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 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. I want to have you take your Bible. Turn to the book of Galatians, the book of Galatians. There’s a statement made in the book of Galatians that has caused no small stir. A lot of times you figure out, oh, what in the world does it mean? You see, I believe that when a man is saved, he’s saved by grace.

He didn’t earn it, didn’t work for it, didn’t buy it, doesn’t deserve it at all. But God displayed His love toward us in the way we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. And if Christ died and paid for all of my sins, why should I have to go to hell and pay for one of them if he paid for all of them? And all I had to do was believe he did it for me. Can’t beat that. But there is a verse in the Bible that says that you can fall from grace.

Look there in verse 4 of Galatians chapter 5, where it says in verse 4, Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law ye are fallen from grace.” So the question comes down is, since you can fall from grace, he says ye are fallen from grace. Does that mean you can lose your salvation? Well, how do you explain it then and where it’s compatible with the salvation that’s supposed to be eternally secure and fallen from grace.

Well, I want you to know who the book of Galatians, first of all, is written to. If you look there in chapter 1, Galatians chapter 1, we will look at a few verses. By the time we get there, you should be getting the drift of it. You’ll notice in verse two, and all the churches which are with me or the brethren which are with me unto the churches of Galatia. So it’s a letter written to the churches of Galatia, which means they’re written to the believers.

So you’re already talking to Christians, you’re talking to those that know Christ is Savior, those that are saved, if you are saved, you’re saved by grace. And then He makes a statement in verse 6, I marvel that you’re so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ into another gospel. So the gospel of grace by which they were saved, they’re now believing another gospel that is not the gospel. So if they did have the gospel and believed the gospel, and they were believers, they were saved, but now they’re teaching something concerning the gospel on how people are saved, they’re teaching a different message.

So how can all this happen? What’s going on? So the apostle Paul is letting them know that some legalistic Judaizers that were the law keepers came down to the church at Antioch and began, and causing trouble in his church. And Peter was one of the main cohorts that did. Can you imagine the great apostle Paul splitting, I mean Peter splitting the church that Paul started, but that’s what he did. So you’ll notice when he makes a statement there in verse seven, which is not another gospel.

It’s not another. But there’d be some that troubled you would pervert or change alter. The Gospel of Christ. So he says, but though we are an angel from heaven preach unto you any other gospel than that which you have received, let him be a curse. So here’s Paul missionary goes to a place, leads people to Christ, establish a church and then another church, then another church. And so by stop establishing these churches and then somebody else comes in and teaches them something different.

You know, the apostle Paul was good, but he didn’t know everything. And so, he was a great pastor. begin to undermine the ministry of the Apostle Paul, changing the gospel from a message of salvation by grace and adding you also when you read the book of Acts chapter 15 you’ve got to be circumcised to be saved and you got to keep the law in order to keep your salvation so they were taking believers and putting them back under the law that you have to earn your salvation.

And also as a principal of how to live the Christian life. You and I ought to understand by now that you are yes saved by grace and if you’re saved by grace you are kept saved by grace. There’s nothing that you and I have to do to keep ourselves saved. If I do, then my salvation depends upon me. And grace means unmerited favor. It means without my works. So whether to be saved or to stay saved, I can have nothing to do with it.

I am simply to believe what Christ did on the cross was for me and I am saved by grace. So look there in verse 11. Verse 11, Paul says, but I certify you brethren that the gospel which was preached of me is not after me. In other words, I didn’t get this message from the other apostles. I didn’t get it from other disciples. I didn’t get it from those in Jerusalem. I got it straight from the Lord. And he addresses them as brethren.

So he’s writing to those believers that had changed the gospel of grace into a gospel that is not of grace. And the test of the gospel of grace is that has to be free and it must last……………………………. If it’s not free, it’s not the gospel. If it’s not forever, eternal, it’s not the gospel. So the test of the gospel is grace. Is it free? And does it last forever? You see, anyone who preaches a gospel that doesn’t last forever There is no gospel.

There is not another gospel. There’s only one, and the only gospel is that has to be free and lasts forever. So yes, when you’re saved, you’re saved by grace forever. So now that you know that and you understand that, then you can understand where Paul is coming from as he progresses through these verses. And let’s him know, look there in verse 16 of chapter 2, where it makes a statement, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, 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, but by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Nobody has ever been justified by the law. So don’t waste your time trying to earn something that you can’t earn. He says, I’ve told you this, I have preached this to you and you should know this and you should understand this. But now look what he says in verse 17.

Verse 17 says, but if, while we seek to be justified, that means you’re saying at this point in time, right now I’m not justified. Because if I was justified, I don’t have to seek to be justified. But if you’re trying to earn your salvation by keeping the law by what you do, then you have to say, I am not now justified. I am seeking to be justified. Then you’re admitting you’re still a sinner, you’re still lost, you’re still going to hell.

So if you have to earn your salvation, you have to wait till you die to see if you did you do it. That means you can’t know now that you’re really saved because it depends upon how you live. And God says, that’s not the gospel. That’s not good news. The good news is that you could be saved once for all. That’s good news. To know that I have eternal life and I’m going to heaven whenever I die. Now that verse 17, I want you to remember where he makes this statement, if while we seek to be justified by Christ, if you seek to be justified, and then you’re trying to keep the law, is Christ the minister of sin?

In other words, he didn’t really save you. Now you’ve gotta save yourself. And that’s why sometimes people say, you know, Christ is my helper. He’s helping me live this life that will be good enough to get to heaven. Uh-uh. That dog won’t hunt. Now look there in Galatians in chapter three. Galatians chapter three. Look in verse one. This is where he says, oh, foolish Galatians. So he’s talking to the church. He’s talking to those who had trusted Christ to say, oh, that now they were being fools, fools, because now they believe something that he never taught them.

But he says, if an angel from heaven preached unto you any other gospel that that which I preached unto you led him be a curse. So he says, now in verse one, who hath bewitched you? Who has deceived you? How could something, listen, most of you sitting in this room right now know and believe you’re saved by grace through faith and that that not of yourself is the gift of God and not of worst lest any man should boast.

And you know that you’re eternally secure and you know that you can’t go to hell in the future. But did you know that you’ll listen to people on the radio and go to a church and you sit there and listen long enough? Do you know you might even come back here and say, you know that Yankee don’t know what he’s talking about? You do have to take and keep the law and you do have to do this and you have to do that.

And you can’t tell me you can just trust Christ the Savior And live like you’re pleasing, go to heaven when you die. Understand me, we’re real clear. Can you trust Christ’s Savior? And live like the devil is still go to heaven when you die. Yes, you can. And any preacher that says, no, you can’t, he doesn’t understand the gospel. He is a phony. Now, you know, and I’m a nice guy. I don’t. But they would be a phony. Because I’ve been a liar.

But Tony doesn’t sound as bad as a liar, and I like to put a little sabbop on it. But now what I want you to see is if he says in this middle part of verse, verse 1, that ye should not obey the truth, that ye, the believers, will not obey the truth. Now look there in chapter 5, chapter 5, where it makes the statement in verse 7, ye did run Well, who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth?

So this is talking to those that knew the truth and now are not obeying the truth. You heard it, you knew it, but now you’re not doing it like you’re supposed to. You’ve let somebody else twist your mind. And as Paul says, that trouble you and pervert the gospel, twisting the message just a little. You see, it doesn’t take a lot to twist the gospel of grace. All you have to do is add one work to it. It’s no longer free.

If you can lose it because of one bad deed, not doing that bad deed is what’s keeping it, which means that your salvation wasn’t totally free. It was because you didn’t do that one bad thing. That’s not the Bible. The God Bible, God loves us, saves us, gives eternal life, and we go to heaven on what he did for us. But he says, you did run well for a while. And this is why you need to keep it in mind.

You see, the devil can’t always stop you from running. And many people, they trust Christ, they save you, they dedicate their life to the Lord, and I’m gonna turn the world upside down. See, the devil, all he has to do is just not stop your momentum, just change your direction. just change your focus a little bit so that you get off course, and you’re no longer with that same drive that you had when you started, with that same fire that you had at what you wanted to accomplish for the Lord.

And you’ll listen to what everybody else is doing or see what somebody else is doing, and it changes you and gets you off course, be wise. Go back there in chapter three. See, there’s certain things that are mentioned throughout the previous chapters by the time you get to chapter five. Oh, that’s what it’s talking about. So he makes a statement there in verse five of Galatians chapter three. He therefore that matters to you the spirit and work as miracles among you.

Do he it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Two things in that verse, works faith. Works. Or faith. See faith is because you heard and you believed. How were you saved? When you got saved, how were you saved? Was it because you did the works of the law? Or because you heard the gospel and you simply believed? That’s all that you did. That’s all that you have to do. So now look in verse three.

In verse three he says, are you so foolish having begun in the spirit? You know that that’s the only way you can do it. You’re saved by trusting Christ as your Savior. The Holy Spirit gives you a spiritual birth, and then He says, are you now made perfect by the flesh? That means to be made mature. Are you going to grow to maturity by the law? The law couldn’t save you? The law can’t mature you. Remember this. And you’ll see this in chapter 5.

This arm we’re born into the world. flesh birth. This old flesh birth has a sinful nature. The first birth when we’re born to the world is under the law and therefore all that are under the law or under the curse of the law because the law condemns everyone that breaks the law. So all have sinned, all have broken the law, all are condemned. So no man can keep the law perfectly so he can’t save himself by his works. That’s why he needed a new birth.

So lo and behold you heard the good news. You trusted Christ as your Savior gave you a new birth. This one born of God. Now remember this one is from above. This one is from the earth. Now those who trust Christ’s Savior have a new birth. This one did not come from this one separate. I have been born twice, once into the world and once as a child of God. Now when you seek to live your Christian life. According to the law, you have placed yourself back in the flesh and you’re going to try to live according to laws that you can’t keep.

And you will rob yourself of the peace, the joy, the happiness. You become legalistic trying to be something you can’t be. You can’t keep it. It doesn’t produce. You are a failure and therefore he says, you have fallen from grace. Fallen means you have to be there and you’re no longer living there. You’ve fell into a different position. See, when you were born the world a positional truth is you are a child of the flesh and you couldn’t change it.

You trusted Christ as your Savior. Now you are seen by God in the Spirit, a spiritual birth. This one is of God. This one is of man. How does God want you and I to live our Christian life? If we try to go back and live according to the flesh, we put ourselves under the law that condemns us and therefore you cannot succeed. And when you do that, you try to tell other people they must live the way you live or they can’t have salvation or you can’t be spiritually mature.

See, the law couldn’t save you. The law cannot mature you. It can’t produce the results that you want. That’s why a little bit later in chapter 5 he says, the works of the flesh are manifest and it tells you what they are. And then it tells you what the fruit of the Spirit is. This is separate from this one. So God says, you’ve not only changed your gospel message, but you’re living by a principle that cannot produce. You’re trying to live a Christian life and go to maturity and it will not work.

He says, when I first came to you and I preached the gospel and you believed it, he says, you knew about my bad eyesight. He says, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me because you loved me so much because I told you the truth. He says, now, now I’m telling you the truth.

Are you with me? Do you understand me? Are you for me? Do I become your enemy? Because now I’m telling you the truth and I’m telling you what somebody else has told you isn’t the truth. So sometimes people cannot put it all together. But now look there in chapter three of Galatians. And notice what he says in verse six. Even as Abraham believed God and it was counted in him for righteousness, that’s all Abraham Abraham had to do. And Abraham lived 430 years before the law was ever given, so Abraham could not keep the law to be saved.

Yet he was the father of the nation of Israel. And we are the children of Abraham by faith in Christ. And Abraham wasn’t saved by the law. You can’t find in the Bible where any man has ever been saved because he kept the law. It’s impossible because it can’t be done. A man would have to be perfect from the day he’s born to the day he dies and never commit a sin. That’s why down in verse 10, look what he says in verse 10.

Where it says, for as many as are of the works of the law or under the curse, not blessing. And as he says right there, for it is written curse. It is everyone that continue, if not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. So it’s not a matter of I kept some, You have to keep all. And then James in chapter two, verse 10, he makes the statement, “‘Whosoever shall keep the whole law offended in one point.

He’s guilty of all of them.’ You have to live a perfect life to earn your way to heaven. And you can’t live a perfect life unless you’re perfect. A good person would have to be good to bring forth good works. But God says, we’re sinners. And that there is none good. There is none righteous. A sinner can only bring forth sins. That’s why even our righteousness in the eyes of God is sinful. Now, in verse eight, he makes a statement.

And the scripture for seeing that God would justify the heathen, that’s us, through faith. Preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So God preached the gospel to Abraham before the law was ever given by Moses, saw Mount Sinai 430 years later. So Abraham was simply saved by faith alone. And God says in verse nine, so then they which are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Well, what was that blessing that Abraham got that I’m supposed to get to?

Well, I’m glad you asked. Look what he says in verse 14. Verse 14 says that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith, not by the law, not because you earned it, not because you worked for it. And God says when he told Abraham about Abraham to believe God and it was kind of the hymn for righteousness in Genesis 15, he said, what did he believe?

Well, you see in verse 16, now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made and he say if not and to seeds as of many, but as of one and to thy seed singular, which is Christ. So Abraham knew that what God was talking about was Jesus Christ is gonna come through this line. And he believed that promise. He believed what God said about Jesus Christ. So he will say, by faith, grace alone, in Christ alone. So now, what about this law that comes along?

So he says in verse 17, he says, and this I say that the covenant was confirmed before God in Christ, the law which was 430 years after it cannot disanall it, that it should make the promise of non-effect. God says that he preached the gospel before unto Abraham’s sin, that he would justify the heathen through faith. So the gospel is being justified by faith. That’s good news. Without the death, burial and resurrection, there is no good news. I can only be justified just if I never sinned because Christ paid for all of my sins.

And when I believe that, I have the free gift of everlasting life. I don’t have any sins to go to hell to pay for. He died for me, paid for all of my sins. Well, if he paid for all of them, there’s none for me to pay for. I I can’t go to hell today, I can’t go tomorrow, I can’t never go to hell. I can’t go if I try. . . . . . . . . . I haven’t tried, but I can’t go to home.

Because of what he did for me, that called grace. You don’t deserve it. I had a man tell me the other day. He says, you mean to tell me if I believe what you believe? I can just trust Christ as my Savior. I live like a devil and still go to heaven when I die. I said, well, let’s just pretend. Let’s say you trust Christ as Savior. He saves you. He gives you eternal life and you live like the devil and you die one to heaven.

I said, that’d be grace, wouldn’t it? That’d be grace, wouldn’t it? Sure is. Don’t most people live the way they want? Almost everybody, they live the way you want to live anyway. I’d rather live the way I want to live and go to heaven than the way I want to live and go to hell. Now, he makes this statement here about this promise. And you’ll notice as he goes down through here, he makes this statement, and I want you to see it because it’s so important.

Looking verse 26, for ye, ye, he’s talking to these believers. He are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. So He’s telling them that you are the children of God. What he says in verse 29, and if you be Christ, then are you Abraham’s seat? It airs according to the promise. So now you know who he’s talking to. He’s talking to those that know Christ as their Savior. But they have been swayed into believing something different.

Let’s say for example, you trusted Christ as your Savior 20 years ago, but you didn’t get into a church, you didn’t set into Bible, and so you got to where you weren’t sure anymore. All right. Then you started going to some heretic church and they teach you all kind of weird, crazy things. And you forgot that you were, that even you have eternal life, you don’t even know for sure. Nine you question everything. You’re not sure where you’re going to that.

Did you know one of the greatest things in the Bible is this, we have this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his. The Lord has not forgotten who you are. He hasn’t forgotten that he saved you. And if he ever saved you, regardless of what you now believe how heretical it may be, you are still saved if you ever have been saved. If you ever were saved when you were four or five years, six years old, if you’ve ever been saved, you still are because you can’t get unsaved.

Now I’m not saying you’re saved because I don’t know whether or not you believed it or you didn’t. But if you’ve ever been saved, you still are. Nobody has ever been saved twice. There is not one verse in the Bible, not one story that gives us an illustration about somebody that was saved and lost salvation. Now if it was possible you would think would there be something in the Bible? Or you have never read in the Bible where somebody got saved, got lost, and got saved again.

Why can’t he get saved again? Because you can’t never get lost, can’t get lost, can’t get saved again. Because once you’re saved you are always saved. And there’s people that call that a a damnable doctrine of eternal security. And yet, when you break it all, that is the gospel. That is what makes it such good news. That’s worth telling people about. Going to all the world and telling people to behave themselves is not a good message to take. It won’t fly because it won’t work.

Nobody behaves themselves. And you don’t either. You are not perfect. 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. 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.