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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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Turn in your Bible in where you want. Try Philippians if you want to. I mean, that’s where I’m going to read if you want to stay with me, I’d appreciate it. Let me read to you my greatest Christmas gift that I had this year. It wasn’t in a card, it wasn’t money, it wasn’t a gift certificate. It wasn’t a phone call. It was this letter. And I want to share it with you. They said I could. Because you know the most important thing you can ever do is invest in people’s time in the people’s lives.

Sometimes you wonder if anything you say sticks. Sometimes you have to leave to find out if somebody really got what you said. Like having teenagers. You like to believe that you are the best parents in the world and And know that day comes when you’re scared to death, that they’ve got to turn them loose and see if what you taught will stand. That’s scary. And it’s the same thing with God’s people. Be great if we could protect everybody all the time.

Put you in a nice house, you know, a hot house environment where nothing from outside can get to you, protect these precious little plants. And yet sometimes you have to let them hit it, see whether or not what you taught is going to suffice. Anyway, he wrote this to me. This is a young man that has a wife and two little children. He says, Janki, I have been meaning to write this for quite some time. I have had you on my mind for a while, and I should have done this before now.

I want to tell you how much you mean to me. I know you are humble and that you probably think nothing of it, but you have done so much for me and my family. Let me start by saying I have never known anyone with such a burden for lost people. desire to lead people to the Lord is so great because of that you led Shannon to the Lord and who then led me. I truly miss being at Northside and getting to hear you preach.

I have never heard anyone teach the way you do and such a simple and easy to understand manner. I know this is not easy and I remember hearing you say, being simple to understand isn’t easy. I have learned so much from you that has helped me in my daily life that I thank you for because of the gospel being presented in a clear way, both me and Chrissy were able to trust Christ as our Savior. Now Now in turn we led Abby to the Lord and will start on J.

Swin. He is old enough to understand. Having to be at another church and under another pastor has showed me that I took things for granted. I was blessed with you as my pastor and should have thanked you then. I never realized how much I was learning and being showed. In this day and age, I miss all the things we had at Northside back then, especially how everyone has such a desire for the lost. I just take for granted that you would always be there and that I would get to hear such good teaching and instruction.

I know the Lord has led you to a new ministry and things have been going well there. I knew that the Lord would put you where you will be best used for His honor and glory, and this is how it should be and is right. But know that you are truly missed by us here. I think about you a lot and miss you deeply. All this being said, I just wanted to express how much you are missed and loved by me and my family and how much you meant to us.

I pray that the Lord blesses you and that you are fruitful with the new school. I pray that the Lord leads many new opportunities your way. I did not mean to dwell in the past or to be downhearted in any way because I know the one thing will never change is that there will always be change. The Lord has put you where you can serve Him best and I am so happy for you. Anytime you are up this way, please come by and see us as you are always welcome at my house.

May God bless you and all you strive to do for Him. Thank you so much for all you have done for me and my family. That was from Michael C. Graves and Chrissy. They trusted the Lord through our ministry up there. And sometimes you wonder what’s going on in the lives of other people and you don’t see them for a while. That might be just a letter for you, but that’s a powerhouse letter to me. It makes certain the Lord so much worth it.

When you begin to have questions and doubts, remember the greatest power in your life is the influence that you have in the lives of somebody else. That as you live your life, are you impacting other people’s lives. You like to think that everybody stays the same, that people don’t change. In a sense, change their doctrine. But you know that happens too. You see, what you believe today, you didn’t always believe. And there may become a time down the road where you won’t believe what you now believe.

Do you actually believe that it’s possible for everything you now believe, for you not to believe? it’s possible. I want to read just a simple thing to you because this affects home, it affects us. But you know, before I get there, I always like a little humor. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the Afghan quarterback or not. The coach had put together the perfect team for the Chicago Bears. The only thing that was His missing was a good quarterback.

He had scouted the colleges, Canadian, European leagues, couldn’t find a ringer that he thought could ensure a Super Bowl win. We’re coming up to some of that there pretty soon. One night while he was watching CNN, he saw a war zone, seen there in Afghanistan. In one corner of the background, he spotted a young Afghan Muslim soldier with a truly incredible arm. He threw a hand grenade straight into the 15-story window, a hundred yards away.

He threw another hand grenade, 75 yards away, right down a chimney. Then he threw another one at a passing car going 90 miles an hour, bullseye. He said, I got to get this guy. He has the perfect arm. So he brings him to the stage, teaches him the great game of football, and the bears go on to win the Super Bowl. You didn’t probably hear about all of this. The young Afghan is hailed as the great hero of football and when the coach asked him what he wanted, all the young man wanted was to call his mom.

He said, mom, I just won the Super Bowl. I don’t want to talk to you. He said, the Muslim woman, you’re not my son. I don’t think you understand mom. I just won the greatest prize in all of sports. And I’ve got thousands of adoring fans. No, let me tell you, the mother said. At this very moment, there’s gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is in a pile of rubble. Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their life last week.

And your sister has to stay inside unless she gets raped. And then she tearfully said, I’ll never forgive you. Never forgive you for making us move to Chicago. Don’t you feel better already? Making us move to Chicago. And buddy, Chicago is the gun law capital of the world, and is one of the worst places to live. So anyway, I want to share this with you. There’s a man. I don’t know if I’ve met him or not. I may have.

Name is Rance Darity. He posted online on the discussion group of the Florida Bible College Alumni Association. He submitted what he called his biblical salvation. He mentioned several things, but one of the points that he made was the announcement of the gospel. Now he had gone to Florida Bible college years ago. The announcement of the gospel, repent, come unto me, believe, confess, turn, follow me, submit, give allegiance, receive him, forsake all else, become a disciple. Now you and I might listen to that and say, now is that what you have to do for salvation?

And you would say, no, that is not the gospel. Now he didn’t always believe this, but he now believed this. You say, well,627 why would a person believe something like this? Well, he says, the disagreements we have on this list seems to be mostly in the area I have entitled the announcement of the gospel. Some seem to think that because Christians use different words to announce the gospel. They are putting the gospel at risk unless it is stated in terms of faith only.

Text like Ephesians 2, 8, 9 and Romans 11, 6 are presented as proof that any presentation that is not clear on the concept of grace and our faith violate the truth of the gospel. Others of us see no contradiction at all. In other words, we say that you’re saved by faith alone, and Christ alone for eternal life. And that’s all that you have to do, and you can know that you have eternal life. When you add anything other than just by faith alone, it becomes a works salvation without any securities, without any guarantee.

It means that now you have to hope that you’re going to heaven because it depends upon your performance. But if it’s by faith alone, in Christ alone, then you know that it can be a sure thing, because it’s based upon what he said and what he did. He makes a statement. The reason in my views lies in confusing the grace of the gospel with the message of the gospel. That’s confusing in and of itself. He makes the statement, when a person turns and seeks to follow Christ, grace is in action.

When a person repents, grace is in action. When a person believes, grace is in action. All these various responses, he says, is just different ways to preach the gospel. I have a problem. He says, in fact, there are many ways to preach Christ and salvation as there are people to preach them. Some of us lean hard upon the book of John. Others on the synoptic gospel. Others upon Acts. Others upon Paul’s writing, yet in all God works. Sometimes we sound the note of forsaken sin.

At other times we sound the note of counting the cost. At other time the note of the Freeness of the Gospel, but all the elements share in the one true Gospel founded upon the work of Christ. In this, let us all unite. We’re not on the same page. Now, understand at Calvary Community Church, when we say by grace, it means that you’re not saved_> by the people. We’re not saved by a combination of grace and work, a little faith and a little work.

Just in case we believe that our only hope is in common. Christ and Christ alone, that there is no other hope, there is no other gospel, there is no other salvation. What causes a person to get so far off base? You say, well, everybody stays the same, not in their theology. This is why you may come here and you’ve heard Dr. Hank Lindstrom for years. I’m here pretty much the same thing. teach the same. But did you know that you can go to a lot of churches?

Now, it usually starts off like this. They’re not as clear as we are, but, but, then they butt, but, but, if it’s not as clear, why would you go there? But let me share this with you. He He writes and he says, my early religious life was in the context of the Southern Baptist denomination. Here often heard about heaven and hell andhler and death and resurrection of Christ and the need to come to him. So I was converted as a 16 year old kid.

Off to university. Here he fellowshiped with Christians of all different backgrounds, active in the student, Union, campus crusade for Christ, we reached out to non-Christians and shared the four spiritual flaws, laws. In other words, God has a wonderful plan for your life. That is not how I start off with lost people. God has a wonderful plan for your life. The only plan God has for anybody is life. You get saved. After you get saved. Now, as a child of God, God has a wonderful plan for your life.

But you see, to get saved has nothing to do with your life. Just temporary little time here. We’re talking about where you’re going to spend eternity and that is important. Then he says, ah, to Florida Bible College, through a friend who was preparing to go to Vietnam. I heard about FBC, sounded good to me. I transferred, eventually bringing along with me. sudden, Kenny somebody, Jim Scudder, Bill Adams. Remember he mentioned Bill Adams the other last week? Jim Scudder that was here.

So there’s other people that went to the same university and wanted to transfer down to Florida Bible college. Anyway, he says, here I learned the FBC way of witnessing. I sounded like a recording of A. Ray Stanford. I was quite good at holding my own, but once a young seminary student wouldn’t crack. So he says, a cousin, from Grace Theological Seminary, hell-firm, that repentance did not mean merely changing one’s mind. I was frustrated because I knew he was a genuine brother in Christ, and therefore his view on repentance changed.

the Pennsylvania. And then he says in verse number five, I became a five point Calvinist. Red author Pink and Puritans like crazy began to realize the FBC way might not be the right way. The FBC way was just simply the Bible way. FBC way was the Bible way. It’s what did the Bible teach. It’s just what we learned at Florida Biblenil College. And then he says, decided to attend Grace College in Indiana. Here I began to take seminary courses as an undergraduate student.

By this time I was quite sure the FBC was just one way among many other good ways. So then he says he lunched into the Bethany Fellowship, a church still upward, and going strong. converted others to Calvinism and to the Plymouth Brethren Style of Church Fellowship. Spinhires and so forth in the seminaries and so forth. So I don’t know how much you accomplished, but he just went from one cemetery to another cemetery. And cemeteries can kill you. Then he says in point number seven, move to Pennsylvania became more interested in leaving my primit brethren, fellowship and joined a reformed Baptist Church.

So he’s moving right along. Then he moved from a Baptist church to join a mega Presbyterian church in America. Spent nine years there. And then he became an Anabaptist and discovered biblical scholarship. Spent another nine years there. Then he left the Presbyterians to worship with the Mennonites. All of that to say this, there were countless conversions along the way. I was blessed by them all, but these Christians all explained the gospel in various ways. Among the Anabaptists, for example, the emphasis is not on justification but upon discipleship and the way of peace.

Among my emergent friends, the emphasis is upon following Christ. Among my FBC friends, Ephesians 2 8 and 9. Among my Catholic friends, baptism and sacraments. my Presbyterian and Reformed friends, total depravity and election by God’s free grace. But among all of them, it has been Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now, He don’t know what He believes or how long He’s going to believe it. Do you think that you’re going to stay the same unless you stay in the good, strong, sound Bible teaching.

You can drift without ever knowing you’re going to drift. You don’t have to plan it. If I was the devil, all I have to do, if I want to destroy your life, is get you away from good sound theological teaching of the Word of God. Why do you think we want to teach people what the Word of God says? You get into it and you read it and you study it and you believe it. There is a difference between salvation and discipleship.

You see, salvation is simply you come to Christ for salvation. Discipleship is you come after Christ. You follow Christ. So coming to Christ to be saved and then you follow Christ in discipleship and you can be saved and never be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. But should I be a disciple? Should I as a child of God? Should I discipline my life to be what God wants me to be? So take your Bible and turn to the book of Philippians in chapter 3.

Philippians chapter 3 and look in verse for. I want to give you just a few things on how to discern discipleship. Because you see, salvation is simple. It is clear. It’s by faith alone in what Christ did on the cross for us. Salvation is us accepting what He did. Believe in He did it for us. He paid for my sins. If He paid for all of my sins, then all of my sins are paid. I do not have to pay for any of my sins.

not even one. I deserve to pay for my sins, but Christ paid it for me. That’s substitution. I didn’t deserve that. But He loved me, and that shows me how much He loved me because of what He did for me. As a child of God, it is the will of God that I follow the Lord. And I believe that steps towards discipleship begins with dissatisfaction. There was a time in my life. When I was so dissatisfied with who I was, where I was, what I was doing, and I had no dream or vision about what to do with my life.

So in most cases with most individuals, There is no desire to grow and to do and to be unless there’s some sort of dissatisfaction where you are with what you have and what you’re doing or not doing. And so I enjoy watching as Christians begin to talk about how so dissatisfied they are on their job. Or things are not really totally just wonderful at home all the time. You see, problems make people struggle. Struggle means it makes you stronger and you find something better than what you had than where you are.

I would have never gone to Bible school if there had not been inside of me this desire that I wanted something better. I was so dissatisfied with who I was. I was dissatisfied with my whole life. And I didn’t see anything getting any better. You’re talking about faith is born in desperation. when there’s no other physical hope, no strength left. When you don’t know what you’re going to do or how you’re going to accomplish anything, and you realize if God doesn’t do it, it can’t get done.

It won’t get done. So here in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 4, the apostle Paul lays out his dissatisfaction. He could say, look who I am. But he says, though I might have confidence in the flesh, if any other men think that he hath, whereof he might trust in the flesh, I’m more. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of his rail of the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of the Hebrews as touching the law of Pharisee concerning zeal persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law of blameless.

But what things were gained to me in those I counted the loss for Christ? You see, there has to be something better than what I have. When you realize and you come to the end of all of your talent, your abilities, your wisdom, and you realize I still come up so short, how can I in this world ever be satisfied? You can’t. It’s impossible. You just go for one thing to the neck. There’s no end to it. But when I made up my mind to serve the Lord, I’ve been satisfied as I’ve watched God work in my life over the years.

You know, one of the last points I have, but I just can’t stand waiting that long, is the discipleship produces durability. discipleship produces durability. It makes you endure. It gives you a toughness, a strength to do what you thought you could have never done. If there was no discipleship and all I had was just my salvation but no purpose for living, we would still be of all men most miserable. It’s because Christ came back from the dead, that my life is not useless.

My faith is not useless. It’s not in vain. There’s a reason, there’s a purpose. There’s something to be accomplished. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tapp of Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. 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. 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. Live 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.