This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 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.

Today I want to speak on the subject, the carnal Christians. The reason is because there’s a lot in the Bible about the carnal Christian. At times we’ve talked about the lost man and then there’s times we’ve talked about the mature man. But today the carnal man. If you’re not a mature Christian you are a babe in Christ. You can be a babe in Christ and not actually be carnal. But first of all I I want you to look there in John chapter four and look in verse 10.

Something so simple that we mentioned it before, learning how to talk to people the way Jesus talked to them. And he says in verse 10, Jesus answered and said unto her, if thou knewest the gift of God, so number one, you do got to know about it. And two, and who it is that’s safe to thee, you got to know who it is that’s offering it. Thou would have asked of him, so you got to ask. And sometimes that’s two prayer that we do or just simply believing, believing, receiving, accepting, it’s all the same thing.

In no sense, trying to split some theological hair on something so simple. And the gospel is not clear because you understood what you said. It’s clear when the lost person understands what you said. So if they understand what you said when you said accept or if they understood what you said when you said believe or would you accept this free gift of eternal life and you can have it, or you got to do it, accept it. And God said he would give you a free gift.

And he says in the last part of that part, he would have given. If you knew it, you’d ask, you’d receive it. Because that’s how simple salvation really is. But the Christian life, believe it or not, is a little bit more complicated, a little bit more difficult. I’ve had people say, well, if you’re, if you really saved, if you trusted Christ as your Savior, you may go astray at times. Yes, you might even backslide, but you’ll always come back to the Lord before you die.

Well, that would be interesting if that was the truth, but that’s not always the case. You see, Saul, he went astray, but he didn’t come back and God let him die because of his rebellion. So he didn’t get right in the end. You say, well, they’ll always come back and get right before they God takes no they don’t. There’s many of God’s children that do not get right. They go astray and they stay that way in many all their life.

It’s great when somebody will, as we call it, come home to the Lord. And we can sing the songs. You can have a standing invitation, come home, come home. You who are weary and so forth. It would be great if all of God’s prodigal children would come back to the Lord. Wouldn’t it be great? And everybody finally served the Lord in the end before they die. But that is not always the case. You ever heard the story of Lot?

Well did he serve the Lord all the days of his life? No, not exactly. We don’t know if Lot ever did get back with the Lord. You see, he went astray and first of all he just pitched his tints towards Sodom. But whenever the angels came to destroy Sodom the more they found him in the city. You see, he had got too close to the edge. He went in that direction. He shouldn’t have played the game. He lost. He lost not only his wife, he lost his kids.

And they had two kids by incest, which was Ammon and Moab, and they became bitter enemies of Israel as long as Israel was in the land. So a lot of results because of disobedience of God’s people. And you read in the New Testament that there’s also some things where God took people home before their time, all because they became carnal Christians. So you can’t say, well, even if you go astray, you’ll come back before it’s too late. No. Many times God says this.

He says, many are weak, many are sick, and many are what? Dead. Many sleep. Many are dead. Not a few. Many. Many of God’s people die ahead of time. They die because they break the biblical principles found in God’s Word. Someone could be suffering the consequences like Job did and bringing out upon himself. Then there’s others that might be looking spiritual and God knows the truth and God may be whooping the tar out of them. So God didn’t ask us to be a little judges, but sometimes we need to warn people because they’re the one that has to correct things in their own life.

You’re not to be a God in somebody else’s life, nor am I. I am not the Holy Spirit. You have one. I have one. And so he says many are sick, many are weak, and you can be a weak Christian. And when you’re a weak Christian, it means that you don’t have the strength to handle your trials. You don’t have what you need to abstain from the appearance of evil. You’re not strong enough to keep from providing for the lust of the flesh.

And so the tribulations of the world will totally upset you and destroy you. And so you have trials and tribulations, temptations, and you won’t be able to stand. Why? Because you’re weak. And God says, many are weak. And that’s why so many Christians are not strong in the Lord. they become carnally minded Christians. First Corinthians and chapter 3, Corinthians is not written to the lost people. Corinthians is written to those that believe. I mentioned to you last Sunday that the gospel of John was God’s heaven track.

It’s the book that you use to really explain the gospel clearly to someone. It was actually written. He says, these things have I written unto you that you might believe that you might believe. So it was written to those who did not believe. So that they would believe that they could have life through His name. So first Corinthians in chapter three, look in verse one and verse two. These are Christians, but they were not growing in the Lord. And I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

You could not talk to them as though they were grown in the Lord except responsibility, able to be disciplined themselves. A lot of people don’t like to be disciplined, but they won’t discipline themselves either. And then they don’t like somebody to say anything, but they won’t correct the problem. But then he says in verse 2, I have fed you with milk and not with meat. For hitherto you were not able to bear it neither yet now. Are you able?

In other words, when he says neither yet now means that they should, but they’re not able to. It also does away with the teaching that whatever will be will be. In other words, like it’s not your fault, you are pre-programmed and you really don’t have a choice and God has predetermined everything that you say, think and do. That isn’t true because then why would God hold you responsible for something you have absolutely no control over. But here, This is like God having a little judgment upon his people saying these are questions that I’m asking you.

These are things that I’m revealing to you. Every one of these problems are problems that carnal Christians were having and what they were doing in this Corinthian church. And so he says here, I have fed you with milk, not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it. Neither yet now are you able. many things that a carnal Christian doesn’t know. He cannot understand. He cannot hear because he’s dull of hearing. And the Bible says concerning the spiritual man, up here in verse 15 of chapter two, but that he that is spiritual, judge it or discerns all things.

In other words, you can make up your mind. You’re a mature Christian. You can discern all things. You don’t have to have somebody always telling you what’s right and what’s wrong. Mature Christian knows what’s right, knows what’s wrong. But your Christian knows how to walk with God. He doesn’t have to always be prodded. They’ll have to try to make them do that which they should do because of what Christ has done for them. But the weak Christian, you’re always having the poor teeth.

You’re always having the big, always trying to beseech and plead. But the mature Christian learn how to walk with God and he does it. And if nobody else does, he does. Now, you’re the one that has to decide, are you a strong Christian or a weak Christian? Christian, if you’re a weak Christian because you’re currently minded, means that you’re fleshly minded. Another way that God puts it, He says, you have fallen in love with the world. Or you fall in love with yourself.

You fall in love with what you want. As far as the world goes, I’m willing to lose the world. I’m willing to lose my life. I’m willing to lose everything for the sake of Christartment. And there’s other people that don’t want to lose anything, so they hang on everything. It’s what they want. My will. My plans. My goal. My dreams. And they’re willing to forsake everything God has for what they want. And God says, you’ll lose all of that.

But if you’ll give up all of that for what I want, God said, I’ll give you everything You’ll win with the Lord by then a loser It’s a paradox they were living according to endors or the old nature You have an old nature and they were living according to that look at verse three for ye are yet carnal theirALSE They’re saved they have eternal life But they’re carnal they’re fleshly minded it means that you still have your old sinful nature and nobody can make you walk with God.

Nobody can make you walk with God. All the rules and regulations won’t make anybody walk with God. You can pretend to walk with God but that don’t make you right with God. He says, for ye are yet carnal, there is among you, get this, envying, strive, divisions. Are those or are those not the works of the flesh? That’s the works of the flesh. That means you’re walking after the flesh. It means that you have an old sinful nature and that’s how you chose to live.

When you choose to go your way, it’s the flesh way. When you choose to serve the Lord, you go God’s way. And they’re not in the same direction. They were sitting in judgment of those that were more spiritual than they were. You see, babes in Christ become critical. They don’t truly understand everything that somebody else is perhaps going through. So they become nitpick. They pick everybody else apart because all they see in other people, they see the dirt. And so that’s all they talk about is the dirt.

You can do that and you can become a gossiper. A gossiper is a bat-biter and that’s a person who devours another individual. Remember if you gossip to somebody and they listen to you, they person that listens to you will also gossip about you. And vice versa? Until you devour the Bible says one another. Now, you destroy each other. You keep each other from being strong in the Lord. You can cause people to be weak or strong. So how you doing?

And that’s why you have to really watch yourself. Look in 1st Corinthians in chapter 4. Look there in verse 3. In verse 3 says, but with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or a man’s judgment. Yay, I judge not my own self. In other words there’s people that they set themselves up. They determine who’s spiritual and who’s not, and the ones that do that will be carnal Christians. Mature Christians don’t worry about that.

Mature Christians is willing to try to help those that are not strong to help them become stronger. A mature Christian doesn’t listen to gossip and try to destroy other people with it. Good mature Christian doesn’t backbite. Good mature Christians see is not a whining and complain about everything that goes wrong. Babes in Christ, carnal Christians do and they will. And everything that goes wrong will so upset you and bother you that you will not think the way that you should and you won’t even see it.

You won’t even know that it’s taking place. Now, look what he says here in verse 4, for I know nothing by myself. In other words, I’m not even capable of judging myself. And so how does a weak Christian have all the so-called wisdom to judge me? He says, but he that judges me is the who, the Lord. Therefore, judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes. Who Boah will bring the light, the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart, then shall every man have praise of God.

Somebody read that verse and they said, well see it doesn’t matter how you live, every man’s gonna have praise of God. Well I believe every man will have praise of God if every man did that which will bring the praise of God. But they said no it says then every man shall have praise of God. Well yes it does say that every man will have praise of God. But I believe it’s because God is judges to heart and the intent, the motive why a man does and then God’s going to give him whatever is coming to that individual.

Look what he says down here, we are what? We’re losers for Christ that we’re fools for Christ’s sake. In other words, it looks like in this life we’re the losers. We’re the one that’s given up everything. We forfeit a lot of stuff. We suffer a lot of abuse and abuse and persecution but that’s okay because you we know that down here we’re willing to lose anything else that we have for Christ’s sake and the gospel and we know them the long run.

We’ll win. Look at the next statement. Number four, they were proud. Look in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 6. He says, and these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and don’t apologize for your say that you might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written that no one of you be puffed up. Now those two words puffed up you ought to underline those two words. It means puffed up means with pride.

It’s kind of like a, you know, a peacock that really likes to show it’s feathers. and you’re taking, puffed yourself up with pride as, oh, you’re some great individual. You’re still just a man. You’re still just a woman. Doesn’t matter how much you’ve done or haven’t done, you’re just an individual. God may have saved you, given you eternal life, but you’re still not to be puffed up in your own eyes as, oh, you’re some great thing. If God’s gonna do it, let God do it, let somebody else brag on you, but don’t you take and be exalting yourself.

That is not the will of God. There is mentioned in these few verses in chapters following, is mentioned six times about your puffed up, your puffed up, your puffed up. In other words, you feel with pride because that’s a sign of a carnal Christian, a weak Christian. And because they lift themselves up as some great thing and God says no. Look at number five in your, they were calloused to sin in the church. 1 Corinthians chapter five, look at verse one.

They were calloused. In those words like they had no sensitivity as what’s being done. It’s like it doesn’t matter what anybody else does. It is reported commonly that there’s fornication among you and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles that one should have his father’s wife. And you are, and here’s that word again, puffed up means no shame and have not rather mourned. But he that have done this deed might be taken away from among you.

Christians will after a while be so puffed up because of their great toleration. We tolerate what everybody does. There’s churches today that are building great churches because they will not preach against sin. They won’t say anything about sin because they know that’s offensive to people. You can say the word sin but just don’t say what it is. Don’t name anything. In the words you’re supposed to get to where you come and you have blinders put on and you live of your life as though you don’t see anything that people do that’s wrong and you don’t say anything that you do that’s wrong so everybody is tolerant of everybody else.

That sounds good. We all love each other so everybody can just do anything that you want to do and we all love each other so nobody says anything about what everybody else is doing. And they think that they are patting themselves on the back and they’re pumped up because of how great they are. Now you think God is pleased with that or not. God wants his church to be pure. wants people to do right. Now nobody can make us do right, but we might as well understand this is in the Bible.

This is the book that I’m reading to you. I didn’t write this. This is God’s Word. This is Corinthian. This is a corrupt church. And these people were carnal Christians. And are they being rebuked by Paul? Yes, they’re being rebuked. So this isn’t right. And you should have dealt with this. But we don’t have people that they want to be dealt with. They don’t want to be reviewed. They don’t want nobody to say anything because that makes people hurt.

That hurts my feeling. That made me mad. I’ll not come back anymore. Well, if you want to do the will of God, you should because that’s what you need. You need the discipline because of what the word of God says. Now look at the next statement. Number six, they were immoral and needed church discipline. Down from three, down to verse seven is talk about take that individual and ask God when you are gathered together and my spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ he livers such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

Now if that ain’t physical death I don’t know what is. Does God know when you’re a carnal Christian? Does God know when you’re fleshly minded? Does God know that you’re weak and you’re not strong in the Lord. These things are wrong, you’re to do right. And it’s the preacher’s job to tell people what the book says. Not to be God, not to be the Holy Spirit, not to be the judge, just to tell you what the book says. And that’s what I strive to do.

And he says down here, don’t you know in verse 6 that 11, 11 at the whole long, he says, you let that sin go undetected it and uncorrected and tolerate that sin in the church. And after a while that little sin that you didn’t think was so bad and you tolerated, it will become light yeast in a loaf and it will cause it to spread and it will contaminate the whole church. Sin does a crazy thing to people and that’s why envy and jealousy and bitterness and all that stuff, that is the works of the flesh.

So yes, you can have eternal life. You’re going to heaven when you die and you may not as a child of God You may not personear until the end, but I’m glad to know that you’re preserved in Christ until the end }: Because the Bible tells us that. In other words, you were saved by grace and you kept saved by grace. You don’t deserve it. But as a child of God live in here and now we are individuals that can be mature Christians or carnal Christians.

He says if you’re spiritually minded means you mind the spirit. And if you mind the flesh that means that you have no sinful nature and you obey your sinful nature. They were taking each other to court and mistreating one another. Christians do not. solve their problems. Then they take people to court that doesn’t have to be done that way. He says, and then you’re doing it in front of unbelievers. I mean courts and making it a public affair when Christians ought to settle their differences, if you’re mature, Christians can settle their problems one on one.

Two people, both mature, both love the Lord, can’t solve their problems. Something’s wrong. They’re saying somewhere. There’s Nothing wrong with God. There’s something wrong in the individuals. They were abusing their liberty in Christ and making others stumble. Looking 1 Corinthians 8 and verse 9. You have the right to do a lot of things. A lot of things. That may not hurt you one Iota. But if doing that could hurt and cause somebody else to stumble, then God says, don’t let your liberty become a stumbling block to righteousness.

Don’t let your liberty become a license to sin. like giving you permission to do whatever you want to do. Well, I’m saved, I have eternal life, and I can do anything I want. Yeah, you’re free to choose now. When you were lost and only had one nature, you didn’t have a choice. You just chose between this bad and that bad. Now that you’re saved, you can choose to yield your body as members of instruments of righteousness, or that which is destructive, and you got choices.

And you’re free to choose. But the freedom is for you to choose the right, because if you choose the wrong, Your heavenly Bob’s still gonna correct you and discipline you and beat the Torah that you have he has to, but he loves you. So here in 1 Corinthians and chapter eight, look at verse nine, but take heed, lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are what? We, however there was some Christians that were Carly, and they didn’t care.

And they were doing all kinds of things in this church and causing others to stumble. And God says, I don’t want you to do that. Paul is rebuking the way they live. I’ve had people say, well, you just let people live any way they want to. It’s not your job to try to tell people how to live. I disagree. It is my job to tell you how to live. It’s my job to tell you what’s right and tell you what’s wrong until you’re mature enough and you can make that decision for yourself.

But there’s a point where it is my job. I had a man tell me, well, why don’t you keep your nose out of my business? I said, because God told me to put my nose in your business. That is my job. I’m told to try to help people to see air in their ways. And he says, if you save a man from the air of his way, you save him from a motor that he sends. Because he keep from doing all those things.

And what have done, if you had not reached that individual, so you’re trying to help and to challenge people to do what’s right. They were critical of the Apostle Paul, the one who had led them to Christ. First Corinthians chapter nine, verses one down to verse five. Here’s the man that had came to them and led them to the Lord. Let them to Christ. And now they were carnal Christians, haven’t grown. Corinth was a very corrupt city. And they were proud about it.

How that we can overlook all of everybody else’s faults. Love covers a multitude of sins. And because we live with another, we don’t see anything anybody else doing is wrong. I think they’re misapplying a scripture. And he says in verse three, mine answer to them that do examine me as this. See, here’s weak Christians, carnal Christians, sitting in judgment on Paul, but that’s what carnal Christians do. They like to play God and they look for faults. And so then they begin to pick.

And God says, this is wrong. You’re carnally minded. That’s not the will of God. Where carnality rules, there will be envy, strife, jealousy, backbiting, all these are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. And that’s why there’s so many weak Christians and they’re pitiful because they don’t have the peace, the love, the joy, the strength, the temptations they can’t stand and they have no strength of character whatsoever. If you’re strong in the Lord and you can cast your cares upon the Lord, do you and God ought to be able to go through anything if you’re really trusting and depending upon the the Lord to help you.

They were coming to the Lord’s table drunk. They were carnal who drank and carnal who tolerated it. Look there in 1 Corinthians in chapter 11. Verse 17 he says, Now in this that I declare unto you, I praise you not. The Apostle Paul wasn’t the most loved individual. He, what I believe, a very stern, very hard man, very strong man. And yet he was the greatest teacher on gospel of grace that there was. And yet did he say, it’s okay, we’re all under grace.

We’re all living by grace. You can just do anything that you want to do. No, they couldn’t. Grace is not a license to sin. It’s not liberty to do whatever you want, any way you want. And nobody has a right to say anything. That’s not living by grace. Grace is that you’re doing what’s right. The strength and the grace and the desire and the power of God to do the things you’re supposed to do. But give what he says.

Now in this I declare unto you, I praise you not that you come together, not for the better, but for the words. In other words, you’re coming together. It’s not helping you in one eye, O’er you. For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you When you come together therefore into one place This is not to eat the Lord suffer For in eating everyone take it before other his own suffer and one is hungry and another’s drunken You make a joke out of the whole thing When we have communion to me every person if he can possibly do it, then you ought to be there for communion Why because that’s a divine command?

That’s not something the preacher made up. That’s for children of God to examine themselves and to get things right in their life and to make sure that they’re everything is okay. And he says in verse 29, for he that eateth and drink of unwirly, eateth and drinketh damnation or judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. In other words, you don’t understand what Christ said, you’re to look back at what he did and forward to him coming again and keep your life clean because of it.

And if you take the Lord’s Supper and you don’t look back and you don’t look forward, you’re thinking only about now, he says, you make a mockery out of what I’ve done. He said in verse 30, for this cause many are weak. He says, and many are sick and many are dead. We’re running out of time. One of the days it’s all over. We’re out of here because the day will come when no man can work, it’s all over with.

And then we’ll remember of all the opportunity we had to demonstrate our faithfulness and how much that we fail. This end represent you and me and the wall of represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God loves us but He hates our sin. For you and I to pay for this sin is eternal separation from God in a place called hell and because we’ve all sinned we’re all condemned. But God loves us, wants us to go to heaven and go to heaven we have to be perfect as righteous as God and none of us are perfect none of us are righteous.

The Bible says we cannot go heaven because of sin. We can’t get in. And God says that for us to pay for it, death and hell, and that means we’ll be terminally separated from God. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the place. He came into the world because He loves us. We cannot earn our way to heaven. Christ took our sins, paid for it on the cross, and said He would give us as a free gift everlasting life if we would believe that He did it for us.

God said, when you believe he did it for you, he gives you as a gift, eternal life, and you get to go to heaven, on what he did for you. 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 1030 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryuptampa.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bible Live, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friends, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. 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. Just keep looking up.