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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 through the Bibleline website at calvaryoftampa.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family.

First Timothy chapter one, look there in verse seven. There are people who desire in verse seven, Desiring to be teachers of what? The law, not grace. Law and grace are two different things, like water and oil won’t mix, law and grace won’t mix. Law is one thing, grace is something else. Law means you must deserve, grace means you don’t deserve, you can’t mix the two together. God says, if it is by grace, then it cannot be by works, otherwise grace is in grace.

But if it is by works, then it cannot be by grace, otherwise work is in work. Because see, they oppose each other. One means you work for it, and that’s how you get it. You deserve it. The other one is by grace means you don’t deserve it. That means without works. So you can’t be saved by grace plus works because if it was by your works, then it can’t be by grace. Salvation either has to be free or it’s not free.

So the Bible says here in 1 Timothy chapter 1 down there in verse 7, these are to be teachers of the law understanding neither what they say, nor where of they affirm. In other words, they don’t the what they’re talking about. They’re teachers of the law trying to get people to promise to be good. Have you ever heard certain people teach or preachers that you must commit your life to Christ in order to be saved? That’s mean, yes, you promising that you’re going to live right in order to be saved.

That’s wrong. That’s totally false. You do not commit your life to Christ in order to be saved. You don’t make Christ the Lord and the Master of your life in order to be saved because that means you’ve got to promise that you’re going to live a certain way. That’s wrong. I don’t get who the preacher is. It doesn’t matter. You can’t change what God’s word says. And even though a person may mean well, what they’re saying is still wrong.

A man is either saved by grace, not because he promises how he’s going to live. You may promise, I’m gonna never do that anymore. All right, what happens when you do it again? You’re not saved because you make God any promises. You’re saved because God promised, promised to save you. Have you ever heard that song go something like this? Just as I am with I, with one plea. You ever heard that before? That’s what it’s talking about. Just as I what?

Just as I am not as I ought to be. This verse is talking about that in verse 8. But we know that the law is good if a man uses it lawfully. In other words, the way it’s supposed to be used. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of Galatians and chapter 3. The book of Galatians and chapter three. And notice there in verse six, the Apostle Paul talked unto Gentiles who were being mixed up by those Jews.

The Jews that believe that they had to keep the law in order to be saved. So Paul is trying to tell them, look those Jews that trying to teach you that you got to keep the law, they don’t. Those same Jews that are trying to teach you Judaism is in a religion that doesn’t say because he says I was there. I was just like that. I did that. I was a Pharisee. That’s talked about in chapter 1. He said I did all of that.

He said I was above many my own age in the Jews religion. He says but it was false. He said it was wrong. He said I taught a man had to do all those things. So in verse 6 he says even Abraham who is the father of the nation of Israel said this. Even as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. In other words, a righteousness that God would give to an individual by faith alone.

Now, we talk about righteousness. Remember there says, two kinds of righteousness. There is the righteousness of man and the righteousness of God. God says, be found in him in Christ, not having my own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith. So God says, I will give you my righteousness. So if God promot me his righteousness, that would make me as righteous as God. So I go to heaven on his righteousness, not mine.

Christ came into the world and lived perfect. If he did that and lived perfect for me, then it’s just like in God’s eyes, I did that. I lived perfect. Because see what he did with Put to my account, God gave me his righteousness. He took my sin. We swapped places. And all those bad things. that I did. Yeah, he went to the cross and he died. He paid for them in my place. So in God’s eye, just like I went to the cross and I died and paid for all my sins.

Isn’t that wonderful? But he did it for me in my place. So here in Galatians, he says in verse 7, no ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. He said, look, you don’t have to become a Jew to become a child of Abraham. Abraham is considered a He is considered a father by faith. And all those who buy faith except Christ as their Savior are the children of faith or the children of Abraham.

Israel is not just automatically the children of Abraham. Only if you in Israel would trust Christ as your Savior. So you don’t have to become a Jew in order to become a child of Abraham. Oh, you have to accept Christ as your Savior by faith. And then you are a child of God. Now, I know that what he says in verse 8. and the scripture, meaning the Old Testament, foreseeing that God would justify the heat and through faith preached before the Abraham saying, and these shall all nations be blessed.

In the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis in chapter 12, later on in chapter 18, also chapter 15, the book of Genesis in chapter 12, later on in chapter 18, also chapter 15, Abraham was led to the early calities, was going to be a miracle child because Abraham and Sarah was past the age of child bearing and so therefore this child would have to be a miracle and that’s what salvation is. Abraham believed God and it was counted him for righteousness in Genesis chapter 15 and God says through thy seed shall all the nations of the earth will be blessed through thy seed singular.

So through Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob Jacob and so for all down the line, Christ was born. Around the line, Poe- down the line. The seed, Christ, the Messiah, in which the Gentiles believe on all over the world and Then go down the line. Down the line spite you. Right. Right. we are blessed. That blessing is the opposite of a cursing. Right. You and I were born into this world under a curse, the curse of sin. Right. We all sin, we all die.

Right. But the blessing of God is to have eternal life. Right. blessing of God, is talked about here is eternal life. All right. life. And I’ll show you that in just a moment. So notice there in verse 8, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in these shall all nations be bled. So was the gospel preached in the Old Testament? Yes it was. Was the gospel preached to Abraham? Why is that important? Because Abraham lived and talked about this from 430 years before the law was ever given.

So Abraham was not saved because he kept the law. No, Abraham didn’t have the law. The law was given through Moses on Mount Sinai 430 years later. So God had already promised to Abraham he’ll save people by faith in faith alone. If God’s gonna save him by faith, well then when he gave the law, did the law annul the promise that God made Abraham. No, the law did not know that promise. It means that God still is going to justify make right, just declare right, and a heathen by his faith and faith alone.

I’ve had people tell me, well you can’t tell me all you’ve got to do is just believe on Jesus Christ and you’ll go to heaven. Yes, I will tell you that. That’s exactly what God says. And any preacher who tells anything else doesn’t understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. They’re wrong. Dead wrong. And it burns me because I get a chance to talk to a lot of people that are so mixed up because some preacher calls himself a preacher and man of God and just because they put a name of a church on the top of it, they said they’re a church.

They’re not a church and he’s not a preacher of God. God said if he says it by grace he’s the one that made heaven. He made hell. He made people and he says you get there free and no man has a right to mess with that and that one little work to it. Yet that burns me up. Look what he says in I verse 9, so then they which be a faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Abraham believed God it was kind of the him for righteousness and everybody in the whole world will believe just like Abraham believed by faith and faith alone without the law can be justified.

Had that same blessing. Just like he had. If you think you have to keep the law in order to be saved, how much of the law would you have to keep? All of it. Look in verse 10. He says, for as many as are of the works of the law are under the what? The blessing occurs. You’re under a curse. So under the law is a curse. But the blessing of God is by grace, means you’re removed from a curse.

You see, I once was lost and I was going to hell. I ain’t going to hell anymore. I’ve been blessed, blessed by God. God allowed me to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I trusted Him as my Savior, and saved by faith, and I’m going to heaven, I have eternal life. That’s the blessing of Abraham that the Bible says, upon all the families of the earth will be blessed. But He says, for it is written, cursed is everyone that continue, if not in all things, which are written in the book of the law to do them.

In other words, you gotta keep them all perfectly, and then if you did, there’s no law that said, God would save anybody who kept the law. Ain’t that something? So how do you know? Well, look in verse 19. Verse 19 says, Wherefore then serveth the law? What’s the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgression till the seed Christ should come to whom the promise was made. And now look in verse 21, is the law then against the promises of God?

God forbid. For if there had been a law given which could have given life, if there had been a law, Okay, you keep the law and you’ll go to heaven. If there had been a law given, then that would have been great. But God never said that. Where do you find the verses that you keep the law and you can have eternal life? There isn’t one. And he makes the statement last part that Verdi righteousness should have been by the law.

In other words, if you could earn it, you should earn it. If you could be good enough to go to heaven, you should be good enough to go to heaven. If you could earn your way to heaven by your good deeds and that’s the way it ought to be. That’s what he’s saying. Verily righteousness should have been by the law, like everybody’s saying in the world, all these various religions. But the only problem is, man is a sinner and he can’t save himself by his works.

Look there now in verse 16. Now to Abraham and his seed, singular, word the promises made, he saith not and decedes as of many, that as of one, and to thy seed which is Christ. So Abraham had God make it promise to Abraham. That’s the promise that was made Abraham. God is going to save by faith. Well, the law was given. What was the law given? So that no man would trust in his works. So that a man would trust Christ as a Savior so that God could fulfill the promise that he’d save him by faith.

Well, man ain’t going to trust Christ and put his confidence in Christ if If you think they can save himself by his good deeds. So I challenge every person, think they can keep the law to be safe. You got to be perfect. One hundred percent perfect. From beginning to end. And since no man is, then he ought to say, I can’t save myself. The law was a mirror. To show a person that their sinners and it will lead them to Christ.

Remember, until the seed come, the Messiah, till you come to Christ, you’re under the law. When you come to Christ and you trust Him as your Savior, now you’re removed from the curse of the law to the grace of God, and now you have eternal life and you’re going to heaven when you die, and you can never be placed under that curse again because you’re free from him. There is now no condemnation to those that are in Christ, but you are under condemnation when you’re not in Christ.

But when you trust Christ as your Savior, God gives you eternal life and you have eternal life. You’re going to heaven when you die. Now look in verse 17, verse 17, tremendous verse. And this I say that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, now get the law which was 400 and 30 years after God made that promise to Abraham cannot what? Disannolve. That it should make the promise of none of that. Just because God said, I want to save you by grace, it means you don’t have to earn it.

Then he gives the law for 130 years later. Can the law, and all the promise. God says, no, it doesn’t. The law was not given to save a man. It was given to show the man he can’t save himself by work so that he will trust Christ to save him and be saved by grace. Look there in verse 23. But before faith came, before you trusted Christ as your Savior, we were kept under the law shut up under the faith which would afterwards be revealed.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto who? Christ that we might be justified by What hey? So God says the law was given the show of man that he cannot save him to mount You put it into the today’s language. There may be a lot of people that say well We’re not talking about keeping the 10 commandments to go to heaven Which is about you got to do right you got to do good You got to behave you got to go to church you get money and pray and all these good deeds And if you don’t do all these good deeds then you’ll lose your salvation That’s the same thing as trying to keep the law to be safe You’re dependent upon man’s works and God said if you’re dependent upon your works, you can’t be saved It’s not that way.

It’s so important for people to see this and to understand this. Take your Bible and I’ll turn to James chapter 2. The book of James and chapter 2. And notice in verse 10, for whosoever, this is on page 1307, for whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of what? He’s guilty of all of them. That means that if you ever sin in any area, you’re guilty of all sins. You see, I don’t understand that.

Let me give you a brief illustration. 10 links in a chain, you’re hanging over a cliff, you’re hanging onto the last link in a chain. How many links have to break before you fall? Now, this is a tough question, very difficult. How many links got a break? Only one. matter which one. Same consequence as ain’t it? Your mashed potatoes. And so it doesn’t matter which one of those, well I never did this one and I never did this one and I never did this one, but what about the other one?

Well I did that one. Then you’re guilty of all of them. Wages of sin is death. Not wages of sins. The wages of sin is death. You sin, you die. That’s why everybody die. Why everybody’s a sinner. Doesn’t matter how many sins you committed. That’s why when you get up in the morning and you look in that mirror in the bathroom, well when you see that you got, you know, matting your eyes or you need a shave and you got turtleneck sweaters on your teeth and your hair is messed up and cobwebs in it, you don’t take the mirror off the wall and wash your face with it.

Purpose of the mirror is just to show you what’s wrong. That leads you to the soap and the water. That leads you to the toothpaste and the toothbrush that leads you to get the comb and comb your hair. That’s it leads you to something else. That’s the purpose of a mirror. The law is a mirror that leads you to Christ. You were like, good night. I didn’t know I was that bad. God says, yep, I told you it was that bad.

You’re that bad. You need a Savior and you cannot save yourself and that’s why you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. It makes sense that people are let it make sense. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of Romans in chapter three. The book of Romans and chapter 3. Romans chapter 3 has some very good statements because it concludes that all men have sinned. Everybody’s the center. You see in verse 10 says that there’s none righteous, no not one.

Why? Because you broke the law. In the last part of verse 10, or 11, there is none that seeketh after God. Last part of verse 12, there is none that doeth good, but no not one, by your works it just simply proves that you’re not a saint after all. Maybe a saint Bernard, but now are they sinner. Look in verse 20, I’m going to ask you in verse 19, verse 19, now we know that what things so ever the law say it, it’s safe to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

In other words, the law was given the show that everybody’s a sinner. And nobody is any better than anyone else. You are not going to heaven because you quit your drinking and you quit your smoking. And now you’re a good little person going to church. That is not why you’re going to heaven. You’re not going to, and if you’re listening to the broadcast, you’re not going to hell because you do all those bad things. You go to hell because you reject the payment Christ made for you.

That’s the only reason you go to hell. See, Christ has already paid for all your sins. And we’re not saved because we do good deeds and somebody else not say because they did bad deeds. Here in the Romans in chapter 3 makes a statement in verse 20, Therefore, understand this now, therefore by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. So anybody who said, well, you can’t do this and you can’t do that and you can’t do that, usually are, but they can’t be justified, cleared in God’s eyes.

So it would help a person to see they’re wasting their time trying to be something they can never be. That’s what you call a religious hypocrite. They think they’re so good. They don’t need to trust Christ only as their savior. They’re helping him out. They’re going to do their part and they’re good enough. But of course, if they don’t do their part, they lose whatever they had. That is not the Bible. Look in the last part of verse 20, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

The law is what you let you know that sin. that’s wrong. And that was the purpose of it. Now, look in verse 24. Being justified, what’s the next word? Freely. Being justified. I can be justified. I mean, from all those bad things I did, and all those bad things I’m going to do, I can be justified just as if I never did them. But I did them. God says, I’m going to save you by grace. Grace means you don’t deserve to be saved.

But I’m going to save you because I love you. Oh, you have to do is believe that I did this for you. I paid for your sins. I love you that much. And I’ll justify you freely. No charge to you by grace. Look at it. Being justified freely by his, what’s the word? Grace, unmerited favor. You didn’t deserve to be saved. I mean, God didn’t save you because you promised you’re going to go to church. promise you’re going to give money, you promise you’re going to live right?

That’s why sometimes it’s hard to get some people to trust the Lord because they said, I don’t think I can live. I said, live what? I can’t live the Christian life. Nobody said you had to live the Christian life to go to heaven. You don’t have to live a bad life to go to hell. Salvation is trusting Christ and being lost means you rejected Christ. Please understand that. Be unjustified freely by His grace. Now get the last part of the earth through the redemption because of the payment that was made by Jesus Christ.

Now with He paid for it, that’s redemption, bought by He paid for your sins. All you have to do is believe it. Now look what He says there in verse 28. Verse 28 says, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by what? Justified by faith. And let’s look at the last part of the verse. You’re going to underline that. And yet there’s still people who cannot believe that this is the book. I’ve had people say, well you’re just making that up.

You’re adding to the Bible. I am not adding to the Bible. A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law, without doing anything, without trying to earn it, saved by grace. Look there also in the book of Romans in chapter 4. Romans chapter 4 and look in verse 3. But what sayeth the scripture, Abraham, beleaved God and it was counted unto him for righteousness, by belief alone. Now look what he says in Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of death.

In other words, the man that wants to work for his salvation, earn his salvation, and I’m good enough that God says that he doesn’t get salvation by grace, it would be God would be in debt to that man. That’s why he said now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace. In other words, it’s not considered to be grace. That means that He deserved it. That’s a reward because He earned the right to go to heaven because He was good enough.

God said, that’s not grace. He says a man is saved by grace not by his works. So a person needs to understand the difference between grace and works. It’s either by grace totally free or it is totally by works. It cannot be a mixture of both. I cannot give you something to say, this is free, but you’ve got to pay for it. Now wait a minute, it’s either free or you’ve got to pay for it. going to heaven is either for ear you got to pay for it, but it can’t be both ways.

I mean, they totally say 100% by grace or I can’t be saved at all. And verse five, get verse five, but to him that worketh not, but believe it on him. You say, what about those who just all they do is believe. Can they still be saved just by believing? Well, what he said, but to him that worketh not doesn’t work. Doesn’t try to keep the law doesn’t do any of that. But believe it on him that justifyeth the ungodly his what?

His faith is counted for righteous. In other words, my beleaven is just like I lived a perfect life. In other words instead of me living a perfect life, I can just by faith believe that what Christ did is put to my account and it’s just like I did it all by faith alone. And yet there’s a bunch of morons out there that can’t see that and they They keep people in fear. They keep them blinded. So they think, well, I’ve got to go to church, and I’ve got to give money, and I’ve got to live right, or I’ll go to hell.

That’s not true. As much as I want people to come to church, as much as I want people to live right, I still don’t think it justifies me in lying to people. Deceiving people, because I’m afraid to tell them the truth. I had a man one time telling me to listen. Don’t tell anybody when you trust Christ as your Savior, you have eternal life. Because that’s a family secret, a family secret. I thought that was what God says, the broadcast from the highest heel.

That’s the same thing. I thought that Christ is going to all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. So everybody can know they have eternal life. What’s the reason of trusting Christ as your Savior? If you don’t know where you’re going, when you die. If you don’t know you have eternal life. And there’s a lot of people that are not sure where they go on when they die. And there it is if it’s by faith and faith alone.

I want you to see this. Look there now in verse 14. Verse 14, for if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void. And the promise made of none of faith. In other words, the only ones who get in here at this eternal life are those who kept the law, then that, I know the promise that God made it would be free. So he says this in verse 16, therefore, and you ought to underline this first part of the verse.

Therefore, it is of faith that it may be made of the Lord. might be by what? Grace, to the end, for this purpose, the promise might be sure to all the seed. In other words, the only way you can be sure of going to heaven when you die is that it’s free. If it’s by your works, then you’d have to wait until you die to find out if you were good enough. That’s why you ask some people to go to church all the time, where are you going to die?

Well, of course they don’t know if they’re dependent upon their good works to get them there because they ain’t dead yet. They gotta wait till they die to find out they were good enough to make it. Because it says right there, promise might be sure to all the seed. Who? God said, I’ll make it by faith that the promise might be by grace. In other words, by me putting my faith in Jesus Christ’s work that he did, God will save me by his grace.

I don’t earn that and I don’t deserve that, but I should get the benefits of all of that. That is salvation by grace. There is no other. Let me show you one of the verse before we close. That’s in Acts 13 and verse 38 and verse 39. Look very quickly here at this verse. Page 11-67, these two verses ought to knock your socks off. They’re tremendous. You ought to line them in your Bible. Memorize them. Verse 38, be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man Christ is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.

forgiving you of sin. Now notice. And by Him, all that believe are justified from how many things. All things. And by Him, all that belief. That means everybody that just by believing can be justified from all things, now get the last part, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses by trying to earn your salvation. In closing, look in verse 43 just to close us out here. I want you to see that. Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnab, who speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God, not the law.

Letting this hand represent you and me and this wallet represent sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us, but He hates our sin. We committed the sin, we ought to pay for it, and the payment is death. Inhale, the ways of the sin be in death. So God said, He loves us and wants us to to have eternal life and go to heaven. They go to heaven, we have to be perfect and no one’s perfect. God gave the law to convinces.

So anybody who looks at the right to stand it of God knows their sinners and cannot save themselves. So we need a Savior. This hand represents Jesus Christ. God in the flesh, He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because our sin separates us from the Lord. Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. Said, if we’ll believe that He did it for us by faith alone believing that what He did was for us.

I believe He did it for me. God would save me by grace. I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t do anything to deserve it and never will. But He loves me. He gave it to me as a gift. I go to heaven or what He did for me. There is no other way. There is no other way. You don’t promise God anything. All you do is receive Him. He that believeth on me half of the last You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr.

Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. 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. If you wish to hear today’s program again or would like to download a free MP3 of today’s or any previous Bibleline program, go to BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the spinning globe in the upper right corner of our homepage.

If you’re 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. My broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, Calvary of Tampa dot org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline and now a closing thought from Pastor Arden. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound and we will be changed.

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