Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.
(Acts 15:1-2)

It’s Way Past Time For Sharp Dispute And Debate In The Church

In Friday Church News Notes for December 12, 2008, Way of Life with David Cloud, who graciously gave me permission to use this, brings out  in “Focus on the Family Says Anti-Cathjolic Speech Is Uncharitable and Harmful to the Cause of Christ” how:

The spiritually-dangerous nature of Focus on the Family (FOF) was evident in a reply that was given to a Christian who wrote to them about having Anne Rice, the Roman Catholic author of occultic horror novels, on the Focus radio program. In a reply dated December 3, 2008, Timothy Masters wrote the following for Focus on the Family:

“Your quotations from the canons of the Council of Trent, though perfectly legitimate as regards the theological aspects of this issue, fail to take account of the fact that, from a strictly evangelical perspective, a saving relationship with Jesus Christ is an intensely personal and individual matter. In the final analysis, it´s not a question of church membership or doctrinal orientation. … It´s arguable that many individual Roman Catholics–Anne Rice included–have a very real and lively faith in the Lord Jesus. …

It´s worth adding that anti-Catholic sentiments like those you´ve expressed are more than just uncharitable and un-Christlike. They´re also harmful to the richness of your own Christian experience. … To dismiss the Roman Catholic Church wholesale is to obliterate the first fifteen centuries of Christian history. It´s to deprive ourselves of the contributions of such great leaders and thinkers as … Francis of Assisi, and Thomas Aquinas. You may be willing to throw treasures like these out the window, but we aren´t.”

As one whom God graciously delivered from the religious bondage of the Roman Catholic Church into the glorious liberty of the sons of God I am glad to point out that Cloud concludes corrrectly:

This statement reflects gross ignorance both of the Bible and of church history. The Bible plainly teaches that it is impossible to be saved apart from the one true gospel of the grace of Christ (Galatians 1:8-9). Since the Roman Catholic Church teaches a false gospel of sacramentalism (e.g., the Council of Trent, which has never been rescinded, cursed those who say that salvation is by God´s grace alone), it is impossible to be saved if one believes what Rome teaches. The Bible warns of false christs, false gospels, and false spirits (2 Corinthians 11:1-4). Rome´s christ is a consecrated wafer. Its gospel is the sacraments.

Its spirit is one that leads men to pray to a mythical Mary. As for Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas, they worshipped Rome´s false christ, held to its false gospel, and followed its false spirit. Focus on the Family may be willing to follow in their footsteps, but we thank God for the light He has shined into our formerly-darkened hearts to give us the spiritual wisdom to follow the path of truth rather than that of popular error. We don´t reject the first 1,500 years of church history, but the New Testament prophesies two streams of “churches,” the false and the true, and we thank God that He has shown us the difference. (Online source)

FOF says expressing “anti-Catholic sentiments” such as the Church of Rome with her antibiblical Roman Catholicism is apostate as well as  “more than just uncharitable and un-Christlike.” Really; but you need to know that this truly is the utterly asinine position now being expressed by more and more ignorant evangelical “Protestants” as Apprising Ministries has pointed out e.g. in “Bible Scholar” Rick Warren Is Reversing The Reformation and Dr. Richard Mouw: Evangelical Ecumenicism.

For your edification AM will share with you just a few “un-Christlike” Protestants (anybody remember that term?) and their “uncharitable and “un-Christlike” comments concerning the Roman Catholic Church:

 John Calvin:

Moreover, I maintain that in astricting themselves to many perverse and impious modes of worship, such as are exhibited in modern monasticism, [Roman Catholic priests] consecrate themselves not to God but to the devil. For why should the prophets have been permitted to say that the Israelites sacrificed their sons to devils and not to God, (Deut. 32: 17; Ps. 106: 37,) merely because they had corrupted the true worship of God by profane ceremonies; and we not be permitted to say the same thing of monks who, along with the cowl, cover themselves with the net of a thousand impious superstitions? (The Institutes, book IV, Chapter 13, 17.)

Charles Spurgeon:

In these times, when liberality is the only popular virtue, and zeal for truth the cardinal sin, it is worth much to let the public know assuredly that Popery is not the angel of light it professes to be. “Distance lends enchantment to the view;” but, to the rightminded, to see Romanism is to abhor it. It is a system which is as dangerous to human society, as it is hostile to true religion…

The sooner we let certain Archbishops and Cardinals know that we are aware of their designs, and will in nothing co-operate with them, the better for us and our country. Of course, we shall be howled at as bigots, but we can afford to smile at that cry, when it comes from the church which invented the Inquisition. “No peace with Rome” is the motto of reason as well as of religion. (Online source)

Dr. Walter Martin:

[The Roman Catholic Church] is the kind of leadership we do not wish to follow, and we [need] to discourage others from following… the theology remains unchanged. The statement “we never change” – is true. They never change on the basics. They will change on the peripherals, [but] never on the centrality, the authority of the papacy…

God has delivered us from this system into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. We are not descendants of this papacy, nor do we wish to be… We [who are Christian] reject a corrupt church; a backslidden church; an apostate church… (Roman Catholicism—Peter the Rock, Church Tradition and the Bible, CD Rom, available from Walter Martin’s Religious InfoNet)

Dr. John MacArthur:

In the long war on the truth, the most formidable, relentless and deceptive enemy has been Roman Catholicism. It is an apostate, corrupt, heretical, false Christianity, it is a front for the kingdom of Satan. The true church of the Lord Jesus Christ has always understood this… Oh, they’ve got a clever system.

How to preserve error. How to perpetuate error. Make heresy infallible. And the arch heretic unassailable, ir-reformable and absolutely authoritative. It is possible that the final Antichrist could be a Pope because the final Antichrist will be a dominating world leader… If the Pope can fool evangelicals, it seems to me that the Antichrist won’t have much trouble doing the same with the world. (The Pope and the Papacy)

There are rough spiritual waters dead ahead beloved of God, and because of this, we must right now take up the biggest weapon God has given us in this spiritual Vietnam of a Truth War—the prayer of faithful saints. There we must go to fetch strength to begin our defense of the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ from weak-kneed effete evangelical businesses like Focus on the Family more interested in advancing their own agenda of false unity before the world than seeing souls saved.

I make no claim to be a prophet, however, as this kind of lunacy in the Lord’s Name increases I can’t help but think that God would wish to dispatch an Urgent Message: Paging Paul and Barnabas. Well FoF, you’d best make sure to take note; I for one, will never have anything to do with it! For as long as men like me are breathing there will be no false front to appease the world because we will continue to echo Martin Luther:

The negotiation about doctrinal agreement displeases me altogether, for this is utterly impossible unless the pope has his papacy abolished. Therefore avoid and flee those who seek the middle of the road. Think of me after I am dead and such middle-of-the-road men arise, for nothing good will come of it. There can be no compromise. (Online source)

See also:

FOCUS ON THE FAMILY PROMOTES THE NEW EVANGELIZATION OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

ROMAN CATHOLICISM: WILL THE POPE DO?

THE HOLY AND CATHOLIC CHURCH IS NOT THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

HAS THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH REALLY CHANGED?

THE DECEIVERS OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM

THINK YOU’RE A ROMAN CATHOLIC IF YOU DISAGREE WITH THE POPE; BETTER THINK AGAIN

THE DECEIVERS OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM

ROMAN CATHOLICISM: A FALSE HOPE IS NO HOPE AT ALL