JD:
David there seems to be a lot of
effort on the part of the Catholic Church and especially the present Pope, Pope
Frances to completely undo the Reformation to make it seem as if it should
never have happened.
DJ: Well that’s certainly true and we’ve talked about
that a lot on this program. He’s made efforts in reaching out to not just Evangelicals and other Christian denominations but also other religions around
the world including Muslims and Jews and those in other faiths even Hinduism
and things like that.
But the other part of this is that it’s not just the
matter of hope but steps have been taken by both Catholics and Evangelicals
over the last 25 years or so. For example, going back to 1994 there was a
document that was put together called the Evangelical and Catholics together
document the ECT document. In that document you have endorsed and put together
by some very prominent Christian leaders. For example, Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship, Richard Land who is well known in the Southern Baptist
convention, Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, Mark Noll who is an Evangelical
historian. They were involved in the formation of this document and it was
basically saying that for all practical purposes the Reformation is over. They
made statements like this, let me just read a couple of quotes, all who except
Christ as Lord and Savior are brothers and sisters in Christ. Evangelical’s and
Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ. So in other words they’re saying
with broad brush strokes is that Evangelical’s and Catholics can consider one
another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Now if you go back to the Reformation the Reformation was about the issue of justification. How is someone saved? And the Reformation doctrine says going back to the Bible that we are saved by grace
through faith alone apart from works. And they are essentially saying that the
two groups Catholics and Evangelicals are coming together in their
understanding.
JD: David James on the effort by the Pope and others to
overturn the Reformation.
We report this information because it is setting the
stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.
The Reformation was the statement to the world of
how someone would receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In other words they
would get saved. Ephesians 2:8 & 9 says that by grace through faith. By the
way that’s faith alone not works that’s how you come to know Christ as Lord and
Savior.
