Question: The question on alcohol, if a Christian wasn’t allowed alcohol, why did the Pharisees condemn Jesus for drinking, if it wasn’t alcohol. Why did Jesus say not to drink wine in excess if there was no alcohol in it? Also, why did the Corinthian believers get drunk on it? Why did Lot get drunk? As for the Catholic Church questions, doesn’t Jesus tell His people to come out of her in Revelation? I believe the Lord was talking about the Roman system. I believe when a Catholic gets saved he should leave that church and not be encouraged to stay there. I asked Jesus to save me, but I am having a problem with smoking, will that keep me out of heaven? Thank you.
Answer: These are good questions on alcohol and I have answered them in these articles: Wine in the Bible, Beer And Other Alcoholic Beverages In the Bible, Is It Alright For Christians To Drink Alcohol? If you have other questions on alcohol after reading these articles I would be glad to discuss them with you further.
As to your second set of questions on the Catholic Church, I will be glad to try to answer these for you here, since I have not discussed these in detail elsewhere. I believe you are speaking of the Roman Catholic Church in your question. This is the point that I would like to address first, and that is that all Christians are really in the ‘Catholic Church’ (I am not speaking of the Roman Catholic denomination, but the invisible Universal {Catholic} Christian Church) whether they know it or not, please refer to our article on the Holy Catholic Church. Also, you may want to look at the Nicene Creed (A.D. 381) or the Apostles’ Creed (A.D. 700). So Evangelical Christian, this is not something I have made up, it taught throughout the Epistles.
The article on the Church goes into the fact that every ‘born again’ believer is part of the same Holy Catholic Church, even if they do not understand this. St. Paul made this very clear when he said, “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-whether Jews or Greeks [Gentiles], whether slaves or free-and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13) Also, in Romans 3:22, 6:5; Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 2:13-18; Colossians 3:1 and so on.
The way the Church looks now, it is hard for Christians to imagine what the Church was like in the past or what it will be like in the future. When Christ has first place, once again in His body and bride, there will be a oneness in the Church. Even though we do not see the true unity, yet, Jesus prayed for it in John chapter 17, so His prayers will be answered! Beyond that too, all born again believers are in that one spiritual Church right now, even as the above verses teaches. Just because we do not understand or see it happening yet, does not change the facts of Scripture. We need to believe by faith, that Christ’s prayer will be answered for the Church.
Now, you may also be referring to one of the answers I gave specifically to a lady who wrote about whether or not she should go to church with her husband who is a Roman Catholic. I did say that I thought that she should be submissive to her husband and go to church with him, even though she is a Methodist. The reason I said this was because I feel that unity in the family is of paramount importance!! I did suggest that she ask her husband if she could visit at her church still. I went on to say, that she might even want to become a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and even though I did not state my reasoning for this in detail, I did give a passage of Scripture that I believe explains my position.
The Scripture I gave her was this one: St. Paul says, “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)
I know this is a hard concept for Christians to understand, but St. Paul would go back to the Temple and the Jewish synagogues to worship and witness. Not that he would agree with everything that was going on in these places, but he wanted to save those there for whom Christ died. I don’t think just everyone can do this sort of thing, and if you are not strong in the Lord you should not attempt it. I did say that this person should study our Romans Bible study before she went into the Roman Catholic Church.
Think of it this way, there are millions of precious souls in the Roman Catholic Church that have not had a clear presentation of the Gospel. How are we going to reach them if we will not even associate with them? Again, I do not believe that the Roman Catholic Church is a false cult, and I think you would find it hard to prove such a thing from Scripture. Two books that I have in my study on false cults, in these editions that I have, do not list the Roman Catholic Church as a cult. These are good books to have in your study by the way: The Kingdom of the Cults by Walter R. Martin, M.A. and Handbook of Today’s Religions by Josh McDowell and Don Stewart.
Roman Catholics do believe that Jesus is God, born of the Virgin Mary, that He is both God and man, that He lived a sinless life, that He died on the cross for our sins, and that He rose again the third day. They do believe in the Holy Trinity, they do believe in heaven and hell, they do believe that salvation comes by grace through faith in Christ’s blood.
Here are their own words: “It is God who justifies, that is, who frees from sin by a free gift of holiness (sanctifying grace, also known as habitual or deifying grace). Man can accept the gift God gives through faith in Jesus Christ and through baptism. Man can also refuse the gift. Human cooperation is needed, in line with a new capacity to adhere to the divine will that God provides. The faith of a Christian is not without works, otherwise it would be dead. In this sense, ‘by works a man is justified, and not by faith alone,’ and eternal life is, at one and the same time, grace and the reward given by God for good works and merits. Faith, and subsequently works, are a result of God’s grace – thus, it is only because of grace that the believer can be said to ‘merit’ salvation.” (http://www.answers.com/topic/roman-catholic-church)
They do believe the Bible is God’s Word, even though they think that the Church has a lot of authority. They do believe you need to repent of you sins, that you have to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Having said that about baptism, you may disagree with their stand on infant baptism, but then you would need to disagree with many other mainline denominations on this area as well. Does that mean that these people cannot be saved because they disagree with us on this area of infant baptism? These denominations still believe you need to have faith in Christ after you are baptized. Yes, this doctrine sometimes clouds over the need of personal salvation, and there will be many in hell who didn’t receive Christ personally because they were trusting in their infant baptism to save them. However, I don’t know of a denomination that teaches infant baptism, that says you don’t need to still trust in Christ for salvation after your infant baptism.
Also, salvation is by grace through faith alone, so there are ‘born again’ individuals there who are trusting by faith in the blood of Christ alone to save them. (I know some personally.) Yes, as in any denomination, there are those who do not understand this simple truth of God’s Word, and are trusting in their baptism, good works, church attendance, etc. to save them. That is not to say, though, that there are not those who truly do believe in Christ alone to save them. I would not say these things except I know personally those who are truly saved from the Roman Catholic Church.
The Christians I know will go some to fellowship with Evangelicals, or else they have left the Roman Catholic Church altogether. However, some that I know still go mainly to the Roman Catholic Church. They will share with you freely their love for Christ and His Word, how am I to judge them and say that they are not born again? One such brother in Christ translated our tract on What does it mean to be born again? into Spanish for us.
In another answer I told of the confusion in the Roman Catholic Church over the doctrine of the Virgin Mary and the Rosary. I made it very clear from Scripture that we are not to pray to Mary, or for that matter to any of the saints. You might think, well, how could you be in the Roman Catholic Church even to worship or as a witness, when they sometimes pray to Mary? I would say if I were there to be a witness, I would not pray to Mary, but pray to God the Father through Jesus the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what I would do silently when the Rosary or other prayers were being made to Mary, or the other saints.
Unless I was the leader of prayer, then why not pray to the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus. If you got into trouble for doing this, then you would know what St. Paul felt like when he was persecuted. By the way, the Roman Catholic Church is not the only one that believes in getting help from Mary or the saints. That could be a discussion for another question or article.
By the way the Rosary was popularized by Alan de la Roche (1428-1475), a Breton Dominican. “The historical development of the Rosary begins with the desert fathers and their need to find a system to ease their laborious and repetitive prayer life. It is generally agreed by scholars that a system for counting repetitive prayers began with the Hindus some nine centuries before Christ. Prayer counters such as rocks, sticks or notches in wood were employed to ensure that the proper number of prayers were recited.” (HCFM: Rosary : Explanation & History) What does Jesus say, “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matthew 6:7)
Many times through out the Rosary you are instructed to say for example, “Say three ‘Hail Marys’ or Say ten ‘Hail Marys’ and so on. Also after the Rosary you are instructed to pray: “HAIL, HOLY QUEEN, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping valley of tears. Turn the, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Mary! V. Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God. R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.(http://www.pacifier.com/)
Let’s get back to the discussion at hand though. When a Christian is a member of any local church, his or her first allegiance should be to Christ and His Word! You will not find a perfect church, though, on this earth, so you need to shine as a light where God puts you. Yes, you can get fellowship with other Christians, but why not be a light where you are? What we really need to see is revival in all the denominations, and then we wouldn’t even need to have this discussion. I believe this revival will come before Christ returns for His bride the Church. “.that He might present her to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkly or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” Ephesians 5:27.
You quoted part of a verse that says, ‘come out of her’ in the book of Revelation, where it says, “And I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. (Revelation 18:4). The only problem with using this verse to support your argument, to come out of the Roman Catholic Church is that it is not speaking of the Roman Catholic Church here.
I do believe that during the Tribulation there will be a one world religion, but it will not be made up of any one ‘church,’ but of all the church goers who were not saved before the Rapture took place. The Antichrist will use these false religious groups and their holdings now for his own ends, and this will take place in the first three and one half years of the Tribulation. You can find some of this in Revelation 13:11-18; 14:7-12 and chapter 17.
In the future there will be a one world religion, which will amalgamate together all the false religions of the world into one group. Also, the Antichrist will use all the rest of the ‘churches’ that are left after the Rapture of true believers, these unsaved religious people will give their allegiance to the false christ. He will use the Roman Catholic organization, the Baptist organization, the Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, etc. for his own ends, when all the born again believers from the Church are Raptured to heaven.
The Antichrist will use the shell (the embassies, etc.) that are left of the Roman Catholic Church, and all the buildings and holdings of the other churches, much like a hermit crab uses a shell, not of his own making. After three and one half years he will dump this false religion, once he has accomplished his ends, and that is to get the world to worship him. This is spoken of in Daniel 9: 26b-27; Matthew 24:15,16 and elsewhere. [For more on this look at our answer on theSummary of Prophecy.]
I know that a lot of Christians have been taught that the Roman Catholic Church is right now the Great Harlot (religious harlot) the book of Revelation speaks of in chapter 17. That is too bad that they think this way, because of this false teaching, we are hindered from fellowshipping with even those who are born again in the Roman Catholic Church. Would you say these things about the other denominations that believe that Jesus Christ is Lord? The other ‘shells’ of the denominations will be used by the Antichrist too, do you call them religious harlots also, and say come out of all of them?
In spite of the problems in the Roman Catholic Church (mixture of truth and error) there are many good things about it. They do teach that homosexuality is wrong, and the problems that they have had with this has been in less than one percent of the leadership, I am told. They do believe that abortion is wrong and have been one of the strongest supporters of human life. Yes, they have their problems such as often opposing Evangelicals around the world in some places and at some times. However, there are those individual pastors and churches that do fellowship with us on occasion.
Many Evangelicals think about what happened in the past in the Roman Catholic Church. However, by in large we don’t see the Roman denomination persecuting other Christians as it happened for awhile. Yes, I have seen first hand in other countries such as in parts of Mexico where people who become born again are ostracized from the family and community. This is of course wrong, and something that needs to be corrected. However, there are many fine believers around the world that would have nothing to do with persecuting those who leave the Roman Catholic Church. I have found most Roman Catholics that I have shared the gospel with are glad to hear it and discuss God’s word with me. I will read from their Bible if they wish. Many have prayed to receive Christ as Lord and Savior even though they may or may not leave their church.
Many of the Evangelical Christians that I have met, and am friends with, are upset with the Roman Catholic Church because they feel like they were deceived by the Roman denomination. They may have been raised in the Roman Catholic Church, but never were taught the true way of salvation. They were taught many things from the Bible and about the Church traditions and doctrines, but they never were introduced to the risen Christ as their Lord and Savior. For this reason and others, I believe many of them are still, and maybe rightly so, hurt that they came so close to the truth of salvation by grace through faith, but not given an opportunity to receive Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.
This is a sad state of affairs in many of the Roman Catholic Churches, when someone is not given the truth of the Gospel, but I have heard this same story not only from the Roman Catholic Church converts but from many Christians from the Lutheran Church, the Orthodox Church, and many other denominations. They have given testimony to the fact that they never knew the truth of the ‘free’ salvation that is offered through the blood of Christ. Now whether they were never given an opportunity to believe and receive Christ, or if they only missed it, could be a matter of debate. However, with so many coming out of these denominations testifying to not having heard the true way of salvation, it does tell us something is going wrong in these churches.
This is too bad, because this has not always been the case in history that people could not find the truth of salvation in these denominations. In fact, if you go back in the history of the Lutheran Church, of course you come to Martin Luther who was a Roman Catholic Priest. He said he did not understand clearly the message of salvation. It was not until he read the book of Romans in the Bible and understood that the ‘just shall live by faith’ was he saved. As you know the rest is history, the reformation took place and many denominations have been started because of the errors in the Roman Catholic Church.
We need to pray that this reformation spreads through the whole Roman Catholic denomination as well. There is nothing the LORD can’t do! There is a reformation of sorts taking place in the Roman Catholic Church in parts of the world even today. [Go to our Ephesians Bible Study part two for more on this.] Also, you may want to go to our website link and look at what the Holy Spirit is doing in the Roman Catholic Church through the Charismatic Renewal movement.
To get back to your questions again, you said that you believe when a [Roman] Catholic gets saved that they should leave that church and not be encouraged to stay there. Again let me reiterate, I was not encouraging everyone that gets born again to stay in the Roman Catholic Church, but only those who are strong in the Lord and that could be a good testimony there. I would have to agree with you, most should probably go to where they can get fed from the Word, and fellowship with others of like faith.
Now that this discussion has been opened about the Roman Catholic Church, though, I would love to have a Roman Catholic respond to this so we can hear from their side, and their point of view. This is one reason I am glad these questions were brought up. We need to dialog with those in the Roman Catholic Church and hear what they think about what we are talking about. I hope that some take me up on this. Also, we would love to hear from other Evangelicals on this topic.
Here now is a review what has been discussed. I did say that I would not see anything wrong with going to the Roman Catholic Church. Here, I was speaking of myself and others who would like to witness for the Lord Jesus Christ there. I did go into some of the differing views I hold from the Roman Catholic Church. In that same letter, I made it clear, if we are to reach people, it will have to be through the love of Christ for them, not through trying to always prove that we are right and they are wrong. We should agree with them on the doctrines that we agree upon.
Any church you end up going to will have problems, that is the nature of denominations on this earth. We don’t look to find the perfect group here, yes, for new Christians that don’t know the Bible well, they need to go where they can get fed best. Personally, I can feed myself on the Word of God, but I also enjoy fellowshipping with those I agree with most. That is not to say, I would not like to fellowship with born again believers from other Christian denominations also. I love going to where Christians can worship together, and not even worry about what name tag is over the building they go to. By the way, there are many born again Christians in the Charismatic movement in the Roman Catholic Church.
Look at all the churches that are mentioned in the New Testament, were there any perfect ones? No, there were some that were better than others, but they all needed to keep growing. Paul and Jesus never told the people to stop going where they were going, but only to repent and live by the Word of God. We can be a light where we are, and we can bloom where we are planted, even if we are in a church that has some problems. I am not speaking of homosexual churches or those who do not believe and teach that Jesus is God Incarnate. “Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:3)
You also said that you are having problems with smoking, and you want to know if this will keep you out of heaven. The answer is, certainly not! The only thing that will keep people from going to heaven, is a rejection of Christ as their Lord and Savior. All of us deal with sin in our lives, and we have to get victory over that sin or bad habit (1 John 1:9). We are told that our bodies are the Temple of God, and He will help us keep our temple clean if we ask Him to. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)
If a person continues to smoke, he or she will destroy the temple that they have been given. We don’t want to do this to the Holy Temple of God, so we are careful with our bodies, asking God to give us victory over all temptations. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-6) Pray that God will give you victory over this habit, and with God’s armor you will win that battle. Look at our Ephesians 6 study, we hope to have the audio for this soon, if it is not already there. Thanks for your comments and questions.
God bless,
Gary T. Panell
For more information email me.
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