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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, 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 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.

Turn in your Bible to the book of Galatians, in chapter 2. Galatians, chapter 2. I want to talk to you today on the seven truths of the gospel. Or another way I could put it is the seven shots to the core of man. When you really understand the truth of the gospel, it ought to shock you. When people really get it. A lot of time when I’ve won people of Christ they’ll say, you know, I never heard it like that before.

They’re shocked. You mean it’s free? You mean I don’t have to do anything? Then somebody says, you mean I can live as I please? They’re shocked because they know that’s totally contrary anything I’ve ever heard in their life. So I want you to listen closely today. I believe it’s important for you to know what is the truth of the gospel because there’s a lot of consequences to pay for not believe in the truth of the gospel. Here in the book of Galatians in chapter 2, don’t you look in verse 4, and that because of false brethren, unawares brought in who came in privately to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into bondage.

The only reason for adding works to the gospel is to put people in bondage. false teaching. The truth of the gospel sets you free. One work added to the gospel puts you in bondage. Now you must perform. You must do something. Whatever it is they want to add to it. It is no longer the gospel. So the Apostle Paul made this statement in verse 5, To whom, these false teachers, we gave place by subjection note not for an hour.

We didn’t move one inch for them. We didn’t compromise for anybody. So he says that the truth of the gospel, see that phrase? The truth of the gospel. The truth of the gospel is that salvation is by grace and grace alone. That it might continue with you. The reason for always believing that it’s my grace because once you believe and accept somebody else’s teaching that you have to do something add one word to it the truth of the gospel cannot continue because now you changed it into something else so that you understand what I’m saying.

If a man is saved by grace then he cannot be saved by words. If he is saved by grace there isn’t anything else for him to do. Just believe. But when you tell a man that he must make Christ the Lord or the Master of his life, something you must do, you’ve just added works to the gospel. It’s no longer the grace, it’s no longer free. You just put somebody in bondage. They must now perform and if they don’t perform, they’re not saved.

They have every reason to question and doubt their salvation. Or if you do like most preachers do, tell a person they must turn from their sins to be saved. Or if they use the word repent of your sins to be saved means the same thing. If you must turn from your sins to be saved, you just added works to the truth of the gospel. The truth of the gospel is grace. If you add something to it, it’s no longer grace.

Then it’s no longer free and you just put somebody in bondage. They have now got the promise to stop doing those bad things so that they will qualify for God to save them. That’s work for salvation that is not the gospel, that is not the Bible. The Bible does not teach that. And yet there’s a multitude of preachers all across this country that’s added work to the gospel. Now look what he says in Galatians in chapter 1. You’ll notice there in verse 6, he says, I marvel that you saw so soon, remove from him that called you into the grace of Christ into another gospel.

But look at the next part of the verse. In verse 7, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel. How do you pervert the gospel? The gospel is it is by grace. you pervert the gospel by adding works to it. So those who add works to it are a bunch of perverts.

And you can tell them where I pastor. And you can give my email address. You can give my phone number. I don’t back up. I wait carefully the words that I say and I mean what I say. Nobody, no man, no preacher has the authority to change what thus saith the Lord. When God says it’s free, it’s free. And we’re not to move not one little inch to give it to somebody else, our precious message and say that theirs is okay when they add works to the gospel because you cannot be saved by your works.

It perverts the gospel. And then notice what he says here in verse 8, but though we are an angel from heaven preach unto you any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be a curse. And as we said before, so say, and now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you, then that you have received, let him be a curse. It’s a pretty strong statement. In other words, there is no other gospel.

There’s not another gospel of the same kind. There’s not another gospel of a different kind. Two different words that are used, heteros, and the word allos in the Greek. And there’s not another one. There is no other gospel except the one true gospel that God gave, man is saved by grace. You say it was that important. Well, I believe it is. Take your Bible and turn to the book of 2 Thessalonians in chapter 2.

2 Thessalonians, and notice there in chapter 2, will begin in verse 8. It’s talking about the tribulation period that’s right ahead of us. It’s talking about the antichrist that’s going to come back and do all of his dirty business before Christ comes back and power and great glory to the earth and sets up his kingdom. So verse 8 says, and then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, even him who’s coming is after the working of Satan.

So Satan’s going to be working to the tribulation period. He comes into the temple and claims that that He is God and bring great persecution upon the world, and especially to annihilate the nation of Israel. And then Christ comes back and power and great glory, and every eye will see Him. Then He says they’re in verse nine, even Him who’s coming His after the working of Satan with all power and signs and line wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them, that perish.

Now notice, because they receive not the love of the truth truth that they might be saved. The gospel, the pure gospel, the real gospel, the gospel of grace is the truth. And if you want to preach the truth of the gospel, then it has to be in agreement with what God says it is. The gospel isn’t what everybody wants to say it is. And just because somebody can put on their suit and look good and church be packed. If the gospel isn’t the gospel, It’s not the gospel.

There’s only one gospel and it has to be with the absence of work. Now let me just mention this to you. We often do this and we do it kind of quickly. I teach all the kids in the college how to do the little wallet illustration. You see me do it every service, true, and we do it sometimes very quickly and you don’t really think it through mating. But the truth of the gospel is the gospel that we present.

Now, you see me do this. Let this hand represent you and me, the wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. God said that He loves us, that He hates our sin. For us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God and Hell. But the Bible says the wages of sin is death, so everybody has to die. But to go to heaven you have to be perfect and no one’s perfect. We cannot earn our salvation. We cannot work our way to heaven by our good deeds.

The good news is Jesus Christ, this hand represents Jesus Christ. God in His Christ came into the world because, well, He loves us, hates our sins, because our sins separate us from Him. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead, and said that if we would believe He did it for us, we could know we have eternal life. Now I just covered all seven steps in the gospel. In order, just like I learned over 51 years ago at Florida Bible College, Dr.

Hank Lindstrom taught the very same thing that I’m teaching. He learned it from the same guy that I learned it from. Dr. A. Ray Stanford. We didn’t create this, we just use it because it explains the truth of the gospel. Number one, when we talk about we are all sinners. If we understand what we just said, we are all sinners. I am a sinner, that means I must have done something wrong. If I say I did something wrong, it means there has to be something right.

That means there has to be absolute right and an absolute wrong and it’s not all a dirty gray. It means that if there is something that is right, where did right come from? Where did the standard of morality come from. By simply stating, I am a sinner. You are a sinner. We are all sinners. Means that there has to be a God. That statement proves there must be a God that decided what was right and what was wrong. Because you don’t see dogs getting together and the a dog looking at another dog saying, you’re a sinner of a dog.

You are a sinner. You dog offered people say that to them. But dogs don’t worry about morality. Dogs don’t get together to try to have a prayer meeting if they don’t do stuff like that. They don’t do right and wrong. You can train them, but they’re not thinking dogs. They’re just reacting to training that you’ve done. But now think, I am a sinner. There’s a lot of people that don’t even believe they are sinners. They believe a sinner is somebody who rob banks, kill people.

I thought that’s just what I go. Trace is up here singing this beautiful song. And she says about Jesus dying for her. A wretched person like her. A wretched person. She’s not wretched. I know her. I mean she’s one of the sweetest people that I know Is she in here right now? Let’s see that can’t take my preaching but anyway She is such a sweet lady gracious lady I hardly ever see her do anything that’s wrong. I can be she me wretched and Yet does not the Bible say that we’re all wretched We’re all sinners and regardless of how good you think you are in God’s eyes you are a sinner and get this.

That is a great truth everybody has to come face to face with. The truth of the gospel is you and I we are sinners. Another great truth that’s within this boundary of the gospel that we preach is that the The wages of sin is what? The wages of sin is death. It might shock you. Some of you might maybe didn’t even think about this. But I hate to tell you on the day that you finally said, I’m coming to church today and in the preacher he told me, you’re going to die.

Did that shock you? For you that have already thought about, you know most people don’t want to think about death. They’ll do anything, keep from thinking about death and yet it comes upon every last one of us. But isn’t it a great truth to know, to understand, to accept you and I? We’re going to die. You are going to die. I am going to die. And we may be dying sooner than we think. We don’t know how long we’re going to live.

But the truth of the matter is, you cannot escape it. We are destined to die. It is appointed under every man once to die and after this, the judgment. So you see, these are great truth. We are all sinners. Everybody in the world needs to understand that. And it doesn’t matter how great your sin is or how little your sin is or whether it was just a little white lie. If you’re not perfect, you are a sinner. And the wages of sin is death.

Now the Bible says that there is a place called heaven, and it is a perfect place. That’s why we don’t tell people whenever you do good work, so you get to go to a good heaven. No, there is none good. No, not one. There is a perfect heaven and you have to be perfect to go there. You don’t go there to get perfect. You must be perfect to go there. No sin is permitted in heaven. If you understand, I am a sinner.

I must die. There is a place called heaven and it is a perfect place. I am a sinner. I am not perfect. It is perfect. I am not perfect. I got a problem. Do you see a problem? You ought to see a problem because it is the truth of the gospel that helps a man to see the truth of the basic seven cores that shape the man to his soul. Because see, This is so important because every time we explain the gospel, we’re letting people know heaven is a perfect place and to go there you must be perfect.

And because of that, it shows the impossibility of a man attaining perfection. You cannot achieve perfection. You can’t change the situation. You’re under the sentence of death. You know there’s another great truth that we often present in the giving of the gospel because see the gospel is good news but you have to understand the bad news in order to appreciate the good news because without the bad news you don’t know there’s good news but the good news is it wouldn’t be needed if there was no bad news.

So we often say these four things. We’re all sinners, we’re all condemned. You’ve got to be perfect to go to heaven and you can’t earn it. Those four things is bad news, bad news for us because there’s nothing we can do. Then we talk about the good news of the gospel. But the other bad news is, as God says, You can not earn your way to heaven. It is not by works that we have done. Not of works lest any man should boast.

So salvation cannot include any of your works. Good, bad, indifferent. Your intentions don’t matter. Try and doesn’t help. Just because you want to. Your good works have absolutely nothing to do with your destination. You are condemned already. You’re not going to be condemned. You’re not going to wait until you stand at some judgment, some day to find out what’s going to be my destination. I talked to the judge. He already told me on you.

I’m not the judge. I’m just going to tell you what the judge said. there wouldn’t he tell you that he wrote it in a book I read the book he says you’re guilty he says you’re condemned he says you can’t save yourself and he says there’s only one hope and that’s to believe the good news now because it’s important a man cannot save himself by his work do you realize if you understood that and if everybody in the world understood you cannot save yourself by your good work it automatically closes down all religions in the world.

All the religions in the world and almost all the nominations and churches are trying to get people to be good enough to get to heaven and it won’t work. Look how much I could save them. Do you realize how many people are giving money trying to earn their way to heaven by their way to heaven? They think because they give money to the church that helps. No it doesn’t. When we pass the offer in place here. You can take some out, but the heathen anyway, no.

The reason we don’t pass the hat, because we wouldn’t get the hat back. But you’re giving your money does not help you get inside the pearly gates. Coming to church, and that’s nice. And we everybody appreciate people when they go to church. Because people that go to church, those are good people. Those are good people. I mean good people, they go to church. and therefore you must be good because you’re doing something good. God says in his eyes there’s no difference.

We have all sin and come short of the glory of God. Short of God’s perfection. Nobody is good enough to go to heaven. That’s why there’s no good heaven. There’s only a perfect heaven and you and I by our works are not perfect and will never be. You see it is impossible. That’s why we need to save you. Now the other point and everybody’s heard this and this is the good news Christ died for my sins. Now think about it, Christ died for my sins.

Why? Why did Christ die for my sins. If He died for my sins, it’s because He didn’t want me to pay for my sins. He must have loved me enough that He was willing to do whatever it took to pay for my sins. Well, what would He have to do for me to pay for my sins? So He went to the bank and took out a large draft and He made a payment. No. Jesus didn’t come into this world and go to church to pay for my sins.

He didn’t even keep the 10 commandments to pay for my sins because He kept the 10 commandments and He still didn’t pay for my sins. He didn’t live a good righteous life so that that didn’t pay for my sins. All the perfection that He had didn’t pay for my sins because He was perfect before. He was perfect when he was here. He had to do something for me that I was going to have to do if he didn’t. What was I going to have to do?

The wages of sin is what? And that’s eternal separation from God. Take your Bible and turn it with me to the book of Revelation. Revelation and chapter 20, Revelation chapter 20. And just look at this verse, Revelation chapter 20 and verse 13. Verse 13 says, and the sea gave up the dead which were in it, death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their worth. Every man judged according his works.

Most people will say, well, this is the decide who gets to go to heaven and this decides who gets to go to hell. All these people are already going to hell. These people already came from hell and are on their way to the final hell. But there being judged according to their works, their works could not save them. No man has ever been or ever will be saved from hell by their works. So notice what he says. Verse 14, death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.

This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. That’s the destiny of every person who rejects Jesus Christ as their Savior. Now that’s where we were headed. And if I I die without Christ and I can’t pay for my sins. That’s where I go. So Christ, to keep me from going to hell, died for me in my place so that I wouldn’t have to. But the payment he made is not put to my account just because he did it.

It’s put to my account when I believe on him and trust him. Then the payment he made is put to my account. I get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for me. So the good news of the gospel is that Christ died for my sins. But you see, if you only told people that without telling them the other part, they don’t get the truth of the gospel. The truth of the gospel is you’re in a heap of trouble.

The truth is we’re all sinners. The truth is heaven is perfect. The truth is you got a debt. The truth is, you can’t earn your way to heaven. You can’t get out of this. You can’t change it. And because of that, Christ died for my sins. Now, if Christ died for my sins, it’s because he didn’t want me to have to pay for my sins. And he said that if I would believe that he did it for me, he would put that payment he made to my account.

I’d get to go to heaven on what he did. So one of the easiest things in all the world sometimes seems like it’s the hardest thing in all the world because it’s free. It’s the gift of God. The gift of God is eternal life. So only thing you and I have to do is to believe. And when we believe on Him, He says you can have the free gift of ever lasting life and get this. The only requirement is to believe.

And some people say, well, believe it is a work. Believe it is a work. Well, I got news for you. And just because you asked that question, I’m not going to answer it. Look there in the book of Romans in chapter Romans chapter 4 and notice what he says in verse 5. Romans chapter 4 verse 5. It says, this is on page 1196 in a Bible that was loaned to you, one of our church Bibles. And verse 5 says, but to him that work it not but believe it on him that justify it, the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

God doesn’t want your works, your deeds, your promises, your pledges, your changed life. None of that helps get you to heaven. You’re not saved because you turn from a sin or because you promised how you’re gonna live. God will not save you if you’re dependent upon that. He only save you if you’re dependent upon him. Not you dependent upon you. If it depends on you, then you’re not dependent on him. Isn’t that clear? So he says, but do him that worketh not, but believe it.

So then believe in is not working for salvation. Believing is simply you believe that what he did, he did it for you and you’re trusting him to save you. That’s the truth of the gospel. When you add something else to that, it’s no longer free. And the reason that God did it this way is so that it would be sure. Look what he says in verse 16. O Romans chapter 4, verse 16. Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace.

Why? To the end, the promise might be sure to all the seed. It’s the only way it can be sure is it has to be free If it’s not free, you can’t be sure You’re always hoping and guessing maybe I’m trying Stop all of that. That’s not the gospel that puts you into bondage You’re trying to work for something that God has already done the work for He did the work when he died on the cross. He said a couple words.

It is that means there’s nothing you have to do. Have you heard about Bibleline Institute, the online Bible College of Bibleline Ministries? There are 11 different Bible College courses to choose from, and for this month, we’d like to give you a free enrollment to the class Cult Evangelism 1 taught by Dr. Arnold. For your gift to Bibleline Ministries in any amount, you’ll have full use of the 10-hour course which you can access whenever you like, and as often as you’d like.

like it’s all online. The classes include video instruction, lecture notes and quizzes if you’d like to submit and again it’s all online. When you send in your gift, please include your email address and we’ll enroll you in the class, Cultivangelism 1. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your email address or contact information. God bless you and thank you again for supporting Bible Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. 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. 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. and believe in that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.