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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.

As we’re moving right along. Look down here in the bowl where it has 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and I, brethren, could not speak unto you as under spiritual, but as unto carnal. Brother means they’re saved, but I could not speak unto you as under spiritual because they weren’t spiritual. But as under carnal means you were fleshly minded. In other words, Christians walking after the flesh. And the reason he says this is because you have envy and strife and divisions.

Are you not carnal and walked like a lost man? You mean a Christian can walk like a lost man? up here, a Christian can walk in the flesh. And if he walks in the flesh, means he will fulfill the desires of the flesh, and therefore he’s living like a lost man. Well, wait a minute, that’s not supposed to be possible if, well, if you’re really saved, you’re not going to want to do that. But God’s Word says just the opposite.

You can be saved and still desire the works of the flesh. God did not make you and I a robot. He didn’t take over our wills. He allows us to make choices. So as we read the Word of God, we see the folly, the vanity of the flesh. We see the purpose, the truth, the eternal values of walking with God, the peace, the joy, to happiness that we can have. So I can make a choice. And so he says, be not deceived, God is not mocked.

That whatsoever man soeth flesh, that shall he also reap. So if you don’t want to reap the works of the flesh, don’t sow to the desires of the flesh. If you want to have the love, the joy, the peace, and all of us, well then sow that and you’ll reap that. So you see, it’s because you have a choice. When the Bible says be not deceived, God is not mocked. It means that you can’t walk in the flesh, commit the sin and expect to get away with your heavenly Father, beaten a tar out of you.

And many of God’s children aren’t smart enough to figure this out. Have you ever had children that seem like they never learned. Have you ever spanked them? And you’re still in the zen? Yes, Mommy. I won’t do that anymore. So I might be sitting down on the outside, but I’m still standing up on the inside. And some kids, it don’t matter what you do. There are rebellious as rebellion can be. Some of you’re sitting right here today, that if I could talk to your mother and father, they would verify that I have just described your life.

Look at the next statement. The next paragraph down, among the believers in Corinth there were contentions and strife. They were popped up. There was born occasion with one’s own father’s wife. Covedist, I dollar, they were wicked. Christians live in wicked lives. Paul didn’t say, hey, you’re lost. It’s a sign you’re not saved. No, it’s sign you’re walking in the flesh. If you produce the works of the flesh, that means that’s a sign that you’re walking in the flesh. That’s the evidence of it.

A lost making walk in the flesh and a Christian can walk in the flesh so it doesn’t prove your saved or lost. It just proves you’re walking in the flesh. Look at the next statement. Believers were constantly admonished by the apostle to walk in the spirit, be filled or controlled with the spirit, walk in good works, put on the new man, put on the whole armagorn. Those are choices that you make. Those are things God tells us to do because that’s what he wants us to do, but he also allows you to go the other way.

But understanding that there’s consequences to your bad decisions. If you will obey the Lord, God is under the authority of the Word, because He’s lifted up His Word above His name, and God has to obey the Word. God has to fulfill His promises that He wrote. Therefore I know that if I do what God says to God, has to bless me. When I get to heaven, God has to reward me because He has to do it. He gave His Word, and God can’t lie.

Therefore, if you’ll serve God, He says that the sufferings of this person time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed. It will be worth it all.” Look at the next statement. I’ll put it in bold. They were guilty of such despicable behavior that Paul found it necessary to instruct them in how to behave. It was not automatic. There are 14 major problems in the Corinthian church. He had a deal with the problems. And he says, you are yet carnal.

He’s fleshly minded. Brethren, you’re saved, but you’re not spiritual minded. I have fed you with milk and not with meat because you can’t understand it. You haven’t grown. And he says in Hebrews in chapter 5, for when, by the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teacher again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God. In other words, what you ought to be doing, you’re not doing. So it wasn’t guaranteed. And you walk in the flesh, which is not the will of God.

So it is the will of God, according to Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 2, 10, where he says that you are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus, in which God has before ordained that you should walk in them, ordained to walk in good works. But just because that is the will of God for my life to walk in good works, does that mean that I automatically am going to walk in good works because that’s the will of God? I can defy the will of God.

It is the will of God that every man believe on Jesus Christ. That doesn’t mean every man is going to do it because people defy God. They will not believe it. So God may want to bless your life, reward you when you get to heaven, but you defy God. You resist God. You don’t walk with him. You won’t serve him. Therefore, when the day comes, when you’ll stand at the Judgement City of Christ, you may not get rewarded for things you could have been greatly rewarded.

And yet it be for all eternity. These are eternal rewards, not temporary rewards. So it will be eternally worth it. Look at the next statement. If you ever get a chance to, we don’t have time to go to Galatians in chapter 5 and verse 16, walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So walking in the flesh is possible. You mean a Christian can walk in the flesh? Yes. And if he walks in the flesh, he produced the works of the flesh.

You mean like adultery and fornication. You mean like murder and witchcraft and hatred and variance and emulations and strife and seditions and heresies and all. You can be He guilty of all of those things and still be a believer. Should a believer walk in the flesh though? No. Is that the will of God? It’s not the will of God that you do that. But God didn’t make us robots. Even after He saved us, He wants us to voluntarily choose to serve Him.

I made up my mind years ago. Yeah, I got no sinful nature. My sinful nature is just as bad as yours. is just as bad as everybody else’s. Yours isn’t worse than somebody else’s. Everybody’s sinful nature is bad, but everyone’s desire of the new nature is all the same too. My new birth is just like your new birth. It’s just as holy and God is yours. But you and I have choices to make. I decided that if I walk with God, then I know God’s going to bless me.

And I’d rather have a a peaceful, happy life. Then one that’s all torn up all the time. I had somebody tell me one time says, I don’t see anything wrong with just taking a sociable drink once in a while. It ain’t gonna hurt anybody. Yeah, go on skid row. I’ve been in the rescue missions. A lot of them. I mean, I wasn’t there because I had to be there. It’s just I went to reach out to people that were already there.

I want to make sure you understood that. But I’ve seen some people take a social drink and the more they drink, the more sociable they got. And I came to the conclusion, I’ll never be a drunk. If I never take a drink. You’ll never run the risk of being a drunk. You say, what’s a drunk? The day they call it alcohol. a drunkard in the Bible. You will never be a drunk if you never take a drink. And you’ll never set a bad example in front of anybody if you don’t take a drink.

You may say, well they can drink and they don’t bother me. You might bother those kids that follow your example and don’t stop. My daddy was a bootleg. If you don’t think I know anything about alcohol and drinking and white lightning, I know just a little bit. My momma used to haul the stuff. She used to take the corn mash off the top of it and feed it to us kids. It was a long time before I could walk straight.

Look, I have never yet had to wake up with a hangover. You say, you missed out. You ain’t, yeah, I haven’t missed a whole, oh, an environment all over the place. Yeah, I’ve never done that. Boy, have I really missed out? You always see the commercial and they’re drinking it. Doesn’t get any better than this. Oh, hard wash. You’ve got to be joking. And they always show some good hunk of a man and some beautiful built little lady sicking on it.

Why don’t they show her about 20 years later on some barstole and half of it hanging over the door? Some big old whino, lides of ruin, shot. I don’t know if they want to do this. Oh, there’s some beautiful, kind of lure you. Because they’re joined the good life. I got something better right here to drink and doesn’t leave me with a hangover and not have any sorrow the next day. I’m side-tracked. You know that, don’t you?

Look at the next statement I’ve put down here. Thus we see in Scripture that behavioral change is not automatic upon belief. You trust Christ as your Savior today. Everything’s changed. Oh my sinful desires are gone and now everything is just wonderful to holy. Dream on, you’ll be able to join Martin Luther King. I have a dream. And he’ll turn into a nightmare because it’s not according to truth. You have an old symphonic, God never changed that. He didn’t change your physical body and your sinful nature is in your body.

The only way you can go away with this one is to get the new body that doesn’t have a sinful nature and that day is coming. This one here is going to go to the ground. The worms are going to eat it and then they’re going to die because they have my sinful nature. Why I can get sidetracked? So he said, there’s so many things. I turned the page over and now we’re going to put the pedal to the middle.

Top of the page here, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, you always know the verse, for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not a works lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. But good works is after your saved by faith without works. So is it the will of God that His children produce good work? God has ordained, and get this, it’s so important to see how it’s worded, created in Christ is unto good works which God hath before ordained that we must walk in them.

It says, should. See what you should do. Yes, serve God. And you should annihilate the flesh. Don’t satisfy those desires. You’ve got them. But it says, the only way to whip the whole sinful desire is by walking in the Spirit. You go crazy, try and say, well, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t do this. And I don’t do that. Yeah, but I know. But what do you do? The Christian life isn’t one being negative, it’s being positive. Get so busy doing what God says to do and you will have time to get in trouble.

If I got in trouble, I’d have to schedule it. Look at the next statement. We see this concept repeated throughout the scripture as believers are exhorted, admonished, and be seized to live their lives in a way befitting their identity in Christ. Please note the following examples, all of which are instructive to believers. to be saved, not to keep saved or to prove they are saved, but because they are saved. Once you trust Christ as Savior, yeah, because I am saved.

That’s a finished job. It’s done. I have been saved past tense. It’s over. I can’t get saved again. I will save 53 years ago. Never has to be done again. And everything since then cannot change what happened to me that night when I trusted Christ as my Savior. Can’t change that. Can alter it. God can’t cast me out. God can’t. lose me. I have eternal life. And because he paid for all my sin, and God said, if I believed it, I would have eternal life.

And that’s how I know I’m going to heaven. And the way I know I’m going to heaven because there’s only two places, heaven and hell. I can’t go to hell because I don’t have any sins to pay for. They’re all paid. Christ paid for my sins. He paid for yours too. All you have to do is believe he did it for you. And when you believe that, that payment he made to put to your counsel, you don’t have to go to hell and pay You say, what?

It’s paid. Well, what about if I sin tomorrow? It’s paid. What about two weeks down the road? What’s paid? So I don’t have you sin to pay. I can’t go to hell to pay for anything because it’s paid But as a child of God during my lifetime God says that I am gonna be Chasing but never hell the penalty. No, no These are consequences of my bad decisions still wrong still sinful But now see I’m dealing with God as my Father before it was as God as my judge.

Look at the next statement. Some of these verses here but I’m going to pass over them because I want to get to the questions that I have down here. Look at the questions. You’ll notice on it toward the bottom, in the middle of the page, the notion that a believer’s behavior will change is nothing more than the false teaching of perseverance of the saint. Well if you really saved, you’ll persevere. So then you got to find out, okay, if I’m really saved I’ll persevere Means that I’m gonna keep serving Lord, but if I don’t that means that I really wasn’t saved That’s not the truth.

That’s not the Bible That’s heresy and believe it or not. I love those people that teach what I’m telling you right now are on the radio stations that I’m on This is being taught in probably 90% of all the churches in America and that’s not a joke You say well, they don’t teach it. Yes, they do And they are on television and they’re on radio and people listen to them all the time and they have no clue what they’re been fed Because it sounds so good.

It sounds so logical. Well, if you’re really saved, you’re not gonna want to go out here and do that. Doesn’t that sound logical? But it’s not the truth though. You don’t go by your experience. You go by doctrine. So look there at number one Does grace demand that a person must produce good works to be saved or stay saved? grace can’t demand because grace means unmerited. So there’s nothing that you have to do to merit salvation. Titus 3.5 says, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us.

So I’m already been saved and it wasn’t by my works which I have done. So there’s nothing that saved me that I’ve done except by what he’s done for me. He saved me, not by my works. So if I’m already saved, nothing can affect that afterwards. Number two, does God have to look at our good works to determine the validity of our faith? You mean God doesn’t know if I’m really saved except by the way I lived? Poor God.

He says you’re saved by faith by believing that what he did was for me. Lord, I believe that. Well, I don’t know you really believe it if it changes in your life. So God doesn’t really know if I really believe him yet. So am I doing these good works to convince God? Well, if I’m not doing it to convince God, then I must be doing it to convince man. So now the whole emphasis changes. I have to live good so that people will know that I’m really saved so I can really be saved.

There’s a problem here because now the whole security question comes in. How do I know I’m saved? Can I know that I’m saved because I did what God said do? I believe He’d paid for my sins. I’m trusting Him to take me to heaven when I die. I have a new birth. And I have an old birth. The old man, new man. When this one dies, this one goes to heaven. What’s the problem? Now we simply deal with an issue of will you be an obedient child or disobedient child, but you’re still his child.

When you had children born into your family and they were obedient, they were yours, right? When they were disobedient, they were your wives. Right? Now they’re still yours. You can’t unborn your kids. You tried, didn’t you? Now look at them. Number three, why should my eternal destination depend upon my good works before man if I was already justified before God by faith alone? So you see, if I’m not trying to prove it to God, who am I trying to prove it to?

Man? Why would I have to try to prove it to man if I’ve already been justified by faith before God? You mean if I was to trust Christ as my Savior today and all of a sudden I died of a heart I get to go to heaven and I didn’t have to prove it to anybody but The worst thing that can happen to any Christian then is to live Because now he has to prove it by his life But if I was denied soon that trust the Lord didn’t have to prove it to anybody I could have gone to heaven You have a problem with that I do Look at the next statement Which good works are good enough to satisfy or justify one before God?

No, there were no good works that you had to do to be justified before God. And if I graced and it is no more of works, no more of works, no more before and no more afterwards, no more. If I’m saved by grace, it’s no more of works past, present, or future. future. No, I wonder what part, this people can’t see and understand. Look at the number five. Are there any circumstances whereby a believer in Jesus Christ can lose or forfeit God’s gift of eternal life?

No. There’s There’s nothing you can do that would ever cause you. PHOTO anooga************70710 APPLIC I’ll never lose you. Never cast you out. Never. Never means never. Never cast out. Can’t be cast out. Impossible. Unless you sin again. Well, see, he didn’t say that. That’sLt. Well, that’s what he meant to say. Oh, I wish God only knew how to say what he really meant to say. I think God said exactly what he meant. He said he never cast them out and never lose me.

Best news and all of our look up here now. This is you and me. This is sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us but He hates our sin. And for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from the Lord. But God says, He loves us. He wants us to go to heaven. But to go to heaven, we can’t go the way we are. We go the way we are. We sinned here. We’ll sin there. So God says, flesh and blood cannot inherit it.

You can’t go the way you are. Okay. you try to be, you’re not good enough. That’s a perfect place. If you were to go to heaven right now the way you are right now, you’re lie up there. You deceive up there. You be trying to deceive God. You be lying to the angels. I know a couple of men, they’d probably be chasing the angels. Don’t look up here. God, you can’t save yourself. That’s why you need a Savior. And the only way to be saved is to get a new birth.

This one isn’t good enough. So here is Jesus Christ, God in a flesh, came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin, because it separates us from Him. So Christ took the sin, paid for them across, came back from the dead, and He said that if we would believe it, He would give to us as a free gift everlasting life. We would be born into God’s family. And He says, as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God.

See, now I I got something that I didn’t have before. Now I’m a son of God. Here I’m just a son of man. I’m just a flesh birth. So God didn’t do anything with this one. He gave me a new birth. And this new birth, I have a new nature. The Holy Spirit in 12 of me. And now that I’m a child of God and the can’t sin, can’t die. That’s why I’m a child of God for all eternity.

But God wants me to serve him, to walk with him, and not to walk in the flesh. He says, do not make provision for the flesh. Why would he have to tell me not to make provision for the flesh that you may fulfill in the lust thereof? Because you still have the potential of fulfilling the lust of the flesh because you still have it. And it means means that you as a Christian if you’d Make provision for the flesh and walk in the flesh and after the flesh and fulfill the works of the flesh in somebody’s eyes.

You might be looked at as you can’t really be saved. Look how you’re living. Well, wait a minute. God’s the one that says that I can do all these things, but it’s not as well. So Christians can defy the will of God. Don’t you know and don’t you believe that God wants you as His children to live a good, godly, holy life? Wouldn’t you believe that? Do you? All the time? Faithfully? Wouldn’t it be great if we all did everything right?

But we don’t. That’s why God says in the Word, forgiving one another. We wouldn’t have to forgive one another if we didn’t wrong each other, would we? And would he have to tell his disciples by this shall all men know that you might be disciples that you love one another? It ought to be automatic, but evidently it’s not automatic. Just because you’re married, it’s automatic that you’re gonna get along. It’s automatic that you’re not gonna offend each other because if you get married, you’re not gonna want to hurt each other.

You’re not gonna want to say anything that would offend each other, right? I mean, after all, if they were my kid, my kids wouldn’t do that. Well, I could get sidetracked again. Let’s pray, shall we? Every head bowed and every eye closed, no one looking around. If you’re here this morning and maybe you have never understood this before, but I hope that what I’ve said will help you to get a grasp of it. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, say you don’t have a new birth and you don’t get to go to heaven when you die, you must be born again.

You must accept Christ as your Savior. Notice I’m using the word must. Now this is what you must do. You must believe that you are a sinner and that Christ died for sinners, that He paid for your sins. And if you will trust Him as your Savior, He will give you everlasting life. He’ll give you the free gift. Would you believe it? I’m not going to have you forward, not going to embarrass you, but right where you’re sitting. If what I said made sense to you, I’d like to know it, and I’d like to have prayer for you.

And I’m going to ask if you just slip you in it very quickly. Is there anyone else I’ll say, yes, preach that that made sense to me. And I will trust Christ as my Savior this morning. I want to know that I’m going to heaven when I die. And I want you to pray for me. We’ll just slip it up very quickly, put a Arabic down in one at all. In one at all. Or just a moment. Are you sure that if you died today, you would go to heaven?

If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, do you see why, yes, you can be a child of God and be obedient? And you can be disobedient. But if you’re disobedient, your heavenly Father will chase in you, discipline you. He’ll never cast you out and never lose you. But he may say, come on home. But if you serve the Lord, trust Him, walk with Him. God will bless your life. Father, thank you so much for this time together. Bless each one for being here.

We also pray, Lord, your wisdom, to be here with us tonight, to say and do the right things. We seek you well, and we Christ and you have come. You’ve been listening to another great message from Pastor Arnold, and we at Bibleline, thank you for tuning in. In appreciation to those who support this ministry financially, we would like to send to you a copy of the Jim Tingen story. The Jim Tingen story is a true story about a young man that just couldn’t explain the gospel clearly.

He wasn’t the type of kid that most people made friends with, but he knew that people needed to hear the gospel to be saved. Believe me, you’ll be affected by this story in a profound way, and this book is offered to you as a gift for your donation in any amount. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634, and don’t forget to include your mailing address as well. So for this month, receive a free copy of the Jim Tingen story with your donation of any amount.

It’s a small token of our appreciation for your support of Bibleign because without your thoughtful gifts and prayers from listeners like you, we would not be able to give you be able to remain on the air. Thank you once again for your continued support. 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, believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.