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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 through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the 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 you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Second Timothy and chapter 1, 2 Timothy and chapter 1. The Bible tells us not to be ashamed of the gospel. So Paul says, I’m not ashamed of the gospel. That’s why he gave it. He’s not ashamed of it. That’s why he defended it. He wasn’t ashamed of it, and that’s why he gave it. And so when he says here in verse 8, be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.

Nor of me, his prisoner. Can you imagine somebody being ashamed of the testimony of the Lord? In the words, when you give a testimony, you’re testifying about what God has done for you. It’s what He did for me. I’m not ashamed of what He did for me. I’m not ashamed of Him dying on the cross and paying for a sense and coming back from the dead, the sinning, coming back one day. And I’m thankful as I look back, you know, 53 years ago in that little living room when I trust the Christ is my Savior.

That’s one of the greatest things that ever happened to me is the day that I trust the Lord. But what I want you to see also there in verse 7, he says, for God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. But Paul says, I want you to know, don’t be ashamed of all the afflictions that I go through. Sometimes we judge it this way. If you were right with the Lord, you wouldn’t be going through what you’re going through.

That is so far from the truth. Because if you love the Lord, the Bible says that Godly will suffer persecution. And so He says there in the last part of verse 8 where He makes the statement, be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but be thou partakers of the affliction of the gospel according to the power of God. In other words, when you make the gospel your goal and purpose in life, you’re going to suffer a flexion.

Everybody’s not going to love you for it. Everybody’s not going to thank you for it. But there will be some people that will, but there’s going to be problems. When he makes a statement in the book of James, he says about judgment beginning at the house of God and how that some of God’s people, He’s a scarcely be saved. Scarsely be saved. I thought, how in the world can you just scarcely be saved? Either I’m really totally 100% saved, but I got saved by the skin of my teeth.

I really hung in there. When He makes the statement, He says, of all the troubles and heartache in the sorrow that you go through to reach somebody. You think the devil is working overtime to keep us from telling anybody about the Lord. He’ll so burden your life with so many cares of the world we don’t have time. So let’s just pretend here’s a lost man. The odds against that man ever hearing the gospel in his whole life one time clearly is astronomical.

It would take a miracle. And you can figure out how many people there are and the possibilities of that one person ever hearing the clear gospel where he can understand it and trust Christ is Savior. It’s so great. It’ll be a miracle if he ever hears the gospel. He’ll scarcely be saved. I have lived so far, 71 and a half years. I’ve had one person witness to me. How many churches have I been to? And nobody knows for sure if I’m saved or lost.

I’ve never had anybody walk up to me in a mall, a shopping center, gas stations or no, none, and never witness to me. If my father-in-law had missed me, I might have been missed forever. And when he did talk to me, at least he had enough of the gospel clear I understood it and trusted Christ as my Savior. But look at the odds. Because look at the odds of the people that know the truth ever telling somebody how to have eternal life.

And if we don’t do it, who is? Who’s all those other people are doing it? Really? I’ve traveled all across this country and so many people don’t do anything with the gospel. They go to church and even they will sometimes give and occasionally they’ll pray. But very few people ever witness. So the odds are it’ll take a miracle for a lost man to hear the gospel. Look how many teenagers there are and the odds are against them ever going to a church with a preacher will make a gospel clear and look how few that will have come to ranch or a few that will come to reformers unanimous or the few that will be listening in church or the few that will be watching by internet.

And this is why we have to always keep harmony because everybody’s not doing it. We’re doing something that’s rare. Most people don’t do it. And so he makes a statement there in verse 12, but what’s called I also suffer these things Nevertheless, I’m not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and impersewaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day. See, salvation is whenever you give your soul to the Lord for safe keeping.

You can’t save yourself, so you trusted the Lord to save you and to give you eternal life. Paul says, I’m not ashamed of that. And I am persuaded that he is able to keep what I committed to him. See, I did it 53 years ago. Never have to worry about it again. I went to Florida Bible College. I had a, I think, a very good Bible college education. I listened. I listened well. I tried to memorize an awful lot of what was said.

I would preach all those sermons that I heard. And I got to where I could preach just about all of Dr. Stanford’s sermons the way he did. I even got to where I almost talked like him, and I would use the same illustrations he used, same jokes, some good, some not. And I was very encouraged today. See last night, I told a joke, and hardly anybody, yeah, I didn’t know if I left. I took that same joke to the downtown Bible study today, and they loved it.

And I thought, well, maybe I ought to tell y’all. But then y’all won’t laugh. And I don’t know if I could take rejection twice in 24 hours. But there was this man and this woman. They’d been married for 45 years and they were having a bad time. They were always at each other. So they decided to go have some marriage counseling. So as they sat there, and here’s this counselor. He was listening and the man just sat there, meet and quiet, didn’t say a word.

His wife did all the talking and talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk. She ran him down. She low rated him. She intimidated him. She chewed him out. She blessed him out. She cursed him out and finally the guy just got up and walked over to her while she was standing there and just a hollering and yelling and screaming at her husband and she got a hold her and he kissed her. He planted one on her and he held it for about three minutes.

And he let go and she sat down and she was in a daze. She didn’t say a word. He said, now this is what she needs three times a week. He said, well, I can have her here on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday. He said, but the rest of the week I play golf. Well, I appreciate the chuckle, you made me feel at least a little good. But anyway, sometime you just got to learn how to communicate. There is a FBC discussion page where they’ve opened it up where people from Florida Bible College, after all these years, can communicate with each other.

And you would naturally assume that they would agree to at least the doctrinal statement of Florida Bible College. they had someone in charge as an administrator that was a Calvinist. He was a Calvinist, but it wasn’t brought out. Nobody would say anything. But anytime somebody would post, if it didn’t agree with the Calvinistic viewpoint, he would jump all over. I mean, really, just jump all over them and just rip them to shreds. Tell them how wrong they were and scripturally it was.

And I thought, their position is the same as mine. They didn’t say or do anything to be antagonistic. Just stating something that we always knew and understood. Well, I took that for a while, and every once in a while, because it would, email would come to me and I’d see that thing and I’d say, what? And it would make me burn. I’d get so, why is this? So I sit down and I wrote a letter and I put it on Facebook.

Let me tell you what I wrote. Now I was nice. My response to the discussion group. You would think everybody would agree with the doctrinal statement of Florida Bible Society because these are all alumni and we’re all in agreement. We’re all on the same page. No or not. So this is what I said. Occasionally, I view the comments made on FBC alumni association discussion group and wonder why some of these posts were made. If a person went to Florida Bible college years ago, graduated, went into the world, and then became a Jehovah’s Witness, would it be proper for that individual to use this form to seek with all their might to procilite other FBC graduates to their new position.

Their only goal would be not to help you stay strong in your position, but to persuade you to become of Jehovah’s Witness. Because you see, when you change your position, you want to try to influence others to move to your position. So that’s what they were doing. Now they weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses, they were Calvinists. But they didn’t say they were Calvinists. But I can tell by the things they were saying that they were. And so I listened for a while.

So I wrote this. It appears to me that some of the stated positions posted here revealed that some may be of Calvinistic position. Therefore, they will not believe the same about the truth of the gospel. If you are posting from a Calvinistic position, please honor the rest of the FBC alumni by being upfront, stated, admitted, and don’t hide from it. to do so is dishonest and deceptive. We were taught that Calvinism was wrong then and it still is wrong today.”

Now, does that sound like I’m just being honest and upfront? I think so. Yes, at FBC we were taught that God so loved the whole world, not part of it. We were taught that Christ died for all the sins of all the entire world, not just us few select. We were taught incorrectly so that no man had to persevere for even a split second in the faith to be saved. Prove he was saved to keep his salvation or because he was saved.

All this was part of our gospel message. Is this what you believe or have you changed? If this is not in your gospel, you are guilty of preaching another gospel because a lot of people they would post on it, but nobody would come out and set them straight. So I waited and waited until somebody would do it and nobody would hit him between the eyes. So I thought I’ll just write a couple words, sweetly as I know how. And then I went on to say this because see a Calvinist does not believe that God loves everybody.

He only loves a few, those that he’s going to save. And and nobody can get saved unless he gives them the faith to believe. So that means that he had to pick and choose which ones he wanted and which ones he doesn’t want. So how can a Calvinist in reality ever tell everybody, God loves all of you? Because they don’t know if God loves all of them. They can’t say Christ died for all of you because Christ didn’t die for everybody.

So they see they can’t say that. a different gospel than what I’m used to. I’m used to a gospel that says, the good news is God so loved the world. Died on the cross, paid from all the sins of every individual so that everybody can be saved and that faith is not a gift. Salvation is the gift. Everybody has the faith to believe the ability to put your confidence and trust in something or someone. Therefore, if a man puts his faith in boater or mohamad or Confucius, well, Christ gave them the faith to do it.

Well, why didn’t he just take away their faith? How do some people put faith in something that’s wrong, but he gave faith to some to put it in something that was right? I have a problem with that. I also went to write, we were rightly taught to look for the blessed hope, not the blessed tribulation or the kingdom. Jesus will bring in the kingdom himself after the tribulation. The church will not bring in the kingdom. I know what I believe.

And you know what you believe, so leave it there. I don’t like it when I see godly graduates stating a point of view from the traditional Biblical position of the Florida Bible College statement of faith, only to be jumped upon, no mercy for the women, and be in demanded to defend their position. I take great exception to the way Jessica, Shirley, and Lynn have been treated and believe you owe them a heartfelt apology. I put this on tape. because I know these people, and they have jumped on it and attacked them.

And all they did is make a statement that was truth to our doctrinal statement in a person on a Florida Bible college alumni web page should not have to defend their faith. I mean, I don’t expect to have to do it here. It’d be like Peter come up here and he starts preaching Calvinism. We ought to jump all over him. Well, he wouldn’t get up here anyway. The next thing that I wrote was this. I will state my position, but I will not debate my position.

I had a man call me up today, and he was from Colorado. He listened to my radio broadcast. He started off by bragging about what a wonderful preacher I was. The Bible says, beware of individuals bearing gifts. And he was bringing a nice compliment. Well, I like it when I hear a nice compliment. But in the back of my mind, I said, what do you want? So it started, you know, can I ask you a question? That’s a sure you can ask me a question.

He says, are you so incongrete that if I was to show you something that you’re in air on, he said, would you change? I says, I do not debate my position. I am incongrete. If you want to tell me somebody or ask me something, you can do so. I said, but I don’t study in order to change my opinion. I don’t read any books to change my opinion. I don’t listen to anybody to change my opinion because I believe I’m right.

Now I know and I hear you talk about you believe in eternal security. I said yes I do. I says that is not open for discussion. The only other way that I could believe is not to believe that you are eternal secure. I said I can’t believe that. Never will. He said but what if the scriptures were to tell you? I said I already know the scriptures they don’t tell me that. So no you’d be wasting your time. So we talked a little bit.

Next thing you know, it was what about the rapture? And it was about the tribulation period. And when it was gonna take place, I said, sir, I got a lot of things to do. I said, I done told you where I stood. I am not interested in wasting my time talking to you so that you can try to convince me that my position isn’t good enough. I said, my position is where I stand, it’s where I’m going to die.

And I’m not changing. Thank you and good day. I’ve only got so much time in the day and it’s not to sit there and debate my position as though there’s a possibility I may not be right. Well, I should have figured that out 50 years ago. Anyway, I wrote this. I will state my position, but I will not debate my position. Just for the record, please do not send me any books to read emails or phone calls in order to straighten me out.

I’m in concrete. I wonder how long this post will last. Well, it’s still up there. I thought I’d put that in here because some people put post up there and they don’t like it. They take them down. If I have been wrong in my assessment, I do apologize. I don’t believe I’ve ever posted before, but I have had enough of someone who claims to speak for Florida Bible College and is doing everything to destroy our foundational teachings, Ralph Yankee Arnold.

I wanted to know who I am. So that was my response. Well, doggy, I mean Facebook lit up. It didn’t take long before there was about 50 posts from mine. And a few are good, but most of them were trying to straighten me out on what I just said and how wrong, what I just said, how wrong that was. I’m serious. This is one of them. He says, God knew the heart or intentions of the thief on the cross.

I think if the thief’s attitude was, he was going to continue to steal if it so happened to live, if he happened to live. And he was just sucking up to Jesus. Jesus wouldn’t have said what he did. As far as salvation been a process. Greg said it right. Coming to salvation is a process. Growing up I was just scared of hell. That was my beginning of the process. later when I wanted Christ in my life, then I knew I was saved.

This is a graduate from Florida Bible College. Does it sound like he’s clear? He ain’t clear. And it’s totally wrong. And so God bless her. Jessica Hines wrote and says, she said a lot, but this is one of them. So in your opinion, Greg, the person who says, I will believe that Jesus is the Lord and that he sacrificed himself on the cross for my sins, but I refuse to serve and obey him is not saved.” And they have not answered her question yet.

This other guy he wrote and says, you do play a part in salvation. The jailer was asked what he asked Paul. What must I do to be saved? Paul said, didn’t say nothing. He says you have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and they make that mean something more than what it is. You see when it says the Lord Jesus Christ that means you have to believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord which I believe but they mean by that he is the Lord or the master of my life.

So when you accept Christ the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior you’re accepting him as your Lord and if he’s your Lord that makes you the servant. So you have to serve the Lord and if you don’t serve, you’re not saved. This is what they’re teaching on the Florida Bible College website and their discussion thing. Well, he goes on to say, listen to how Jesus explained it in Matthew 16. If a man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.”

Now is that salvation? Is that service? That’s service. That’s not salvation. He’s taken service verses and a planet to salvation and the other ones that are under they don’t take him to task. Oh they did me but they won’t do him because this is what they’re doing. Little by little they have gotten away from sound doctrine and then their influence because you’re never satisfied. You see, they don’t win souls. They can only grow by taking other people’s product. They rob from somebody else’s gofish bowl, not because they’re reaching people with the gospel and winning them and training them.

They’re stealing people from somebody else that somebody else has led to the Lord. It’s only they can go. Anyway, he says this, if you save your life, you will lose it. If you lose your life for me, you will find it for what does it profit a man if he gained the whole world and loses his own soul. So he’s saying that you had to follow the Lord. He said, I believe that those who don’t want Christ in their lives and are just interested in escaping hell are not.

Because what I had wrote is, I trusted Christ as my Savior. because I wanted a personal relationship with God. I didn’t do it so I could have a walk with God. I trusted Christ as my Savior because I did not want to go to hell. I was looking for fire insurance and I trusted Christ as my Savior. Yes, as time goes on and you learn some things about the Lord. Yes, now I want a very close walk with the Lord.

The Lord is more precious to me than the clothes I have on my back. I do and believe that Christ is the Lord, the master of my life, but not to prove that I’m saved, not to be saved, not to stay saved, and not because I am saved, but because I made a choice. And if I don’t do it, I’m still just as saved. So anyway, after going through a number of these responses, I thought, I’m going to write something else.

So I wrote something else. This is what I wrote. Because they come up, we need to have unity. You can take two cats and tie their tails together and throw them over a clothesline. Now you got union, but you don’t have unity. You can’t take two extreme views and put them together and let’s have unity. Somebody has to give. And it ain’t this boy. But anyway, I said, there will be no unity among the brethren until there is unity in the gospel of grace.

Salvation at Florida Bible College was always distinguished between grace versus works and service was always distinguished between chasing and rewards. So you always kept salvation separate from service. And when you talk about salvation, the issue is always, is this, are you saved by grace? Or are you saved? saved by works. After you’re saved, then when you come to service, it’s always, is it chasing or rewards? Am I going to be obedient? Obedient. If I am obedient,nd I get blessings, rewards, but if I don’t, you’re going to beat the tarot of me, maybe take me home before the time.

So you always keep those separate, and then you understand scripture and you teach it away. And you never use clear verses, salvation verses, and put them over here with the service. And you don’t take service verses and Veterinom over here with the gospel that don’t belong. And all the verses that seems to say you have to live a certain way in order to be saved is just that. It seems to say, it means that somebody doesn’t understand what it means.

but you don’t take and try to take verses that seems to say something and forget about all those clear verses that make it very simple to understand what God meant. So I wrote this, a man may be saved and not serve and a man may serve and not be saved. Salvation by grace means to only be saved from the penalty of of my sins. So we talk about the three tenses of salvation, the penalty, the power, the presence. So when our trust crisis my Savior, I’m saved from the penalty of sin, means I don’t never have to go to hell, never have to worry about it.

I don’t have any sins to pay for us, why I can’t go to hell today, I can’t go tomorrow, why? Because I don’t have any sins to pay for it. They’re all paid. But now in my life, the Holy Spirit indwells me, and if I will walk with the Lord, He’ll give me the strength and grace that I need so that I don’t have to have the power of my Old Sinful nature control my life. So as I read God’s Word and study God’s Word, I am being saved from the power of an Old Sinful nature that I have.

But that does not affect my salvation. This was the done deal. It’s over and done with. I am saved. I’m going to heaven. Now, if you don’t have this, you don’t even have to worry about this one. And one day we’re going to be saved from the very presence of sin. When the rapture takes place, or when I die. But you see, these two can’t take place. These two tenses can’t take place unless you have the first one. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, you’ve never been delivered from the penalty of your sin.

Forget this, it won’t matter. When you die, you go to hell. So you trust Christ as your Savior so that you escape hell. Christ came to save us from hell. Does that mean He doesn’t want to save me from the power of sin? No. But see, I did not add the last two in because they don’t have anything to do with salvation in the Pentateops now. Pastor Yankee here, let me ask you a question. Did you appreciate today’s message?

I know. I don’t often have the chance to ask you that question. But dear friend, the answer to that question is very important. The answer to that question, what kind of impact is this program having on you, is why we bring this program to you every day here on this radio station. We do not hear from many listeners, but today I’m talking to you. If Ibalayan has made an impact on your life, would you let me know? Recently, the overall response, your letters and emails as well as your financial support, has been down and we really could use your help today.

If this ministry has been a blessing to you, would you please consider helping us. We greatly appreciate your prayers and financial gifts, especially during this time of year. Contact information is coming up in just a minute, but please consider supporting Bibleline today with your prayers and financial support. Thank you. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. 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. 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. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.