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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

A lot of things that I will teach as years go by, you will hear, say, I heard a part of that before. Well, after a while, see a lot of things begin to be put together. And a lot of things I will teach over again because I know this time goes on. You don’t remember everything totally. Even I don’t. And I’ve preached a lot of messages, you know, the same. But since I’ve been here, I’ve preached a lot of different messages also.

And so this is on the dangers of Calvinism, but many people do not know how to defend themselves, and some don’t even recognize it when they hear it. And therefore I think this will be a help to you. Can a man be forced by God to accept Christ as Savior against his will and call that grace? Isn’t that a good question? You see, everybody was lost, but they believe that God is the one who picks and chooses. Like here’s all the people in the world.

But for some unknown reason, God chooses a few of y’all say, 10 on this side and 10 on this side. And He gives you a special grace to believe. So when He gives you this irresistible grace, it has nothing to do with your desire or will Maybe you want to go to hell, but it won’t matter. You’re going to heaven like it or not. And so he is overwhelmed your will and caused you by force. You have to believe and trust Christ is your Savior.

To me I call that heresy. And then the next question is, can a man be forced to persevere in the faith to prove he is saved and call that living by grace? Because you see the ones that he saved against their will, because he had to override their real genuine will and caused them to believe something that they had no choice in believing, and now tells them that they have to prove that they have really had this experience by how they lived their life and now they’ve got to change their life and persevere until the end without any choice of their own and call that living by grace.

I call that heresy. I don’t believe that’s taught in the Word of God, but the Calvinists teach that by believing that God has selected a few choice individuals to save them and the rest of you can go to hell. I don’t believe that. And I’d like to explain a few things to you where it makes a statement here is grace truly grace. If it cannot be rejected, that’s why they call it irresistible grace. you resist grace. It means can you resist the will of God?

They’re saying you cannot resist the will of God. It’s irresistible. Now I understand a little bit when I poured on my charm with Betty and she was just she couldn’t resist because it was irresistible charm. But here we’re talking about God is grace truly grace if it cannot be rejected. Can God make His salvation and then not allow those individuals that He chose to reject it? And then call that grace. When it’s forced upon the individuals. You see, I have a problem with this understanding, with this teaching.

The next statement, if God is not a respecter of persons, what did God use to determine his choice for salvation? Calvinism and grace are not compatible. It’s not compatible. Now I want you to take your Bible and turn it with me to the book of Acts in chapter 10, because the Bible says that God is not a respecter of persons. And I’d like to show you that in this context and what it means by that. I believe it’s very, very important.

Here in the book of Acts in chapter 10, Acts, chapter 10, looked there in verse 34. Verse 34 says, then Peter opened his mouth and he said, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons because the Jews thought salvation was only for the Jews and not for the Gentiles and God wouldn’t save Gentiles. That’s like thinking that God would only save the Jew and he would never save the Gentiles. What’s the difference in that and what a Calvinist believe?

That God has a certain chosen Jew, but the rest of them, God doesn’t want. You see, I don’t believe that. The Bible says that God is not a respecter person because let’s say all of you in this room. You didn’t ask to be born. You’re here. But if there’s this God up there and He looks down and He says, I think I’ll save. Okay, I need to pick out somebody. Okay, I’ll take Terry here. I’ll save him. I’ll save Peter.

Yeah. Herman. Yeah, I like Herman. I’ll save Herman. And I think that’s about all the ones I want I want to save on this side. Oh, I’ll be here now. And I look over here. Oh, I like Mo. Mo. Mo. I’m gonna let make sure Mo gets to go. And, you know, there’s Tom back there. I think I’ll choose Tom. And I think that’s all that I want on this side. Now, if God is not a respecter person’s, the rest of you, the rest of you, may have a question in your mind.

Something don’t seem fair here. Because you see, you don’t even have a choice. You don’t have the ghost of a chance. You can’t go to heaven if you want to go to heaven because God didn’t choose, you see. Well, see, this is what some people say. But if God is not a respecter of persons, why was he able to select a few and not the rest? So he would have been a respecter of persons because he had to choose somebody because of some rule, some reason.

What would be God’s logic in picking Peter to go to heaven and you to go to hell? What would be his reason? But God’s word says he is not a respecter of persons. In other words, it doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter who you are. So look at the next verse in verse 34, but in every nation he that feareth him and work righteousness is, look at the next three words, accepted with Him. It don’t matter who you are, where you are, what nation it doesn’t matter, anybody.

So I would rather choose the word of God over the philosophy of man. Look back there in your notes, I want you to see this. I would like to give to you my position on the phyotheological positions of Calvinism. This intellectual position is not of God but of man. The following simple acrostic pullup is the classic reform five point Calvinist viewpoint. The T stands for total depravity of man. U stands for unconditional election. The L stands for limited atonement.

The I stands for irresistible grace and P stands for the perseverance of the saints. Now you may not say, well I don’t even know what all that means. Well let me explain it to you because you do need to know. Because probably 90 to 95% of all the preachers in America are teaching this or a form of it. And that’s not a line, that’s not a joke. But you’ll sit there and you’ll listen, but you will not detect it.

But it will plant seeds of destruction and people will question and doubt their salvation or become totally hypocritical in their own life as they judge the sins in their life. And as they become the fruit and specters and everybody else’s life, take a Bible, look Romans in chapter 2 real quick. Romans in chapter 2, I have absolutely no idea if I will finish this today. I may get on a rabbit trail. Sometimes the rabbit trail ain’t bad. But in Romans in chapter 2 I want you to underline verse 6 in your Bible.

You ought to underline this verse. Because it’s to let you know out of all the people in all the world, I believe God is the same overall. In verse 6, who shall render to every man according to his deeds? How can God do that if you’re not responsible for your choices? If there is a God and he has predetermined everything that everybody does and he gives you this irresistible grace that you’re going to do whatever God wants you to do, How can God find fault with you?

Why should God blame you for your decisions and with his fault? I didn’t ask to be born, but here I am. And I believe that God up in heaven holds me accountable for my deeds because I am responsible and it is my choice. I can make a deliberate decision. But they say according to the number one, totally, the gravity of man is so depraved, he cannot be responsible for his decisions. He can’t believe on Christ unless it’s the Lord that gives him the faith to believe on Christ.

And he actually has to be born again before he actually believes on Christ. That’s ridiculous. They get it all mixed up. They mutilate Ephesians 2.89. You say, does it bother me? It burns me up. No man has a right to tamper with the word of God, to twist it because he doesn’t understand something. I may not understand why God does what he does, but I ought to be able to understand what he wrote. And he says, this is my thoughts on this, and my thoughts on that, my thoughts on this, and I’m supposed to read and study it.

But look what he says, who shall render to every man according to his deeds.” Now look down there in verse 9. I want you to see the tribulation and anguish upon, and you ought to underline the word, every, every soul of man that doeth evil to the Jew first, also to the Greek. It didn’t matter if you were Jew or you were Greek. Every soul. In verse 11, he states it again, there is no respect of persons with God.

For as many have sinned with the law, or as many have sinned without the law, Every man is going to count for himself because of his choice. You see, God is not that fatalistic. It means that predestination, which is an act of God and foreknowledge is an attribute of God. There’s things that God knows, but he didn’t cause it to happen. See, God may know you’re going to rob a 7-11 store tomorrow, but don’t blame God if you do it.

That’s your choice. God simply has foreknowledge, just an attribute. Predestination is an act of God, it’s what He does. God has, yes, from the foundations of the world predetermined before any man was ever born. That He was going to save a man by faith and faith alone. So God has predetermined that everyone that would believe on Jesus Christ would be saved and have eternal life and God has already decided before any man was born before he did any good, before he did any bad.

bad, God has already decided to every man who rejects Christ as a Savior, was spending eternity in hell. But it’s your decision, and my decision to believe or not believe, it is not true that God just gives faith to certain individuals. And so therefore they can be saved. But if He didn’t give you the faith, you can’t be saved. I don’t agree with that. And I believe that it is totally wrong. Look back there in your notes. I believe it is a sin to teach that a man is so totally depraved that he does not have the ability to choose act or believe on what God says.

To believe that God would first or must first give faith to a man of his choosing before he can believe on Christ is to state unequivocally that God is a respecter person. That means if God only gave it to some and not to others, why? Then he’s not treating everybody the same. No respecter person means just that. It means everybody’s treated the same way. So how can God do the other? It is not the word of God that Calvin is using teach.

Look there in the little box. For those who teach that God has chosen from the foundations of the world, they select for you to be saved and go to heaven. While the majority of people remain lost, condemned to hell without the possibility of ever being say because they were not chosen is to be in total denial of what God said and what Christ did.

Whether you know it or not, that’s an awesome statement. And I made it. I put it in bold. Should have put my name after that. Look at the next statement. The Lord has not authorized any man to alter his clear stated word that he commanded the entire world here to limit the payment that Christ made for sin. To a select few makes the claim that God did not so love the world or that Christ did not die for all men.”

You understand what I’m saying? You see, they’re saying that Christ only had to die for the ones that God knew would believe and the rest of them, He didn’t pay for their sins. So then the offer to those people who don’t believe is illegitimate. It’s not a true representation. It’s not sincere. In other words, why preach the gospel to the lost man? But I have to inform you, God never paid for your sins. You can’t go to heaven if you wanted to.

Because see, he’s already selected a few. You can’t go. Well then why waste my time talking to a man that God can’t save? The only man God can’t save is the man who doesn’t trust Christ as Savior. Everybody can be saved. Every man. To teach that God’s grace is so irresistible that the man whom God have chosen to be saved is helpless to resist is to also teach that no man can be saved whom God has not chosen. So that means that if God didn’t choose everybody to be saved and you only chose a handful, then all the rest of them could not be saved even if they wanted to.

You know what’s interesting? As you have some people who supposedly believed this, they get saved and then they have to persevere in the faith. It means that they have to live the life. You’ve got to walk that straight and narrow road. It means that if you got out your magnifying glass and you examine them, oh, there’s that perfect example of the Christian because you see, you have to perform. Now, that person that after a while realized I cannot stand the pace I can’t live this Christian life.

I am a failure. I quit. And body multitudes do. Because I can’t live it. And they feel like you’re a hypocrite. So now they wanted to go to heaven, but they can’t go to heaven because they can’t persevere. But they want to go to heaven. I’ve had people say, well, the only ones who want to go to heaven are the ones that God’s given grace to. Okay, well, there’s some that want to go and they can’t go because they can’t live the life.

They’ve already tried it and failed, but they want to go to heaven. You see, I wanted to go to heaven. Most people do want to go to heaven. They just don’t know they can because of what some stupid preacher has tried to put upon the people and tell them that you don’t qualify because God didn’t choose you because he got only chose a few and the multitude can’t be saved. I believe that anybody I talk to, if you draw breath, you can trust Christ as your Savior.

But anyway, this damnable teaching in reality denies to every man the choice of heaven or hell, leaving every man with no responsibility for his destination. To teach that a believer in Christ will persevere in the faith until death or until the Lord comes causes one’s to focus upon the works of man and not the Word of God. No man who observes his own personal life as the basis for his salvation can ever be certain of his salvation. If how you live determined whether or not you really know you’re saved because look at the change in my life.

You have every reason to doubt your salvation because what if tomorrow you don’t perform? What if tomorrow your old sinful nature gets the best of you? What if you say and think things you shouldn’t? How many sins cause you to lose it? Nobody knows. How many righteous deeds do you have to perform to convince everybody? Yes, I’m really saved. Well the questions and the doubts that come. There is no security in it. That’s why whenever you’re a Calvinist, you cannot be sure of eventually making it to heaven.

You see, when I trusted Christ as my Savior 52 years ago, that day, that night, that moment, I trusted Him as my Savior. I knew I had eternal life. I knew I was going to heaven that day. And it was rested upon nothing more than what God said. And so for 52 years, nothing I’ve ever said or done. Has ever changed that verse in the Bible that says I was? Because my confidence is not in me or my works or my life, it is in what Christ said.

He said, if I trust Him, I have everlasting life. That was all I needed that day and that moment, and that’s all I’ve ever needed since. My security is in the Word of God and not in my works. And the man who looks at his life to try to use that as the proof has got reason to question reason to question and doubt his own salvation, if you’re honest. Because not a person in here is living to the standard of the Word of God perfectly.

And you know it and so do I. You may desire it, but you can’t perform. Turn your page. I’ll never finish this today, I know that. You’ve already noticed that, haven’t you? I want you to understand this thought. The Bible says that God so loved the world, but if it’s not love for all, there would be a flaw in the character of God. I wrote that down this morning in my office. Think about it again. If not love for all, there would be a flaw and the character of God.

Does God love the whole world? Every individual to have left off one man would be a flaw in this character. Something’s wrong with the love of God. God so loved the world. That’s everybody. Every individual. Look at the top of the page. Jesus tries to pay and fold the payment our life sends. This enables a righteous, just and holy God, the power to forgive each and everyone, all of their sins who simply believe He did it for them. What right does any man have to cause any person in this world to believe these three things?

Look at this. Number one, that God doesn’t love Him or tell Him that Christ did not die for Him. Or three, He could not go to heaven even if He wanted to because God did not choose Him. What purpose person would you want to tell that to? What person would you want to tell that to? Yeah, but if you’re a Calvinist and you believe that God is chosen just a handful, you’ll have to say it about all the ones you didn’t choose.

It’s okay if you’re one of those that, well, I’m one of those that really believed it. So I’m the one that God chose. And so you begin to prove that you’re one he chose because see, I go to church and I live a good life. I love my wife, my wife loves me and everything, hunky-dory. And what happens two years down the road when she divorces you? And you’re on the rocks, and your life is pathetic. Okay, now what?

Where is your security now? And then you may wanna go to heaven, but you realize if you’re honest, you’re not living the way a Christian’s supposed to live. You don’t think the way a Christian’s supposed to think. Your mind is not pure as it ought to be. Your attitude isn’t right. Look at the next thing. The following verses are often used to prove the case for the teaching of Calvinism. Ephesians 2.89, you ever heard of that? Oh, these are two awesome verses.

For by grace are you saved through faith in that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. What is by grace? Salvation. What is through faith? Salvation. What is not of works? Salvation. What is not of yourselves? Salvation. What is the gift of God? Faith. That’s what they say. That’s what the Calvinists teach. Faith is the gift. You can’t get safe. Let’s God gives you the faith. What do you do?

He gives the faith to the other person, believing Buddha and Muhammad and Confucius. What about all the people who believe all kind of weird things? See, every man has the ability to believe, to trust. You are responsible where you put your faith. It only means to something. Christ is the object of my faith. You can trust that pew to take you to heaven, but I got news for you. It doesn’t have the ability to perform. You can trust this preacher to get you to heaven, but I got news for you.

I’m not able to perform that task. Every believer in here can’t save one man. So don’t trust us. Don’t trust the church. Don’t trust the priest. Don’t trust some father someplace. You trust only the one who can deliver. And that’s Jesus Christ. If you trust him, God said he will save you and he will give you as a free gift ever lasting life. Look down there at the little word error. God not only chose us, but he also predetermined to save us from the foundations of the world.

world. Now that seems good when you first look at it, because you get that from a certain verse and I’ll show you that in just a second. But notice what he says here, the truth. God chose, means predetermined, to save all those who are in Him from the foundation of the world. See, here’s Christ. He died for you. He was buried for you. He came back from the grave for you. See, he did that for you. So when you believe he did it for you, God puts you in Christ as though you were spiritually in Christ and you literally died and was buried and rose again.

So God from the foundation of the world has chosen to save all those that are in Him in Christ to be made pure and holy separated, the having turned a life. But look at the verse 4, Ephesians chapter 1, right here, according as he has chosen us, and here’s those two words on your note. You ought to circle those two words in him. You see, they ought to leave those off, because he in him was your choice. How he chose to save his choice.

He chose to save all of those who chose to be saved by trusting in Christ. Do you get it? The next verse down there says in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, but we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. See, that’s what it says. See that you’ve got to go by the way. He chose to save me from the foundations of the world.

But look at the whole thing. God had from the beginning chosen you to salvation through what? Through sanctification of the Spirit and underlined those last four words. And what? Belief of the truth. He chose to save all of those from the beginning the world, those that believe the truth. So you see, it falls back on to you. It wasn’t an irresistible thing. I had to make a literal decision, definite decision. I will trust Jesus Christ as my Savior. I’m not going to heaven because I was overpowered by something.

No. I had to know what I’m doing. I made a deliberate decision, a choice. I knew the consequences. I knew it. But I don’t trust Christ and going to hell if I do I go to heaven. But there’s people that don’t believe that, but they use all the right languages, sounds so pretty, sounds so spiritual, and they sound so holy. This is poison. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tepa, Florida with Dr.

Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll-free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the radio broadcast link.

If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen, the trumpet will sound, and we will be changed.

Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.