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Bibleline Bibleline, they are 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 to… 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 Bible-lined 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.

I know I have eternal life. Not everybody, everywhere knows that. Many preachers will not even say that, even if they know they have eternal life, because they know that it is offensive to those that don’t believe you can really know you have eternal life. They just talk about, let’s just get saved and don’t worry about this eternal security business or once saved always saved. And they don’t want to make it an issue. They feel that that would turn a lot of people off and become offensive to some people because There’s just a lot of good people, a lot of good Christians that just don’t see eye to eye on this.

Well, me not to see eye to eye on this means somebody saved and somebody’s lost. I didn’t write this Bible. I had nothing to do with it. But I have studied it and I have a good idea that I know what it says about how to have eternal life. But I believe the gospel is the lens by which you discern the rest of Scripture. And if you miss it on the clarity of the gospel, then everything is fuzzy. But the pure, the gospel, the sharper the distinction that you’re able to perceive on anything else in life.

And believe it or not, even when I was 18, 19, 20 years old, I used to always wonder, why it made clear because I understood what salvation was but it wasn’t as clear. And then I remember going to Tennessee Temple and watching a man like Dr. Lee Robertson, one of the greatest men at that time, who liked Moses over the children of Israel. And I used to wonder why don’t they make it clear? Even those that came in priests, they didn’t make it clear.

And I would get people to come to church and then the preachers wouldn’t make it simple. They wouldn’t make it clear. They always gave the impression that you had to come forward to be saved, that you had to come down to the altar in order to get saved. And they wouldn’t give the gospel, they would give an invitation, always inviting people to come to Jesus. Come to the cross, come down here. You step out in the aisle and Jesus will meet you the rest of the way and He’ll come down here.

If He can come all the way from heaven down to this earth, surely you can come 40 feet or 50 feet or whatever it is. And if they didn’t come, they didn’t tell them. And then He always talked about it, let’s get the gospel to the lost and it burned inside of me. I’m in it, time got mad and now that I’ve been preaching, I never knew that I was going to be a preacher. I just started off not wanting people to go to hell and the older I get, the more I’m concerned.

The more convinced I am that the position that I hold is right. I’m too far down the road to compromise now and I believe that what the Bible says about the gospel is the gospel. Now keep us in mind, we say that eternal life is the gift of God. The gift of God is eternal life. I believe that gift is eternal life. And I believe eternal life is that gift. And I believe that the gift of eternal life is given freely and it lasts forever.

Now there’s a lot of people that believe that and then turn right around and say things that contradict that very statement. How many times I’ve seen that’s all standing saying just as I am and then you tell them you got to stop something you got to join something you got to make Christ the Lord and the Master of your life and you got to turn from your sins but let’s all stand and sing just as I am. That’s hypocrisy.

Did you understand what I just said? Just as I am. Now you got to turn from your sin. You got to quit and you got to change. If you’re going this direction, you got to turn and go this direction. You got to join. You got to dip. Sprinkle, spit on, baptize. Whatever you got to do. You got to come. You got to go. You got to hang on. You got to let loose. Now let’s all sing just as I am.

And to me, that used to be in my mind. That ain’t right. Something’s wrong with this. And I never saw anybody be able to do it. make it simple and clear as I did when I went to Florida Bible College. And there’s nobody. I don’t think there’s a preacher anywhere that loves preacher fellowship like I do. But my stand on the gospel has cost me a lot of fellowship because we’re not the same. I can walk into a meeting of a thousand preachers and I’ve done it many times and feel totally alone.

Not that I think I’m I’m better. I’m not better. I discern something. I see something and it bothers me that others don’t see it. That love the Lord just as much as I do. I don’t love the Lord only. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about what I see and I want you to understand and I’m going to show you just a minute. Take your Bible look in the book of Galatians in chapter 1. The apostle Paul to me was the greatest man that’s ever lived.

Done more for Jesus Christ for the kingdom of God than any other single man that I know. God really used this man. The apostle Paul was a Jew. He had persecuted the Christians, put them in jail. He was there when Stephen was stoned, and what he did, he thought he was doing God a favor. And then one day he saw the light, really saw the light. On the road to Damascus, the Bible says that a bright light. He was knocked down and other people couldn’t see or hear what was going on, but he saw it.

And sometimes he was able to discern what those that were around him did not discern. They didn’t get it. And it changed the man’s life for the rest of his life. He got a glimpse of heaven and he got a glimpse of hell. And he says in the Scriptures that God had to put a thorn in his flesh, whatever it was, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, to always keep him humble, keep him beat up all the time.

And yet the Apostle Paul had done nothing more than try to win people to Christ and challenge people to serve the Lord. What a man. But he says here in verse 6, he said, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. The grace of Christ is the gospel. But called you from that gospel message that’s a grace message into another gospel. In other words, look up here.

The gospel and the test of the gospel is is it by grace. Grace means that it’s not of work. It means that it’s free and that it’s free and that it it lasts forever, that’s the test of the gospel. He said, but there’s some who want to take this message and pervert that message and change it into another message. The only way you can change or pervert the gospel of grace is to add works to the message. Not works as lots of them, just one work to the gospel ruins the gospel.

And then he uses an illustration. says for if you put leaven into the dough it causes it to rise and it permeates the whole thing and it pumps it full of holes. That’s what just a little leaven does. And so God says you change the message when you add something to the message. See if it’s by grace and it’s is totally free. You can’t take away from it, but you could sure add to it. And when you add something to it, it’s no longer the gospel.

So he makes this statement here in verse 7, which is not another. In other words, you cannot make another message, another gospel exactly like this gospel. This is the gospel, and this is the message that is salvation is by grace through faith that none of yourselves, it is the gift of God, none of works list, He may should both, that a lost man can be justified, go to heaven, and it’s free, totally free. He doesn’t have to make any commitments to Christ, doesn’t have to plan on serving God, he doesn’t have to turn from one sin, not one sin.

And God will still save him just like he is. Entry, and I believe that. Let’s just pretend, here’s a man up here and he’s on drugs, he’s a dope addict, he’s a drunkard and runs around, he does everything in the book, everything you think of, that man is guilty of it. Now, does that man have to stop all those sins in order for God to save him? No, not one. If he has to stop just one sin in order for God to save him, God can’t save him.

God can’t save him. any man who does anything to try to save himself, because salvation is not by man, it’s by God’s grace. And yet you’ll find out 99% of all preachers tell that man he’s got to stop something, he’s got to stop his sins, he’s got to turn from his sins, and he’s got to commit his life to serve God. You say they don’t say that. Yes they do, yes they do. And if he doesn’t serve God that man was never saved to start with.

And so they questioned whether a man saved or he’s lost by how he lives. You can come to this church every service still be as lost as a hound dog in the end of a suitbone. You’re not saved because of that. And you can’t tell if a man’s saved by how he lives. And you can’t tell if a man’s lost by the way he lives. You can’t tell because it’s a spiritual birth. And I will never apologize to any preacher, denomination or anyone.

Right after I graduated from Bible College, I was 26 years old. By the time I was 28 years old, I had been blackball in two major denominations in this country. Christian missionary lines, church, and evangelical free churches of America. They accused me of being an extreme anti-nomian, anti against, no-mian law. Means I’m against law. I was against the law for salvation, but I was for grace because I believe that a man is saved by grace and not by works.

And I believe that when God saves a man, that man is saved and he has eternal life and he is secure for all eternity. I cannot and I am not afraid or ashamed to say it for he say, well, there’s people that might take and use that as the license to sin. They let that be on their head, but I’m not going to change the gospel message to please somebody. I can’t go to hell in future. It doesn’t matter what I do as far as my salvation goes, as far as my eternal destination goes.

Now it will affect my blessings in this life and it will affect my rewards in heaven but it cannot affect my destination. Now should I be ashamed of the gospel? When Paul says I’m not ashamed of the gospel, this is what he’s talking about. The gospel is somebody been able to say, look I was lost. Now I’m found. I was blind. I can see. I’m going to heaven when I die. I don’t have to wait till I die to find out where I’m going.

I already know where I’m going because I’ve trusted Christ. Joining the church, giving money, all the good words you’ll ever do will never save a soul. So look what he says here in verse 7, which is not another but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. change the gospel. And what were they doing? Adding works to the message. Now look there in verse 10. He says, for do I now persuade men or God or do I seek to please men?

If I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. You have to make up your mind, either you serve man or you serve God, but you can’t serve both. And I made up my mind years ago Jesus Christ died for me. Jesus Christ paid for my sins. He and He alone deserves my loyalty, my commitment. He alone. I don’t know anybody else anything. But I owe Jesus Christ and I owe him everything. And the gospel, the clear gospel of Jesus Christ is a picture of how much God really loves man.

And when you change the gospel story by adding works to it, you take a Rembrandt. You’re taking the face of Jesus Christ and you’re marring his face. You’re cutting up the most beautiful picture in all the world, the greatest story that’s ever been told and ruining it. And no man has the right to do that. I don’t care how big his ministry is, a little known by YAH is still a shame and a disgrace for anybody to add one word to the gospel.

And anybody that believes that you can lose your salvation does not understand the gospel. And there’s a multitude of churches around here that preach that you can lose your salvation. That is not what Christ said. Our message is not the same. Our story is not the same. Galatians chapter 2 and look in verse 5. To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. Depulsive Paul says we didn’t move one eye-oater because we did not want the truth of the gospel to be taken away from you.

The thing that bothers me is this, you’ll let some little nitpicky thing, perhaps that I’ll say or do that might bother you. And then you’ll go to a church where the gospel isn’t clear, and you say, well, he’s almost as clear as or is close. And then after a while, the purity of the gospel can be lost. And I’m talking about for the sake of the lost man, the man that may never hear a clear cut gospel message. And yet his eternal destination is in the balance.

And many people will talk about, yes, I’ve been saved. Where are you going today? Well, I’m not sure. Then you don’t understand it. you don’t understand because knowing that your saved is knowing that you have eternal life and can never lose it because if you don’t know you are going to heaven when you die you don’t have that security right now. I know now I have eternal life. I know I can’t go to hell in the future. I am saved and I am secure.

I am safe. It’s already been done. Look there in verse 16, verse 16 in your Bible. Knowing that a man as he explains what he means by the truth of the gospel, knowing that a man is not justified or made righteous by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Nobody can be justified and keep this in mind. If I say I I am saved today. But I can lose it tomorrow, then I must still seek today to be justified tomorrow. That means that I must admit that I am still now a sinner and I am not now at this moment yet saved, because I must do something to get saved. Or stay saved. If you have to do something to stay saved, then you don’t know if you’re going to do it or not.

So you don’t know where you’re going, when you die, because you don’t know when you’re going to die, and you don’t know the condition you’re going to be in when that moment comes. So your salvation does not depend upon Christ, it depends upon your work, depends on how you live, whether you hang on or not. That is not the gospel, that is not the Bible. I believe that the scriptures in all these things are very clear, but look there in chapter 5 of Galatians.

If a person is doing anything at all, trying to save themselves by their life, or they think that I used to talk to people and they say, well, I used to go to church. I used to. I used to. I used to. But now they don’t anymore. So I guess I’m going to hell. Or I used to smoke or drink and I quit that. So that’s how I know that I’m saved. And they’re based upon something that some sins that they quit.

And then when I go back to that same sin, well, I’m not saved anymore. They never got it. They didn’t understand it. That has nothing to do with it. Smokin’, drinkin’, lyin’, stealin’, all those things. Not one of those things is why a person goes the hell. The person goes to hell because they rejected the payment Christ made on the cross forum. Salvation is a gift. It is totally free. And in chapter 5, it makes the statement in verse 4, to those who are trying to save them some, Christ has become of no effect unto you.

Whosoever of you are justified by the law or seeking to be justified by your works. You’re rejecting salvation by grace when you’re trying to save yourself and you cannot have it. I want you to look at another scripture Romans in chapter 16. Look there in verse 17. Now I beseech you brethren, mark them which cause diversions, divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them. Now I beseech you in verse 7 again, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the, what’s that word?

Doctrine, which you have learned and joined them. Avoid them. Listen, I got this letter in the mail. It says, Dear Pastor, as you know, over 40 of our local churches and UGA Christian campus groups have invited Pardis Crusades to do an evangelistic outreach April 22 at the Coliseum on the UGA campus. We hope to see many of our local churches and campus groups take part in this outreach to the campus and also our community. We have book great temporary, contemporary Christian musicians and so forth.

For the church to both benefit from the crusade and add to its effectiveness in reaching the lost, it is necessary that a key contact from your church be trained. Our records indicate that No one from your church attended the leaders meeting earlier this month. Our desires to have as many churches and campus groups participate as possible, including the follow-up of those people making commitments to Christ. Now you may not catch nothing on that, but I do. At the same time, we have a tremendous responsibility to refer these new believers to churches that have assured us by attending one of these training classes that they will indeed do satisfactory follow-up.

We will only be sending new believers, referrals to churches and campus groups that have sent representative to these training meetings. So they’re going to have a big shindig and they want all the churches to work together for this evangelistic crusade. And this is the list of those that are all working together. Somebody might think, well, Yankee, how come you have to be so hard-headed and so obnoxious? Why can’t you just work along with them just like everybody else does?

I have a problem. I have some people that I look into this thing and I see some names of churches that I know are not clear on the gospel. And I found out the majority of the sooner or later they’re off on the gospel, they’re off on eternal security, they’re off on the Holy Spirit, they’re off on Jesus Christ, and that is not harmonizing with the doctrine that I’ve been taught from this book. Am I supposed to just close my eyes to all these things and it doesn’t really matter?

Many of these in here believe you can lose your salvation There’s many of these churches in here that believe you cannot lose your salvation And they believe that a man is saved by grace and my problem is how can they work together? And so what I did is I took this man’s Web page that he gave and I looked upon the web page to find out where he stood on the gospel and Then I called him up and I asked and talked to one of their pastors at the church there And he says, well, we don’t like to get into the doctrinal issue of eternal security.

He says, because that is so divisive. And we just want to win them to the Lord. We’re just going to get them saved. And the different churches, some churches might believe that you can lose your salvation. Some churches don’t believe you can lose. He said, but it won’t matter as long as we get them saved. I says, sir, don’t you understand that you don’t know you got anybody saved until they believe in eternal security? No man knows he’s going to heaven until he believes in eternal security.

The good news is you’re saved forever. He can never go to hell. And you don’t think a man is really trusting Christ in Christ alone when he thinks he can lose it if he does something bad? If you tell him he really believes it’s a free gift when he can take it away from him and you don’t measure up to it, that’s not salvation, that’s not what the Bible’s teaching. And no, it’s not what I believe. All my life I didn’t go to church.

I didn’t have a Bible. I didn’t read a Bible. I never had prayer in our home. I never had a Bible in our home. And I never saw anything about Christ. I always thought it was just a cuss word. But one day the Lord turned the light on and I could see. And I realized if it’s free, it’s free. If God even means what He says or He doesn’t mean what He says. And how can you work with somebody that says you can lose your salvation if you do something bad.

Neither you got it or you don’t have it. And I think to myself, what are they thinking? Can you sing me and some guy that believes you can lose your salvation, share an appropriate, we’re all this, we’re brothers and the Lord? Unless you believe in eternal security, I don’t know what you believe. But it ain’t what I believe because the Bible says that Christ paid for all of my sins and but then he didn’t pay for all of yours because if you commit another sin, you think you’ve got to die and go to hell for it.

There is no sin that I can commit and pay for it because Christ paid for all of my sins. Either you believe He did it all of them or none of them. And if He paid for all my sins, then they’re all paid. If He gave me eternal life, then I have eternal life. And He says, I’ll never cast you out. He said, I’ll never lose you. If you’ll never cast me out, never lose me. And you believe you can be cast you believe he will lose you?

You don’t believe what Christ said. I don’t know what you believe, but it ain’t what he said. And whatever Jesus you got ain’t the Jesus that I got. I didn’t write this stuff, but this is the Bible. Now, this is where I’m coming from. Do I just say that none of this matters and I have no desire to make anybody mad? I said, well, see, if we don’t participate in this, they’re going to have all these people, and they won’t send us any of them because we didn’t help them with the crowd.

See, I don’t care who it is, and I don’t care who participates, some things I cannot do. And can you see me doing that? Is there something wrong with me? Do you all understand where I’m coming from? Am I that far off base? Have I drifted so far? Am I that hard-headed? When I got this and I saw this year and some of these people I know it breaks my heart. It’s like it really doesn’t matter. The gospel doesn’t matter.

What you tell a lost man doesn’t matter. And then I have people right here saying, well, the Yankee, they’re just as clear as you are. But this is my life. This is heaven and hell issue stuff. It’s not a game to me. I talked to the man that’s right here in town on the phone the other day. And I said, sir, I said, Where do you stand on this thing about salvation? He said, well, I will save in the Southern Baptist Church.

He said, I believe in eternal security. I said, it’s great. I said, how can you work with those that don’t believe that? He said, well, people got the right to believe whatever they want to believe. I said, so you’re willing to let some of your people from your church go to those other churches that don’t believe what you believe. He said, well, I think that we need to just have to have more love and unity. I don’t know anybody wants to love people more than I love people.

I’m not trying to be a bad man, a bad guy. I’m saying if we’re supposed to let the doctrine in the Bible, tell us what we’re supposed to believe. And my love for God is to hold me online. If you don’t love according to doctrine, you don’t really love. What about a man that’s lost? Here’s the preacher standing right here. And he’s telling Leon, Leon, you gotta quit your drinking, you gotta quit your line, you gotta quit your running around, you gotta quit your drugs, you gotta quit this, and you gotta start living right.

go to church and paying your money and being obedient and all these other things get baptized and God will save you buddy. And then I’m standing over there telling them you don’t have to do anything like that Leon. I got to do his trust Christ as your Savior. Now wait a minute. Are we both saying the same thing? Did we just say the same thing? Don’t you dare say we said the same thing. We’re brothers and Christ. No we ain’t.

We’re not saying the same thing. That’s not me. That’s not my message. And I take a stand against that. But see whenever you believe that, then we can all work together. So here’s you. Little old Yankee down here on the bottom of the totem pole. No, I’ll probably never be a great preacher. I may probably never have a big church because I’m not in it for the money. I’m not in it for the show. But I have gone too long and too far that I’m not going to start compromising on this now.

But it hurts and it breaks my heart when I see those who’ve claimed to believe just like me doing something like this, getting all together and supporting the man that don’t believe what they believe. And they say, well, it doesn’t really matter. That’s such a controversial issue. The man that I talked to in California that it’s heading this thing up and he says, well, we just don’t make it an issue. Well, isn’t having eternal life, he that believe with only half what?

Isn’t that what it’s about? Isn’t John 3 16, for God so loved the the world that he gave has only been gotten son, the whosoever, believe it in him, should not perish but have everlasting life. Isn’t that what this is about? Having eternal life was shouldn’t you, when you trust Christ to say, you know you have eternal life? Well, we don’t want to make that initiative. We just want to get it saved. How do you know you’re saved? Do you know that all your sins are paid?

You’re not going to hell. You’re going to heaven when you die. 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 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. 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. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. We will be changed.

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