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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 message will be a blessing to you and your family.

There’s a lot of people who are thinking that they are saved and are not. So therefore, that means a lot of people are being deceived today. their disillusioned. Many people are not really sure what it takes to get to heaven. No one will be saved after death. We often hear about, well, God will give you a second chance. Don’t even think that when you die and if you’re not saved, God will give you another chance. God will give me another chance.

If he really loves me and really wants me to go to heaven, he’ll give me another chance. The Bible says, depart from me. I never know you. He didn’t give you another chance. After this, the judgment, not a second chance. Otherwise, everybody would go to heaven. So evidently, God only gives you this time, this life in which to trust him as your Savior. But though that is true, there is a lot of people who preach a wrong message. If all this is true, there must be a lot of preachers though that are not preaching the truth.

Good, nice, sincere preachers, but wrong. Let me ask you a question. How do you know I’m telling you the truth? How do you know I’m not deceiving you? Wouldn’t it be a shame for you to trust me, for your eternal destination? Trusting that I’ve told you the truth and I’ve lied to y’all along. And now when you die you wake up in hell for all eternity and you believed me. So how do you know who to believe? If all of this is true and there really is a heaven and there really is a hell then you’d better make sure that what you think you believe is true.

And how do you know? Let me give you a statement by Dr. Dehan. I used to listen to him already years ago. He said, there’s a vast difference between coming to Jesus for salvation and coming after Jesus for service. Coming to Christ makes one a believer. While coming after Christ makes one a disciple. All believers are not disciples. To become a believer one accepts the invitation of the gospel. To be a disciple one obeys the challenge of a life of dedicated service and separation.

Salvation comes through the sacrifice of Christ, but discipleship comes only by sacrifice of self and surrender to his call for devoted service. Salvation is free, but discipleship involves paying the price of a separated walk. Salvation cannot be lost because it depends upon God’s faithfulness, but discipleship can be lost because it depends upon our faithfulness. Though he wrote that, I agree with it. It is simple. I believe it’s true because there’ll be confusion to the majority of people who just heard what I just read.

Now, salvation means eternal deliverance from hell. If we were going to say, what is salvation? It is eternal deliverance from hell to heaven. It costs you nothing. It’s totally The discipleship, that’s serving God. That can cost you everything. So understand, there’s a difference between being saved and serving the Lord. Some people are trying to serve the Lord, hoping that if they do enough good, God will save them. No, all of your service and all of my service is supposed to be because we are already saved, not going to be saved, not working to be saved, not helping him save us.

But all of my service that I’ve given to the Lord is because I have been passed and been saved. Not to be saved. I have been saved. Any person who is doing any of these good deeds in order to be saved are not saved. Because it means you’re not going to be saved until you finish doing all these good works. So you can’t rejoice in salvation because you don’t have salvation. I’ve enjoyed mine because I’ve had it. You can’t enjoy something you don’t have.

Now, I want you to look there in the book of Matthew chapter 7 and verse 15 very quickly. There are false prophets, false teachers in the world. Some understand in pulpits all across this country. And some of them look just like everybody else. And I’ve had people say, well, all preachers are the same. No, they’re not. They do not all have the same message. Here he says, be where a false prophets would come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are raven in wolves.

You shall know them by their fruits. I offer happy people say, well, you know, you can tell them by their fruits. Talking about Christians. So everybody thinks we’re supposed to all be fruit inspectors. Go around with your magnifying glass and inspecting the fruit. So you can tell whether or not who’s a Christian who’s not a Christian. Now this verse refers to false prophets. False prophets you can tell. How do you tell? Well, the Bible says you’ll know them by their fruit.

And some people say, well, that means the way they live. Well, it could be the way you live. But there’s also a verse that talks about in the book of Hebrews in chapter 13 verse 15 that says the fruit of your lips giving praise unto God. So there’s the fruit of your lip, the things that you say. But how do you know this is referring to what they said? Because he says, in verse 21, not everyone that does what?

Say it. are saying something as the fruit of their mouth. What they are saying is, we’re trusting our works to save us because look what we did. We did this and we did this, we cast out devils. I mean we did wonderful things, we spoke in your name, we did all the, I’m saying with my mouth, look what I did and what I did is why I should go to heaven. And he says, depart for me, I never knew you.

That’s because they listen to false teachers. False teachers tell you, look at your life and if you live good enough, you’ll make it. And if you don’t live good enough, you won’t make it. So you’re going to heaven, it depends on how you live. So everybody thinks, well you have to go to church to go to heaven because that’s what they’ve been told. They have to give money. But of course, if you don’t go to enough church or not or give enough money or to pray enough, you don’t know if you’re going to make it, not because well you ain’t dead yet.

So you have to wait until you die to find out. That’s a false teaching, very false teaching. I want you to take your Bible and look there in the book of Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter five and verse 48, the Bible tells us that God is perfect. Verse 48, be therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is what? Perfect, if he’s perfect that means there’s nothing wrong with God. If he’s perfect, there’s no flowing God. He says, be ye perfect as your Father, which is in heaven is perfect.

Oh boy, if somebody was to ask me, right off the bat, what do I have to do to go to heaven and inherit eternal life? Be perfect, simple. So are you going to be perfect. Now isn’t that consoling? Now you know all you got to do is just be perfect. Now what’s the problem with that? No one’s perfect. Well maybe you could try. Would you like to spend the rest of your life trying to be perfect? Well nobody’s ever done before but you might be the first one.

Well what are you gonna do about the things you’ve already done that’s wrong. Now what are you gonna do about that? If you can live perfect from the this day forward what are you gonna do about the you already have lived? He says, being ye perfect as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect. Means there’s nothing wrong with God. If you understood if God is perfect, then heaven also must be perfect. In the book of Revelation chapter 21 and verse 27, he says, there shall in no wise enter into it anything that work at the domination or whatsoever make it the lie.

I mean, not even a lie. Now I know if I was to ask you and I think others have done this, ask you have you ever told, how many here never told a lie in your life, raise your hand. Nobody can raise your hand. Well, did you know that in James chapter 2, the Bible says that if you break one, you broke, you broke them all. You have just admitted you broke in every commandment there is. No, that’s what God said.

So if you had to be perfect and keep the law in order to go to heaven, it would be an impossibility. Now go back there to Matthew and chapter 19. And look there in verse 16. And behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? And Jesus said in verse 17, why callest thou me good, there is none good but one, that is God. But if thou will enter into life, keep the commandments.

Another way of saying, be perfect. How do you know that when he says, keep the commandments, he will say, and be perfect? Very simple. You see, I always cheat, I always read a little bit further and get the answer before I ask you the question. So he says in verse 21, Jesus said to him, if thou will be what? Perfect, go and sell all of a house, because he’s already admitted, oh, I’ve done this, I did that and I did this and I did that.”

Well, Christ already knew that He had greed, that He coveted money, He coveted wealth. He said, okay, take everything that you got and go sell it. Because He, it doesn’t matter how many you kept, did you break one? Yep, He wrote one. What do I have to do to go to heaven? What do I have to do to have eternal life? Be perfect. Why would He tell them that? So that man could see the impossibility of it. You see, some people think, oh, yeah, I do it.

Just be good. No, you have to be perfect to go to heaven. Christ is perfect. Heaven is perfect. God is perfect. And to go there, you have to be perfect. And that’s why if you ever really see it, it’ll help you to understand why you cannot add works to the gospel. Now, notice what he says here. Down here in verse 25, after he had said this to the sky, Jesus Christ talking to this rich young ruler, His disciples send her, listen to them, said in verse 25, when his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, who then can be saved?

Well, what did they understand? That Jesus was saying, you have to be what? To go to heaven. You got to be perfect. That’s why they said, they were amazed. You got to be perfect. Who then can be saved? Didn’t look at verse 26, but Jesus beheld them and said unto them with what? Men, this is what? Impossible. In other words, it’s impossible for a man to do what? Be perfect. It’s impossible for a man to save himself. Now me, I can read that and I can see that.

It’s clear to the bell of my mind. I have no problem with that. Yet there’s a multitude of preachers that cannot see that. They do not read that. They cannot discern that. And they will tell people, you’ve got to keep the commandments to go to heaven. Christ is trying to show you the impossibility so that the law is not designed to save you. The law only points you to Christ, he can save you because it’s impossible for a man.

And the folly of some preachers that tell people that you have to stop a certain way of living or start living a certain way. You know, stop being bad and start being good as though your efforts of what you do, The sinful man is going to help God save you. Now let me show you something that’s very important. Look there in the book of Hebrews and chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5 is a tremendous verse and this is what it says.

In verse 9. In verse 9. And being made, this is talking about Christ. made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation. Now listen to me. If he is perfect and become the author of eternal salvation, the wages of sin is what? Death. If the wages of sin is death and he is the author of eternal salvation, then his eternal salvation plan can plan can be no sin, no room for sin, because if there was sin in his plan of salvation, then his salvation could not be perfect and it could not be eternal because death would cause it to cease.

Now you understand that don’t you? If you don’t get it I’ll repeat it. He is the author of what kind of salvation, eternal salvation. If it’s eternal salvation it has to be perfect salvation, because He is perfect and He has developed a salvation that is eternal, a salvation that is perfect. How do you know it’s perfect? Because He’s the author of it and this is what He said. When He died on the cross and He had paid for sins of the world, the last thing He said was, it is what?

It is finished. If it’s finished, there’s nothing else to add to it. means that after the work Christ did, there is no work for man to do. Man’s got to stop some of his sins. Well, if he has to do that, you had just now entered sin into the plan, and it can’t be an eternal salvation. When Christ saves you, it is forever. It’s an eternal salvation, not partial, not until you sin again. Christ is perfect. He is the author of eternal salvation.

If it’s eternal salvation, it is a perfect salvation. and the work that he did is finished. There’s nothing else that needs to be done concerning the plan of salvation that anybody can add to. That’s why when you take an individual and try to get him committed to giving up something in his life, some work of the flesh, then that means that man is trying to do something by his own efforts, by what he stops or what he does to enter into that idea of that plan of salvation.

God says it cannot be. Any preacher that teaches you can be saved today lost tomorrow because of something you do, that man is a false teacher. He is false. Totally false. He’s not of God. I don’t care who they are. Their message is a false message. If they’re a false teacher, false preacher, you cannot add to the eternal gospel that he has given. God doesn’t want man tinking with it, adding to it, taking from it. To say you’ve got to stop your sins to be saved is man’s efforts to save himself.

And then if you try to say you’ve got to live a certain way to be saved, that’s false teaching. works have nothing to do with it. You are accepting the work Christ did, not what you do. And some people cannot buy the idea. They just can’t believe that it would be so simple. I have you say, that’s just too easy just to believe. But that’s all that it requires. Believe in me, you’re trusting in the work He did for you.

You’re not trusting in your work. See if you think you got to stop your sins and to be saved or you got to live a certain way to prove your saved, then what you’re doing is you’re adding your effort, your work to the gift of eternal life. And when you stop performing, you doubt your salvation. See anybody who truly just trusts Christ as their Savior never has to doubt their salvation again because it doesn’t depend on them. But anybody who believes you can lose your salvation because of something that you do have reason to doubt being saved because there will always be something somewhere along the line that you won’t know whether I’m really saved or not because of the way I live.

Does that mean that I promote sinful living? No. But I’m not going to lie to anybody either to try to get people to live right. Do I want people to serve God? Yes, I do. I don’t know any preacher that hits it harder than what I do. But you do not serve God to be saved. Now, take your Bible and turn to the book of Philippians in chapter 3. In Philippians chapter 3 I want you to see this in verse 3 and understand that there are no works that a man can do in order to qualify to be saved.

It’s not that Lord I finally confess I stop all my sins, I promise that I’m going to serve you and I’m good enough for you to save now. No. You think God’s going to save you because you promised that you’re going to quit your sins? it’s an impossibility. Do you know it is impossible for you to turn from all of your sins? Impossible? That’s why it’s not that way. Did you know it’s impossible for you to love the Lord by God with all the heart, mind, body, soul, and strength that’s impossible for you?

Why? Because you got to sinful nature. Why tell people that you got to do the impossible and believe it, that without giving them the cure? Sure, I’ve told people if you want to go to heaven, just be perfect. What the hell? You can’t do that. Yeah, you got the point. Here in Philippians in chapter three, look in verse three, for we are the circumcision which rejoice or which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have in your order on the line this in your Bible.

No confidence in the what? In the flesh. No confidence in the flesh means There’s no confidence in who I am, no confidence in what I’ve done. See in verse 5, if you talk about who you are, he said, well, I’m circumcised the eighth day. The stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, is touching law. He said, look who I am. Have no confidence in the flesh as to look who I am. Well my dad was a preacher, my uncle was a preacher, my great-granddad, he was a preacher.

Well, I was raised in church all my life and I sing in the choir and I was like, that has nothing to do with nothing. Zero! No confidence in the flesh! Looking for six concerning zeal? Boy am I motivated! I mean, I give to all the humanitarian needs and I help to feed the poor children and boy, give my body the burn if it was necessary. I’ll do anything like that. And buddy, that has nothing to do with anything.

Concern is he’ll persecute in the church touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. He said, man, you talk about what I’ve done. God’s not impressed with what you’ve done or what you’re going to do. When it comes to going to heaven, it’s not of works. It’s not by the works of righteousness which we have done or the works of righteousness which we promised to do. God never saved you because of the works of righteousness. I stop all my bad needs.

And that’s why God saved you. Think again. He didn’t save you because you quit sins. He never saved you because you promise you’re going to live for him. He saved you only one way and that is did you or did you not? Did you accept the payment he made on the cross for you? Are you truly trusting Christ to take you to heaven? And if you haven’t done that, you’re lost with a houndball and even with a soup bone.

You won’t go to heaven. Many people think in their sight, not saved. And I’ve traveled around in prison and I’ve churches. And a lot of those people, I’ve been people in independent, fundamental, Bible-emissionary minded Baptist churches, lost. People that sing in the choir, people that have been deacons, lost. People that teach Sunday school classes, lost. Because you see, they never really trust the Lord. They just know they want to go to heaven and they think that because they mean well and they join the church or they quit some of the things in their life and they want to serve God, that’s salvation, that’s not salvation.

That don’t even help you to be saved. That doesn’t get you a little pinky’s one inch closer to the pearly gates. Whenever you die, it’s dead, do you or did you not trust Christ? And he’s the one knows whether you did or you didn’t. He’s not interested in whether you sung in the choir. They don’t care what you did. That has nothing to do with you going to heaven. You’re getting to heaven is free, totally free only if there is no flesh involved.

Means that you’re not trusting in your good deeds. You’re not trusting in who you are. You’re not trusting in what you’ve done that gets you to heaven. And now you can ask some people, how do you know you’re going to heaven? I’ve been going to church all my life. I’ve been sincere, not giving money. God, you don’t get it. And yet you can be there so close and not really get what He’s talking about. Look in verse 7. Remember this when He talks about the word gain, it means there’s no pluses.

There’s no pluses. Christ plus. No. In verse 7, but what things were gain to me or pluses for me? Look who I am. Look what I’ve done. Those ought to count for some good brownie points. Those are some pluses in my life. He says, no, those were lost, not gained. See what he says here in verse eight, Yay, Dallas, and I count all things, but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them, but manure that I may win Christ.

And get verse nine, and be found where in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. God will not give you his righteousness when you’re trying to work and get your own. You have to totally give up, surrender, stop, trusting in anything you have ever done or ever will do. It’s not a matter, and this is why when you hear preachers tell you that you have to turn from your sins to be saved, that preacher’s not clear.

That preacher’s messing with your mind. That’s not the book. When preachers tell you that you have to make Christ the Lord of the master in your life in order for you to get to heaven, that’s not true. That’s telling you you got to stop something, you got to join something and you’ll trust in what you did for your salvation. And then whenever you got sins in your life and then when you find out he’s not the Lord master of all of things in your life, you’ll begin to doubt whether you’re saved or not.

And you have rights to because you’re trusting the wrong thing. If I am 100% totally trusting Christ to give me to heaven, If he don’t get me there, I don’t get there. He don’t save me, I’m not saved. He don’t give me eternal life, I don’t have it. And I’ve never sworn a cuss word in my life. I’ve never drank in my life. I’ve never spoken to cigarette in my life. And people say, well, you’ve got to live right to go to heaven.

Dream on. It’s not by works of righteousness. It’s only through Christ and Him alone as your only hope of ever getting to heaven. Now, the only way I know that somebody is saved is because of what they tell me they’re trusting in them, get them to heaven. If they tell me they’re putting any confidence at all in anything that they’ve done, I doubt their salvation. I doubt their salvation. Why? Because God says if you trust in anything other than him, God says you’re not saved.

He said, I didn’t say it. He says Christ’s prophet if you nothing, nothing. Is it important? Oh, I think so. Remember this, when you talk about whether you stop something or you’ve got to start doing a certain thing, it is impossible, impossible for a man to totally turn from all of his sins. So why tell them he has to? What they do. Why tell a person that you have to make Christ the Lord and Master of your life in order to be saved?

It’s impossible. That’s impossible. But then they’ll leave it there. But tell you, that’s what you got to do. And so now you try to live the impossible life. That’s why you have people sometimes that say, well, I like to be a Christian, but I can’t live it. What they mean is they’re honest. They know they’re, they’ve got things in their life and they don’t have the power to quit them or to change them. They know that they have no desire to go to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.

How many times do you got to go to church? You had to go. You had to go, well you got to give money, okay how much? What if you give it to the wrong church? That’s not the Bible. It’s not anywhere in here. Salvation is free. He has given to us an eternal salvation. It’s a perfect salvation because man has nothing to do with it. A perfect God had a perfect plan. It is finished. All we’re doing is accepting it or rejecting it, but you cannot add to it.

This hand represents you and me and this wall of represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God loves us, hates our sin. And because you and I have sinned, we’re condemned, all condemned. God says you cannot save yourself. It is impossible. We go to heaven, we have to be perfect because heaven is perfect, God is perfect, and you and I aren’t. And therefore there’s nothing that we can do to be perfect. It’s impossible. With men, it’s impossible. This hand represents Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.

He came into the world because he loves us, hates our sin because they separate us from him. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. of what he did. It is possible for him to do what we could not do. We can accept what he did for us. We are only accepting a work that he did. There is not a work for us to do. But to him that work, believe it or not, believe it or not, that justified the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness.

So when you and I believe that, he gives us eternal life and we go to heaven on what Christ did for us. I hope that you have trusted Christ as your Savior. Let’s pray, Shalle. Will 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 Main. The 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 today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, Just keep looking up.