We're not going to do much longer, I don't think, because it's so dark. I'm turning to 1 Timothy 2. It's so dark. It's so sad. Some people make the audacious claim, well, you just don't understand Roman Catholicism. If you really understood it, you would come and you would be Roman Catholic. No, that's the problem. The more we study it, the more we understand what it is exactly Rome teaches, the worse It is. And this is probably a bad analogy, but on one hand, I kind of feel like a detective and you're doing good, but there's like a weight on you when you have to investigate crimes and you look at things and you just have to look at it over and over and over. It just weighs on you. And so tonight we're going to talk about the demonic Mary of Rome. I know that's a zinger of a title, but I want to put forth to you tonight that the Mary that Rome puts forth, the Mary that Rome talks about, is not the Mary of the Bible. She's not. We love the Mary of the Bible. So when I hear this, I want to be careful. We're not impugning the Mary of the Bible. We love her. We'll see her in heaven. But she's ultimately a person in the Bible who we model her faith, and we are encouraged to see God's grace in her life and the salvation that she receives because of the atoning work of Christ. 1 Timothy 2.5 is where we'll start. It simply says this. I'm just going to read it really, and then we'll flesh out some things about the Marian dogma of Rome. 1 Timothy 2.5, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. Ah, but maybe there's a mediator between men and Christ, right? No, I mean, you can't get that from that text. That's not what's being said. Now, most Christians, when they understand, or I'll put it this way, they don't understand. So most Christians, they see Roman Catholicism's devotion to Mary and they're uncomfortable about it. Okay, something doesn't seem quite right. And then so you ask questions maybe, or you talk to a Roman Catholic friend, family member, neighbor, and they say, hey, no, no, no, don't worry about that. We don't worship Mary. We just think she should be honored. She's not equal to Christ or whatever. And so you're like, well, okay, okay. Maybe it just feels weird to me. Maybe I just, I don't like it. I don't understand it. And so maybe I'm being a little judgmental. It just feels weird to me. And so maybe you kind of give them a pass. But tonight, I'm going to talk about something very dark and sinister in Rome's understanding of Mary in their official teachings. And I'm making the argument tonight that it's not just something that should make you uncomfortable, but I'm actually using this language intentionally. I've thought about it. I've gone back and forth in my mind. I'm going to use it. I think it's the right language. It's demonically influenced. And it's ultimately designed to take your eyes off of Christ. So I'm going to give you five characteristics of the demonic Mary of Rome, put Mary in quotes. Let me remind you something tonight. So when you quote, let's say, the Baptist Catechism, or when you quote, say, the 1689, do you understand that's not the same as quoting the Catholic Catechism, or yeah, the CCC, the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It's not the same. Because the Catechism of the Catholic Church is officially binding upon Rome. It's officially authoritative. It's part of their, on par with scripture. It's part of the binding of the conscience of Rome. They can say, you can say you don't believe what I'm about to teach, but you're not Roman Catholic, right? Which hopefully that's all of us in here, okay? Obviously. So just understand that. So let me put it to you this way, probably kind of maybe a bit winsome and kind. The Roman Catholic conception of Mary, however sincere it may be by some, is ultimately not the Mary of Scripture. It's a false scriptural construct. and ultimately a demonic deception because it draws people away from Christ. So let me give you characteristics of the demonic Mary. Number one, the false Mary of Rome possesses divine attributes. The false Mary of Rome possesses divine attributes. Let me read to you from the Catechism, paragraph 2679. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2679. Mary is the perfect prayer, a figure of the church. When we pray to her, we are adhering with her to the plan of the Father, who sends his Son to save all men. Like the beloved disciple, we welcome Jesus' mother into our homes, for she has become the mother of all living. We can pray with and to her. The prayer of the church is sustained by the prayer of Mary, and united with it in hope. So here's one thing, This kind of came up a few months ago, but the question, do Roman Catholics pray to Mary? Well, there are some who would say, well, no, we don't pray to Mary. Well, yes, you do. This is what the catechism teaches. You pray to Mary, explicitly taught here in the official teaching. A few points I'll make to that. Number one, Matthew 6-6. Some of these you have to look up later. Jesus says, but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who's in secret. Now, He's not teaching that you can't have public prayer. He's not teaching that you can't pray to the Son or that you can't pray to the Holy Spirit. But He certainly is teaching, there is a clear implication there, that prayer is meant to be made to God alone. I'll give you another verse. Psalm 65-2. I love this. Psalm 65, 2. The psalmist says, O you who hear prayer, O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come. So the psalmist says in Psalm 65, 2, that one of the reasons that God is praiseworthy is because He is the one who hears prayers. We don't talk about this divine attribute, but He has the divine attribute, if you will, of prayer hearing. Now, I know that you can hear prayers, I can hear prayers, but it's different, right? It's different in the way that God hears prayers. We pray to God alone. I'm not done with that, though. God can hear the prayers of any person anywhere because he is omnipresent. This is an important argument. Psalm 139. We're not going to look at it, but just understand, believe. I don't think I have to teach. No one's going to deny this. Even Rome does not deny this. God is omnipresent. What does that mean? Omni, all, present, present. It means he's everywhere. Now did you know, now some people, this may be hard for you to wrap your mind. God is the only being that is omnipresent. You understand? Satan, we talk about Satan a lot. He's not omnipresent. He's not everywhere at once. The angels are not everywhere at once. The human nature of Jesus, where is that? What's at the right hand of God the Father Almighty? The human nature of Jesus is not everywhere at once. And listen, certainly Mary and the saints are not everywhere at once. So the argument I'm making is this. To say that we pray to Mary is to even though they wouldn't say it this way, I'm making the logical argument, to pray to Mary is to ascribe to Mary divine attributes that are reserved for God alone. You understand? Now, they say, well, no, no, no, I ask you to pray for me. Okay? Gunnar comes to me and he says, Pastor Quatro, will you pray for me? Well, sure, of course I will. I would pray for Gunnar. But that's not Gunnar praying to me. You understand? It's him asking me to pray for him. I'm glad to do that. But it's different to actually praying to someone. And if people all over the world at the same time can pray to Mary, then she must have divine attributes, which we know she doesn't, the biblical Mary. But the Mary of Roman Catholicism is not the Mary of Scripture. The Mary of Roman Catholicism is ultimately demonic. Secondly, A second characteristic. Some of this you may not know. Immaculate conception in sinless life. Let me cite the teaching of Rome again. Paragraph 491, Catechism of the Catholic Church. Through the centuries, the church has become ever more aware that Mary, full of grace through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is, what the dogma of the immaculate conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed, in 1854, the most blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. segment and then I'll explain. That's paragraph 491. Paragraph 493 says this, maybe you didn't know this. By the grace of God, Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long. That's the Mary of Roman Catholicism. The Mary of Rome, the false and demonic Mary of Rome, was immaculately conceived, that's the language, meaning she was kept from the stain of original sin. So Adam is not her frederal head. Beyond that, she never committed any, according to Rome, she never committed any personal sin her entire life. Were there any problems with this? Yeah. What'd you say? Yeah, you see, you're catching on now. Even though the left hand is saying, no, no, no, no, she's not divine, and the right hand is pumping her up with all these divine attributes. You see? And that's what's happening. Very good. Hold on, hold on, we can't. Very good. I'm sorry, we just can't. We've got to keep pressing. So, but we'll have time at the end, Lord willing. The Bible says in Romans 3.23 what? for all have sinned. and fallen short of the glory of God. This includes the biblical Mary. She was a sinner. The fact that she was full of grace, and no way to take that little phrase and to create this stupid doctrine out of it. It's just, it's wicked. It doesn't mean she's immaculately conceived. It doesn't mean she never committed personal sin. It simply means that she was chosen by God to carry Christ in her womb. Which by the way, let me just make a point, is amazing. Right? Amen. We do not despise the biblical Mary. We love her, just like we love all the saints. We recognize her special role. We're grateful for it. We give God glory for it. But we absolutely despise the unbiblical teaching put forth here by the Prince of Darkness. Let me read another passage, Hebrews 4, 14-16. Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. perfect life accomplished and fulfilled alone. His life alone accomplished and fulfilled all righteousness for his people. This is exclusive to the Lord Jesus Christ. This makes him unique. This makes him the fairest of 10,000 to my soul. This makes Him the bridegroom of Song of Solomon, lovely and handsome and beautiful and glorious and great. He alone is set above all the rest in His righteousness. There's no one like Him. You can't bring anyone up to His level, even His own earthly mother. She is not without sin. Mary needed Christ to bleed for her actual sins, her sin in Adam and her personal sins as well. Let me make this note. Miss Virginia, I'll let you ask a question real quick. Let me make this note. This doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not considered dogma until 1854. 1,820 years after the resurrection of Jesus, Rome comes up with this. Oh yeah, we're fine. Okay. Foolish. Okay, it's real quick. You got something? Yeah. Yes. Very good. Okay, thirdly, the bodily assumption, a third characteristic of the demonic Mary. Okay, what is the bodily assumption? That sounds weird. Well, let me read to you. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 966. The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory and exalted by the Lord as queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death. The assumption of the blessed virgin is a singular participation in her son's resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians. In giving birth, you kept your virginity, In your dormition you did not leave the world, O mother of God, but were joined to the source of life. You conceived the living God and by your prayers will deliver our souls from death." That was all that. Now, there's disagreement in Rome. Did Mary actually die and then she was assumed bodily or did it happen right before her death? There's disagreement. I don't care to wade into that. The point either way. is she is being elevated here in a divine way. She is possessing qualities that the scriptures do not give to her. You understand what this is being saying? You understand that we await the resurrection of the dead. When our loved ones die, they await the resurrection of the dead. Rome is teaching, not Mary, either she died or she didn't die, one or the other, but at the end of her life, her body and soul went straight to heaven. And so now you have The Lord Jesus Christ reigning from heaven and you have, I'll read this quote later, you have Mary who commands Jesus. Commands Jesus? I'll share a quote with that later. Zero biblical evidence for this. Zero. Zero. Okay, where in the Bible do they get this? Nowhere. They'll say, but Enoch was taken up. You remember, Enoch was not, for God took him. That's Genesis 5. Elijah was taken up. Are we disputing that? Of course not. We're not disputing that. But how do you get from there to this false view of Mary? Okay. Well, you can't. And again, this is because you have this weird view of Mary that is demonically influenced. And so you have all these strange doctrines. And I will say this, the bodily assumption But you could fact check me, is not considered dogma by the Roman Catholic Church until 1950. 1950! That means for, you know, 1900 years the Church of Rome didn't believe this. But in 1950 they said, okay, we believe this. So I understand, many Roman Catholics will say they don't worship Mary, but you start adding all these attributes up that she has, it sheds light on how dark and unbiblical the view is. Okay, number four, we're gonna go to what, I didn't just add this, already in my notes, but Miss Virginia added it too. Number four, she is referred to as the Queen of Heaven. Now, I don't find a specific statement that calls her the Queen of Heaven. I'm going to read you one in just a second. It doesn't exactly say that, but you hear Catholics say that all the time. Queen of Heaven. So the statement is, what I just read, the previous reading, 966, said Mary was now exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things. So there it is. And it's not the phrase Queen of Heaven, but Queen over all things, you know. You have a King of Heaven, So you have a queen, you can see this all kind of medieval, you can see that influence there. Now, here's what's fascinating. Did you know, and I want you to turn to these places, did you know, we're going to have to deal with this, did you know the phrase queen of heaven is actually biblical? It's a biblical phrase. It's in the Bible. Two different times. Or two different passages. Multiple times, but two passages. It's in Jeremiah. So let's look there. Jeremiah, two different times. So it's a biblical phrase. Well, let's think about that. Jeremiah chapter 7, verse 18. Jeremiah chapter 7, verse 18. Biblical phrase. Jeremiah 7.18, the children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes, here it is, for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. Well, you'll find that phrase again in Jeremiah 44, so turn there. Jeremiah 44. The queen of heaven. It's a biblical phrase. Jeremiah 44, verse 17. Jeremiah 44, 17, The Queen of Heaven is a biblical phrase. applicable to who? Demonic gods. False gods. Right? So the people of Judah, what they did in their syncretism, you know, where you kind of mix things together, is that they would try to worship the one true God of the Bible, and then they'd mix in these other gods and stuff, and they'd come up with this demonic God, and so referred to a couple different times here as the Queen of Heaven. And in our passage, they're talking about, well, when we were worshiping the Queen of Heaven, things were going well. And then we stopped off, like Jeremiah said, and we repented and all that. Now things have gone bad. So you know what we're going to do? We're going to go back and we're going to worship the Queen of Heaven. And what has this done? This has provoked the Lord to anger. Now what I find fascinating is this. It's like, how can you get more plain? That maybe you're trending in a bad direction. How can you get more plain and say, you know what? Maybe this isn't a good idea if we take a very title right out of the scriptures for demonic worship and we apply it to Mary. That's pretty, I think it's pretty brazen by demonic activity that they could even pull that off. And then it's all the more bewildering that people would actually embrace that and now refer to Mary as the Queen of Heaven. But I would argue that the Mary that they worship, yes, is the same, or not same, but is very similar to the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah. Make sense? Okay. There is no queen of heaven. Wow, good note. Thanks for writing that down, Quatro. There's no queen of heaven. There's only a king. And what is his name? Jesus. And the king has a bride. That bride is the church. So I remind you of Luke 27, 28 says, as he said these things, this is Jesus. A woman in the crowd raised her voice. Again, this is so plain. Like you're like, Lord, If you could make it plain to us that Mary doesn't have a special status in heaven or a special status in the church as far as rank above people or whatever, could you make that plain to us somehow? Listen to this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nursed. Well, that seems very rational, right? This is Jesus. Jesus, bless your mama, right? Bless your mama, Jesus. You're like, praise God. She carried you. She nursed you. She's blessed. What does Jesus say? But he said, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Here's a great opportunity for Jesus to say, you know what? You're right. That's my mama. And she should be said above. But he doesn't. They say, no, no, you're missing the point. Those in the kingdom are those who hear the word and do it. OK, fifthly. A fifth characteristic, throwing these together, advocate, helper, mediatrix, mediatrix. How do you say that? Mediatrix. Mediatrix. Mediatrix. Mediatrix. Okay, Advocate Helper Mediatrix. Catechism 969 says this. Taken up to heaven, she did not lay aside this saving office, but by her manifold intercession, continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation. Therefore, the Blessed Virgin is involved in the church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactrix, Benefactress, and Mediatrix. Is there no alarm bells going off in anybody? There's no, like, red flags here. Advocate, helper, benefactress, mediatrix? The words advocate and helper and mediatrix, again, applying divine aspects of the triune God to this demonic invention. Who is the helper of our salvation? This is not, by the way, this is not coincidence. It's not coincidence that in John 15, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit, what? The helper. and Rome calls Mary the helper. That is not by coincidence. You're just like, well isn't that, huh, that's coincidental. No, the Roman version of Mary is seeking to usurp the God of the Bible. Vatican II says this, listen to this. This just makes you want to vomit. Mary shared her son's sufferings as he died on the cross. Thus, in a holy singular way, she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the work of the Savior in restoring supernatural life to souls. Now you should tell me, but don't worry guys, Rome doesn't worship Mary. Right? By the way, you say that, you may look around and see the sophisticated Americans. Go to Mexico. Ask Gunnar about our little walk. I mean, he knows. He's been there a couple of times. Go. Look. He's still probably got some of the pictures. Think about Advocate, 1 John 2.1. My little children, these things I write unto you that you sin not, and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father. Who is it? Jesus Christ the righteous. Hebrews 7.25, Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them. We have one advocate and one intercessor and His name is Jesus Christ. We don't need another intercessor for our intercessor. Right? Go to the side of the room and say things like, well, yeah, yeah, we have an intercessor, but how do we get to Jesus? You know, the only way you get to God is Jesus. How do you get to Jesus? Well, that's where Mary steps in and she's an intercessor for the intercessor. Baloney. Pope Pius X. For while the prayers of those in heaven have certainly some claim on the watchful eye of God, Mary's prayers place their assurance on the right of a mother. For that reason, when she approaches the throne of her divine son, she begs as advocate, she prays as handmaid, but she commands as mother. That's Pope Pius X in his, well, it's still Latin, but anyway, one of his encyclicals. She commands His mother. They've created a Jesus that is standoffish, that is angry, that is mean, that you can't approach. So you can't approach Jesus, so you go to Mary, right? Because that's His mama, and He'll listen to His mama. So you go to Mary, and you talk to her, you do the rosary, you plead for her, you talk to Mary, and if Mary hears you, well, you're going to get your wish, because she'll command her. Son. Let me just remind us here of the gospel. We do not need Mary to get to God. We need Christ alone. John 14, 6. Jesus says what? I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So it is the finished work of Christ that is His righteous life, His perfect life. His obedience to the law, His substitution for sinners, dying under God's wrath, bearing our sins in His completed work, in His body, on the tree, crying out in John 19, it is finished. Dying the death that we deserve under the judgment of God, being laid in a borrowed tomb. On the third day, rising again, from the dead, and as we've been studying in the first chapters of Acts, ascending into heaven as king. And it is that work alone that saves us as applied to our souls by the Holy Spirit. It's not Mary, it's not the saints, it's not the Pope, it's none of the priests. Mary plays zero role in all of that. Was she used by God to carry the Savior in her womb? Yes and Amen. This is a noble task. We're grateful. But in no way does it contribute to our salvation by any of her work. The only work, I'll use Jonathan Edwards quote and I'll just change it a little bit, the only work that Mary contributed to the salvation of sinners is her own sin, which by necessity made it necessary for Jesus to die for her. What she stands as in scripture is similar to Paul, an example of faith. Don't go the other side, and we're not going to bash her, but we don't put our trust in her. We don't pray to her. Rather, we trust in the one that the biblical Mary trusted in. Remember in Acts, the first part of Acts? Acts 1.14? She's a model church member. She's there with the church, and she's praying. So, trust the one that she trusted in, and pray to the one that she prayed to. Pope Leo XIII, which, or the present pope is Pope Leo XIV, But this was early on in the 20th century. Every grace granted to men has three successive steps. By God, it is communicated to Christ. From Christ, it passes to the Virgin. And from the Virgin, it descends to us. According to Rome, all grace comes to us passing through Mary. This is so blasphemous. John 1 16 says this, for from his fullness, that is Christ's, for from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. Where does our grace come through? Christ alone. Don't forget that. Christ alone. This is not disparaging the work of the triune God. Of course not. I mean, the triune God is at work, but the grace is mediated through the gospel, through the completed work of Christ. It's Christ alone. It's not grace from Christ and Mary, grace from Christ and your works, grace from Christ and whatever. It's Christ alone. Now, in the reigning time, I'm going to mention one last characteristic. Those five, I'm calling demonic characteristics. This one, it's a bonus, is not necessarily demonic. It's not heresy in and of itself. There have been in church history believers who have held to this, but I'm going to argue that it flows from the excessive Marian veneration that eventually leads to doctrines like the Immaculate Conception, the Mediatrix. When we go beyond scripture to protect Mary's uniqueness, We begin to distort her role and cloud, as it were, Christ. Okay, so what is this doctrine? Well, you're probably familiar. The perpetual virginity of Mary. That is, forgive me parents, but I'm gonna say it this way, Mary never had sexual relations with Joseph or anyone else. So I'm saying that, I'm saying that's poor teaching. It's not as bad as the other five, but it's very poor teaching. Well, you say, it's easy for you to say, right? Well, Jesus had brothers, but they would respond. Some would say, yes, he had brothers, but you see, they were Joseph's children from a previous marriage. Is that plausible? Well, I mean, you could see how you could make that up, but it, To me, it doesn't fit at all. There's another argument with the Greek word for brothers. You know how this is Hebrew, but you know how the concept of brother lot was considered Abraham's brother, but it wasn't actually his brothers, his nephew. So there's an argument, you know, that the Greek word for brothers would be referring to close kin, but not brothers like cousins. So what do we do with all that? Well, I could argue. from various places, but I'm going to pick a place that you're probably not suspecting. Psalm 69. Would you turn there? Psalm 69. Psalm 69, verse 9. You'll know this verse. Psalm 69, verse 9. Psalm 69, verse 9 says, For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. Now that verse is quoted in John 2. It's also quoted in Romans 15. Who is ultimately that verse pointing to? It's not a trick question. Zeal for your house has consumed me. And the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. Who's that referring to? It's referring to the Lord Jesus. There's an interesting verse right before that verse. I want you to see it. Verse 8 says this, I have become a stranger to my brothers and alien to my mother's sons. Is that verse applying to Jesus? I would absolutely argue that the whole psalm is pointing to Jesus. Right? It's applying to Christ too. In John 7, Jesus' brothers reviled Him. In Mark 3, His whole family, Mark 3, verse 21, His whole family thinks He's outside His mind. Absolutely, this psalm applies to Christ. And it's irrefutable language. It's irrefutable. So if you look at verse 8, if you say, I've become a stranger to my brothers, well, then you kind of struggle. Okay, well, maybe that's His cousins. But when He says, an alien to my mother's sons, Yo, how do you get around that? Well, you don't. Mary had other children with Joseph after Jesus was born. Very plain. Let's close tonight with words from the biblical Mary, and then we'll have a couple of minutes if you want to ask questions. In John chapter 2, verse 5, here's what the biblical Mary says. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. That's a good word. What do we want to do at this place? What do we want to do at Providence Baptist Church? What do we want to believe? What do we want to practice? How do we want to live? We want to do whatever the son says. We want to do whatever Christ tells us to do. How does He speak to us? Through the inerrant, infallible, sufficient, authoritative, clear, and necessary scriptures, which are alone our highest authority. Not tradition. Even with our confession and our own catechism, these things are helpful tools. They're authoritative in a sense, but they're not equal with the scriptures. They bow. to the Scriptures, because the Bible alone is our highest authority. And the Scriptures teach us, right? We're going to listen to Scripture or the tradition of Rome? No. The Scriptures teach us there is no other mediator. It's Christ alone who is our only suitable and all-sufficient Savior. He needs no help. He alone is unique in the exclusive way to God, and we're called to rest in Him alone. Okay, maybe a final warning, and then we can stop the recording. 1 John 5.21, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Let us be mindful how easy it is to fall into idolatry. Even of concepts that have their roots in scripture. They didn't just pick some random person over here, you know, let's worship Bob the tomato or whatever. I was going to make a joke. I'm not going to make a joke. We don't just worship some random thing. No, no. They pick something in the Bible, and then over years, it's turned into idolatry. So little children, keep yourselves from idols. Be on your guard. Listen to the Son. Trust Him. Soli Deo Gloria. All right. Amen. We can be done.