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

Take your Bible and look there in the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 3. chapter 3, 1 Corinthians and chapter 3. And notice what he says, and 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and you’ll notice that there is a verse here that says in verse 15, if any man’s work shall be burned. Now he’s talking to believers and they’re going to be judged according to their works. And some works are going to be gold, silver and precious stones. Some works are going to be haywood and stubble and they’re going to be burned destroyed.

And it’s because after you were saved, you built upon this foundation in verse 11. And there’s no other foundation than that can be laid which is Christ Jesus. So in verse 15, if any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer what? Now, there’s a lot of people today that are teaching that you are going to be punished in heaven, that God is going to take and bring out your sins. And you’re going to be punished. And this is for those sins that you’ve done since you’ve been saved.

And therefore, God is going to cast you out of the kingdom and you’re not going to be able to participate in the kingdom. And you’re going to be beaten with maybe a few stripes, but it’s going to be according to your works. I don’t buy that at all. I don’t believe that I’m looking forward to the great day when I get beaten up by my heavenly Father. Now I never look forward to a whooping from my earthly father, and as a cinch I would not be looking forward.

I mean, the Lord comes in the air, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You’d be living in holy fear. My mom always told me, she says, Yay, good boy. Oh, come on, Yay, boy. You just went to your daddy gets home. Do you think I was looking forward for my daddy to come home? No. Because I knew he was going to kill me. No, you don’t reason with my dad. You didn’t reason with him. I mean, no, nothing.

You were going to die. I mean, I’ve got killed a number of times. So you believe in a resurrection? I sure do. But you’re going to suffer the loss of what you could have had. If this is a rewarding stand, you’re going to be rewarded for what you did, you’re going to suffer the loss of rewards of what you could have had. So there are some things you can lose. And the Bible says there’s something that you cannot lose.

He’ll never cash you out, never lose you. So there can seem to be some discrepancies in the Bible, but when you understand what he’s referring to, then it’s not quite so bad. So you’ve got to take and keep that in mind. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Ephesians chapter 1, the book of Ephesians in chapter 1. Remember this when it comes to salvation. Look in Ephesians 1 and verse 6. I’m going to heaven, though we know that God is so holy, man is so sinful.

For me to get to heaven is not something I’m going to be able to do. So by grace and grace alone is why I can go to heaven, not because I earned it or deserved it, not one work have I done. Until Christ comes, night makes a payment, comes back from the dead. And what he did, he did it for me. He was my substitute. So the Bible says, when you accept Christ as your Savior, you accept Christ. God accepts Christ.

You are accepted because you are in His beloved. So you see there in verse 6, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted because of where we are. because we are in Christ. And because Christ is perfect, righteous and just, and He gave us His righteousness, the cloak of righteousness, in God’s eyes I am as righteous as holy as God is. So there’s no difference. So He says here, we are accepted in the beloved.

Now there’s other things that talks about being approved of God or disapproved. So turn into 1 Corinthians in chapter 9, 1 Corinthians in chapter 9. The Apostle Paul talking about becoming all things to all men that he might by all means get some saved. So he would try everything, do everything. That’s a little bit about what we do today by all means. But he says we are running in a race in verse 24. And then he says in verse 25, and every man that striva for the mastery is tempered or self-controlled in all things.

Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. So there’s a reason why we run our race because we’re going to get something for running the race. And then he says you’ll get something for running the race according to the rules because you have to run according to what is required. If you want the mastery, now remember this the Bible talks about those Old Testament saints in chapter 11 of Hebrews and he talks about they suffered these things believing that they would have a better resurrection.

Now they’ll all be resurrected but some want something better and more abundant entrance. It’s just like this and we got some of these kids here. We hope they all graduate. We really do. But we do hope that some will graduate with honors. No, we do hope and whenever y’all went to the public schools and sometime you had a valedictorian, but you had to have somebody with the honors. Now I was never in that group. I was in the other group that made the other group possible.

So when you get to heaven, you’ll be in heaven, but God wants to honor you. And more you do for the Lord, according to your works, He is going to bless you accordingly. Otherwise, there’s no sense doing it according to your work. That means there’s something about this and I’ll show you that in just a second. But here he makes a statement. We run in verse 26, not as uncertainly, so fight. Not as one that beateth the air like a shadow boxer.

You never seen a shadow boxer? He’s just a swinging and boxing away, but nobody’s there. There’s some people go through the motions, but they never hit anybody, never do anything. I just want to get through with life. I just I just want to give the old devil a black eye. I want him to, I yank it with here and he passed through. Wouldn’t it be shame to live your whole life and Satan not even know who you are? I mean, he’s the enemy in verse 27, but I keep under my body or keep my body in subjection.

Less that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be disapproved for the reward and not just a reward, but a better reward, better resurrection, something better. So every one of us ought to have something within us that says, I want more. Now if God’s going to reward you in heaven for what you do, wouldn’t it behoove every one of us to try to do all that we possibly can? And the thing is that we’re not competing against each other.

No Christian is competing against each other. That’s why there’s no reason for any enveant or jealousy or no that’s not. It’s because God will reward you according to your own labor. It’s not comparing you with somebody else. They that compare themselves among themselves, God says, are not. They’re not wise because you all, I want bad self-amagers yourself because I can’t sing like them and I can’t preach like them and I can’t do like them. It has nothing to do with them.

It’s whatever God wants to do with you and you yield into the Lord and God’s going to judge every man accordingly and it will be worth it all. It really will. Now, when we talk about our positions that we have in Christ, Remember that day that I trusted Christ as my Savior, my position is in Christ. That position can never be changed. But when you talk about serving the Lord, you’re talking now about privilege and position in the Kingdom.

Well, whatever God wants to do with you and how He’s going to reward you. you. So those are things that you might get and you might not get. It can change. But my salvation over here and my position in Christ, that can never change. So you always have to keep things separate and as you read the scriptures rightly dividing the Word of God. Now remember this, whenever you and I trust Christ is our Savior. That very moment I was justified just as if I had never sinned.

That’s how God sees me. Is that why I never sinned? Now that justification that God declared upon me can’t get any more justified than what it was the day I trust the Lord. I can’t say, well, 55 years later I am more justified than I’ve ever been. No, I am as justified as I was that day I believed in that moment of time and it cannot be changed. Now when I trusted Christ as my Savior, remember I was not justified in degrees.

In other words, I got a little bit justified. Then as I lived my life, I got a little bit more justified And then as I lived some more and I got better and better, I got more justified. So finally I got so justified, he’s gonna take me home to heaven. Isn’t that wonderful? So when you got saved, you were as justified as you will ever be. When you got saved, you can’t get any more saved than you were the day you got saved, because nothing can change that.

Can’t be altered. You can’t negate it. Can’t say, I changed my mind. Once God saves you, you are saved and you’re going to heaven whether you like it or not. You have eternal life. He can’t give me any more eternal life than the eternal life He’s already given me. It didn’t come in degrees. It didn’t come moment by moment. It was a one time in life I was saved and that very moment God imparted to me this imputation of His righteousness to my family.

I can’t get any more righteous than what I am in Christ. I can’t get any more righteous. I am His righteous in God’s eyes as His Son. I I can’t get any more righteous. That’s how secure you are in Christ. So you’ve been justified and you can’t get any more justified. I think that’s good to know. I think it helps. Remember when we talked about God is so holy and man is so wicked, well the day you trusted Christ is your savior, you and God were reconciled.

and everything that was between you and God was taken away, and you can’t get any more reconciled to God than what you are. You are as reconciled to God as you can ever be. Even in heaven, I will not be more reconciled to God than I am right now. Because that happened at a moment in time and that was my position and it can’t be changed. No degrees. A little bit by a little bit. He didn’t save me a little bit and I get more saved.

And then more saved, it’s like going to the funeral and looking at those three caskets up there. This man over here, now he’s dead. This man, he’s really dead. This man over here, he’s gloriously dead. Now you take over here, here’s Bob Gilbert. Now he saved, but Peter and model, he’s really saved. really saved. Jesse over here, he’s gloriously saved. Have you ever heard preachers talk about it? He was gloriously saved. Well, he was saved. He saved saved. He’s not more saved than somebody else.

You are saved. Some of y’all are having fun. I haven’t even got there. Now, when we talked about hell, the lost man is the lost man going to be judged according to his works. Yes. Does God know the light that every man has? God knows what every man could know, chose not to believe. Can God, who is the judge of all the years, shall he not do right? Can God do wrong? Can he send a person to hell that it wouldn’t be right?

God can’t make a mistake. God can’t do anything wrong. God is God, and he has to do right. So when a man is judged according to his works, it cannot be in order to go to heaven. Because the lost man is not going to heaven, so how you can, if salvation is by your worst, how can God, at the great, white-thrown judgment, judge him according to their works and save him because of his works? If salvation is not by your works.

So judging according to the works can’t save him. Never could, never has, never will. Now it determines the amount of punishment they receive in hell. It’s in degrees. It’s based upon something according to. When you talk about a Christian in his rewards, not everybody’s going to get the same reward. I don’t know how you’re even going to explain to him. He says the righteous shall shine as the firm of the heaven and talk about the stars. talk about all the stars and each one has a little different glory.

Now is that what it’s going to be? We’re going to have a different brilliance about us and something else. I don’t know. I don’t know how you’re going to get brighter than bright and bright and bright. But the Bible says Jesus was pretty bright, seven times brighter than the sun. Noonday. I don’t care how God does it. I’m just glad that there was a day in my life. I was lost is the hound dog on the end of a soup bone.

Then my father-in-law explained the gospel to me. And I trusted Christ as my Savior. In that moment of time, though I didn’t understand none of this, all I knew is I didn’t want to go to hell. I’ve had people say, well, you shouldn’t trust the Lord just for fire insurance. I don’t think it’s a pretty good reason myself. That’s the only reason I trust the Lord. I didn’t want to go to hell. And I didn’t have the fire insurance.

So I accepted Christ as my Savior. And then that moment of time, though I didn’t understand all of it, I was saved that night as I will ever be. Now, yes, there’s a time coming when God in my life is saving me from the power of sin in my life. And there’ll be a time when Christ comes in the air and will save me from the presence of sin. But from the penalty of sin, never happened, Captain. I was saved and I have eternal life.

I’ve been justified. It can be changed, it can be altered because I am in Christ and that’s how God sees me in His Son. I am accepted in the beloved. Now my works over here, since I’ve been saved, that’s a different story altogether. But I do believe that it should be who of every Christian to serve the Lord because one of these days going to be in heaven. I wrote down a couple of questions. If salvation can be lost, now think about this.

If a person can get saved and then get lost, God who had a plan of salvation before he ever made the first man, and he doesn’t want a man to go to hell. And because of his righteousness, He can’t let a man into heaven. And he has to be just and he gave a law and he has to obey the law. And the wages of sin is death. So God has done all of this sin his son into the world because he so loved that man.

And so finally this man trusts Christ as a savior. Believes in what Christ did he did it for him. And then later on in his life he could lose his salvation because of something that he doesn’t do. Explain to me if that’s true and a man can get saved and lose the salvation. Why in the name of God Almighty? Wouldn’t God take the person home before he messed up? If God says, He is saved, He’s saved. Oh, no, it’s too late, He’s lost.

Man, if He’d have died yesterday, He’d have made it, but He waited too long and messed up. You think that makes any sense at all? For God to so love the world, He died and paid for His sins and now He’s saved? Now, if a man can lose his salvation, think about this for a moment. Let’s say, for example, I’m over here at 17, I’m going to go to the church. And here’s Jesse back here at 24. Now I’ll be honest with you, this isn’t fair.

See I have had to keep from losing my salvation for 55 years. Now Jesse, he’s only been saved for about 10 years. So he’s only had to watch himself for 10 years. I have had to watch myself for 55 years. Now isn’t it true that the longer a person lives the odds are greater for him to mess up? True. The longer a man gets to live the bigger the possibility he ain’t gonna make it because you’ve got to live a certain way, man.

I mean, this is terrible. You know what I would prefer? That day I trusted Christ as my Savior, BAM, I’m out of here. And I didn’t have to run that risk. Why is God gambling with my soul? If I can lose my salvation, God is gambling with me. Making my salvation really depend upon me, because if I don’t walk that straight, now I’m going to lose myself. I’ll lose this, free gift he gave me. So I got a problem with somebody teaching, you can lose your salvation.

Wouldn’t the longer you live be a curse, if you could lose your salvation, it would be a curse. I would despise life. I’d be afraid to go out of the house. I wouldn’t turn on a TV. I wouldn’t even look at my wife, let alone some other woman. I wouldn’t look at nobody. I’d become a hermit. See nothing, no nothing, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why? Because if I mess up, buddy, it’s all over? No. Would the Christian life be a blessing if the odds are greatly increased that you would mess up?

Because if you could lose your salvation, then all of this is null and void. would have to unjustify me. He would have to take his righteousness away from me. He would have to unsave me. He would have to erase my name that’s written in the Lamb’s book of life. Because he says he got me a reservation and he had to cancel it because I’m not going to be able to make it. All because I messed up down here. But why would God take my salvation away, my righteousness away, my eternal life away, my justification, the imputate.

Why would God take all that away from me? And it was given to me by grace, remember? But I had to keep it by my works. So was my salvation by grace or is it by works? If I can lose it, it’s by works. But I’m so glad this moment in time out of 73 years was the greatest moment in my life, though I did not know it at the time. I didn’t know all this other stuff. I remember whenever we had systematic theology at Florida Bible College, and we had these eight big books that we had to go through.

In that book, the Spirit’s Shafer had a whole bunch of reasons, things that happened to you the very moment you got saved. Now I remember sitting there and I was reading every one of those things, about 25 or something like that. I read all of those things. And I don’t remember feeling any one of them. I didn’t even know they were there. All these things God did to me. That was such great news and great comfort. But your salvation at this moment in time.

If you’ve had this moment in time, it can never be changed. You have eternal life. You are God’s child, and you will go to heaven when you die. That’s the best news in all the world. Look up here. This hand represents you and me. The wallet represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God is so holy and we are so sinful, so wicked. There is a great golf between the two of us. I can’t get to God and God can’t come to me.

He can’t dwell in the presence of sin. So the Bible says that because we’ve all sinned, we all have to die. But eternally separated from the Lord. But God says he loves us. He wants us to have eternal life and to go to heaven when we die. And God says you can’t earn eternal life. you can’t work your way to heaven. There’s no amount of works, no works, no works are involved in our salvation. There’s the work of Christ.

And the work that He did was came into the world. Christ came into the world, took upon Himself a body, lived a perfect life, had no sinful nature, He didn’t have to die, He didn’t sin, no fault found within So because He loved us, He was willing to let our sins be placed upon Him. And He took all the sin of all the world and paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. And He says that if we would believe He did it for us, He would put the payment to our county and we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us.

And the moment you believe this, that very moment you are saved from hell, you can never ever, ever go to hell in the future. That’s why he died to pay for our sins so that I have no sins to pay for. And says that when I believe that he gives me as a free gift everlasting life, I am justified, declared righteous as God. I have his righteousness imputed to my that can never be changed. That’s a done deal. No works.

All grace. That’s the best news I ever heard my whole life. Even though I didn’t even understand it all. All I knew back then was, Yankee, you’re going to hell if you don’t get saved. You better trust Christ as your Savior. Now trust the Christ as my Savior. Let’s pray, shall we? With his bow and I close and no one looking around, if you’re here tonight and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior or if you’re watching by internet, right where you are.

So I’ve never quite understood it before, but that makes sense to me. I’m separated from God. I’m a sinner. I don’t deserve to go to heaven. I can’t work my way there. I understand tonight that Jesus Christ died on that cross and paid for my sins, and I’m going to believe He did it for me. And friend God said, if you would believe it, He would save you and give eternal life and become His child. And if you believe it right now, and it becomes this moment in time, so important, I pray that you’ll trust Christ as your Savior.

Our Father, we thank again for your blessings. Thank you for this church. We thank you for the members here. friends that comes our way and visitors. We ask your blessings upon the hearing of your word from those that are on the Internet. We are so thankful that we’ve had some people trust Christ as Savior just recently just because they listen to the You Tube or the message that we preach live. Help us to do what we can. We commit our lives to You and our ministry because it belongs to You.

We just want Christ to be magnified in everything that we say and do, because Christ is in us and we want to be used. In Christ then we pray, Amen. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, The Gospel Driven Man. Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works.

And about how to share the Gospel with friends and loved ones. This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics, and we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy. There’s no obligation, no donation necessary, simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of The Gospel Driven Man. mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address. And God bless you and thank you for listening to Bibleline.

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 the day and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.