This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

You got a Bible, I want you to take it and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 2, 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Today’s message is going to be maybe a little difficult to follow, but I think if you stay with me it’ll be clear and simple enough. I realize also that there’s a possibility that some of you may be offended to lock those doors because I want to be honest with you. It makes a statement in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 14, but the natural man received it not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him.

Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. The things of God are spiritually discerned. And that’s why he made the statement in verse 13, which things also we speak not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Spirit teacheth comparing spiritual things by spiritual means. One verse explains the other. We live at a time when many people cannot discern the things that God has laid out and what’s going to happen in the future. We who know the Bible and know the truth, you have insight, you can discern better.

But it’s also amazing how many of God’s children that know the Lord, love the Lord, cannot discern certain things. And those are some of the things I want to share with you this morning. So hopefully I won’t go too fast, but I want you to follow it because it is so very important. The title of the sermon today is why Lordship Salvation is wrong. You see, what is Lordship Salvation? Lordship Salvation is simply where people believe that you have to do works, to be saved, to commit your life to Christ.

So where salvation is not only trusting Christ, but also includes serving Christ. And you don’t get one without the other. The only way you know you’re really trusting Christ is that if you are serving Christ, and if you’re not serving Him, then it’s evident you don’t know Him. This is what is taught, and this is what is wrong. I’ve preached all across this country. I’ve heard all kinds of things. I’ve been in a lot of Baptist meetings, and I’ve heard all kinds of terminology.

I’ve heard a lot of Calvinism, the teaching that you must make Christ the Lord and the Master of your life in order to be saved, and that you determine whether you’re really saved with true faith is only by the works that you perform. So it sounds simple and easy to prove. Just look at your life and you’ll know whether you’re saved or lost. In 1 Timothy 1 verse 19 says, holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.

Remember this because this verse is very important to recall a little bit later, that some having good faith, of good conscience and then put away their faith have made shipwreck. In 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 20 it says, of whom is Hymenus and Alexander whom I have delivered under Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. Now we read about that also in 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 1 down to about verse 5, where God had to deal with an individual and submit him unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

That’s important to remember because we’re going to look at that again. So is it possible for God’s people not to persevere in the faith? Because you see the teaching of Calvinism and worship salvation hinges upon that very truth. That is not a truth, but it is a lie. First Timothy chapter four and verse one says, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seduce the It’s possible for God’s people not to persevere in the faith because you see the teaching of Calvinism and worship salvation hinges upon that very truth.

That is not a truth, but it is a lie. First Timothy chapter four and verse one says, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing you’ve seen spirits and doctrines of devils. You see, you don’t love contrary to doctrine. You must know doctrine in order to correctly love, because many people without knowing doctrine love the wrong things and they don’t even know why or what they’re doing. So that’s why you cannot discern the doctrine of devils if you don’t know the doctrines of God.

Romans 16 verse 17 says, now I beseech you brethren, mark them which cause divisions contrary to the doctrines which you have learned and join it or avoid it and avoid it. So sometimes you have to be able to know truth in order to discern error. So this morning, even though I’m going to share with you some of the thoughts of those who believe error, I’m also gonna give you at the same time the truth so that you can see it.

And hopefully I will not cause any of you to believe the wrong doctrine. If you walk out this doors and you believe the wrong thing after what I’ve taught, I hope you get a bad case of hiccups. This is a very important thing to know. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2, 15, study to show off. Study to show thyself approved under God, workman that need of not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. So you studied the word of God so that you can rightly divide what God’s word has to say.

And without knowing truth you cannot discern air. And this is why so many Writes use human reasoning, logic, and making up a lot of their beliefs. But they portray it as though this is the Word of God. And God didn’t say that. 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 16 said, but shun profane and vain bablands, for they will increase under more ungodliness. 2 Timothy 2 17. And their word will eat as death a canker. Now you’ve heard of canker sores.

This is talking about like gain green. It gets on you and just eats at you and eats at you and it can keep on until it totally destroys the Christian life. So you may be sounding the faith today but if you tolerate air in doctrine it will affect other doctrine that affects other doctrine that affects other doctrine and can totally ruin your Christian life. Second Timothy 2, 13 says or 18 who concerning the truth have aired, saying that the resurrection is passed already and overthrow the faith of some.

See, according to Calvinism or Lordship Salvation, you’re supposed to persevere in the faith, but we’ve already seen where it can be shipwrecked and it can be overthrown and that people can teach air. As someone has famously said, what difference does it make? Anybody ever heard anybody say something like that? What difference does it make? Well she found out, made a lot of difference. And so I want to show you that there is a difference. We are often told, according to the Bible, that a man is saved by grace.

Now think about this, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of your self, it is the gift of God not of, not of works. Now some people cannot understand what does that mean? What does it mean when it says not of works? And then he says in Titus 3.5 when he makes the statement, he says not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. So no man, nobody can be saved by their works.

So forget works. When it comes to salvation, going to heaven, works have nothing to do with your eternal destination. But you’ll hear a lot of preachers tell just the opposite. Now, this dangerous view is held by false teachers, such as John MacArthur. Anybody have heard of John MacArthur? John Piper. They’re on all across the nation and around the world. And all other Calvinists, this is what they teach. Now, we’re not going to cover the tulip. We’re going to talk about some of the teachings that they have.

Calvinism, now you’ve heard Black Lives Matter, but with a Calvinist, some lives matter. But isn’t it true that all lives are supposed to matter? Why do we preach the gospel to everyone because we believe everyone matters? They’re all important to God. Just because you might be able to. offended won’t make you right. If you don’t rightly divide, you wrongly unite. And when people don’t know what truth is, they can be easily led astray. What then are the distinctive of lordship salvation?

What does scripture teach that is embraced by those who affirm lordship salvation but reject proponents of ease of believism? You have no idea how many times I have been ridiculed because I believe in that cheap grace, easy-believism. Well, what do you want? Hard-believism? I believe that it’s easy for a person to trust Christ’s Savior if they understand the clear, pure gospel. If you make it difficult for people to understand, yes, it’s difficult to trust, but you make it simple and easy.

When Christ is going to all the world and priests, the gospel to every educated, understandable, degree oriented individual or as I say, preach the gospel to every creature. That means even children should be able to understand the gospel. What right does any preacher have to make it hard and complicated and difficult for somebody to understand the following or eight distinctives of a biblical understanding of salvation and the gospel? You see, unless grace has radically altered my behavior, it cannot possibly alter my destiny.”

Alan Redpath made this statement. These are a few quotes that people have made and it sounds so spiritual but it is just so wrong. Get it. Unless grace has radically altered my behavior it cannot possibly alter my destiny. So the only way you know your destiny has been changed from hell to heaven is that it radically alter your behavior. So you have to look at your behavior as the evidence that your destiny has been changed and that is wrong.

That’s not discerning. That’s using reason and logic but not reality. It’s not the truth. Christ comes with a blessing in each hand. Forgiveness in one hand and holiness in the other and never gives either to any who will not take both. So if you want forgiveness then you’re gonna have to have holiness. You have to take them both. Now if you’re talking about in order for me to go to heaven that when I trusted Christ as my Savior He forgave me of all my sins and made me pure and holy and I’m good to go.

That’s one thing but that’s not what they mean. What they’re talking about is if you accept His free gift of eternal life you have to promise that you’re gonna a server and live a holy life. And if you don’t live the holy life, you can’t have this one. Eternal life is free, but you also have to live a holy life. Because you can’t have one without the other. Is that true or false? That’s false. So it sounds so easy, but it’s not.

I fear it is sometimes forgotten that God has married together, justification and sanctification. Now that sounds like a spiritual statement to make, but it all depends on exactly what you’re talking about. And in the context of how they use it is in the area of lordship salvation. So what is justification? That’s where God declares you righteous. What is sanctification? Well that He’s made you holy and set your part and you get to go to heaven. And that in your standing my new position in Christ, yes, I have been justified, just as if I never sinned.

I am made pure and holy and set apart. I belong to the Lord. But see, they’re talking about your life and how you live now. Yes, you’re justified, but also with that comes sanctification. You have to live a justified holy life. At the same time, this is why you have so many fruit inspectors. They’re infecting fruit. Well, I know that person’s not saved because if they were saved, they wouldn’t do that. Have you ever made statements like that? If they’re really saved, they wouldn’t do that.

Or if they were saved, they would be blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You’re doing the same thing and you’ve got some of the teachings of Calvinism coming into your mind because it’s not based on truth. It sounds good. It sounds spiritual. It’s not true. All of this means you must take salvation by faith while promising discipleship at the same time. So that means that you have to not only accept this free gift, but promise God you’re going to serve Him.

And if you don’t serve Him, He’s going to take the gift back. Or He never gave it to you because you didn’t really mean business. And I’ve heard so much this teaching over the years. I think, why can’t they just make it simple, make it clear, and let what God says be the truth. God says you’re saved by grace and grace alone without works. Period. Now I’m saved. Now there’s a lot of things God may want me to do with my life.

Oh God wants me to live, but it doesn’t annul my birth. I’m still born into God’s family. So, justification and sanctification. Gifts of grace go together as if tied by an inseparable bond so that if anyone tries to separate them, he is in a sense tearing Christ the peaches. Now, that sounds spiritual also. Sounds so good, sounds so deep. You can have justification and never live a separated life. That’s just the truth. But thatDownloadha my state, my standing in Christ, I have been justified and sanctified and set apart and that can INCLUDES.

And it has absolutely nothing to do with how I live my life. If you change it to mean that I have got to live a godly holy life in order to go to heaven, you don’t understand salvation by grace. Grace means it has nothing to do with works. When you add this element in there of works, then all of a sudden the only way you can prove that you’re saved is that you have to look at your life and it causes search turmoil.

You ought to see the emails that I get since we started doing YouTube and putting our messages up on the Internet. I’ve got so many letters of people that are broke down and wept and write me letters and how that they were under such bondage and couldn’t understand it and it says you made it so simple you made it so clear now I know I have eternal life because if you have to look at your life to prove that you’re saved it proves that you’re not if you have to look at your life to prove that you’re saved it proves that you’re not saved because your life is not that pure, it’s not that perfect and it’s not that holy and it’s not that godly and you know it and I know it and that goes for me too.

True? Thank you for that one. If a child does not obey his parents, does that mean he is not alive? See they say well if you don’t obey him that shows you’re not as Christian. Well, if I don’t obey my parents, that means I’m not alive. Isn’t it possible to be a disobedient child? Isn’t it possible for a child of God to be disobedient? Yes. Sanctification doesn’t just flow from justification so that one produces the other, both come from the same source.

Christ justifies no one whom he doth not also sanctified. So you have to get both or none. So if you don’t promise, this is why they have to get into lordships up, you have to make Christ the Lord and the master of your life means you have to be, well, serve the master. So you become a servant. So then that means you have to serve the master in order to be saved. That’s worth for salvation. Because if don’t serve, you don’t get it.

I hope that you get what I’m saying. Now John MacArthur also said it, by virtue of our union with Christ he bestows both gifts. The one never without the other. In other words you cannot have justification if you don’t promise to live in sanctification. So you can’t have one without the other. Well what do we teach here at Calvary Community Church? We teach that a can be justified by faith without the deeds of the law. You say, how do you say that?

Because it says so in the book of Romans in chapter 3 and verse 28. We’re justified freely by His grace. No works. You After coming to the picture, none. I am saved by grace. You see, I was always under the impression. Good little boys, go to heaven. And bad girls, go to hell. Well, well, I didn’t know any good boys. I didn’t know any good girls either. I was under the impression if, you know, if I do all these good things, I go to heaven, do these bad things and go now.

And it would depend on how I was living. And I didn’t know anything about Christ. What’s the difference? and what I believe, when I hear in the gospel, then what they believe, though they call it the gospel. If you’re good, you go, and if you don’t, you don’t. It’s the same message, it’s false message. It works for salvation. And it is not what God said. And God never gave anybody the right to add one word to the gospel. If true, one should expect immediate changes in a new Christian’s life.

If there are no results, it means there was no true faith. I wrote that based upon what they said. Calvinism teaches that the gospel calls sinners to faith. Joined in oneness with repentance. Repentance is a turning from sin. See anything wrong with that? These were taken right out of John MacArthur’s own testimony. You say, you can find that side. All I gotta do is just type in his name. Teases that the gospel calls sinners to faith, joined, joined. In oneness with repentance, repentance is a turning from sin.

It is a change of heart, but genuine repentance will affect a change of behavior as well. So if you really got saved, you had to repent of your sins, and if it was real, they’ll beat the change. But isn’t it true that sometimes we have children of God that don’t serve the Lord? Don’t turn from sin? If turning from sin was a prerequisite, then I can’t be saved until I did. And then I, do I lose my salvation? If I go back to it, see, all these things can really mess up a person’s mind.

And it causes turmoil. So how can you know then for sure if you’re really saved, if you have to prove it by your life? And then who’s the one that makes the termination? You got to show that you’re saved. Okay, if you got to show it, show it to who? Me? Show it to you? Show it to God because God doesn’t know? Who else is there? Well, that’s how you show that you’re saved to who? I don’t know what the any of you in here are saved.

And when you get right down to it, you don’t know if I am. True? So we go by what a person tells us, but does God know the truth? God knows if I’m saved or not. You don’t know. We believe it because you testified and you said you were. But I don’t prove that you’re saved because of how you’re living. I go by what are you trusting in to get you to heaven? That’s how what I want to know.

If you came to church and you had your Bible up here, you had it on three-piece suit. I know that person saved. But what did they come in here looking like a bum? How about had a bath in three months? Long hair, dirty, all over? No shoes on his feet? Well, I know he’s not a Christian. Oh, yeah, how do you know? He may have trusted Christ as Savior and living more of a godly life than somebody sitting there in a three-piece suit.

Is that possible? So you see, you can’t tell that way. You go by, what are you depending upon to get you to heaven? Well I’ve been good all my life. Oh then you must be ready to go. No. Are you trusting Jesus Christ in Him alone? This is the one who died on that cross and paid for your sins. Do you believe He did that for you? That’s what you’ve got to look at. the truth teaches that repentance for salvation is simply a change of mind.

From unbelief to believe, if you’re an unbeliever and you repent, what did you do? Change your mind, you believed. From unbelief to believe and that no turning from sin is required for salvation. See that’s what the book teaches. You read the whole Gospel of John and it’s the gospel track that we use. I mean if you want to tell a part of how to go to heaven, that’s one the best books that we use. It’s so simple, so clear.

And yet you won’t find the word repent mentioned one time in the whole book. But you’ll find the word believe, forms of it and by faith about 90-something times. So… Are we against repentance? No. We just don’t agree with them on their definition of repentance. We believe that a man does not have to turn from his sins to be saved because say it. You have to turn from your sin to be saved. All right, now tell the man what do you mean by that.

All right, here’s a man sitting right here. You want to go to heaven? Don’t you want to go to heaven? Yeah, see there he’s. Turn from your sins. Now, doesn’t he have a right to know which ones? Or does he have to turn from all of them? Just most of the big ones. Well, who decides? Who’s going to decide? See, you can’t answer the question because nobody can. You get a turn… Why do you just got to be willing to be…

Turn from your sense. I mean, I don’t have to really do it, but just be willing to. Okay, I’m willing. Well, how willing are you? Well, when are you going to do it? Well, I just said I was willing to, but I really… So when does God save him? When he promises that he will? Or God waits till after he actually does it? that Nini saves them. Well, when does he know? See, when we believe that all you have to do is trust Christ as your Savior.

He didn’t believe it to me. Hat, present tense, hat, right then on the spot. Hat, everlasting life. When will I have everlasting life? When I believe it? Immediately. Now I know I’m going to heaven. I know I have eternal life. Now what about those people that they talked about Friday night, so winning? What if you had to tell all those girls you have to promise to be good. Be a good little girl. Don’t do anything wrong. How many of them you think would understand and they got to change their whole total life.

Well now you’ve got to spend another hour trying to tell them what sin is and how bad it is and you got to be sorry and turn from it and not do it anymore and you promise or is it better just you know God loves you. He paid for all of your sins. All he wants you to do is believe He did it for you. And if you’ll believe it, He’ll give you as a free gift, eternal life, and they’ll never cast you out in evolution.

And since all your sins are paid, that’s how you can know you’re going to have them because you can’t go to hell. There’s no sense to pay for. He paid for all of them. Now why did he do that? Because he loves you so much. Now that’s something you can have right now and know it. You add one work and you have mutilated the gospel of grace. So the truth is, repent, it’s a change of mind. Say they’re saying that you have to change your way of life, and if you don’t change the way of life, then adapt your salvation.

And that caused a lot of turmoil in a person’s mind. You say, are you against people living right? Do you listen to me long enough? You know I’m not for people, and God’s children living in disobedience and rebellion to God. I don’t know of another preacher who tries to get people to serve a Lord more than what I do. I’ve been around this country, but most of them are trying to get people to stop this and stop that and start this, but not to love the Lord.

See, when you understand this by grace, you’ll love the Lord more than anything else in the world when you can understand it. And that love is supposed to challenge and motivate us, but wouldn’t it be one of it if it did for everybody? But we’re all different individuals. If Calvinism was true, Lordship’s salvation was true, everyone who trusted the Lord automatically would change their life and that all be on the same spiritual level. But they’re not. So they don’t work.

It’s time to make plans for the summer. Join us for summer camp July 9 through the 13th and fits Gerald, Georgia. At summer camp, teens ages 13 to 18 will enjoy fun competitions while learning about the word of God. Over the years, hundreds of kids have been reached with the gospel at summer camp. This is your opportunity to make summer meaningful and memorable for a teen in your life. The cost of summer camp is $150. If you’d like to donate a summer camp scholarship, you can do so by calling 813-884-4328 for more information.

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.