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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 Bibleignmenistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Anyway, I wanted to share a few thoughts with you about what I consider to be the love of God. I have had many people trying to straighten me out on my views on Calvinism. It’s just a basic teaching that some have that limits the love of God and it limits the sacrifice of Christ. And I believe it takes the love of God and believe it or not, turn it into hate. Now you may not know this, but I want to tell you anyway.

All religions take the love of God and turn it into hate. Because the Gospel of Grace is really the most beautiful picture of love that there is. It lets us know how much God loves us. Why don’t you take your Bible and turn with me to the book of 1 John? The book of 1 John in chapter 4, just a couple verses to kind of submit this idea in your mind. How much God talks about L-O-D-E love? That’s one thing everybody wants.

wants to give love and everybody wants to be loved. And isn’t it a shame if that ever gets twisted? But notice in verse 7, our first John chapter 4, Beloved, let us love one another. Just notice as we read how many times you see the word love. For love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love. And this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.

Herein is love not that we love God but that he loved us. Sin his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. In verse 12, no man have seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he and us because he has given us of his spirit.

And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in Him and He in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love. And He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in Him. Herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as He is so are we in this world.

There’s no fear in love but perfect love cast out fear because fear hath torn minute. He that fear is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God and hate if his brother is a liar, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him that he who loveth God love his brother also.

Did you see the the word love anywhere in there? Was it mentioned at least a couple times? You know there must be a message in here on love. What do you think? I think so. Because if God is love, it would be a good thing to know. I wrote down a number of things. There’s no continuity to a lot of the things that I might say this morning. In other words, you may not be able to follow one train of thought right into the next.

It may not be a smooth transition. So I want to give you some of my thoughts anyway, but this is what I wrote down. You won’t believe where I got this from. God is love. I wrote that down. I must have thought of that. That must have been my idea, but nobody’s ever thought of this before. This is a new revelation God is love Think about it. God is love That’s a good thought to have So I wrote another statement If God loves some But not all How do you know you are the one he loves?

Think about that again If God loves some but not all, how do you know you are the one He loves? How do you determine who they are that God loves? We say God loves some but not all. Okay. How do you determine who they are then? So now you got to go on a searching expedition You got to find out who does God love and who doesn’t God love? If Christ only died for the sin of some but not all How do you know you are the one included?

If Christ died for all, then you have no problem do you? If He loves all, you don’t have a problem. But if He only loves some, how do you know you’re the one? If Christ only died for certain people, how do you know you were included? I had a few more thoughts. If good works are evidence of salvation. Why did they not prove that those in Matthew 7 were not saved? I want you to take your Bible and look at that with me.

Look in the book of Matthew chapter 7. You see, it’s important because it affects your whole life, how you think. God wants you to think the way he thinks, not the way that men think that are so limited in their understanding. I want you to look at this because we have people today that say the evidence of your salvation is your good works and the desire to go to heaven because you couldn’t have the desire to want to go to heaven unless God gave you that desire.

Okay. And verse 21, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. But he that doeth the will of my father, which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful work? Wouldn’t you think that these people evidently wanted to go? they had the desire to go. So how do you distinguish between the desire to go and irresistible grace?

They say, well, grace is so irresistible that God gives grace to certain people but not everybody. He only has to give the grace to somebody He wants to be saved. So God sees He picks and chooses and He chooses who He wants. So we’re going to pretend this morning that all of you represent the world. And these two rows right here, they represent the elect. I am God. I like the illustration so far. I am God. And see, I know everybody, but I have picked out these first two rows and selected them, chose them to go to heaven.

The rest of you, you ought to be thankful I chose them. Aren’t you? Aren’t you glad I chose them? Because everybody was going to hell anyway. So I chose to save them. Now what’s wrong with that? Does that make me bad? Just because I didn’t choose you. But where are you going? You’re going to hell. But now, if I gave them the faith to believe an irresistible grace, that irresistible urge. They’re the only ones that can be saved and nobody else.

Well, I have a problem with that. Because see, the only way they will really know that they’re really saved is they’re gonna have to look at their life because if they’re really saved, they will persevere in the faith. Means they’re gonna live according to the Christian Prince would lay down in God’s Word. They’re gonna live a Godly life. They’re not gonna live a sinful life. They’re gonna live a Godly life. And the only way they’ll know they really believe is because of their good works.

So now I have just put pressure on every one of them that if they don’t live it, that’s a sign they never really were chose to start with. So how long will they have to wait before they really know? Well they have to wait until they die because they have to find out did they really mean business? Did they hang on long enough? At what point will they really know? They can’t know until it’s all over. So you see, when they realize half of them will realize, I can’t live it.

I must not have really been chose. Their so-called love for God turns into hate. You’d be surprised at the emails that I get where people have been so hateful of God because of Lordship Salvation. them that they have to make Christ the Lord and the Master of their life an impossibility in order to be saved. And what it does is it frustrates because they can’t live up to this standard. So instead of that they just give up all together and they hate God and turn against religion turn against Christ and all they turned against was the wrong religion the wrong beliefs not the truth because you see that’s not the truth.

I wrote this down because I want you to see it here first of all. They did many wonderful works. So if they did many wonderful works, why couldn’t those good, wonderful work be the evidence that they were really saved? It didn’t work for them. Christ says in verse 23, I never knew you. They part for me, ye that work iniquity. So you see, good works are not the evidence of salvation. So as I am going along and I’m reading some of this, I also wrote a little note down in Hebrews chapter 11.

I want you to look in Hebrews chapter 11 in verse 1. Hebrews chapter 11. And notice in verse 1, and verse 1 says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, the evidence. For salvation, evidence of your faith is in the trusting of Jesus Christ. The evidence of your faith for salvation is your trusting of Jesus Christ. You see, I have faith that what God said and what He did, He did it for me.

Since I believe that, the evidence of my faith is my trust in what He did. It’s not my life and what I do that becomes my evidence. It is my trust in Him. I took Him at His word and I’m not trying to save myself. I’m not going to church to try to prove that I’m saved. I’m not going to church to try to get eternal life. I already have eternal life. I’m already going to heaven. And that was because the only evidence that I need of my faith is that I trusted Christ as my Savior.

My trust Faith is the evidence of things not seen. So my hope is not in something that I see, but in something that I believe because God said it. That’s how I know I have eternal life. Question. If God chooses to save certain individuals and not others, how do you prove you are the one chosen? If they say, I’m one of those elect, okay, prove it. How do they prove it? Maybe it’s you. See, I’m a Calvinist and proud of it.

Okay, how do you prove you’re saved? What are you gonna use? What’s the evidence? If it’s your life, it ain’t over yet, bud. You still may have 10, 20, 30 years to live. And what if you don’t persevere to the end? Well, then that was a sign you never really were saved. You see how it distorts the love of God. If God chooses who goes to heaven, He also made the choice, who goes to hell? Then men really didn’t choose.

You see, if I did not make it possible for y’all to go to heaven because I don’t love you one, and I didn’t send Christ to pay for your sins too, you really don’t have a chance. But I did it for them, but it wasn’t their choice. That was my choice. So you didn’t choose your destiny. They didn’t choose their destiny. then how did God choose if God not a respecter person? See, it limits God. Says things about God that God didn’t say about himself.

Does a man truly determine his place of destiny or in reality? He made no choice at all. Which carries the greater evidence of salvation, the truth of Scripture or your judgment of your own works. If you use your life as the evidence or proof that you are saved, what about when your works disprove your saved? Which carries the most weight? Your life, your works, or the truth of what God said? The reason I know that I’m saved because he says in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son Christ, that whosoever it be, leave it, I did that, I believe, should not perish, well perish, oh go to hell, but have everlasting life.

That verse, that’s my evidence. That’s all the evidence I need. God said it, I believe it. I don’t need no more evidence. That’s how I know I’m saying. But if I look at my life, there’s days when I’m up and there’s days when I’m down. There’s days when I have good ones and I have a few bad ones in a while. Now notice, does the doubts of your salvation cause one to doubt the truth of what God says or the faith God gave?

Would they doubt their salvation because they don’t have the works? Or would they doubt the faith that God supposedly gave to them? down if God did give them the faith to believe and they say they believe but the worst don’t prove it who made a mistake them or was it God God really didn’t give them the faith because if he had they would have served the Lord and persevered but since they didn’t do they turn against himself and a turn against God because you begin to question God and question God on everything.

You ought to see some of the letters that I get. I don’t have time to answer all of them. And some of them are right being interred that they have been so under pressure because of this lordship salvation teaching that you’ve got to make Christ the Lord or the master of your life in order to be saved. And it’s just not the truth. A statement I wrote down, can you doubt because you don’t perform this irresistible grace? Can you doubt you ever had it if you don’t perform?

How can your works give definitive proof of salvation? Now if God says, judge nothing before the time. If God tells you that you’re not even a good judge of yourself, who’s the one that judges your works to prove that you’re saved? Is it up to me, God, or is it up to you? Who’s the one that determines? Well, I know I’m saved because I’m still in the blank. And to what quality? How many good works would you have to do to really know?

How many bad works would you have to perform? Or bad thoughts would you have to have to doubt your really saved? What are canna worms and there’s people who teach this junk. If good works for the Lord is the proof of your love and if your love for the Lord is a guaranteed response of God’s love, would that mean you should doubt that God really loves you if the good works do not follow consistently without fail? In other words, you know God loves you because, well, He saved you and you know you’re saved because of your good works.

But if you don’t have the good works, then you got to doubt your saved. And if you got to doubt your saved, you got to doubt God’s love. So you can go forward and go backwards. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that stuff. I believe God is love. And I don’t have to prove God’s love to me. He did it all himself. I also, sitting on the ship, I wanted to have a little talk with God. So now I interjected, dear Lord, I’m going to talk to Him a little bit.

So I’m going to let you listen to my thoughts to God. I said, dear Lord, I lack the wisdom to put into words my feeble attempt at expressing my understanding of your great love for me. Can you explain God’s great love for you? Tell God to express it to him in such a way. Don’t you feel like your attempts are a little on the female sign? As I look out of our dining room window from our cruise ship and stare as in a hypnotic trance, upon this vast expanse of ocean, how could I seek to explain how much water is out there?

I mean, what if I had said, Bob, how much water’s out there? And he slid a glass of water over to me and says, that much. I think he just limited how much water was out there, that much. Somebody said, how much does God love? I always say, well, this much. you know God says he loves the whole world, but there are creatures who say he only loves this much. Now is that limiting the love of God? I would think so.

So I wrote this. I said Lord, how does one measure the depth, the width, the height of your love that would give definition that truly applies justice to such a word as love. How do you explain love? God give me a definition of what it means. I want you to take your Bible and look there in the book of Ephesians in chapter 3. The book of Ephesians in chapter 3. And look there in verse 17. In verse 17 says, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in, oh there’s that word again, in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and the length and the depth and the height and to know the love of Christ which passes all knowledge or human understanding, that you might be filled with all the fullness of

God, evidently without being filled with the love of God you cannot be filled with the fullness of God and the fullness of God I believe is hid in the Son Jesus Christ. Give me a definition that manifests the love of God and you’ll have to come up with the name Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the manifestation of the love of God. So you can’t get higher than Him. And He says, if you try to bring Him up from the depths, where is God?

Where is the limits of Christ? Is His arm too short that He cannot reach, that He cannot save? And the love of God can reach down to the lowest man. But believe this, we’re all on the same shelf. You see, there’s a lot of base people in this world. Vibah talks about those that are base. You know, the down and out, the wine of all those wicked, wicked people out there. And then he comes along and says, but there is no difference.

We’ve all sinned. And if God can reach who we would consider the lowest than he can reach everybody else in between. Paul says, I am the chief of sinners. If he can save the chief, he can save all the Indians. All of us are all sinful, and we cannot and will never be able to understand why God loves us. But he did tell us that he did love us. Explain it all, we never will. But when you talk about the love of God, Christ can reach down to the lowest man and take him to the heights of heaven.

How far is that? And his love is as wide as it needs to be to reach everybody in the whole world. Remember somebody says, how much does God love me? He says, he loves me this much. And they nailed him to the cross. He loves you so much. There’s nothing left. He gave you all his love. You are love. You’d be surprised when I’m talking to people how they sometimes seem to look at me a little bit different when I say no and I look at him right dead in the eye.

You are loved. God loves you. The reason he paid for your sins is because he didn’t want you to have to do it. He loves you that much. He’d rather die than live without you. You are loved. I’ve watched them sometime and they’ll be like they don’t get an awesome. And they’re fighting the whole back there. Telling a person, God loves them, it melts more people than anything I have ever seen in my life. When you explain it, because everybody wants love, but we want genuine real love.

This kind that we’re talking about up here, that’s not real genuine love. We talk about love and grace. It’s got to be for everybody. It’s got to be for all people or something is wrong. I wrote this also. Lord, my journey to a better understanding began when your servant, Raymond Jackson, shared with me that you loved me. This was my first glimmer of your love toward me through your Son, Jesus Christ. My acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Savior was not out of a heart of love, but a fear of hell if I didn’t.

That’s just being honest. I didn’t trust Christ because I loved Him. I was told He loved me. That was good enough. I just wanted a firing insurance so I wouldn’t go to Hell. And if I trusted Him, He would save me. I took Him at His Word. I believed Him. And I knew I had eternal life. As I began to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, I had never considered myself to be someone of great value. value would demand a small payment due to little love.

Was I simply part of a group that God loved the world? Or was there a real true personal love for me as an individual? I know God loves the world, but I still wanted more knowledge than just that He loved the world. Have you ever felt that you were special? God created you just a little special. In every family there’s always a pet child and I’m his. No, but we know and since sometimes God created me for a reason, I’m here for something, you know, a real personal reason.

And it’s true. Though God loves the world, he loved you as an individual. Remember, he didn’t just create the world, he created a man. a man, then a woman, and God saved both of them. Well, God so loved the world. There’s two of you, but I only chose one of you. Now, both of them. Why did God pay so much for so little? You realize God is loving. Look at this world that He made, and He loves a look how small and significant we are.

And in spite of all of that, God loves you. This great, big, wonderful Almighty God loves us. The more I studied about Jesus Christ, the more I saw that His love was growing deeper and higher, wider and warmer and more fulfilling that anything I’ve ever known, it was true God is love and it was personal because it’s knowing that he loves me personally, Yankee Arnold. He knows me. He loves me. Now I don’t mind him loving Bob Gilbert, but I am glad he loves Yankee Arnold.

I know he loves Peter model. I know that. I know that. I love you. 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. 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 4081 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 that today and every day believe in that the Lord is coming soon just keep looking up