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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, 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.

They’ll look like y’all are sitting there waiting for me to say something important. I sure hope I don’t disappoint you. I want to read something to you. And while I’m getting ready for that, turn in your Bible to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians 1. I have a radio broadcast, as you know, Fridays I go live. But I got this email. Says I had just finished doing some yard work, I was taking a break on the back porch this morning.

I turned to ready yaw on to Glenn Beck. I listened for a moment until the Lord, this is not edifying me at all. I pushed the station button to WTBN and heard you read in the letter. I had wrote you about my deaf wife. And her ability to read your lips on the Sunday service streaming. dreaming. I will be very truthful pastrall, the Lord was showing me that I can be an encourager or a discourager. That choice is up to me.

So I have been in discouragement and depression for a couple of days and I see again how the Lord can use me. I’ve printed out the directions to your church this morning. If you will allow my wife and I to go there, yeah, we always ask people to give, they have to get permission to come here. I have not lived my life for the Lord. It’s been spotty at times. Please pray for me. Again, it was good to hear a familiar voice on the ready Yopropon claiming God’s truth.

And he emailed me and said that he was going to come to church. So last Sunday, I looked for him. We had people raise their hand if they were a first time visitor and I was a little discouraged they weren’t here. I was at the back door shaking people’s hands and they came through the door. Trooped my hand and said, this is my wife that I wrote you about. But I didn’t have much time to talk to them and they left.

Well, last Sunday night I preached a sermon on how you can know you have eternal life. And they watched the broadcast as we stream it. And this is what he said, My wife and I went to your church Sunday morning. I heard you preach the word of God. I did not understand or comprehend eternal salvation. Again I streamed your Sunday service to my home and my wife and I watched and listened. It was like a light went on. I considered carefully what you said about God’s way versus man’s way to salvation.

I wanted so bad to be satisfied, resulting in restless and turmoil for 50 years of my life. I was headed to hell and I knew it Sunday night. I had a choice to make. Did I believe God and what he had to say about salvation? Or was I going to cling to what I had been taught all my 50 years? My thinking and belief was pulling me down quicker and quicker like a giant black funnel cloud. My intellectual thinking about the matter kept me and ever ending head spending confusion.

Am I saved or am I lost? That night I trusted Jesus and His payment for me is the only way of ever going to heaven. Believe in that He did it just for me and I know what He has given me. A free gift, eternal life. So simple. All the glory belongs to the Lord. I want to say thank you, Robert Dixon. And so I just thought I’d like to share that with you that the stream and does pay off.

The radio broadcast does pay off. And I would like for them just to stand. Go ahead and just stand it right there so they know who you are. This is Robert. And this is his wife. And her name is Sherry. Thank you so much. You never know who is listening and the impact that it might make on someone who’s not for me with hearing it all the time. Sometimes we take things for granted. But here in the book of Corinthians, I’m going to be a little bit of everywhere.

I don’t have any notes. I got my Bible, but I just want to talk to you. I was given this morning something that I just can’t believe because they have on here what we believe and I just can’t believe what they believe. This is from the open door community church, gay pastors, Randy and Gary, serving Little Rock and Central Arkansas. So this is not our typical church. But at least they offend somebody. They wrote, it looks more like a disclaimer.

It says, Open Door Community Church is made up of people from various church denominational backgrounds to fully define what we believe would be difficult. And doctrinal statements tend to be exclusive and divisive. However, it is possible to extract some common beliefs, particularly from those traditionally accepted as the basics for hundreds of years of Church history. Using those foundational truths, we present the following statements as a framework around which we can unite,tifant with which we can agree. In detailing this information, the following disclaimers should be noted.

The phrasing of these statements are not inspired and can be interpreted various ways. That is not to say that anyone desiring to unite with this church must believe all these truths. We are very diverse and the actual incorporation of these truths can vary greatly. But at least it gives those who are making the decision some idea of what we believe. It is not our desire to limit what we believe to just these statements in this platform we’re only attempting to present the basics.

Now isn’t that as clear as a glass of mud? Well, if you were here doing Sunday school, I was trying to give you some basics, foundational truths, things that are rock solid, we believe. And therefore, I want to go a little bit further. Now that we’re on the foundation, which is Jesus Christ, you see, you must be justified before we discuss about being sanctified. So here in the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter one, Look there in verse two, unto the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.

Now, did you know that these people in Corinth were called saintscelona? And if youcules study the bookstanbulians, this is the worldly, carnal-minded, materialistic, bunch of people that you’ve ever met in your life. Like a lot of churches today. These people had accepted the free gift of eternal life. They Flavoring they knew they were going to heaven when they died. They believed that and!, God saves them, justifies them, clears them from all sin that they’ve ever done or ever will do, and they have accepted that payment Christ made.

They’re now God’s child, and they die. It doesn’t look like they were about to serve the Lord. Oh, but they met together. But there was no sanctification in their life in the sense of living like a saint. You see, the word saint comes from a Greek where Haggioso meaning to be made pure and holy and set apart unto the Lord. They belong to the Lord. They have been made pure and holy by the payment Christ made. But in their life, they were anything but pure and holy.

See, you can trust Christ as your Savior and never have sanctification in your life. The where you live a sanctified life, live a holy life, a godly life. But it is the will of God that we do so. So take your Bible and look there in chapter 3. Chapter 3 in verse 1 says, and I brethren. So he’s talking to those that know the Lord. They believe the Lord. They call saints not because of how good they are. They’re called saints because they have been made sanctified by Christ made pure and holy.

So he says in verse 1, and I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual. Because you see up in chapter two of verse 15, there’s those that are spiritually minded, means they mind the spirit, and they can discern the things of God. There are some of God’s children that have no discernment. They don’t know what God says. They never learn the word of God. So they can’t tell what’s really right and wrong and how to make decisions in their life.

So they don’t grow spiritually. He says, I could not speak unto you, it’s under spiritual but, as under carnal, as under babes in Christ. In other words, they were fleshly minded. It means they mind the world. They do what they want to do. Christians that were saved but wanted to live the way they wanted to live. There’s many things in their life that never stopped. They never stopped doing. Their lives had not been transformed. No change. So what is Paul going to do with this carnal, worldly-minded church?

And that’s what they were. Paul didn’t change the gospel message on just salvation by faith and faith alone. He begins to teach them proper doctrine. So he tells them about the judgment seat of Christ. You see there in chapter three, where he makes the statement in verse nine, for we are labors together with God. He says, your God’s husbandry, your God’s building. Look in the last part of verse 10 where he says, but let every man take heed how he built it, they’re on.

On what? Verse 11 says, For other foundation can no man lay, then that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our foundation. He is the one that we’re trusting in to get us to heaven. So when we trust Him that takes us to heaven, He is what we trust, He is what we rest on. But He says you want to build on the foundation. So how strong you become is your choice. And some Christians make good decisions and some Christians make bad decisions.

Some grow and become spiritual giants for the Lord and others are still babes in Christ. They’re fleshly minded, carnal minded. It means they just do whatever they want to do. Live the way they want. They let the old sinful nature they have dominate their life. They don’t yield to the Lord and say Lord, what will thou have me to do? whatever I want to do. And so that’s how they guide their life. And there’s many things in their life was destroying the church.

They were living wicked lives. Very, very bad. But Paul loved them. God loved them. He doesn’t kick you out of heaven. So you can’t go. He didn’t take away their salvation. But there’s one thing he did do in chapter 5. says that we’re going to pray. They’ll see they’re looking verse 1 of chapter 5. It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentile that one should have his father’s wife.

This was people that were in the church. These are believers. These are God’s children doing wickedly. That’s So Paul says, pray for the destruction of the flesh. See there in chapter five. And look what he says there in the next verse. In verse four. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are gathered together in my spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such a one on the Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the Spirit may be savedbool the day of our Lord Jesus.

See, you’re still saved. You go to heaven when you die, but God may He just have to take you early. So can you live as you please? Yeah? Can you get away with it? No? There is a price to pay. Now these people were even having the Lord suffer and they were getting drunk. I mean they really took the wine seriously. I’ll never forget when my sister one time she came and why she was just sitting right down there,, her name is Lizzie.

She’s in heaven now. But she had trouble with, um, been an alcoholic, the Bible called being a drunk. So she would drink anything. She said right beside my son, we had communion service. The guy had the grape juice. Came to her aisle and before he could bat an eye, she’d have already done down two and going back for the third. She was sitting on the outside.

This ain’t wine. So I had an idea why she wanted to come to communion service that day. There’s more to it than to that. But you see, you can make wrong decision, bad decision, butcluded doesn’t take away your salvation. So as you go through the book of Corinthians, there’s people that will have an all kinds of problems. There are problems that these people were having, having a bad day. So take your Bible and turn with me to the book of 1 Corinthians and chapter 15.

1 Corinthians chapter 15. There’s three basic things that I want to give to you this morning. Those three basic things are saved, saved, saved. I’ve covered it before, but not with these scriptures with this context here. And I want to relate it to something else. When you trust Christ as your Savior, you’re saved from the penalty of sin. That means you don’t pay the penalty. You did the sin, you should pay for it, but Christ paid for your penalty.

So you don’t have to go to hell. That’s done. You trust the Christ as Savior, you’ll never have to pay the penalty for your sins in hell. He has saved you from that. In your life, the Bible says that He gave to each one of us the Holy Spirit to live within us. Now you don’t feel the Spirit. If He hadn’t told me that I had the Spirit, I wouldn’t probably know I had the Spirit. But the Holy Spirit lives within you and to teaching you the Word of God so that it can deliver you from the power of the all sinful nature that lives within you.

So now he wants to save you from the power of sin in your life, to deliver you from all the trials and temptations and all these things that snare and catches you and lures you all these things. So we have an old sinful nature in our body. God never changed the body. God didn’t save the body. He saved the soul and watched you white as snow. now because you’re still alive, you’re God’s child. Now you’re going to heaven, you still got a body that still loves to sin.

You still desire the things that are wrong. You can think wrong things, say wrong things, do wrong things. Have a bad attitude. So God says, I want you to have power over that. Evidently, in their Christian life, they weren’t using the power. They weren’t listening to what Paul had said. They were being popped up because of knowledge but not application. So he says, you’re just babes in Christ. You’re carnal-minded. You’re fleshly-minded. In other words, you’re not minding what God said.

have kids that don’t mind, never have a wife that don’t mind, who said that? Or a husband that doesn’t mind? Yes. I mean if y’all have one of those don’t know, well y’all too quick on I couldn’t even stop you in time, but sometimes we just don’t mind. So God says, I want you to be spiritually minded. All right, they were carnal minded. And this is where God wants you to be sanctified in your life. It means you cut off out of your life things that you don’t need.

Things that just feed the flesh so that you don’t do the thing God wants you to do. God wants you to make right decisions and study His words so that you can grow and become a strong Christian. And so there is in the Word of God, the reason for studying the Word of God, so you can be strong enough, spiritually minded, discern right from wrong, so you can make better choices in your life. So that it saves you from the power of that old sinful nature that you have.

Otherwise, you’ll just live like a lost person. No different. You can be saved, live like a lost person. Then there is the third being saved, And that’s when you trust Christ as your Savior, and there’s a time coming when the Lord is gonna take you out of here. He will save you from the very presence of sin. We’re not gonna be in this world. So I can be taken home by death, or the rapture takes place, and I’m changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye and caught up to meet the Lord in the ear.

I prefer that one. So one day I will be saved from the very presence of sin because the Bible says we’ll be with the Lord and there is no sin that dwells in his presence. Not even a lie, it’s a holy place. Even called the holy city. So that is saved, saved, saved. Now these people here, well they messing up on this second one. The one, yes, that was good. You trust Christ as your Savior. That was a smart decision.

That was a wise decision. You’re going to heaven now, but you’re not there yet. He didn’t take you to home. You still got a life to live. God may give you another 15, 20, 30 years here. May 40 or 50. So look now in the book of 1st Corinthians chapter 15. He does a little rehearsing and is going to show these very same things, these three basic things that you need to see. Concerning the very beginning, and verse 1, more over brethren, so we’re talking to those that are saved, he’s rehearsing to them what he declared unto them when he came to them the first time.

I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received and wherein ye stand. I came, I preached, you relieved.” Now hold your place right there and look in 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1, I want you to see this. In verse 18, he says, for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved as past tense, it is the power of God. See, to save you took the power of God, not the power of man.

Man can’t save himself. So Paul preached the gospel, they heard the gospel, and they believed the gospel. So he says that the only thing I wantedMasked to know when I came there, and the first thing that’s a priority on my list, is Christ and Him crucified. Look what he says in chapter 2. And look there in verse 1, and I brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom declared under you the testimony of God, but I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

This was my message. This is what I preach because you see, you can’t get anybody to live for God who hasn’t first accepted Christ as their Savior. They have to be born into God’s family first. Then you can talk about Christian growth and Christian character and integrity and all those things that we should have in our life. But if a man doesn’t get saved, you can’t have sanctification. Until a man has been justified. So salvation is number one. You must trust Christ to save you.

That’s why with us. It is a priority in this ministry. Have you ever noticed how many times we talk about the gospel at this church? And at the end of every service, I try to do that little thing with the wallet deal and you ever seen that? Why when we’re on the internet? That’s what we talk about. If I have a, you know, every service is always about the gospel. because that’s first, that’s priority. Because there can’t be anything until a man’s done this.

And it is the foundation, and there should not be any cracked in our foundation. Questions and doubts about am I or am I not going to heaven? Am I or am I not saved? It ought to be settled in your mind. I am saved. I’ve trusted Christ. It’s over with. It’s a done deal. deal. Now that I am saved, what does He want me to do with my life? So that’s what we begin to teach. So look there in 1 Corinthians in chapter 15.

So then He makes the statement in verse 2, by which. Also, ye are saved. If you keep in memory, what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. How can you believe in vain? Now, there’s two ways of looking at this portion of scripture. One, you can believe in vain if Christ did not come back from the dead. If you and I trusted Christ as our Savior and He never came back from the dead, we’re trusting a dead man to get us to heaven.

Does that make sense? No, doesn’t show any kind of wisdom on our part. You wouldn’t be very bright to trust me to get you to heaven. I wouldn’t be very smart to trust you to get me to heaven. So our salvation being saved only because we’re trusting Him. And He came back from the dead and said, if we would believe that, we are saved unless we believe in vain, unless He did not come back from the dead. But He did come back from the dead.

Now there’s another way you could look at this verse or the sports in scripture. when he says they’re in verse two, by which you are saved, this is talking about from the power of sin in your life. Remember these people, Paul already said, you are saints, you have been sanctified, you are brethren, but they had no power in their life. They were not serving God. Things in their life had not changed, and it should be. If it doesn’t change, you still go to heaven, but God wants you are life to be dynamic for him.

He wants you to accomplish something. He wants to use you and he wants a clean vessel, but you won’t clean up the vessel.” So he says here, by which you are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you unless you have believed in vain, you and I need to understand. Our sanctification or our changed life, our serving God is going to be because we are anchored to that foundation and there’s no cracks in our foundation. 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 Watch 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 Bible Line 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.