therefore under the same divine condemnation that the Judaizers were 2,000 years ago.

And so that's why we need to rescue precious souls out from a religion that's under divine condemnation. And all this began because of your second point that you brought up, and that is that the Catholic church had usurped the supreme authority of God's Word. In Roman Catholicism, they have three authorities. The Scripture is one, but they also have their sacred traditions as well as the infallible teachings of their bishops and popes.

They're said to be all equal, but in actual practice, it's the bishops that sit above Scripture and tradition, and they twist and distort Scripture so that it conforms to their ungodly tradition. And so this is why the Reformers thought it so important to re-establish the supreme authority of God's Word over the other two traditions that the Catholic church elevates—their sacred traditions along with the tradition of their infallible teaching authority. Well, I hope listeners are taking this in because we're talking about an issue of the most important issue is how can we as sinners be made right with a holy God? Where we get that message, Scripture alone, nothing above Scripture, and the message within Scripture that we're saved by grace alone through faith alone, there's no more important issue in that. We're going to get to, coming up here, you mentioned the leadership of the Catholic church.

What the current pope has been saying recently, and just the egregious heresy that's been coming from him as the leader of the Roman Catholic church. Mike Gendron is our guest today here on the Christian Real View, talking about the Reformation, remembering the Reformation and the war against it today. And I think too many people are not remembering it. You walk around, take a walk around your neighborhood, and everyone's getting ready for Halloween on October 31st.

You see skeletons in people's yards and ghosts hanging from trees and so forth. You don't see anyone commemorating what actually took place. Of far more importance on that date, October 31st, 1517, was Martin Luther nailing the 95 theses against the Roman Catholic church on that church door in Germany, which really was the starting point of this whole hundred and some years of Reformation that impacted not only the church itself, started a new branch of Christianity, Protestantism, but also impacted the civil societies in Western civilization. Just one more question, Mike, about why the Reformation was necessary. It was point four in your column, and you said that Catholic priests were false mediators who were continuing—that's an important word there—who were continuing Christ's finished work of redemption on their Catholic church altars.

And this was an outright rejection of the Lord's victory cry on the cross, you say, where He said, it is finished. Jesus died once for all sin, for all time, and there are no other offerings for sin. I think most people, let's say in our own country, have been very exposed to and somewhat comfortable with the fact that masses in the Roman Catholic church take place every day all over the country and even all over the world.

Could you describe what is taking place when a Roman Catholic church and the priest therein performs a mass, and why this is really an abominable practice, because it presumes that there needs to be more sacrifice for sin beyond the one that Christ offered already? Well, the Roman Catholic church gets around that by saying it's a by saying it's a re-presentation of Christ on their altars. But how can you have that when Jesus is physically present in heaven, and the Bible says that He will not return again until His enemies have been made His footstool? The Bible tells us when He's going to return, after the tribulation, how He's going to return in a body just as He left.

In Hebrews 9 28, it says that the Lord Jesus will return a second time and not to deal with sin. And so for the Roman Catholic church to teach that the priest has the power to call Jesus Christ down from heaven and to re-present Him on an altar for a sacrifice that He finished on the cross is totally absurd because it goes against Scripture. It goes against Hebrews 9 28, so by the authority of Scripture, David, we can call the Eucharist a false Christ. But what takes place during the Mass? The priest is another mediator between God and man. He's the one that Catholics must go through to have the sacraments dispensed to them.

And so when the priest stands at an altar, he's actually performing the sacrifice of the Mass, which Catholics say is a propitiatory sacrifice, which means that the wrath of God is turned away from the Catholics who sinned the previous week, and their sins are now being propitiated on an altar by the priest as a mediator. 1 Timothy 2 5 says it very clear, there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And that's because Christ is the only one qualified to mediate between God and man.

He's God's perfect man and man's perfect God. So for a priest to be a mediator of salvation, it's absurd. Catholics are utterly dependent upon their priesthood, not only in this life, but as we've already talked about, even after they die, they're still dependent upon the priest to get them out of this fictitious place called purgatory. And the priest is said to offer the Mass for those who are suffering in purgatory, so that their time in purgatory can be reduced.

And this is where the Catholic Church redefines the grace of God, because it's said to be the priest who's offering grace through the sacraments, through the sacrament of the Mass, and Catholics must go through the priest in order to receive these graces. Remembering the Reformation and the war against it today is our topic, and our guest is Mike Gendron, the founder and director of Proclaiming the Gospel, an excellent ministry we highly recommend you connect with. Their direct website is proclaimingthegospel.org. We also have Mike and his ministry linked at our website, thechristianrealview.org. Mike, I said just a few minutes ago that the leader of the Catholic Church, who currently is Pope Francis, has just made some statements recently that defy credulity that he's even a professing Christian. You write in your column, Pope Francis continues to prove he is the most influential and dangerous false prophet or false teacher in the world. His outrageous statement in Singapore, a country with at least five different faiths, has created an outlandish and bizarre controversy, you say. The Pope declared, all religions are a path to God, and that's a quote. All religions are a path to God. Then he embellished his heretical assertion by stating, quote, there's only one God, and each of us has a language to arrive at God.

Some are Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, and they are different paths to God, unquote. Truly an unbelievable heretical and universalistic statement and wrong statement. This wolf in sheep's clothing is seeking to unite all religious people of the world in a global religion that will worship the Antichrist. It's interesting how you bring in the fact that where this is going, this kind of false doctrine is teaching where it's going to end up.

One more little quote here. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 846, you write, refutes what the Pope, the head of the Robon Catholic Church, just said by declaring, quote, basing itself on scripture and tradition, the Council teaches that the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation. So his statement is not only biblically wrong, that there's only one God and each of us has a language to arrive at God, and they're all equal different paths to God, that it's not only biblically wrong, but it's also wrong from even what the Catholic Church has taught for centuries. How can this Pope actually remain to be the head of the Roman Catholic Church after saying this? And why would anyone have to be then a Roman Catholic to be saved, where you just mentioned earlier that salvation is only found in the Roman Catholic Church? It seems completely contradictory.

Well, David, it is contradictory. And the conservative cardinals do not know what to do with this Pope, because as you say, he not only goes against the Bible, but he also goes against historic Roman Catholicism. Because as you quoted the Catechism, there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. And the Pope is now saying, all paths lead to God. So in one sense, he's true, he's correct, because ultimately everyone will face their Creator one day. It doesn't matter what your religion is, you will one day stand before your Creator, and we must tell Catholics that he's either going to be a merciful Savior or a sin-avenging judge. But all paths lead to God. The only narrow way that leads to God is through the Gospel of Jesus Christ for salvation.

And so anyone that wants to be saved needs to get off the wide road that all the other religions are on, and get on the narrow road that leads to eternal life and to eternal presence with Christ. So the question is, how can he remain the head of the Catholic Church? The cardinals don't know what to do with them, because he is said to be quote-unquote infallible, and that is whenever he sits from the chair of Peter, he cannot err.

He's infallible. I often share with Catholics, if my pastor said the things that your pastor, the pastor, the pope is saying, I would get up and hit the door so quick, never to be found again in that church. But Catholics are so indoctrinated that they belong to the one true church established by Christ. They don't understand that Christ did only establish one church, but they don't understand apostasy took place.

They departed from the faith of the apostles to follow doctrines of demons. And so the Catholic Church of today does not resemble the first century church. You don't find priests offering sacrifices for sins in the book of Acts, which, by the way, is the history book of the first century church. You don't find indulgences remitting sins punishment. You don't find anyone praying for souls in purgatory. You don't find infallible men or infallible popes in the first century. You don't find salvation dispensed through the sacraments, rosary, scapulars, holy water, crucifix statues.

None of this is found in the first century church. So we need to show Catholics that the church that they're now a part of is not the one true church founded by Christ, but it's a church that's drifted into apostasy and they need to come out of her and not participate in these serious sins of idolatry, as we've talked about earlier. Just a quick follow up to that. So what is the best way? Because there are many Catholics who are very nice people, they can even be conservative politically. We can share a lot of different, you know, let's say viewpoints on how society should operate and so forth. What is the best way to reach a Roman Catholic that you have found, Mike, because you're talking to them all the time and ones that are open minded enough to even have the conversation because again, likely they've been involved in the Roman Catholic Church since birth. And so there's lots of inherent resistances inside someone to have to realize, you mean I've been going down the wrong road my whole life or how much am I going to disappoint family if I were to leave the Roman Catholic Church?

There's lots of things that are impediments to leaving, but what have you found is the best direction in a conversation to go with a Roman Catholic to try to help them understand that the church and what they're following is the wrong road. Mike Gendron, founder and director of Proclaiming the Gospel, will answer that question in the next segment after this short break for some ministry updates and resources. He will also get into how the ascent of Marxism in our country is actually a war against the influence of the Reformation in our nation.

I'm David Wheaton. You are listening to the Christian worldview radio program. You have a left-wing foundation that realizes it has a problem advancing its political goals because of evangelicals. And so they will think, okay, what we need to do is find some mechanism by which we can change evangelical minds. They will then recruit well-known organizations like the National Association of Evangelicals, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, and denominational organizations. That was recent guest Megan Basham talking about how evangelical leaders traded the truth for a leftist agenda, which is the subtitle of her best-selling book, Shepherds for Sale.

For a limited time, you can order Shepherds for Sale for 20% off by visiting thechristianworldview.org, calling toll-free 1-888-646-2233, or by writing to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. We didn't want our kids doing all these secular games like Elf on the Shelf. We really wanted to put Christ front and center at Christmas, and they actually engineered a wooden manger that's small enough to hide. And then I wrote a family devotional with 25 devotions for every day in December leading up to Christmas, including Christmas Day, that you can do in about seven minutes.

And the devotions are just loaded with the deity of Christ and the gospel. That was Pastor Grant Castleberry describing Manger in Danger, a new daily devotional and game for families with children age 4 to 12. Manger in Danger retails for $40 plus shipping. We are offering it for a donation of $30 or more to The Christian Worldview. To order, go to thechristianworldview.org, call 1-888-646-2233, or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Welcome back to The Christian Worldview.

I'm David Wheaton. Be sure to visit our website, thechristianworldview.org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print letter, order resources for adults and children, and support the ministry. Our topic today is Remembering the Reformation and the War Against It Today. Mike Gendron, founder and director of Proclaiming the Gospel, is our guest.

What have you found is the best direction in a conversation to go with a Roman Catholic, to try to help them understand that the church and what they're following is the wrong road? Well, David, I'm so glad you asked that, because this is really what it's all about. You know, we can talk about a lot of things, but ultimately we're here on this earth to share the gospel with those who are perishing. And one of the things we have to recognize when we witness the Catholics is Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel and the glory of Christ.

And he uses two very powerful tools, religious indoctrination and religious pride, to blind people from the light of the gospel. So when we recognize that going in, then we are more apt to share the truth of God's Word, because Jesus said, A true disciple of mine is one who abides in my word. Then they will know the truth, and the truth will set them free from the bondage of religious deception. So the three most important things that we can communicate to Catholics is, number one, the Word of God must be their supreme authority in all matters of faith. You must test the teachings of your pope and your bishop and your priest with the supreme authority of God's Word. And we have a perfect example of that in Acts 17, 11, when the Bereans tested the teachings of the Apostle Paul by examining the scriptures to find out if he was teaching the truth. So we must always test the uninspired words of men with the inspired Word of God.

So that's the first principle to follow. Secondly, we have to establish the sufficiency of our Lord Jesus Christ. Catholics will be unwilling to let go of what they're doing to save themselves until they know that Christ is sufficient, that he's done everything necessary to save sinners completely and forever. The third principle, when we witness to Catholics, is to give them the promise of the gospel. The promise of the gospel is eternal, everlasting life with the Savior.

You see, Catholics only have conditional life, and that's because their eternal destiny is based on what they do, rather than what Christ has done. And so we have to show them Christ is sufficient. They will not let go of their baptism, their good works, their sacraments, their participation in the sacrifice of the Mass, keeping the law to be saved.

They're not going to let go of anything until they know Christ is sufficient. So those are the three things we need to communicate with Roman Catholics as we share the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, those are really, really good things to keep in mind as we go about our days and have maybe Roman Catholic friends to pray for these opportunities to get into conversations and to communicate the things that Mike just did about how to love Catholics enough to tell them the truth about what the Word of God says about how they truly can be saved. Mike Gendron with us today here on The Christian Real View. Mike, we've spent a little more time than I was anticipating talking about the Roman Catholic Church and the doctrines of it, but that's really what we need to talk about. It's important to understand these things. You've been on the program many times over the years, and you've said some of these things before, but I think it's important to be reminded because Scripture is constantly telling us to be reminded of truthful things, and it's good to be reminded about what the Roman Catholic Church believes, to be reminded about how to use Scripture to reach out to them, to talk about what the gospel really is.

So I really appreciate these reminders that you have been giving us today. I would just finish this portion on the Reformation before we get into more current events by summarizing your four further points in your column on what did the Reformation accomplish, because this gets into our next section about how the Reformation impacted our country today and even coming up to the election and what's going on in our nation. You say, number one, the Reformers made the Bible available to people in their own language. Number two, the Reformers reestablished the Word of God as the supreme authority over popes, traditions, and church councils.

You've talked about that. Number three, the Reformers reestablished the Lord Jesus Christ as the only head of the church, not the pope. Number four, the Reformers recovered the most important doctrine of justification, which is by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, all for the glory of God alone. There are the five solas, the five onlies of the Reformation that were described, what the Reformers were about.

Why did those four points that I just read from your column, why did they set such a fire? I mean, it completely changed the direction of how Europe operated after that—not only religiously, but also in civil affairs as well. But how do you explain how the influence of the Reformation jumped the ocean, so to speak, and influenced this country so much? You can look to all the Reformation martyrs. The Catholic Church put to death a lot of the Reformers who were standing for the truth of God's Word and for the glory of Christ. And I'm reminded of the Roman Catholic Church setting fire to Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley.

Latimer said, Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as shall never be put out. And by God's grace, the fire of the Reformation has never been put out. It made its way to America, where the gospel of grace has flourished against all Roman Catholic opposition.

So when we recognize that the Roman Catholic Church tried to eliminate—in fact, that's why the Jesuits were formed, to eliminate all opposition to Roman Catholicism—we see that this is what the rallying cry was, the five solas, and it really put the gospel back in its focus. People want to know how to be saved, and so many of the Reformers found out they were woefully deceived about life's most critical issue. So we praise God that it was His grace that raised up the Reformers and brought the Reformation to America.

Okay, I'm going to try to make a connection here, and you can correct me if this is not an accurate connection. But I think the ideological conflict or battle that we feel in our country today—you can even see it in the political candidates for president, the Democrats and Harris-Walls represents a very Marxist socialistic view of the world and society and how government should operate, versus more of a traditional American constitutional view. Is the battle going on today in our country really a battle against the principles of the Reformation that the founders brought to America and established our country? Could you really say that that's what the rebellion is against, the God-glorifying doctrines that bled into the political policies and the constitutional policies that we had in this country for a couple hundred years?

Is that really what the battle's over? Well, absolutely, which is why Pope Francis is appointing more and more cardinals who are Marxists so that they can continue his global agenda after he's gone. He's just elevated more cardinals. They're all Marxists. And so many people don't realize that Pope Francis has been probably the pope that has advanced the ecumenical agenda more rapidly than any other pope in history. And he's not only content with a global religion, but he also is pushing a global government. And so yes, this is a battle between Marxism and constitutionalism, and the pope is behind it all.

He's got many willing pawns, not only in Europe, but also in America. Mike, how do you explain if that's what one of the manifestations of this battle is, that we see the difference between Marxism and constitutionalism in our country? How do you explain how half of the electorate, half the people who are going to vote, maybe more than half, could vote for this type of Marxism in the Democratic Party when their policies are so antithetical to the American Constitution? I think of the issue of abortion. Are people really okay with the fact that a woman should be able to have the quote, right to kill an independent human being, of course growing inside of her, that's a separate person at all months of a pregnancy? Or are they really okay with girls and boys being indoctrinated to question what sex God made them and to have boys or men be in women's sports that the Democratic Party just so supports in these irreversible surgeries? Are the American people really for the suppression of the ability to speak freely, to exercise your faith, that there's so much suppression of that, keep that out of schools, keep that out of everything? You just go down the list on the policies, even national borders. Nation state borders or nation states is something established by God, that he doesn't want globalism.

That's how it all ends up when the world rebels against God. How is it that the electorate, when over half or more of the electorate will vote for that kind of Marxist policies? David, it's really puzzling, but I really believe that most of the votes that are going for the Harris-Walls ticket are anti-Trump votes.

I think if you were to take away all the anti-Trump votes, Trump would win in a landslide. And unfortunately, a lot of people that are voting are voting for people rather than platforms. If people would honestly look at the platform of the Democratic Party in contrast with the platform of the Republican Party, then they would clearly not vote for the party that is pushing, as you said, all this immoral, decadent behavior.

For example, Walt, he's actually placed into law the ability for children to be stolen from their parents so that sex change operations can be performed. And so this is so decadent. And yet, I think a lot of the people that are voting are ignorant of what the two parties stand for.

As you mentioned, the Democratic Party wants to destroy the sovereignty of America by opening up the borders and allowing illegals to come in. And so there's so much at stake here. And that's why more than ever, I think we need to exhort professing Christians to vote for the platform that most honors God and is most in conformity with biblical standards. And I know by your saying what you just did, you're not a proponent of Donald Trump as the savior or some moral example. And lots of his positions are he has compromised on the issue of abortion.

But I think the word you may have used, I think I heard you say something about comparatively, the comparison between these two parties is just so far apart. And Christians, I think, need to vote against what is most evil in this country. And that doesn't mean you support the person of Donald Trump or you support all his policies and so forth. You're a gospel guy. Yeah, that's what motivates you, Mike.

And so I know when you're saying that, what you mean about pushing back against the evil that wants to really take this country away from its founding. Now, you mentioned, Mike, the fact that so many Christians are not engaged. And I'm just going to read here, perfect segue to the next question, is that George Barna has a recent study out that you can view at our website, thechristianrealview.org, where he says Christian church-going voters have historically supported the more conservative major party candidate in a presidential race and appear poised to do so again this election cycle, albeit with fewer of them casting a ballot than in the most recent presidential race. Just skipping ahead here, born-again Christians, 41 million expected not to vote, and 14 million voting age adults who regularly attend an evangelical church are expected not to vote. Reasons given, lack of interest in politics and elections, disliking of all the major candidates, and because the election has become too controversial for their liking. That was 50 percent of the respondents said that. Mike, what is your exhortation to professing Christians listening today as to why they should participate in this upcoming election?

We're called ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are to be salt and light in this world. Their refusal to vote enables an immoral, decadent platform to have a better chance of winning. Let us not forget that abortion is the murder of a human unborn life.

There is nothing more evil and decadent than putting to death the life of a baby in the womb. If our votes are not counted, then every evil demonic philosophy will fill the vacuum. And I would point them to Romans 13. It explains our role to the government that God has placed us under. It is a privilege that God has given us to vote.

God uses His people to accomplish His purpose. So I would exhort every professing Christian to get out and vote, and vote for the platform that is more in compliance with the Word of God. Mike, that's very well said, and I want to thank you for coming on the program today to tell us about the Reformation and the war, really, that's going on against the principles, the things that came out of the Reformation, even today in our own nation. All of God's best to you and Jane in proclaiming the gospel. Keep standing firm in Him, and thank you for coming on the Christian Rule View Radio program today. Well, thank you, David.

It's always a privilege and a pleasure to be on your show. Blessings to you. Again, you can connect with Mike Jenner's ministry and get on his mailing list by visiting proclaimingthegospel.org or find the link at our website, thechristianworldview.org. Thank you for joining us today on the Christian World View and for your support of this nonprofit radio ministry. Let's remember the Reformation, that we are saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, based on scripture alone, all for the glory of God alone.

So until next time, think biblically, live accordingly, and stand firm. The mission of the Christian World View is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. We hope today's broadcast encouraged you toward that end. To hear a replay of today's program, order a transcript, or find out what must I do to be saved, go to thechristianworldview.org or call toll-free 1-888-646-2233. The Christian World View is a listener-supported nonprofit radio ministry furnished by the Overcomer Foundation. To make a donation, become a Christian World View partner, order resources, subscribe to our free newsletter, or contact us, visit thechristianworldview.org, call 1-888-646-2233, or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to the Christian World View.