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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.

The discipleship, that’s serving God, that can cost you everything. So understand there’s a difference between being saved and serving the Lord. Some people are trying to serve the Lord, hoping that if they do enough good, God will save them. No, all of your service and all of my service is supposed to be because we are already saved, not going to be saved, not working to be saved, not helping him save us, but all of my service that I’ve given to the Lord is because I have been past tense, been saved.

not to be saved, I have been saved. Any person who is doing any of these good deeds in order to be saved are not saved. You’re not saved. If you do good deeds in order to be saved, because it means you’re not going to be saved until you finish doing all these good works. So you can’t rejoice in salvation because you don’t have salvation. I’ve enjoyed mine because I’ve had it. You can’t enjoy something you don’t have. Now, I want you to look there in the book of Matthew chapter 7 and verse 15 very quickly.

There are false prophets, false teachers in the world. Some understanding pulpits all across this country. And some of them look just like everybody else. And I’ve had people say, well, all preachers are the same. No, they’re not. No, they’re not the same. They do not all have the same message. Here he says, be aware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are raven in wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. I’ll have to have people say, well, you know, you can tell them by their fruits.

Talking about Christians. So everybody thinks we’re supposed to all be fruit inspectors. Go around with your magnifying glass and inspecting the fruit so you can tell whether or not who’s a Christian who’s not a Christian. Now this verse refers to false prophets. False prophets you can tell. How do you tell? Well the Bible says you’ll know them by their fruit. And some people say well that means that the way they live. Well it could be the way you live.

But there’s also a verse that talks about in the book of Hebrews in chapter 13 verse 15 that says the fruit of your lips giving praise unto God. So there’s the fruit of your lip the thing that you say. But how do you know this is referring to what they said because he says, in verse 21, not everyone that does what? Say it. They are saying something as the fruit of their mouth. What they are saying is we’re trusting our works to save us because look what we did.

We did this and we did this. We cast out devils. I mean, we did wonderful things. We spoke in your name. We did all the s- I’m saying with my mouth, Look what I did and what I did is why I should go to heaven.” And he says, depart from me. I never knew you. That’s because they listen to false teachers. False teachers tells you, look at your life. And if you live good enough, you’ll make it. And if you don’t live good enough, you won’t make it.

So you’re going to heaven depends on how you live. So everybody thinks, well, you have to go to church to go to heaven because that’s what they’ve been told. They have to give money. But of course, if you don’t go to enough church or not, or give enough money or to pray enough, you don’t know if you’re going to make it not because well you ain’t dead yet. So you have to wait until you die to find out. That’s a false teaching, very false teaching.

I want you to take your Bible and look there in the book of Matthew chapter 5, Matthew and chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 48, the Bible tells us that God is perfect. Verse 48, be there for perfect even as your Father, which is in heaven, is what? Perfect. If He’s perfect, that means there’s nothing wrong with God. If He’s perfect, there’s no flowing God. He says, be ye perfect as your Father, which is in heaven is perfect.

Oh boy, if somebody was to ask me, write off the bat, what do I have to do to go to heaven and to inherit eternal life? Be perfect, simple. So all you gotta do is be perfect. Now isn’t that consoling? Now you know all you gotta do is just be perfect. Now what’s the problem with that? No one’s perfect. Well, maybe you could try. Would you like to spend the rest of your life trying to be perfect? Well, nobody’s ever done it before, but you might be the first one.

Well, what are you going to do about the things you’ve already done that’s wrong? Now what are you going to do about that? If you can live perfect from the this day forward, what are you going to do about the way you already have lived? He says, being perfect as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect means there’s nothing wrong with God. If you understood if God is perfect, then heaven also must be perfect. In the book of Revelation chapter 21 and verse 27, he says, there shall in no wise enter into it, anything that work at the domination or whatsoever make it the lie.

I mean, not even a lie. Now I know if I was to ask you, and I think others have done this, ask you, have you ever told, How many here never told a lie in your life? Raise your hand, nobody can raise your hand. Right? Well, maybe you said, well, I haven’t told a lie. Okay, let me just ask you this. Out of all the 10 commandments, can you say you ever broke it at least one? How many of you would admit?

You’ll admit you broke it at least one of the 10 commandments. Would you raise your hand? You broke it at least one. I ain’t gonna ask you what you wanted it was, But you broke in at least one. Very good. Well, did you know that in James chapter 2, the Bible says that if you break one, you broke. You broke them all. You have just admitted you broke in every commandment there is. Matthew chapter 19. And look there in verse 16.

And unto, and verse 16, and behold, one came and said unto him, good master, what good thing shall I do that I may and have or may have eternal life. Every one of us would like to have eternal life. And Jesus said in verse 17, why call us thou me good? There is none good but one that is God. But if thou will enter into life, keep the commandments. Another way of saying, be perfect. How do you know that when he says keep the commandments he He was saying, be perfect.

Very simple. You see, I always cheat, I always read a little bit further and get the answer before I ask you the question. So he says in verse 21, Jesus said to him, if thou will be what? Perfect. Go and sell all the… because he’s already admitted, oh I’ve done this, not did that, not did this, not did that. Well Christ already knew that he had greed, that he coveted money, he coveted wealth. He said, okay, take everything you got and go sell it.

Because he, he doesn’t matter how many you kept, did you break one? Yep, he broke one. What do I have to do to go to heaven? What do I have to do to have eternal life be perfect? Why would he tell him that? So that man could see the impossibility of it. You see, some people think, oh yeah, do it, just be good. No, you have to be perfect to go to heaven. Christ is perfect. Heaven is perfect. God is perfect.

And to go there, you have to be perfect. And that’s why if you ever really see it, it’ll help you to understand why you cannot add works to the gospel. Now notice what he says here. Down here in verse 25, after he had said this to this guy, Jesus Christ talking to this rich young ruler, his disciples standing there listening to him said, in verse 25, when his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed saying, Who then can be saved?

Well, what did they understand? That Jesus was saying, you have to be what? To go to heaven. You gotta be perfect. You gotta be perfect. That’s why they said, they were amazed. You gotta be perfect. Who then can be saved? Didn’t look at verse 26, but Jesus beheld them and said unto them with what? Men, this is what? Impossible. In other words, it’s impossible for a man to do what? Be perfect. It’s impossible for a man to save himself.

Now me, I can read that and I can see that it’s clear to the bell of my mind. I have no problem with that. Yet there’s a multitude of preachers that cannot see that they do not read that. They cannot discern that and they will tell people you’ve got to keep the commandments to go to heaven. Christ is trying to show you the impossibility so that the law is not designed to save you, the law only points you to Christ.

He can save you because it’s impossible for a man and the folly of some preachers that tell people that you have to stop a certain way of living or start living a certain way. You know, stop being bad and start being good as though your efforts of what you do, a sinful man, is going to help God save you. Now let me show you something that’s very important. Look there in the book of Philippians and chapter three. Shumih, let’s look in first of all in Hebrews chapter five.

Hebrews and chapter five. Hebrews chapter five is a tremendous verse. And this is what it says. In verse nine. In verse nine. And being made, this is talking about Christ. Being made perfect, he became the author eternal salvation. Now listen to me. If he is perfect and becomes the author of eternal salvation, the wages of sin is what? Death. If the wages of sin is death and he is the author of eternal salvation, then in his eternal salvation plan can be no sin.

No room for sin because if there was sin in his plan of salvation, then his salvation could not be perfect and it could not be eternal because death would cause it to cease. Now you understand that don’t you? If you don’t get it I’ll repeat it. He is the author of what kind of salvation? Eternal salvation. If it’s eternal salvation it has to be perfect salvation because he is perfect and he has developed a salvation that is eternal a salvation that is perfect.

How do you know it’s perfect because he’s the author of it and this is what he said. When he died on the cross and he had paid for sins of the world, the last thing he said was it is what? It is finished. If it’s finished, there’s nothing else to add to it. It means that after the work Christ did, there is no work for man to do. If you have to have a perfect salvation done by God and wrought by Christ under the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now it ain’t complete unless man has to add his little two cents worth to that plan. Man’s got to stop some of his sins. Well if he has to do that you had just now entered sin into the plan and it can’t be an eternal salvation. When Christ saves it is forever. It’s an eternal salvation, not partial, not until you sin again. Christ is perfect. He is the author of eternal salvation. If it’s eternal salvation, it is a perfect salvation.

And the work that He did is finished. There’s nothing else that needs to be done concerning the plan of salvation that anybody can add to. You can’t add to it. I can’t add to it. That’s why when you take an individual and try to get him committed to giving up something in his life, some work of the flesh, which the Bible says have no confidence in the flesh, then that means that man is trying to do something by his own efforts by what he stops or what he does to enter into that idea of that plan of salvation, God says it cannot be.

This is why when you have individuals who will talk about it, sure, you’ve got to trust Christ and save him, but then you take man and enter him into this plan of salvation. Well man, his part, he will always fail. And if man will always fail, then that means God has to unsave him. Because man didn’t keep his word, or man didn’t do his part. He didn’t turn from his sin. He didn’t make Christ to learn the master of his life.

So therefore, he loses his salvation. That’s why one of the things that will help you and understand, well, who is really teaching the truth? Any preacher that teaches you can be saved today lost tomorrow DISTRICT because of something you do, that man is a false teacher. He is false, totally false. He’s not of God. He’s, well, I’ve got a relative or I’ve got an uncle Timberwolves, and I’ve got a dad or I’ve got a grand, I don’t care who they are.

I don’t care how much you love them. I don’t know how well you know them. Their message is a false message. They’re a false teacher, false preacher. You cannot add to the eternal gospel that he has given. God doesn’t want man tinking with it, adding to it, taking from it. To say you’ve got to stop your sins to be saved is man’s efforts to save himself. And then if you try to say you got to live a certain way to be safe, that’s false teaching.

Man’s works have nothing to do with it. You are accepting the work Christ did, not what you do. And some people cannot buy the idea, they just can’t believe that it would be so simple. I have you say, that’s just too easy just to believe. But that’s all that it requires. Believing means you’re trusting in the work He did for you. You’re not trusting in your work. See if you think you’ve got to stop your sins and to be saved or you’ve got to live a certain way to prove your saved, then what you’re doing is you’re adding your effort, your work to the gift of eternal life.

And when you stop performing, you doubt your salvation. See, anybody who truly just trusts Christ as their Savior never has to doubt their salvation again Because it doesn’t depend on them But anybody who believes you can lose your salvation because of something that you do have reason to doubt Being saved because there will always be something somewhere along the line that you won’t know whether I’m really saved or not because of the way I live Your salvation is supposed to be anchored in what he did for you not on what you do for him How you live has nothing zero influence with God concerning salvation Does that mean that I promote sinful living?

No. But I’m not going to lie to anybody either to try to get people to live right. Do I want people to serve God? Yes, I do. I don’t know any preacher that hits it harder than what I do. But you do not serve God to be saved. If you don’t serve God, if you have trusted Christ, you are his child. You still are saved. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of Philippians in chapter 3. Philippians and chapter 3.

In Philippians chapter 3 I want you to see this in verse 3. And understand that there are no works that a man can do in order to qualify to be saved. You see what you have to do to be saved is to admit something you are a sinner. Lord, I finally confess, I stop all my sins, I promise that I’m going to serve you, and I’m good enough for you to save now. I’m good enough for you to save.

No. You think God’s going to save you because you promised that you’re going to quit your sins when it’s an impossibility? Do you know it is impossible for you to turn from all of your sins? Impossible? That’s why it’s not that way. Did you know it’s impossible for you to love the Lord by God with all of the heart mind, body, soul, and strength that’s impossible for you? Why? Because you got a sinful nature. Why tell people that you got to do the impossible and believe it, that would not give them the cure?

Sure, I’ve told people if you want to go to heaven, just be perfect. What the hell? You can’t do that. Yeah, you got to point. Since you can’t be perfect to go to heaven, go in the church, ain’t going to make you perfect. Well, if you got to be perfect to go to heaven, well, it’s a sense you’re giving your money, ain’t going to make you perfect. Well, if you’ve got to be perfect to go to heaven, it’s a sense that trying your best ain’t going to make you perfect.

So how are you going to get there? It’s going to have to be free. You don’t get it because you can’t earn it. Here in Philippians in chapter three, looking verse three, for we are the circumcision which rejoice of which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have, and you are on the line, this in your Bible. No confidence in the what? confidence in the flesh. No confidence in the flesh means no confidence in who I am.

No confidence in what I’ve done. See in verse five, if you talk about who you are, he said, well, I’m circumcised the eighth day. The stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching law, Pharisee, look who I am. Have no confidence in the flesh as the look who I am. Well, my dad was a preacher, my uncle was a preacher, my great-granddad, he was a preacher. Well, I was raising church all my life and I sing in the choir and I say that has nothing to do with nothing.

Zero! No confidence in the flesh. Well look what I’ve done. Look at verse 6 concerning zeal. Boy am I motivated. I mean I’ll give you the shirt off of my back. I mean I give to all the humanitarian needs and I help to feed the poor children and boy I give my body the burn if it was necessary. I’ll do anything like that and buddy that has nothing to do with anything. Concern is he’ll persecute in the church touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless.

He said, man, you talk about what I’ve done. God’s not impressed with what you’ve done or what you’re going to do. When it comes to going to heaven, it’s not of works. It’s not by the works of righteousness which we have done or the works of righteousness which we’ve promised to do. God never saved you because of the works of righteousness. I stop all my bad deeds. And that’s why God saved you. Think again. He didn’t save you because you quit sins.

He never saved you because you promise you’re going to live for him. He promised you only for, he saved you only one way and that is did you or did you not? Did you accept the payment he made on the cross for you? Are you truly trusting Christ to take you to heaven? If you haven’t done that, you’re lost with a hound dog and he’s in the fruit bone. You won’t go to heaven. Many people, many people lost. Many people thinking their say not saved.

And I’ve traveled around and preached in enough churches and a lot of those people, I’ve been people in independent fundamental Bible-emissionary minded Baptist churches lost. People that sing on the choir, people that have been deacons, lost. People that teach Sunday school classes, lost. Because you see, they never really trust the Lord. They just know they want to go to heaven and they think that because they mean well and they join the church or they quit some of the things in their life and they want to serve God.

That’s salvation. That’s not salvation. That don’t even help you to be saved. That doesn’t get your little pinkies one-inch closer to the pearly gates. Whenever you die, yes, did you or did you not trust Christ? And he’s the one, those whether you did or you didn’t. He’s not interested in whether you sung in the choir. He don’t care what you did. That has nothing to do with you going to heaven. You’re getting to heaven is free, totally free only if there is no flesh involved.

No confidence in the life means that you’re not trusting in your good deeds, you’re not trusting in who you are, you’re not trusting in what you’ve done that gets you to heaven. And yet you can ask some people, how do you know you’re going to heaven? Well, I’ve been going to church all my life. I’ve been sincere, not giving money. You don’t get it. And yet you can be there so Close and not really get what he’s talking about look in verse 7 Remember this when he talks about the word gain it means there’s no pluses There’s no pluses Christ plus No In verse 7, but what things were gained to me or pluses for me look who I am Look what I’ve done both those ought to count for some those ought to be some good brownie points Those are some pluses in my life.

He says, no, those were lost, not gained. See what he says here in verse eight, Yay, Dallas, and I count all things, but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them, but manure that I may win Christ and get verse nine, and be found where in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, not having my own right, which is of the law, about that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

God will not give you his righteousness when you’re trying to work and get your own. You have to totally give up, surrender, stop, trusting in anything you have ever done or ever will do. It’s not a matter, and this is why when you hear preachers tell you that you have to turn from your sins to be saved, that preacher’s not clear. That preacher’s messing with your mind. That’s not the book. When preachers tell you that you have to make Christ the Lord of the master in your life in order for you to get to heaven, that’s not true.

That’s telling you you got to stop something, you got to join something and you’ll trust in what you did for your salvation. And then whenever you got sins in your life and then when you find out he’s not the Lord master of all of things in your life, you begin to doubt whether you’re saved or not and you have rights to because you’re trusting the wrong thing. If I am 100% totally trusting Christ to give me to heaven, if he don’t get me there, I don’t get there.

He don’t save me, I’m not saved. He don’t give me eternal life, I don’t have it. And I’ve never sworn a cuss word in my life, I’ve never drank in my life, I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life. And people say, well, you gotta live right to go to heaven. Dream on. It’s not by works of righteousness. It’s only through Christ and Him alone as your only hope of ever getting to heaven. Now the only way I know that somebody is saved is because of what they tell me they’re trusting in them and get them to heaven.

If they tell me they’re putting any confidence at all in anything that they’ve done, I doubt their salvation. I doubt their salvation. Why? Because God says if you trust in anything other than him, God says you’re not saved. He said, I didn’t say it. He says Christ profit if you nothing. Nothing. Is it important? Oh, I think so. Remember this, when you talk about Whether you stop something or you’ve got to start doing a certain thing, it is impossible, impossible for a man to totally turn from all of his sins.

So why tell them he has to? What they do? Why tell a person that you have to make Christ the Lord and Master of your life in order to be saved? It’s impossible. That’s impossible. But then they’ll leave it there. But tell you, that’s what you’ve got to do. And so now you try to live the impossible life. That’s why you have people sometimes that say, well, I like to be a Christian, but I can’t live it. What they mean is they’re honest.

They know they’re, they’ve got things in their life and they don’t have the power to quit them or to change them. They know that they have no desire to go to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. How many times you gotta go to church? You had to go, well, you gotta give money. Okay, how much? What if you give it to your own church? That’s not the Bible. anywhere in here salvation is free. He has given to us an eternal salvation.

It’s a perfect salvation because man has nothing to do with it. A perfect God had a perfect plan. It is finished. All we’re doing is accepting it or rejecting it but you cannot add to it. This hand represents you and me and this wall of represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God loves us, hates our sin. And because you and I have sinned, we’re condemned, all condemned. God says you cannot save yourself. It is impossible. To go to heaven, we have to be perfect because heaven is perfect.

God is perfect. And you and I aren’t. And therefore, there’s nothing that we can do to be perfect. It’s impossible. With men, it’s impossible. This hand represents Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us. Hates our sin because they separate us from Him. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. Because of what He did, it is possible for Him to do what we could not do.

We can accept what He did for us. We are only accepting a work that He did. that he did. There’s not a work for us to do. So when you and I believe that, he gives us eternal life and we go to heaven on what Christ is for us. I hope that you have a trust in Christ as you say. Let’s pray, shout. 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 Bible line 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 estimates.org and click on the spinning globe in the upper right corner of our home page.

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. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.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 we will be changed hot up to meet the Lord in the air so live today and every day believe in that the Lord is coming soon just keep looking up