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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 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.

So the title of today’s message is Can a believer fall from grace? Take your Bible and turn to the book of Galatians 5, Galatians 5. Remember this, falling from grace is not falling from salvation. There is no way possible that a Christian can fall from salvation. The Bible says that grace hath appeared that bringeth salvation. Grace brings salvation to us. After you get salvation, a person can reject grace as a means by which to live their Christian life. Or they may add works to the gospel when they present it to other people, which is not the will of God, but it happens.

So in Galatians in chapter 5 and verse 1 it says, stand fast, therefore in the liberty where with Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.”

Now, as we look at this, I want to give you a little bit of a background. And if you’ll notice there on your page that we’re just given to you, the statement, Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law. See when you’re trying to save yourself by your works then you don’t need a Savior, you don’t need Christ. And so you cannot save yourself by your works by trying to keep the law.

These are people that Paul had already gone to, won the Christ and establish a church, and now He would go on to someplace else. But legalistic Judaizers, the law keepers, those that say you’ve got to have the works, you’ve got to be circumcised to be saved, changed their gospel message and the way they live their Christian life. Because you see when you change the gospel message and you put works in it, it also affects how you have to live now, because you have to get saved by your work and then you have to keep saved by your works.

Everything changes. And that really made the Apostle Paul burn. And he talks about how that it burned inside of him because of what people had done. So we have this problem that’s built up here. So look there in Galatians 2 17. Galatians 2 17. And you notice in verse 17, where he makes a statement, but if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners. Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? The answer, God forbid, no.

What it means is this, if a man is seeking to be saved, what you’re saying is that you’re not now saved. You’re still seeking something and you don’t have it. If you had trusted Christ as your Savior when He was there, why are you still trying to seek salvation? Are you saying that Christ didn’t save you? Or the gospel was not sufficient? Now you’ve got to help Him out. So the message is totally blurred. It becomes a false message that they’re now believing and begin to preach.

So Paul, write your book. To straighten out this matter. Now, if you look there, where has the problem in your notes? Number one, can a Christian lose his salvation? That’s a good question. But the answer is absolutely not. The Bible says, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I committed to him. You see, I could not save my soul. So I trusted. him to save me. The only ones who can lose me is the one who has me.

And he said, I’ll never cast you out and I will never lose you. So I can never today or in the future ever be lost because the one who has me promised he’ll never lose me. Now, the only ones who can lose their salvation are those individuals who are trying to save themselves. You see, if you’re going they have, and it depends upon how good you live, then your salvation depends upon how good you live. So you’re the one that determines whether or not you can get it or lose it.

So yes, you might lose what you’re trying to save, but that’s not the salvation that’s in the Bible. So the next statement, if not, what does it mean? So if I can’t lose my salvation, what does it mean when he says ye are followed from grace? It’s a good question. So number Number three, what does grace mean as it relates to salvation? Let me give you a few ideas, because there are a few attributes concerning grace as to what does grace mean.

We often say grace is God’s riches at Christ’s expense, which is good, and that grace is unmerited favor, which is true. But it’s grace that brings salvation. Now look there in chapter two of the book of Galatians and look in verse 21. Verse 21 says, I do not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness comes by the law, Christ is dead in vain. In other words, I do not take and set grace, salvation by grace, aside because salvation comes by grace.

So if you set grace aside, you don’t get the salvation. if righteousness comes by the law by what I do, then why did Christ die? He died in vain. So there’s no purpose for Christ to come into the world, down across and pay for all the sins of the world if I have to earn my way to heaven. It’s a joke. And yet there are multitude of preachers across this country that are teaching that you have to be good to go to heaven.

Or you’ve got to join the church to go to heaven. You’ve got to live a clean life. You’ve got to stop your sins and make Christ the Lord and the master of your life. None of that has to be done. The Bible says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. The host to everybody that believed it in him should not perish. So if I believe on him without any words, I would not perish. I would not go to him but have everlasting life I would get to go to heaven whenever I die.

Now look at the statement about a few attributes of grace. Number one, it must be based upon pure, unadulterated, perfect love of the giver and accepted as such. Grace can only be received because of God’s love to you. He could not give it to you because you deserved it. Why? Because you don’t deserve it. If you deserve it would not be grace. Look at the next statement. It cannot be withheld because you don’t deserve it. If God cannot save a man like Hitler, he could not save anyone.

I’ve had people say, well, you can’t tell me a guy like Hitler could be saved to go to heaven. If Hitler trusted Christ as a Savior, the moment before he died, he will be in heaven. You say, well, Look how bad he was. No, look how bad you are. In God’s eyes, God says there is no difference. All have sinned and all have come short of God’s perfection. You see, we categorize people very easily. I’m better than you. If anybody get to heaven, it’ll be Elle Antsusia.

She can give you the shirt off of her back. No, if they’re all Antsusia, never trusting Christ as her Savior, they’re all Antsusia. She don’t get to go. Now get these two points because I think they’re very, very important. The second one, it cannot be withheld because you don’t deserve it. Because otherwise, what’s the purpose of grace? Grace means you don’t deserve it. It’s unmerited. So if the Bible says you’re saved by grace means you didn’t merit it, you didn’t deserve it, you don’t earn it.

You have no rights. It was a gift. Because if you did deserve it, it could not be by grace. So that’s why if God cannot save a man like Hitler, he could not save anyone. But if he could save a man like Hitler, then he can save anyone. God has to be able to save the worst, to be able to save anybody at all. And his love has to be equal to everyone, and he cannot be a respecter of persons.

Because if he’s a respecter of persons, that means there’s some people that deserve to be saved more than other people. And that’s contrary, and it annulls the whole purpose of grace. You see, when Christ went to the cross, He did it to make a payment for all the sins of everybody, so that everybody could be saved. And nobody is any better than anyone else. Number three, if you do deserve it, it could not be given. If the pope deserved to be saved, God could not save him because he would not deserve to be condemned.

Let me read it to you again. If the pope deserved to be saved, God could not save him because he could not or would not deserve to be condemned. Why are we all condemned? Because we have all sinned. So the only reason he would not be able to be saved, because he was good enough, is because he didn’t do anything to be condemned. Means he never sinned. And the Bible says all have sinned. So God can’t save the so-called good person because there aren’t any.

There is none good, no not one. There’s none righteous, no not one. All have sinned, come short of God’s perfection, every man. So you need to understand that when we talk about salvation is by grace. And one of the favorite verses that we all love, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, 4 by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. So God says a man is saved by grace and not by his works.

Now look at the next statement. Number four, grace cannot incur a debt. Grace cannot incur a debt, whether from me or God. In other words, if I’m saved by grace, it means that I cannot be in debt to God to get it. And if it is by grace and I did something to deserve it, then that would make God in debt to me. And neither one of those can happen. God will not be indebted to a man to save him because that’s why he says he wants all the honor, the glory, lest any man should boast.

So a man cannot boast a brag about what he has done. So you notice now in this next statement, to turn from sin or make Christ’s Lord of my life to be saved causes me to incur contrace/> a debt to God. In other words, before God will save me, if I mustdullah turn from my sins and if I do that then I deserve to be saved. If you tell a loss man, here’s a loss man, turn from your sins to be saved.

Okay, so what does he do? Well, what are your If you’re going to turn from them, you ought to know what they are. Alright, you lie, you lie. Ah, there I’ll get you. I’ll go to your smoke here and smoke later. Alright, you’re drunk on alcohol. Okay, you’re drugs. Okay, you’re running around on your wife. Okay, you’ve got all these sins. You’ve got to stop all of those. And if you turn from all of your sins and don’t do them, then God will save you.

Okay. Now, will God save him because he promised that he would? Or now does God have to wait till He does it and then save it? Well, how does He know when He saved? If God saves Him because He promised that He would be good and not do all those bad things anymore, that means that He can know that He saved right then because of a promise. Okay, now what happens, you know, six months later? Oh my goodness, I didn’t mean to say that.

Well, you just don’t understand this urge that I’ve got and I just got to have a drink every once in a while, you know, it’s just a sociable drink. But the more I drink, the more sociable I get. I was always told if you don’t hit the fifth on the fourth, you’ll be able to go fourth on the fifth. So here you are, you’ve got people that are trying to quit all of their bad things, and then when they find out they haven’t quit them, well, and I must not really be saved in.

What are they depending upon? How good they are. Their sins, I quit them, and then they start back. So then you think you got to live your whole life. And if I mess up, I got to get forgiveness and start all over again. Get forgiveness, start all over again. You know, you’re trying harder. I’ll do better next time. But you see, when you come to religions, it’s just, it won’t do. It just won’t do. No religion is good enough to get you to happen.

That’s why I despise religions. Because religion comes from too Latin words, re-inlingual meaning to bind back. There’s people who are trying to bind themselves back to God by their good deeds. Thinking that they’ll make it some day. If they just hang in there long enough, that’s not the Bible. God says, by grace are you saved. It means you don’t have to turn from your sins. That’s right. You mean if I’m drinking, I don’t have to quit my drinking? No you don’t.

You mean if I’m running around, I don’t have to stop? No you don’t. What if I’m a homosexual? No you don’t have to stop. Now 99% of all preachers will not tell you what I just said. But I’ll tell you that because it’s the Bible. God so loved the world. He don’t love our sins. He don’t love the sins of the homosexual or the drunkard or the liar of the thief or the person who just sits in church every Sunday with a three-piece suit on filled with pride.

Sin is sin. Christ died to pay for all the sins and only thing that any man has to do is will you believe that when he died, he died for you. He paid for your sins. And when He paid for your sins and you believe it, that payment is put to your account. You get to go to heaven on what Christ did for you. You don’t earn it, you don’t work for it. But you see, if you have to do things like stop how bad you are, and now you gotta promise how good you’re going to be, you gotta make Christ the Lord and the Master of your life.

Am I against people serving God, of course not. Am I against people living a good, clean, righteous life? No. But if you’re trusting that to get you to heaven, It won’t work. It has no value. Christ has become of no effect to whosoever are seeking to be justified by your works. You can’t be saved by grace and then earned it. It’s either one way or the other. You either believe it’s by grace or you believe it’s by worth but it cannot be a combination of both, one annulls the other.

And that’s what he says. So look at the next statement. Number two there, should I succeed? If I could turn from my sins And if I did make Christ the Lord to master my life, and I really want to live right and do all these good things, well, should I succeed, then God would incur a debt to me. He owes me now. God is in debt. He has to save me because I qualified. I turn from my sins. I make Christ the Lord to master my life.

I go to church. I give money. I sing and acquire. I take up the offer and I keep the offer and no, whatever it is. So you think, I’m good enough. I’m good to go. And he says, no, he says, no effect, no effect. In the word you have set salvation by grace aside that you might try to earn it by your works. And God says it will not work. Now look at the next statement. Number three there, salvation cannot be placed on a payment plan by which I must make installments.

Anybody ever buy a house? A car? You put it on installment plans? And generally, if you don’t make your payments, what happens to the house? You make your payments on your car, but you stop making them. What happens to your car? You walk. Salvation is not on the installment plan. Okay, I trust Christ as my Savior. God saves me, but now I’ve got to make payments. And if I don’t make my payments, then you’re going to take it back.

In other words, if I don’t live up to my end of the bargain, you see, when I got saved, there was no bargain. All I did is accept the free gift of eternal life, and he promised he’ll never cash me out and never lose me. I’m going to have a not because of some installment plan that I’m on. That I’m in, I got right there to the end, I made all those payments, and then I didn’t make the last one, and I’m going to hell.

So most people are out trying to get a second mortgage. Well, that church didn’t do it. I’m going to try another church. I’m going to refinance it. I got to get the payments down lower because I can’t make this high payment. That church over there doesn’t require much. And you’d be surprised how many people are stuck into that religious. It’s contrary to the Bible. Now look at the next statement. Number four down there, does grace give us a license to sin?

Oh, this is a good one. Does grace give us a license to sin? Let me read this little statement till you get it. A license is a legal right from the proper authority to have permission to do a certain thing. You have permission to go hunting, fishing, practice law, if you have the proper license. Licensed to sin is against the law, therefore permission cannot be granted. Lord I want to go out here and live like the devil. God cannot give me permission.

Now God gives us freedom to make choices, but he holds you accountable for those choices. You don’t have the freedom from God, the permission from God to live in sin. And there’s a verse right there in your Bible. Look at it Romans chapter six verse one and two says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? That means do we have permission? That grace may abound. God forbid. The answer is no. God did not give you or me a license to sin.

How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Now, there’s a verse in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 16. I get it right there in your notes so that you’ll look at it. It says, as free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness. In other words, the liberty that you have, you trusted Christ to save your his child, you’re going to heaven when you die, he can never take it away from you. You’re free to make the right choices now.

If you make the wrong choices, God’s gonna chase and are disciplined you and maybe take you home before your time, but you cannot live as you please and get away with it. Can you live as you please? Yes, you can. Can you get away with it? No, you can’t. Just because you have a child born to your family. I asked a kid, the Sunday school class, a very difficult question this morning. I says, where was your mother when you were born?

Now, that’s not a hard question. And some of them kind of look, where’s he going? What does he want? What? Where was your mother when you were born? Well, she was right there with you. Because if she wasn’t there, you couldn’t have been born. She was right there with you. You trusted Christ as your Savior, you were born of God. Where was God when you were born? Right there. That day you trusted Christ as your Savior, He was right there.

And He says, I’ll never leave you, and I’ll never forsake you. That’s good news. So He’ll never cast me out, He’ll never lose me. I can never get lost again. I can never become unborn. I tried that with my kids, it don’t work. But look at the next statement. as free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, as though it was permission to do however you want to live. But it is the freedom to serve God.

So this is what God wants. So look at the last line on this page. God gives us freedom to make decisions, choices with consequences. That’s why after you trust Christ as your Savior, it is the will of God that you study the Word of God, that you may know the will of God, so that you can make wise decisions. Your decisions are not wise because you made it. Because you know, you just came with a whole bunch of wisdom and you’re the smartest man on earth and you don’t need anybody telling you what you can or cannot do.

So you make decisions based upon your little intellectual ability. God says it is not within man that walk up to direct his steps. In other words, God says you’re not smart enough to make the right decisions. you didn’t come with the brains to do it. That’s why you studied the Word of God and put God’s Word into your mind that you may discover where is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You see, when you got saved, it did not transform your life.

It gave you the free gift of eternal life in your became God’s child. Your life is transformed when you renew the mind and you study the Word of God to renew. How do you think now? God’s Word is God’s mind on paper. So you take the word of God and you put it into your mind. And that’s how you learn to think the way God thinks. Now you can discern what’s right and wrong. Not based upon, well, I mean, look at my motives.

My motives are right. How do you know your motives are right? How do you know your motives are right? If it’s not made because this is what God wants me to do, you ought to question every motive. That’s why you started the word of God and you find out what is God’s will for me. How does God want me to think? How does God want me to live? It’s always about what does God want. You leave God out of a picture and you’re no smarter than the average man.

You’ll just do like everybody else does. But if you wanna transform life, then transform the way you think. Because as a man think of so is he. And if you wanna raise the caliber of your life, raise the caliber of your thoughts. All actions are born within the mind. Now, turn your page over, as Paul Harvey would say, page two. And then look at the top, the plan, salvation by grace and living by grace makes God look good. You see, grace.

It makes God look good. And that’s what it’s about. God wants you to see how good he is, but if he charged you for it, he no longer looks good. If God had said that you have to do good deeds to go to heaven and nobody can do it, that doesn’t make God look good. That makes God look bad. Did you know that what makes God look good and you would really believe he must love us because he’s willing to let anybody go to heaven as a gift?

And how did he manifest his love to us? That Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, not saints. Christ died for us. Well, if he died to pay for my sins, why should I have to go to hell and pay for one of my sins if he paid for all of them? All I had to do was believe he did it for me. See, that payment’s not put to your account till you believe it. And the only thing that knows whether you really believe it or not is the Lord Himself.

It doesn’t matter what everybody else thinks. It doesn’t matter what this preacher thinks. It doesn’t matter what the people in the church thinks or anybody else. It doesn’t matter about your mom and your daddy or your brother and your sisters or all your kids. God in heaven knows whether or not are you trusting Him as your savior as your only hope of getting to heaven or do you really trust how good you are to God knows that. And he said, if you’re trusting in your works, he says, it is not put to your account.

You cannot earn your salvation. It cannot depend upon how good you are. some good deeds that you’ve done. It’s by grace and grace alone. There is no substitute. There is no other gospel. Look there at number one, salvation by grace makes God look good for the grace of God that bring of salvation have appeared to almost all the people that deserve it. Now that’s not what it said. To all people, that makes God look good. But if you’d have said he He only loves certain people like the Calvinists do.

And he only saves certain people because he only chose to save certain people. That is not taught in the Bible. Salvation by grace and Calvinism are not compatible. Number two, what grace teaches us in this present world is what makes God look good. See there in verse 12 he makes a statement, teaching us the grace that brought salvation teaches us more than just how to be saved. If it’s not that principle by God says you don’t deserve it, I’ll give it to you as a gift.

Now God says I want you to serve me. I want you to tell those other people that don’t deserve it about how much I love them. So now we’re supposed to do it not to get something though he’ll give us whatever he wants but because we love them. But because also we want the world to know God loves them. So love becomes a great motivating factor in our life. He says, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should.

Now does grace teach us how we should live? Yes. We should live soberly, righteously and godly. Okay? When? In this present world. Where? In this present world. That’s talking about now. But am I doing this to get to heaven? No. But because I’m going there. We at Bibleline would like to extend a free offer to those who support this ministry financially. This month we are sending a free copy of the book, The Gospel Driven Man, for a donation of any amount.

It is a small way that we can show our appreciation for your support of this radio program. Without your thoughtful gifts and prayers, we would not be able to remain on the air. The book explains the basic doctrines of the Bible and can help you to be more confident in leading people to Christ and for understanding the driving principles of the gospel itself. So during the following month, we would like to send to you a free copy of the Gospel-Driven Man by Dr.

Ralph Yankee Arnold for a donation of any amount to Bible on. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634, and don’t forget to include your mailing address. Thank you again for your continued support and prayers and helping us bring the clear gospel message to the world. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. 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. And now, a closing thought from Pastor Arnold.

Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. And we will be changed. up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.