Another Roman Catholic who doesn't know the Gospel

We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom 2:12) And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. (Heb 9:27)

We cannot pay back any of our possessions as penality. The Bible says,"None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: (For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:) That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption." Psalms 49:7-9

Then How can a man be justified before the Holy God which dwells in the most holy place and have the eyes which cannot see sin?

Let us examine ourself, (Exodus 20)

• Thou shalt not kill.  (Ex 20:13)

Mat 5:21,22 

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca ("You fool!"), shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. 

• “You shall not commit adultery. (Exo 20:14)

Mat 5:28  But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. 

• Thou shalt not steal. (Exo 20:15) 

Rev 21:8  But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. 

As your debt is like a mountain above your whole life, you are worthy to be cast into the Lake of fire forever.

Is there a way to escape the judgment. 

Yes, Jesus Crist is the way to escape Hell and enter Heaven.

Joh 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

God sent His only begotten Son to be bruised for our sins (iniquities). Jesus Christ by died on the Cross by shedding all His blood to pay all your depts in full to redeam you. He was buried. But He arose from the dead as He already said and proved His diety. (1 Cor 15:1-4, 1 Cor 7:23, Mat 26:61)

Then, How can we be saved? 

Act 16:30,31  

And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." 

The Bible promises, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Rom 8:1)

Rom 1:17  For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

John 14:3  

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Is prayer to saints / Mary biblical?

The official position of the Roman Catholic Church is that Catholics do not pray to saints in heaven or to Mary; rather, Catholics are taught they can ask saints or Mary to pray for them. According to the Roman Catholic Church, asking saints in heaven for their prayers is no different from asking someone here on earth to pray for us.

Despite official Catholic claims, it’s hard to see how the words of the Memorare, a famous Catholic prayer, are not a direct petition to Mary:

“Remember, most loving Virgin Mary,

never was it heard

that anyone who turned to you for help

was left unaided. . . .

I run to your protection

for you are my mother.”

The same can be said for the words of another traditional Catholic prayer, “Hail, Holy Queen”:

“Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy,

hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.

To you we cry, the children of Eve;

to you we send up our sighs,

mourning and weeping in this land of exile.

Turn, then, most gracious advocate,

your eyes of mercy toward us;

lead us home at last.”

(from A Book of Prayers, 1982, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc.)

In practice, many Catholics diverge from official Roman Catholic teaching on prayer. Many Catholics do, in fact, pray directly to saints and/or Mary, as seen in the above prayers. Even in cases in which Mary or a saint is simply being asked to pray, the practice has no biblical basis.

The Bible nowhere instructs believers in Christ to pray to anyone other than God. The Bible nowhere encourages, or even mentions, believers asking individuals in heaven for their prayers. Why, then, do many Catholics pray to Mary and/or saints such as Gertrude, Rita, Sylvester, Vincent, Agnes, etc.? Why do they petition the dead to request their prayers? Catholics view Mary and the saints as “intercessors” before God. They believe that a saint, who is glorified in heaven, has more “direct access” to God than we sinners do from our earthly vantage point. In Catholic thinking, if a saint delivers a prayer to God, it is more effective than our praying to God directly. This concept is blatantly unbiblical. Hebrews 4:16 tells us that we, believers here on earth, have direct access to God and can “approach the throne of grace with confidence.”

No saint can take Jesus’ place: “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). There is no one else who can mediate with God for us. Since Jesus is the only mediator, Mary and the saints cannot be mediators. Further, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ Himself is interceding for us before the Father: “He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them” (Hebrews 7:25). With Jesus Himself interceding for us, why would we need Mary or the saints to intercede for us? Whom would God listen to more readily than His only begotten Son? Romans 8:26–27 says the Holy Spirit is also interceding for us. With the second and third Persons of the Trinity already interceding for us before the Father, why would we need to have Mary or the saints interceding for us?

Catholics argue that praying to Mary and the saints is no different than asking someone here on earth to pray for us. Let us examine that claim: (1) Asking other believers (on earth) to pray for us is certainly biblical (2 Corinthians 1:11; Ephesians 1:16; Philippians 1:19; 2 Timothy 1:3). The apostle Paul asks other Christians to pray for him in Ephesians 6:19. (2) The Bible nowhere mentions anyone asking for someone in heaven to pray for him. The Bible nowhere describes anyone in heaven praying for anyone on earth. (3) The Bible gives absolutely no indication that Mary or the saints can hear our prayers. Mary and the saints are not omniscient. Even glorified in heaven, they are still finite beings with limitations. How could they possibly hear the prayers of millions of people? (4) Whenever the Bible mentions praying to or speaking with the dead, it is in the context of sorcery, witchcraft, necromancy, and divination—activities the Bible strongly condemns (Leviticus 20:27; Deuteronomy 18:10–13). In the one instance when a dead “saint” is addressed by a living person, the saint, Samuel, is not exactly happy to be disturbed (1 Samuel 28:7–19). Praying to Mary or the saints is completely different from asking a friend here on earth to pray for us. Asking people on earth to pray for us has a strong biblical basis; asking the heavenly saints or Mary to pray has no biblical basis whatsoever.

It is wrong to think that God will hear and answer the prayers of St. Jude, for example, over yours. Scripture teaches that prayer offered to God in faith, according to God’s will, from a redeemed heart will be heard. As an example, “Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops” (James 5:17–18).

There is absolutely no scriptural basis to pray to anyone other than God alone. There is no need to, either. Jesus, our Intercessor, has it covered. No one in heaven can mediate on our behalf except for Jesus Christ. Only God can hear and answer our prayers. The temple veil was torn in two (Hebrews 10:19–20); the child of God on earth has just as much access to God’s throne of grace, in Jesus’ name, than anyone in heaven (Hebrews 4:16).

What is the rock in Matthew 16:18?

Question: "What is the rock in Matthew 16:18?"

Answer: The debate rages over whether “the rock” on which Christ will build His church is Peter, or Peter’s confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matthew 16:16). In honestly if you want to analyze the meaning you have to know "Scripture interprets Scripture". 

See, Jesus Christ said “You are Peter (petros) and on this rock (petra) I will build my church.” Since Peter’s name means rock. Is Jesus is going to build His church on a rock ?– it appears that Christ is linking the two together. God used Peter greatly in the foundation of the church. It was Peter who first proclaimed the Gospel on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14-47). Peter was also the first to take the Gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 10:1-48). But you had to know Jesus Christ is referring Himself to be stone in which He was going to build His Church.

See,
The interpretation of the rock is that Jesus was referring not to Peter, but to Peter’s confession of faith in verse 16: “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Jesus had never explicitly taught Peter and the other disciples the fullness of His identity, and He recognized that God had sovereignly opened Peter’s eyes and revealed to him who Jesus really was. His confession of Christ as Messiah poured forth from him, a heartfelt declaration of Peter’s personal faith in Jesus. It is this personal faith in Christ which is the hallmark of the true Christian. Those who have placed their faith in Christ, as Peter did, are the church. Peter expresses this in 1 Peter 2:4 when he addressed the believers who had been dispersed around the ancient world: “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

At this point, Jesus declares that God had revealed this truth to Peter. The word for “Peter,” Petros, means a small stone (John 1:42). Jesus used a play on words here with petra (“on this rock”) which means a foundation boulder, as in Matthew 7:24, 25  when He described the rock upon which the wise man builds his house. Peter himself uses the same imagery in his first epistle: the church is built of numerous small petros “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5) who, like Peter, confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and those confessions of faith are the bedrock of the church.

In addition, the New Testament makes it abundantly clear that Christ is both the foundation (Acts 4:11, 12; 1 Corinthians 3:11) and the head (Ephesians 5:23) of the church. It is a mistake to think that here He is giving either of those roles to Peter. There is a sense in which the apostles played a foundational role in the building of the church (Ephesians 2:20), but the role of primacy is reserved for Christ alone, not assigned to Peter. So, Jesus’ words here are best interpreted as a simple play on words in that a boulder-like truth came from the mouth of one who was called a small stone. And Christ Himself is called the “chief cornerstone” (1 Peter 2:6, 7). The chief cornerstone of any building was that upon which the building was anchored. If Christ declared Himself to be the cornerstone, how could Peter be the rock upon which the church was built? It is more likely that the believers, of which Peter is one, are the stones which make up the church, anchored upon the Cornerstone, “and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6).

The Roman Catholic Church uses the argument that Peter is the rock to which Jesus referred as evidence that it is the one true church. As we have seen, Peter’s being the rock is not a valid interpretation of this verse. Even if Peter is the rock in Matthew 16:18, this is meaningless in giving the Roman Catholic Church any authority. Scripture nowhere records Peter being in Rome. Scripture nowhere describes Peter as being supreme over the other apostles. The New Testament does not describe Peter as being the “all authoritative leader” of the early Christian church. Peter was not the first pope, and Peter did not start the Roman Catholic Church. The origin of the Catholic Church is not in the teachings of Peter or any other apostle. If Peter truly was the founder of the Roman Catholic Church, it would be in full agreement with what Peter taught (Acts chapter 2, 1 Peter, 2 Peter).

Did Jesus mean that we should never refer to our earthly father as “father” (Matthew 23:9)?

Question: "Did Jesus mean that we should never refer to our earthly father as 'father' (Matthew 23:9)? Is it wrong for Catholics to refer to their priests as 'father'?"

Answer: It would be confusing for God to give the fifth commandment in Exodus 20:12: “Honor your father and your mother” and then later restrict us from calling our earthly father “father.” Matthew 23:9 states, “And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and He is in heaven.” The context of Matthew 23:9 tells us that referring to one’s biological father as “father” is not what Jesus is speaking about.

In Matthew 23:1–12, Jesus is denouncing the Jewish scribes and Pharisees for rejecting Him as their Messiah, in particular for their hypocrisy in elevating themselves above others with titles such as “teacher” and “master.” The Jewish teachers affected those titles because they supposed that a teacher formed the man or gave him real life. They sought, therefore, to be called “father,” as if they were the source of truth rather than God. Christ taught that the source of all life and truth is God, and no one ought to seek or receive a title that properly belongs to Him. No one should be as revered as God is.

This denunciation is equally relevant today. In no way should any person look up to, follow, or elevate a human leader in any religious or church organization above Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Head of the Church, which is His body. He alone is the author of our salvation, source of comfort in difficulties, and strength to live the Christian life. He is the only One to whom our prayers should be directed. No one else has the right to say, “Look to me to meet your spiritual needs.” Jesus’ warning against calling men “father” is a caution against ostentation, pride, and hypocrisy.

Roman Catholics call their priests “father,” and the Pope is the “holy father.” Abbots take their title from the Aramaic word abba, which means “father.” This is clearly unbiblical. The priest as “father” is problematic. In the case of “holy father,” there is no doubt this title is unbiblical. No man can take on the title of “holy” anything, because only God is holy. This title gives the Pope a status that is never intended for any man on earth. Even the apostle Paul made no claim to holiness, referring to himself as the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Although as Christians we have exchanged our sin for the righteousness of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21), holiness will not be attained until we are in heaven and have left the last vestiges of our sin natures behind. Until then, the Pope has no more holiness than the average Christian and is not entitled to be called “holy father.”

What about the apostle Paul’s reference to “our father Abraham” and his implication that he himself is a father to Timothy and Titus? When Paul refers to Abraham as “our father” in Romans 4:12, he is not making the same mistake as the Pharisees. Paul is saying that the promise that saves us was first given to Abraham who in faith believed. Paul is pointing out that God began His plan of redemption of all nations with Abraham and that Abraham is the model of justification by faith, apart from the Law (verse 3). Paul is not raising Abraham to God’s level or assigning an official title to Abraham but merely acknowledging his faith. Abraham is the metaphorical “father” of all who believe in Christ in the sense that he is the prototype of faith.

When Paul calls Timothy and Titus his “sons” (see 1 Timothy 1:2, 18; 2 Timothy 1:2; and Titus 1:4), he is merely stating that he was a father figure to those whom he taught the gospel to. Paul committed himself to teaching, correcting, and training his protégés. He was more than a teacher to Timothy and Titus; he was like a father because he loved them so much and was a guide to them in their ministries. Paul was not putting himself in the place of God, and he never required anyone to call him “father.” In referring to Timothy and Titus as his children, Paul was expressing his love for them. Paul cared for them as a father loves his children and seeks their welfare.

Just as there is nothing wrong with using the word father metaphorically, there is nothing wrong with calling our earthly parents “father” and “mother.” In doing so we are not giving our parents an elevated title or position that belongs only to God. Our earthly parents are worthy of honor, and we are to honor our parents daily in the spirit of Exodus 20:12, Matthew 15:4, and Ephesians 6:1-3