We will turn, please, to 1 John chapter 2, the book of 1 John chapter 2. And we're going to read together in the chapter from the verse number 18. 1 John chapter 2 and the verse number 18. So do turn in your Bible, please, to that very place, and let us be ready to Pay attention to the Word of God, 1 John chapter 2 and verse 18. Little children, it is the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest, that they were not all of us. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you, because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar? but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ. He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father, but he that acknowledgeeth the Son hath the Father also. Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life. These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of him Abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him, that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him. And God will add his blessing to the reading of his own infallible truth for his name's sake and for his own eternal glory. We will bow before the Lord in prayer as we have his Word open before us. Let's just keep the Word open there, let's still ourselves in God's presence, and let's now lift up our hearts to the Lord in prayer, seeking His face for the blessing that we need this evening as we come to deal with this important subject. And let's all pray. Eternal God and gracious Father, we wait on in Thy presence in the name of Thy dear and blessed Son, Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the Word that we will now consider, and we ask, O God, for the anointing of Thy Spirit to rest upon the preaching of the Word and upon the hearing of the Word. Lord, we pray that Thou wilt give enlightenment and understanding. Lord, help us to break the bread of life Help us to bring Thy Word in a manner that will create an understanding of these things that are so relevant in our times. Here is now, we pray, abide with us, breathe on us. For this we ask in Jesus' name and for His glory. Amen. 1 John chapter 2 and the verse 18. It says, little children, it is the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. When we come to deal with the subject of the Reformation, we deal with a very large subject. for many reasons, one of them, of course, being that the Reformation affected the whole of the continent of Europe in that period of time when it did take place. And therefore, we may speak of the Reformation in various countries or in various nations and do so rightly. And we can certainly, therefore, speak of the English Reformation because the Reformation was to a great degree firmly established. in the country of England and as a result of that it was established elsewhere also. Now one of the darkest periods of the English Reformation was during the reign of Mary Tudor who was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. She ascended the throne on the 6th of July 1553 She had gained her accession to the throne as a result of what was natural to her, being a darkened Romanist. And I refer to the intrigue and the subtlety that characterized that evil woman. She gained her ascendancy not only that way, but therefore with her soft words, because I say she was a most subtle woman. But having gained the throne, She wasted no time in declaring herself and in making known publicly what her intentions actually were. She sent a message to the Pope of that day which said this, I am your faithful daughter and England has returned to Roman obedience. Mary became known as Bloody Mary because she was a persecutor. of the saints of God, whose intention was to stamp out the Reformation in England and bring her people again into subjection to papal power. Now immediately, Mary began to enact severe laws against those who were English reformers, pressing upon them acceptance of the two major Romish doctrines of people supremacy and the mass, or transubstantiation. Refusal to submit to those dogmas resulted in only one thing, and that of course was martyrdom. And the reign of Mary was punctuated with many, many martyrs. are many martyrdoms and many who laid down their lives for the sake of Jesus Christ. She reigned a short time really, but in her reign there were many who went to the stake or who were put to death in other fashions simply because of their love for Christ and their adherence to the Gospel and their refusal to bow to the papal throne and to papal dogma. Now among those who perished during Mary's reign, there were some of the most illustrious and learned men of that particular time. One of the very first was a man called John Rogers. He was an associate, a contemporary with William Tyndale and with Miles Coverdale, who were translators of the Word of God. He laid down his life for the sake of Christ. Then in quick succession there came the deaths of Lawrence Saunders and John Hooper and Roland Taylor and Bishop Ferrer, men who stand out in church history as mighty men of God. These were not men who were ignorant of the Scriptures, or ignorant with regard to learning, but they were deeply learned. They were men who were erudite in the learning of their day, who knew the languages of the ancient Scriptures, who understood the issues, who were at the very foremost with regard to academic powers, and yet every one of them was led to the stake and was burned as a martyr for Jesus Christ. Some of you may not have heard these names, but I'm sure that most people here this evening have heard at least of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, two men who laid down their lives that we tonight might have this book and have our religious freedom and our Protestant liberties All because they loved the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet there is one who stands out above every one of them. And that is the man who was the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury. This man, Thomas Cranmer. He was born in 1489. He became a mighty man of God as he came to understand the Scriptures. As he studied the Word of God. And as he poured out his life in pursuit of promoting and establishing the reformation in those years in which he occupied that position. It was a very dangerous position that he was in. He had to walk very precariously. Henry VIII, you see, while he took the title of Defender of the Faith and declared himself to be the head of the church in England, was at the same time an unrepentant Romanist. His only reason for declaring himself such, as I have just said, was in order for his own selfish gains and his own wicked ways. But God in His providence allowed all that and permitted all that. And a man like Cranmer, who was there in the reign of Henry, was certainly foremost in standing for the Gospel and in promoting the great cause of the Reformation. Cranmer went to the stake on the 21st of March, 15 and 56. Shortly before that, due to great pressure, he was craftily brought into, or deceived into, signing a recantation of his beliefs. But as soon as he had done it, he realised that he had been deceived and he was determined to correct that mistake. The Roman powers that had come to such an ascendancy in those years then decreed that he would come forth on that very date. And in St. Mary's Church he would publicly recant. He would there before a gathered company make known what he had recanted as they thought in secret. But whenever Thomas Cranmer was let out into that church building on that very day, the 21st of March, 1556, instead of recanting in a public fashion, he reversed what he had said. He realized, as I have indicated, that he was entirely wrong. He had been deceived into this. He had not meant this to happen. And therefore, instead of publicly recounting as Rome thought he was going to do, he declared his abhorrence of all Romish doctrines. And he declared his adherence to the gospel of truth and of grace. And he was immediately seized and led away right to the stake and there on that very same day he laid down his life for Christ and for the gospel of our Lord Jesus. His words are, that is his final words are both poignant and mighty. We are told that when he came to the stake and he was tied there He thrust his hand into the fire and he said this, for as much as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall be first punished. And as for the Pope, I refuse him as Christ's enemy and Antichrist with all his false doctrines. Now Thomas Cranmer's refusal and rejection of the Pope were summed up by labelling him as Christ's enemy and Antichrist. Let me underline this evening that this view that Cranmer had concerning the Pope was just not his personal opinion, but was the universal verdict of his fellow reformers in England and indeed throughout the whole of Europe. Furthermore, the view that he took and that he expressed there as he was burning to death did not alter with the passing of time. We need only leap forward 100 years or thereabouts. into the 1640s to discover that this verdict remained just as strong and as firm in the hearts and minds of Englishmen, Scotsmen, as it had in the days of Cranmer that the Pope is the Antichrist. I refer, for example, as I speak of the 1640s, to the great gathering of divines, as they are called, at Westminster in London. In that year, or in those years of the 1640s, there was convened there one of the most illustrious gatherings of men of God ever to assemble in this British realm. They met there for those years, they came together to frame a confession of faith, the Westminster Confession of Faith that was finished and completed and published in 1647. And in chapter 25 of that confession, that deals with the subject or the doctrine of the church, And in section 6 of that chapter, they address the question of the headship of the Church under the following proposition. There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ, nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that Antichrist. that man of sin and son of perdition that exalted himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God. Now in using or employing this title Antichrist, Cranmer, the Westminster Divines and of course other men of God throughout church history have employed a biblical term not a title that they conjured up on their own mind. but one that they took right out of the Word of God, such as we have before us this evening. In the epistles of 1 and 2 John, you will find the title Antichrist used a number of times. This word Antichrist, we find it here in the text that we're looking at tonight, 1 John 2.18, is what's called a compound word. It's made up of two original Greek words. They are easily remembered. In fact, when you look at this English word Antichrist, you have almost an exact transliteration of what's in the original Greek. The word Anti. And then the word Christ or Christos, as it is in the original language, Antichristos or Antichrist as it is here in our English Bibles tonight. Let me say to you that the actual meaning of the word or the title Antichrist is instead of Christ. or in place of Christ, that is perhaps not so well known as it ought to be. You see, in the way in which we speak or use the word Antichrist, we often will think of it as meaning against Christ. And of course, ultimately, it has that sense. But in its own standing as a Greek word, and as we have it translated here, it means instead of Christ. Look at the little word anthei that you can see there in your own Bibles. As I say, that actually signifies this idea of substitution, or one who's in place of another. That's its meaning in the New Testament. It's translated in different ways. For example, it's translated at 4, Mark 10, verse 45. It says there, the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. It's the very same word. It is that Greek word, antai, and it means instead of many, in place of many. Or if you look with me at Matthew 2, verse 22, there you will find it translated in a most interesting way. It says, Archelaus, Matthew 2, verse 22, Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod. Matthew 2.22, he reigned in the room of, in the stead of, in the place of his father Herod. So, in the light of these scriptures, the basic idea in this word empty Christ is that of instead of Christ rather than against Christ. It signifies that the one who is Antichrist is a usurper. He is an imposter. He actually, by his claims and by his teachings and by his position, takes the place of Jesus Christ in an unlawful fashion, in an unscriptural fashion, and therefore it is a title that signifies someone who has actually either placed himself or been placed by others in the very position that belongs to the Son of God. But because the Pope does that, or anyone else should ever do that, therefore, The thought of the Word, of course, does contain the concept of being against the Lord Jesus Christ. He who usurps Christ's place and takes to himself a position that does not belong to him but to the Saviour, makes himself the enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ and is therefore against Christ. And therefore Cranmer was perfectly correct when he combined the two thoughts. in his famous words concerning the Pope, I refuse him as Christ's enemy and Antichrist with all his false doctrine. Again I say to you, he who is Antichrist by virtue of taking the place of Christ makes himself the enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now looking here at this text, 1 John 2.18, Notice that John reminds us that in the religious world of his day, right there in the first century church, there were many antichrists. He says there, little children, it is the last time we should pay heed to that. I put it out this morning to the brothers and sisters in the adult Bible class. that when the New Testament speaks of the last time or the last days, it is referring to the whole period from the Saviour came first until He comes again. And John says here, it is the last time. The church from the very days of the apostles had entered into the last time, the last period of world history, after which there is no more. He says, it is the last time. He says, ye have heard that Antichrist shall come. Even now are there many Antichrists. And he's talking here about people, you will notice. For he goes on to say, they went out from us. That means that they had departed from the true church. In John's days there were men. who rose up as teachers and leaders within the Christian church. We would imagine that's how it had to be. And they were putting themselves forward as being in the place of Christ. And yet they were dealt with, of course, not told exactly how, and John says they went out from us because they were not of us. But there were many antichrists even in those days. But in this same verse, He says something very specific. He says there, ye have heard that Antichrist shall come. In the original language, these words and this little clause read this way, ye have heard that the Antichrist shall come. He is speaking of a future time. He is speaking of a period that is not yet. emerged in his day, but is yet to come in the future. And he says here, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the Antichrist shall come. He's not here yet, John says, but he's certainly coming. And these other Antichrists who have arisen are but forerunners of the one who will yet appear. The Antichrist shall come. I would suggest to you that this is the same person of whom Paul speaks over in 2 Thessalonians 2. If you will turn there please with me to that chapter, 2 Thessalonians 2. And the Apostle Paul is speaking very particularly here about signs of the Lord's return. And he says something important in verse 3. You see, in those days, As it is still, there are many who would try to tell us that the Lord is about to come and there are certain things to watch out for. Indeed here, Paul actually reveals to us that it was being claimed that he had taught that the Lord had already come. So he's got to correct that. And he's got to say this in verse 3. It's a very important verse. Listen to it. Let no man deceive you. by any means. For that day, that is the day of the Savior's coming, that day shall not come except that He gives us two signs that precede the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, except there come a falling away. And again, I just want to tell you that where it says there, except there come a falling away, it literally reads, except there come THE apostasy. That's the literal rendering. Oh yes, there have been many apostasies. But here is one that is called by the Holy Spirit, the apostasy. Except there comes the apostasy first. It happens first, you see, and then he says, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. Two major events, the great apostasy and the emergence of the man of sin, the son of perdition. But read on with me into verse 4, where the characteristics of this person are in view. It says, who opposeth and exulteth himself. Do you see the same two thoughts there? Seeking to take the place of and being an enemy of. They are both there. Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called of. Now that would include Christ, wouldn't it? or that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that He, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing Himself that He is God. Now I am saying to you right now, that here is someone who occupies a place of exalted worship, who usurps the place that belongs to the Lord Himself. And Paul tells us here that this man of sin, this son of perdition, had not yet come, he says, and would in His emergence be in Himself and already represented one of the major signs of the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I'm saying to you tonight, that Paul here is speaking of the same anti-Christianity of which John speaks there in 1 John 2 and is therefore speaking of the same person as well. Notice, since the word anti-Christ means in place of Christ, then speaking strictly Anti-Christianity as seen in Scripture, listen carefully men and women, can only be found within the visible professing Church. Do you understand that? I know that any religious system that is opposed to the Gospel is in a very real sense anti-Christian. But remember the meaning of the word, in the place of Christ. in the place of Christ. He is spoken of as being within the very temple of God, and I personally take that to be a reference not to the physical temple in Jerusalem, but to be a reference to the spiritual temple, the visible church of Jesus Christ. And what I'm pointing out right now is very clear, and even very simple. The Word of God teaches us that this apostasy takes place within the visible church. Paul is talking about the church. He's not talking here about paganism. He's not talking about Hinduism or Mohammedanism or Islam. He's talking about the visible church. And he says that there will come the apostasy concerning the church. And out of that apostasy, there comes the man of sin. I know that some of you might hold to a cherished notion that the Antichrist will be some kind of a political leader or ruler who arises from wherever. We are being shown right here that this person called the man of sin comes out of the great apostasy that envelops the visible church at a time future when Paul was writing. And I think we need to keep that firmly in our minds, even as we think about the very subject that is before us tonight. Now the question then comes as to whether there has been anyone in the history of the Christian church who fulfills the description that the Word of God gives concerning the Antichrist. And I am stating to you right now that there is such a one. The papacy is an anti-Christian system and every man who ever has or ever will occupy the papal throne is anti-Christ. And I go a step farther and I say tonight that the final pope, whoever he might be, to me is going to be the man who singled out in this passage who is part of this great apostasy that has developed through many generations and is still going on, and is going to gather momentum, is going to become greater and greater as time goes by, until in the very days before our Saviour's return it will have reached its very epitome. And then the Lord Jesus will come. And as we're shown in these verses in 2 Thessalonians 2, He's going to destroy the man of sin with the brightness of His coming. That's why I say the final Pope, taking the view that I take of this passage, is shown here to be the one who will be destroyed by the brightness of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. I make this assertion not only in the light of the Scriptures to which I have already referred, but in the light of the general teaching of the Word of God, now listen carefully, with regard to the essence and the content of the Gospel. Because with regard to every major tenet of gospel truth, the papal system, with the Pope as its head, proves itself to be anti-Christ by substituting itself in the place of Christ and by placing false unscriptural dogmas in the place of Christ's gospel. Notice, my friend, that the papacy with the Pope at its head can only exist by rejection of Christ and the Gospel of Christ and primarily by rejecting the authority of the Word of God. How else can apostasy ever take place except through the rejection of the Word of God and the Gospel as it's embodied in that Word. And that is exactly what the Roman Catholic system does. The Second Vatican Council met in the 1960s, about 40 years ago. And during that last major council of the Roman Catholic Church, it said this, the Church does not draw, and that's a reference of course to the Catholic Church, does not draw her certainty about all revealed truth from the holy scriptures alone. Hence both scripture and tradition, now listen carefully, must be accepted and honoured with equal feelings of devotion and reverence. She appeals there to her own tradition. She puts them on the same level as the Word of God. And when the Scriptures refute her traditions, she then puts her traditions above the Word of God. Because Rome's religious system cannot be established from the Word of God at all. So, Rome is guilty of being a system that puts in the place of the Word and the Gospel, her own dogmas, her own traditions. She puts in the place of them a leader or a head who takes that position that belongs to Jesus Christ alone. And therefore tonight from this pulpit I state that the entire system of people anti-Christianity exists simply because of Rome's denial and rejection of the final authority of the Scriptures. And therefore she proves herself to be anti-Christ and the Pope to be the anti-Christ. But that is proved in two ways. I want to sum up papal anti-Christianity in two ways. First of all, the Pope usurps the sovereignty of Christ. And then secondly, as we are permitted by time tonight, we will find that the Pope undermines the sufficiency of Christ. And when you take those two great points, you have it all wrapped up. The Pope usurps the sovereignty of Christ. And the Pope undermines the sufficiency of Christ. He's anti-Christ. Now, over and over again the Word of God reveals that Christ alone is the head of the Church. That's what I mean by the sovereignty of Christ. If He isn't one, He is head over all things to the Church. Colossians 1 verse 18, He is the Head of the Body, the Church. It is clear in a moment. It is beyond any ambiguity or doubt at all. Jesus Christ alone is the glorious, the only, the exalted Head of His Church. And beside Him there is no other. And that position belongs to no other. Not even to the Queen of England. Never mind the Pope. Belongs to Christ. And to Christ alone. But what does the Catholic Church teach? The New York Catechism says this. Now listen carefully. The Pope, now here you have it. The Pope takes the place of Jesus Christ by divine right The Pope has supreme and full power in faith and morals. He is the true vicar of Christ, the head of the entire church, the father and teacher of all Christians. He is the infallible ruler, the founder of dogmas, the author of and the judge of councils, the universal ruler of truth, the arbiter of the world, the supreme, listen, the supreme judge of heaven and earth, the judge of all, being judged by no one. Now listen to the last little statement, God Himself on earth. Rome says the Pope is, and I quote from our own writings, God Himself on earth, the judge of all, being Himself judged by no one. You may say this is a medieval theory that was promoted way back in the Dark Ages. No, my friend, I quote from writings that are current and right up to date. In 1870, you remember as I read there, it talked about the Pope being the infallible ruler. In the year 1870, the dogma of people infallibility was issued from the Vatican, saying that the Pope had the power of speaking infallibly as the Vicar of Christ on earth, or as they call it, speaking ex cathedra, so that He expresses with divine authority what the Church of Christ should believe on matters of faith and practice and morals. And if a Roman Catholic does not believe that, he has committed a mortal sin. You see, for us tonight, I don't know, everybody's here this evening, there may be a Roman Catholic here, I don't know. But for we who are Protestants, we almost laugh when we read that. We say to ourselves, who on earth would ever believe that? And let me tell you something, the devout Roman Catholic has to believe that. And if he doesn't believe it, then he will perish. You see, the grip and the hold that Rome has on her subjects. But do you not see as well that we are looking here at a man, first of all, a system with a man as its head who actually says that he is God on earth, who actually takes claims and titles and positions that belong to no one else but the Lord Jesus Christ, as the head of all things. Whenever the Pope is crowned, any one of them, this is said at his coronation, receive a tiara adorned with three crowns and know that thou art the father of princes and kings, ruler of the world, the vicar of Jesus Christ. Now my dear friend, whenever the present Pope passes on and a new one is are crowned and coronated, these words will be said. Receive the tiara. adorned with three crowns, and know that thou art the father of princes and kings, ruler of the world, the vicar of Jesus Christ." It's on the basis of that statement, or that coronation statement, that the Pope receives homage from world rulers and from the nations of the earth. Have you ever wondered why, when the Pope gets off his plane, As we've watched him go around the world over the last 25, 30 years, and he arrives in this country and the other country, have you ever wondered why he gets down and kisses the ground? You see, the sad thing is that most Protestant people think he's paying respect to the country in which he has just arrived, and that is utter nonsense. He bows down and he kisses the groin or whatever he does in that genuflection and he is saying, this is my end. That's what he's doing. He's laying claim to that nation because he was crowned as the prince of the kings of the earth and he believes and he very rigidly will hold to it that he is above all governments and all monarchs and that is why they all go trotting off to Rome to see the Pope. It's just not to be nice. It is because the nations of the earth are drunk with the wine of Rome's fornication. and they are going to Rome to pay respect to the man to whom they are all subservient in a very real way. The troubled crown that I mentioned, or is mentioned in that statement, symbolizes authority in three realms – heaven, earth and hell. This, my friend, is utter blasphemy. He's crowned with a tiara – three crowns. He is Sovereign Ruler in heaven, earth and hell. He is saying that by His so-called spiritual power to give absolution, which of course is transferred from Him right down through the cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops and then to the ordinary priests. He is saying that by His power of absolution, only by His power are souls admitted to heaven. Do you get this right tonight? The Pope believes, the Pope teaches, the papal system teaches. Of course I know it's nonsense, but this is what she teaches. That the Pope, by that transference of absoluting, that is the power of absoluting sins, is the one who opens heaven or shuts heaven. Then the second crown is where he exercises all political and spiritual authority on earth. And then through the third part of the tiara, he has this supposed jurisdiction over all souls in what Rome calls, or has invented and called, purgatory. And my friend, get it right again. Let's make it absolutely clear that Rome teaches that the Pope, by a mere expression or volition of his own will and a dogmatician from the Vatican, could release all these souls immediately from purgatory. Now we know there is no such place. But the Roman Catholic believes there is. And the Roman Catholic believes he or she is going there. And furthermore, the Roman Catholic is told that the person who's head of their church actually has the power to release all souls immediately from purgatory. But they never stop to ask the question, well, why doesn't he do it, if it does exist? You know why he doesn't do it? Because Rome would lose her most lucrative form of income. That's the reason why. My dear friend, is this Christianity or anti-Christianity? He says he's the head of the church with all these ramifications I've mentioned. Rome bases it all on a gross misinterpretation of Matthew 16. Look quickly at that verse, verse 18 of Matthew 16. And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, And upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." And as you may well know, the Roman Catholic system asserts that right here the Lord Jesus made Peter the foundation on which the church is built. Now my time tonight does not even permit me hardly to make any comment on this verse. But let me say this. that both the grammatical structure of those words and then the whole spectrum of Scripture show clearly that it's Christ who is in view when He says, on this rock I will build my church. You see, Peter is a great name. And I know that Rome twists this and wangles her way around it if she can, but there's no arguing with the language the Lord used. Peter has a Greek name and it means stone. When he sat upon this rock, he used an entirely different word. Now, if he's talking about Peter, why would he suddenly change from one gender to another? and use an entirely different word. But that's exactly what the Lord does for this reason. He makes two statements here. Thou art Peter. But on this rock, that's Himself. I will build my church. It's as clear as that, my friend. Hadn't Peter confessed? In those preceding verses, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And the Lord Jesus commended him for that in verse 17 and told him he was blessed. And what he had come to see and understand was by the work of God the Father within his own soul, that is, Peter's soul. And he says, listen, Peter, you're right. And Peter, you're only a stone. What does he say? He's saying, Peter, you're only a little stone like all other Christians, but I'm the rock. But you see, Rome takes that verse and on it she builds her whole edifice of the papacy. And I'm saying here right now, since it can be shown that Rome's interpretation of Matthew 16 and 18 is entirely erroneous and a gross perversion of what the Lord said, the whole system collapses immediately. because her whole system is built on this premise that Peter was the first Pope and all other Popes have succeeded from him. And around them the whole dynasty has emerged and the whole edifice has been built. And yet, my friends, here we find that it is without any foundation. In the Old Testament, for example, you will find, at thirty times at least, God is called a rock. And you come into the New Testament and even Peter himself in 1 Peter chapter 2 says that the Lord Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone. He, in other words, identifies Christ as the foundation and the rock. This is a divine title, the rock, in Scripture. It belongs only to He who is God. Not to some mere petty little man, even like Peter himself. Oh my friend, look at Peter's life. He never claimed any supreme authority or any authority at all. He said in 1 Peter 5, the elders that are among you I exhort, for I am also an elder. When Cornelius was saved, or when Peter was preaching to Cornelius, You remember Cornelius went to bow down and Peter says, See thou do it not, I also myself am a man. He would receive no homage. And above all, my friend, this man Peter was nothing but a poor, feeble, and fallible creature like you and me. Because not long after he made this confession, He then proceeded to be a hindrance to the Lord. And if Peter was made the first pope in verse 18, how then do we account for what the Lord said farther down? Get thee behind me, Satan. Get thee behind me, Satan. If he were the first pope, why did Paul withstand him to the face and rebuke him? Can you imagine anybody going before John Paul tomorrow and rebuking him to say this? See, it will never happen because the Pope is infallible and he's never wrong. But the first Pope we are told, that is, they say he was the first Pope, he actually erred from the faith. is what you have in Galatians. Temporarily, Peter vacillated, he swung, and he began to embrace justification by works. And Paul was stood into the face and rebuked him. And he said, Thou art to blame, Peter. My friend, does that speak to you as someone who is the head of the church? I could go on, I haven't time. The Pope is Antichrist. because he usurps the sovereignty of Christ. Christ is the only head. And to Christ alone tonight we bow. We give our glad allegiance. We yield ourselves wholeheartedly. Thank God! Oh, thank God tonight for the rock that is higher than I, as the psalmist says. It's not the Pope, it's Christ. He's sovereign. And thank God we need no other. But the Pope also undermines the sufficiency of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ's work is absolutely sufficient for the salvation of the sinner, his perfect obedience in life and in death, That obedience has met every demand of a holy law and a just God. And thank God, nothing else is needed. That's what I mean by the sufficiency of Christ. My friend, that is the gospel. Christ is enough. His work is enough. It is sufficient through and through. But you take every major dogma of Romanism, as it's all epitomized in the Pope himself, and you will discover that the Pope denies every facet of the all-sufficient work of Christ. He denies the once and for all atoning sacrifice of Christ. I dealt with the Mass a few weeks ago. I haven't time tonight, nor do I need to really. Go over that ground again. But remember this about the Mass. It is the central feature of Roman Catholic worship. The central feature. Let me remind you what Rome says about that. She says, it is a sacrifice in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated, in which our Lord is killed as a sacrifice. That is what Rome says. What is that? That's a denial of Christ's sacrifice. Because my friend, Christ's sacrifice is once for all. Once for all. The Pope denies justification by grace through faith alone in the merits of Christ without works. The evidence of this is so vast that one hardly knows where to turn or in accumulating it all. There's so much of it. Every feature of Rome's whole system is a repudiation of the great truth, the central truth of the Gospel. Justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, without works and by grace alone. The Pope denies that. He denies the sole mediation of Christ. He himself is set up as a mediator. His archbishops, cardinals, the various ranks and levels of the system of Rome, right down to the priest at local level. Do you understand, my dear friend, that every one of them is actually looked on in Romanism as another Christ? another mediator. You see, the Pope bans sinners from going directly to Christ for pardon. In his teachings and in the teaching of his church, They are told, the people are told that they must go to the priest, they must go through the ritual. They cannot get to Christ. If they can ever get there, it's only through the system, through Mary. And my friend, I tell you tonight, the poor Roman Catholic will never get to Christ if he is left to trust in any other apart from our blessed Savior, and our gracious Redeemer, the Pope bans direct access to Christ. What are we dealing with therefore? We're dealing with testimony right from Rome's own teachings, from the very utterance of pable dogmas, from the statements of the present Pope himself, who is acclaimed by church leaders across the world as a holy man of God, who is looked up to by these so-called evangelicals. the ecumenical evangelicals of the world today as their great hero, the one to whom they look, the one whom they acclaim to be a preacher of the gospel. And yet here is the man who, in everything that he is and in everything that he says and that he does in the spiritual realm, is against Christ because he takes the place. of Jesus Christ. I've answered my question. As we look at church history, has there arisen a system with a figurehead, the like of which Paul describes the great apostasy, out of which there comes the man of sin? Yes, we have found that Rome fits the description A brother prayed in the prayer meeting tonight about this meeting, and in his prayer he referred to an old preacher, and what he didn't mention that preacher's name, that old preacher was Spurgeon. And Spurgeon's famous comment in 2 Thessalonians 2 is this, arrest the Pope on suspicion. My dear friend, I stand before you tonight as one whose heart is heavy for various reasons as we deal with such a subject. It's heavy because of the benighted state of Roman Catholic people, their bondage, their fear, And may I say something tonight that ill-beholds, that ill-becomes any Protestant or free Presbyterian, to make it even more specific, to start labeling Roman Catholics as Thags and Fenians and all the rest of it. They are poor souls who need Christ, and they are the way they are. whether spiritually or politically, because they're deceived, and they need our compassion. They need our prayers. We should have heavy hearts concerning those folk, because if they follow that system, they are lost, and they will perish. My heart is heavy as well, because of this whole acceptance of what is plainly Antichrist by the ecumenical churches and the recognition of them, that is, Rome and the system and the Pope and all the rest of it, as being Christian leaders. My friend, as I said a while ago, the nations of the earth and the spiritual leaders of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of Rome's fornication. And yet we listen to men in our own land who without any reservation will accept the Archbishop, Brady, or whoever it is, as a brother in Christ and that man believes everything that I've just outlined for you. He is part of this anti-Christian system. He's part of this system that puts itself in the place of Christ and stands between its people and the God of heaven and deceives them and blinds them. And yet, That system is accepted as a Christian church. But my heart is heavy for another reason. Look at Galatians chapter 1 as we close tonight. Galatians 1 verse 8, But though we are an angel from heaven, Paul says, Preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you. Let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed. My friend, what is Paul doing here? It's a solemn, terrible statement that you have right here. And then it's repeated. It's this statement. Anyone, no matter who he is, if he preaches anything other than what you have in the book of Galatians, which is justification by free grace without works and through the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice and perfect obedience, He is accursed. Now, Rome puts her anathema on those who teach justification by grace. It amounts to nothing. It's not worth the paper it's written on. As far as that goes, my friend, as Rome anathematizes the Reformed gospel of free sovereign grace, when she says that if any man dares to say that by faith in Christ a man is saved, he shall be accursed. She herself is accursed. For God says it. It's a cursed system. It's under the anathema of God. And sadly, so much of so-called Protestantism is coming under that same awful curse as it apostatizes. And as we watch the One World Church build and develop, my friend, the curse of God is on it. Do you hear those words literally mean? Let them go to hell. It's the language of the Spirit of God. If any man preaches another gospel, let him go to hell, because the Word says that's where he's going. And yet there are some of you sitting here tonight, and you're going to be in the same hell, because you have not embraced the Christ of God. You're trusting in your own works, even as a Protestant. You're going to the same hell to endure the same wrath, to perish under the same curse. As I said a few weeks ago, you would pride yourself in your Protestantism, in your loyalty. But what about loyalty to Christ? What about true Protestantism? By which I mean that which is synonymous with the Gospel. What about it? What will you do with Jesus, who is called Christ? Will you come to Him? Will He be your Head? And will He be your Saviour? Because if it's not that way, you're embracing something else. and you will go to hell. My friend, come to Christ, even this night. Let's bow together before the Lord, and let us unite our hearts in God's presence, perfectly still and quiet just for these closing moments. And I say that I am perfectly Free and available to talk with you tonight of your trouble about your soul. The Lord has been speaking to you. And you know you need Christ. And you know there's no hope or help in any other but Him. My friend, I am here to give you time and counsel. Please make your need known as you are leaving. Make your way even round to the minister's room down out through this door at my right, down the corridor. I'll meet with you there. Or just come to me as I'm down at the door and say, I need to talk with you. Oh, my friends, seek the Lord. I'm seeking tonight. Gracious Father, use thy blessed Word Write it on our hearts. Lord, use the truth to strengthen the souls of God's people and to enlighten their minds to stand for Thee in an evil day. And having done all to stand, part us with Thy blessing now. Keep Thy gracious hand upon us. Watch over us as we beseech Thee. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Spirit be with every child of God tonight and forever in Jesus' name. Amen.