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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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

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 to you. It’s right there. You got 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, license 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 6 verse 1 and 2 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. 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 trust in 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 discipline 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, it’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, and you were born of God. Where was God when you were born? Right there. That day you trusted Christ as your Savior, and 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 cash 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. 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 a bunch of wisdom in your just the smartest man on earth and you don’t need anybody telling you what you can can not do.

So you make decisions based upon your little intellectual ability. God says it is not it cannot. 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 study the Word of God and put God’s Word into your mind that you may discover where they 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 and you 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 the picture and you’re no smarter than the average man.

You’ll just do like everybody else does. But if you want to transform life, then transform the way you think. Because as a man think of so is he. And if you want to 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 rg, grace 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 make 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.rupulous. 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 momma or 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 salvation had appeared to almost all the people that deserve it. That’s not what it said. To all people. That makes God look good. But if you just said 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. It didn’t work 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 him.

And so now we’re supposed to do it, not to get something, though he’ll give us whatever he wants, but because we love him. But because also we want the world to know God loves them. So love becomes a great motivating factor in our life. So 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. See, I will say 53 years ago in the little living room in Athens, Georgia. So, for 53 years, I’ve been a Christian. I can’t be unborn. God can’t take it away. The gifts of God are without repentance. He cannot change his mind and say, ah, I changed my mind on you, Yankee. You’re too rough. No, he can’t.

He’s bound by his word. So, the next statement, number three, God’s grace teaches us to continually keep looking up. Because, see, you keep looking up, looking for that blessed hope, not the blessed tribulation. The blessed hope is that joyful anticipation of Christ coming back in the air, and we’re gonna meet the Lord and be with Him for all eternity. So he says here, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God in our Savior Jesus Christ.

See, the Bible also says in the book of 1 John in chapter three, verse one and two, it talks about we shall see Him as He is. We’re gonna be like Him. and every man that hath this hope in him purify himself. In other words, when you’re looking for the Lord and believe he could come back at any time, that should be a motivating factor in your life to live a clean, disciplined life. Not to be saved, but because you are saved.

The next statement, number four, living by grace gives us zeal. You see that word, zealous? It says, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Are we against people living right now? But we are against people trusting in their good works to get them to heaven. Do your children have to do good deeds to be your child? No. They’re your child regardless of how they live.

Isn’t that a scary thought? And regardless of what you’ve done with your life, Your mother and dad’s still your mother and dad, and you reflect back upon them. But that’s where you’re zero. See, if I had to go into all the world and tell people, now y’all being goody-goody-two shoes, I have no desire to sacrifice my life, to go into the world and tell people y’all behave. Y’all shouldn’t do that. Tell a homo section, no, you shouldn’t do that, nasty, nasty.

To tell somebody that’s drinking all the time, you know, you shouldn’t do that, you shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t do that. I’m not interested in doing that. You see, going to heaven, it’s not about their sins. Christ took care of that. Christ said, I did not come into the world to condemn the world, but through Him the world could be saved. That’s why He came. Everybody’s sins. But somebody took care of all of that. All that any man has to do is will you trust Christ as your Savior.

will you believe that he died on that cross and paid for your sins? And once you trust Christ’s Savior and your God’s child, he said, I’ll never cast you out, never lose you. But let me tell you this, you’re my child. And this is how I want you to live. But I want you to serve me and live for me by grace. Grace means the desire and the power of God. Isn’t wonderful when God gives me the desire and the power to please Him.

That desire. You see, that came from God, the power to do it, that came from God. But you see, I have an old sinful nature too, and the desire and the power of my old sinful nature is definitely not to please God. So I have two sets of desires, two different forms of motivation, the power to do what I should do. And God says, I want you to be zealous of good works. So for all these years, I’ve known the Lord, I’m zealous of doing right.

I do it because I want to, not because I have to. If I don’t do any of these good deeds, I’m still going to heaven because of what Christ did for me. It’s not because of what I do for him. Now look at the next statement, because this section Here is the most pivotal point. It’s very good and you need to catch it. The power of grace refused. The power of grace refused. When you as a Christian refuse to do what God wants you to do.

You know that you’re saved by grace. But now you no longer believe that you’re saved just by grace in what Christ did for you. You’ve got to add a little bit to it. And that’s what these legalistic Judaizers we’re doing. Look there at the statement, living by grace is living by the desire and the power to do the will of God. It may be refused by choosing to live by the desire and the power of the flesh. It means that your old first birth, your old sinful nature.

And so a a lot of people. You know, they fluctuate back and forth. They’re not as solid as they ought to be. Number one, the Christian falls from grace when he accepts a by works gospel in place of the gospel of grace. See, he starts off the book of Galatians in verse six, where he says, I marvel that you’re so soon removed from him. They called you into the grace of Christ into another gospel. So he’s talking to believers and they had moved from the truth of the grace of God.

into a message that was by works because they said, you’ve got to keep the law now. You’ve got to be circumcised to be saved. So can Christians find themselves down the road, teaching a message that’s a false gospel? Can Christians who come to Calvary Community Church know that you’re saved by grace, get mad at the preacher and go to a church that doesn’t preach salvation by grace? Of course, happens all the time. But look what else. In this statement, this only refers to the believer.

It’s underlying there, that statement. Number two, the Christian falls from grace when he refuses to obey truth. When he refuses to obey truth. Here you are, you’re a child of God. The child of God is to obey truth. Truth comes from God. St. to fight him through thy word, thy word is truth. Christ says, I am the way the truth and the life. It’s the Word of God. That is what the believer is supposed to use as the means by which he makes his decisions.

So what about a Christian who refuses to obey the truth? Isn’t it true? Isn’t it possible that you could study the Bible? No truth and still disobey it. I’m glad there’s nobody like that here. So you learn truth and God expects you to obey truth. He makes a statement later on, he says, who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? You started out well, and then something happened. Now, in Galatians chapter 2 and verse 5, it makes a statement that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

So, the truth of the gospel was not continuing with them. They had heard it, they had believed it, then they fell into Paul’s teaching. And now they weren’t serving God because they loved Him. They weren’t meeting with God’s people because they loved one another. Now because their message on the gospel changes that you have to do these good deeds to be saved, now they know they have to do these good deeds to stay saved. So then where’s this peace?

Where’s this joy? Where’s this smile? Where’s this joyfulness that you used to have? You don’t have it anymore. And so the Apostle Paul kind of lets them have it right between the eyes. And there’s Christian people who have trusted Christ as their Savior, and they’re not enjoying their Christian life. Because you see, they’re trying to do it by the desire and the power of the flesh, and not by the desire and the power of the Holy Spirit that lives within them.

They’re not doing because they love the Lord. They’re like, well, I’ve got to do this. If I don’t what, because if I don’t, they’ll zap me. You know, send me, you know, let me die. Take me out of here before my time. You’re putting some disease upon me, put me in a wheelchair, and they live out of fear of what God’s going to do to them instead of out of the love and the joy of what God’s passed for them.

It’s a totally different way to live. That’s what robbed you of the peace and the happiness that you have. It’s a sign like this, you love your wife, you say, I love my wife. Love has its own set of rules. In other words, if I love my wife, I don’t go flirting with other women. But when you don’t love your wife like you should, she looks good. And all of a sudden you begin to drift in your thoughts, things you say.

You’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to watch yourself. I just preached a sermon just recently. You stumble before you fall. And a lot of people don’t watch themselves. Now look at this. The next statement I hear is Galatians chapter 3 verse 1 where he says that you should not obey the truth. I want you to take your Bible and just look at that in the book of Galatians in chapter 3. Galatians chapter 3. He’s right into the believers, to the Christians.

He says in verse 1, O foolish Galatians, who have bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth. So evidently they were not now obeying the truth. Something’s changed. You’ve let somebody else ruin your Christian life by adding works to the gospel and when you add works to the gospel, now it affects your whole life because now you have to go to church because if I don’t, I’m going to lose my salvation. Now I’ve got to give money because if I don’t, I’m going to go to hell or all kinds of things that happens.

Your thinking’s not right. We do what we do because it’s the right thing to do but not to be saved. Salvationaghd is free. So here in Galatians in chapter three, he says there, that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently said for crucified among you. In other words, I came, I preached Christ and Him crucified the cross. I preached it. You understood it. You believed it. Now he said, how you doing? Now they’re not doing so good.

And things have changed. He says in verse two, this only what I learn of you receive you the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. When you got saved and you got the Holy Spirit living within you, he said, did that happen because you kept the law? Or because you heard and you believed by faith alone? That’s how it happened. So look there back in your notes and look in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 7.

Because he’s telling the believers, stand fast therefore and be not entangled again with the Ocabondis because people were becoming entangled again. And so he makes the statement there in verse 7. He did run well. He did. You’re not anymore. You’re not running well. When Christians are not running well. You know I should look at it like this. Everybody will have a Mercedes. But when it’s broke down, it’s running like an old broken down Volkswagen. So you can either junk it or find what’s wrong and fix that part.

So you fix that part. Now it’s running good again. Christians are like, you’re a Mercedes, but you’re running like a broken down Volkswagen. You’re not running on all cylinders. You’re not hitting right. Some of you got flat tires, and some of you got some bad shocks, and the springs are gone, and the motor’s missing, and you’re about out of gas. And you just can’t seem to go. Now there are some people that got the right car in the right road, in the right lane, on the super expressway, but there’s no gas in the car.

Not going anywhere, not doing anything. You believe right, you’re solid as they come. Boy, you got doctrine down, you’re salvation by grace. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what are you doing? Well, nothing. Then what value is it to you? If it doesn’t change your life and God’s not able to use you to influence others for the cause of Christ, what’s the value? Just sit around and look pretty like a nice little tree with some nice foliage on it, but no fruit.

No? So here in Galatians he says, who should hinder you that you should not obey the truth? This persuasion come up not of him that called you. Now the words that saved you, as he says in the book of Galatians in chapter one and verse six, when he says, I marvel that you’re so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ into another gospel. You believe another message is not true. You’re rejecting salvation by grace for a works message.

And then when it comes to Christian living on how you’re supposed to live, The whole fifth chapter talks about the new birth and the flesh and the battle that goes on in the Christian’s life. Look at the next statement. Number three, the Christian falls from grace when he strives to be spiritual by keeping the law. When he strives to be spiritual by keeping the law, it won’t happen. You see, the law was given to control the flesh nature and the penalty if you break the law.

So the law was never designed to save anybody. The law was given to show you that you can’t save yourself by your worth and the law points you to Christ. You go to Christ to be justified. But if you’re saying, I’m trusting Christ as my Savior, why are you still seeking to be saved? If you’re seeking to be saved, what you’re saying is Christ didn’t save you yet. You’re still seeking something. I’m not seeking to be saved. For 53 years I’m not seeking to be saved.

Why? Because I have already been saved and I can’t get saved again. Because I can’t get lost. I’ve had people tell me to get lost. Can’t get lost. Look there at this verse. Galatians 3, 3 says, Are you so foolish having begun in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the flesh? Are you now made mature? Do you think you can trust Christ as a Savior? By grace. But then if you want to mature, you’ve got to keep the law.

No, there is the person, person of the Holy Spirit that lives inside of you, and He wants you to grow, and He wants to teach you the Word of God. He wants to walk with you and teach you. Christ should be more real to you than the clothes you have on your back. And I hope that He is. Look at the last statement down here, Galatians chapter 5 verse 1, where it says, stand fast therefore in the liberty where would Christ have made us, Believers, us free.

And don’t be entangled again with the yoke of bondage to law. You couldn’t save yourself before you can’t do it now. It’s not good enough to live by because you couldn’t perform. He says, there’s a thing called grace and people have set aside God’s grace to try to earn something they cannot have. You see the peace and the love and the joy and the happiness. All of that comes from the spirit, not the law. The law cannot give you those things.

I’m number four. The Christian falls from grace when he walked in the flesh. And that’s Galatians 5 and verse 16. This I say then walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the blood. the flesh. So to fall from grace is a choice of the believer. We’re not talking about falling from salvation. We mean that we’re not using grace as the principle by which to govern our life, as the principle which God uses to save an individual.

It’s by grace in grace alone. Now look at this one verse because this first is so important and that’s in Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, when he makes this statement here about God’s children doing right, and if they don’t, they’re going to be chastened of the Lord. So he says, if you’re going to be chastened, no chastening for the present in verse 11 is joyous, but it’s grievous. Nevertheless, afterwards it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

Wherefore, lift up the hands which hang down, and the feebo knees like you just all give out, you just can’t go anymore. I’m all weak. Poor poor me. Have a pity party. You’re riding a garden and eat worms. Your pet rock died. All kinds of things. So he says, make straight paths for your feet. Let that witch’s lame be turned out of the way. Somebody’s watching you. Somebody’s following you. And if you go astray, somebody’s going to follow you.

He says, but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men and hold this without which no man shall see the Lord. Look in verse 15, looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God. This is not salvation here. This is talking about the grace of God having its effect in your life, the influence in your life, the power in your life, because how you live affects other people’s lives. Don’t you want to serve God because you’re loving?

Love will make you do things for him that nobody could ever get you to do. No loss can make you do. And you’ll sacrifice and give more and love more. You name it because grace works. Grace is powerful. Grace is that love and desire and the power to do the will of God. And this is why the apostle Paul, and I give you the scripture there in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 10, where he says, I have labored more abundantly than they are.

Talking about God’s grace that was bestowed upon me was not in vain. You see, he’s not talking about when he was saved, he’s talking about as a principle by which to live his life. Why do you do what you do? Why do you do what you do? Well, I’m trying to earn my way to heaven, that won’t work. Because I think I do all these good deeds and try to be spiritual. Being spiritually minded means mind to spirit. The Holy Spirit of God teaches you the Word of God.

And that’s why every service we have, we try to teach you what the Bible says. Because I want you to be strong. I want you to be spiritually minded. I want you to have God’s blessings. I want you to have the peace and the love and the joy that God wants you to have. And I believe God will give it to you. And all you gotta do is understand how simple and as is. 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 Gaecke 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. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. We’re leaving that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.