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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 by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family.

There’s a lot of people who are thinking that they are saved and are not. So therefore, that means a lot of people are being deceived today. They’re disillusioned. Many people are not really sure what it takes to get to heaven. No one will be saved after death. We often hear about, well, God will give you a second chance. Don’t even think that when you die, and if you’re not saved, God will give you another chance. God will give me another chance.

If he really loves me and really wants me to go to heaven, he’ll give me another chance. The Bible says, depart from me, I never knew you. He didn’t give you another chance. After this, the judgment, not a second chance. Otherwise, everybody would go to heaven. So evidently, God only gives you this time, this life, in which to trust him as your savior. But though that is true, there is a lot of people people who preach a wrong message.

If all this is true, there must be a lot of preachers though that are not preaching the truth. Good, nice, sincere preachers, but wrong. Let me ask you a question. How do you know I’m telling you the truth? How do you know I’m not deceiving you? Wouldn’t it be a shame for you to trust me for your eternal destination. Trust them that I’ve told you the truth and I’ve lied to you all along. And now when you die you wake up in hell for all eternity and you believed me.

So how do you know who to believe? If all of this is true and there really is a heaven and there really is a hell then you’d better make sure sure that what you think you believe is true. And how do you know? Let me give you a statement by Dr. Dehan. I used to listen to him already years ago. He said there’s a vast difference between coming to Jesus for salvation and coming after Jesus for service. Coming to Christ makes one a believer.

While coming after Christ makes one a disciple. All believers are not disciples. To become a believer, one accepts the invitation of the gospel. To be a disciple, one obeys the challenge of a life of dedicated service and separation. Salvation comes through the sacrifice of Christ, but discipleship comes only by sacrifice of self and surrender to his call for devoted service. Salvation is free, but discipleship involves paying the price of a separated walk. Salvation cannot be lost because it depends upon God’s faithfulness.

discipleship can be lost because it depend upon our faithfulness. Though he wrote that and I agree with it, it is simple. I believe it’s true because there’ll be confusion to the majority of people who just heard what I just read. Now salvation means eternal deliverance from hell. If we was going to say what is salvation. It is eternal deliverance from hell to heaven. It costs you nothing. It’s totally free.

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 passed in, 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. 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 understand in pulpit 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. 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 want the happy people to 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 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 things that you say But how do you know this is referring to what they said?

Because he says a pair 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 signs 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 tell 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. false teaching. Very false teaching. I want you to take your Bible and look there in the book of Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 48, the Bible tells us that God is perfect. Verse 48, be therefore 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 Run off the bat. What do I have to do to to go to heaven and to inherit eternal life? Be perfect Simple so you gotta 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 before but you might be the first one.

Well what are you gonna do about the things you’ve already done that’s wrong? Now what are you gonna do about that? If you can live perfect from this day forward, what are you gonna do about the way you already have lived? He says, being ye 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 of 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, I’m going to hear never told a lie in your life, raise your hand, nobody can raise your hand. 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. Now, that’s what God said.

So if you had to be perfect and keep the law in order to go to heaven, it would be an impossibility. Now go back there to Matthew and chapter 19 and look there in verse 16. And behold, one came and said unto him, good master, what good thing shall I do that I may 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 will say and 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 of a house because he’s already admitted, Oh, I’ve done this, and I did that, and I did this, and I did that.”

Well, Christ already knew that He had agreed that He coveted money. He coveted wealth. He said, OK, take everything that you got and go sell it. Because he didn’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 the sky, Jesus Christ talking to this rich young ruler. His disciples stand here, listen to them, 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. 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 send it to 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 Hebrews and chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5 is a tremendous verse, And this is what it says. In verse 9. In verse 9. And being made, this is talking about Christ. Being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation.

Now listen to me. If he is perfect and becomes the author of eternal salvation, the wages of sin is what? Death. 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. 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 you, it is forever. It’s an eternal salvation. Not partial. Not until you see it. And 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. 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, 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. Any preacher that teaches you can be saved today, lost tomorrow because of something you do, that man is a false teacher. He is false. Totally false. He’s not of God. I don’t care who they are. 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 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. cli. But that’s all that it requires. Believe in me, you’re trusting in the work he did for you.

You’re not trusting in your work. See, if you think you got to stop your sins and to be saved, or you 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 is 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.

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. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of Philippians in 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.

It’s not that Lord I finally confess I stop all my sins I promise that I’m gonna serve you and I’m good enough for you to save now. No, you think God’s gonna save you because you promised that you’re gonna quit your sins when it’s an impossibility? Do you know it is impossible for you to turn from all 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 the heart, mind, body, soul, and strength that’s impossible for you?

Why? Because you got to send for nature. Why tell people that you got to do the impossible and believe it that without giving them the cure sure I’ve told people if you want to go to heaven Just be perfect. What’s that you can’t do that? Yeah, you got to point Here in Philippians in chapter three looking verse three for we are the circumcision which rejoice or which worship God in the spirit and Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have in your on the line this in your Bible no Confidence in the what 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 5, 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, is touching law fairs he looked who I am. I have no confidence in the flesh as to look who I am. When my dad was a preacher, my uncle was a preacher, my great-granddad, he was a preacher.

Boy, I was raised in church all my life and I sing in the choir and I go, that has nothing to do with nothing. Zero! No confidence in the flesh! Looking for six concerning zeal? Boy, am I motivated. I mean, I give to all the humanitarian needs and I help to feed the poor children. 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 promise to do. God never saved you because of the works of righteousness. I stop all my bad needs. 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 gonna live for Him. 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 houndball getting into the soup bone. You won’t go to heaven. Many people think and they’re saved, not saved. And I’ve traveled around on preaching enough churches.

And a lot of those people, I’ve been people in independent fundamental Bible evolutionary 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 you a little pinky’s one inch closer to the pearly gates. Whenever you die, it’s dead, you or did you not trust Christ? And he’s the one who knows 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.

there is no flesh involved. It 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. Well, 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. She 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, but 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 gotta stop something, you gotta 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 and Master of all of things in your life, you’ll 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 got to live right to go to heaven.

Dream on. It’s not by works of righteousness. It’s only through Christ and Him alone is 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 and anything that they’ve done, I doubt it. their salvation. I doubt their salvation. Why? Because God says if you trust in anything other than Him, God says you not say, He said, I didn’t say it.

He says Christ propheteth 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 the sins. So why tell them he asked them 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 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 got to go to church? You had to go, well, you got to give money. Okay, how much? What if you give it to your own church? That’s not the Bible. It’s not 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. There is not a work for us to do. But to him, that work, not believe it on him, that justified the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

So when you and I believe that, he gives us eternal life and we go to heaven on what Christ did for us. I hope that you have trusted Christ as your Savior. Let’s pray, Shallelujah. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 tool free.

1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.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, and 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, and just keep looking up.