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

So anyway, what have we been talking about lately? Y’all have a clue. the book of Acts. We’re in a book of Acts. So let’s take our Bibles and turn to the book of Acts. And we’ll look there in chapter 15. I want to continue where I left off. So in the book of Acts, chapter 15, there had been a problem. Do you have to keep the law to be saved? Do you have to keep the law to saved. Well, the Jews didn’t have to become Gentiles and Gentiles don’t have to become Jews.

And you don’t have to keep the law and didn’t have to be circumcised. So there was no small stir. It means there was a big problem. So all the hit honchos had to meet together in Jerusalem. And they discussed this issue about what do you got to do? So So after they had met for a while and they discussed, Peter said some things and Paul said some things. So they came down to their conclusion. So you look there in verse 13, Acts chapter 15 verse 13.

And after they had held their peace, James, pastor of the church we believe, answered saying, Men and brethren, harken unto me. Simeon had declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles. And we know that at the first was when he went to the household, Cornelius, and the Jews did not believe that they ought to have anything to do with the Gentiles. But when the Lord says, going to all the world, priestly gospel, he didn’t mean just going to all the world and priestly gospel only to the Jews.

It means to everybody. And so God had to teach him a few little lessons. So we find out lo and behold, Gentiles believed in the Lord. And he says, just like we did at the beginning. So the Bible is clear. The gospel is for everyone. And he says in verse 15, excuse me, the last part of verse 14, and he says to take out of them a people for his name. So the Jews already were, you know, the people for the name of God, Jehovah.

But now, we’re gonna take Jews and Gentiles, believers, put them together into a body, and that would be those that we call Christians, and they’re gonna be the bride for the Son of God. So God right now in this dispensation of grace is getting saved individual Jews and Gentiles putting together one body and making the perfect bride. Because if the Son of God’s gonna get married, He has to marry somebody that is perfect. Well, so he’s gonna make a woman and make her perfect.

And that’s the bride of Christ. So the next time I get married, I’ll be the bride. So we’re gonna get married in the future. And also he says, to this, agree the prophets and the Old Testament. So in verse 15, he says, as it is written, after this, I will return and we’ll build again the tabernacle of David. So he is talking about, he did come the first time, but then he’s going to return. He’s going to come back and he’s going to build the temple and the kingdom upon this earth.

Christ says that’s what he’s going to do. And he says the tabernacle of David, which has followed that and I will build again the ruins thereof and I will set it up. This is something that God has predetermined is going to take place during the kingdom. right now he is. Choosing a bride for his name, for his son. And then in verse 17, the residue of men might seek after the Lord and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord who doeth all these things.

Then he says, known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world, known unto God. But not all of his works are revealed to everybody. So as time goes on, yes, God has revealed more and more. and more. And so the dispensation of grace where we are was unknown in the Old Testament, only that God was going to do some things with the Gentiles and He made the statement that unto Him shall the Gentiles seek and He shall be a light to the Gentiles.

But that’s mentioned in the Old Testament, but not the specific, the body of Christ, which is the church, a separate group altogether. That is going to take place. And it was under, I guess you could say construction now. So he’s building a body. Now look at verse 19, wherefore he says, my sentence is, this is talking about James, that we trouble not them. Now the word trouble, you ought to just underline the word trouble there in adverse, because there’s a lot of people that want to cause people trouble.

And how you cause them trouble is by getting them to do something and telling them to do something God did not require. So God did not require them to keep the law, didn’t require them to be circumcised. And there’s a lot of things that even churches today are required of people that God never required. Wouldn’t it be better if we all serve the Lord because we just love them to death? And then you wouldn’t have to worry about it.

But if you don’t love the Lord, then everything that you’re supposed to do is like a ruling regulation. It’s like legalism, trying to make you force you to do something you don’t really want to do. But when you fall in love with the Lord, it doesn’t matter. It’s just like the mom one day. She couldn’t get her hippie son to cut his hair, couldn’t get him to take a bath. I mean he was just, you know, he just had long hair and it wouldn’t take a bath.

But you heard about the one that was like that and he just couldn’t find himself. Couldn’t find himself. He got a haircut there he was. But anyway, there’s some people that just, you know, you can’t do anything with him. And so one day he saw this good looking blonde and all of a sudden he started taking baths and cutting his hair and why? Because that girl, sometimes a girl can get you to do things that you would have never done the other way and sometimes it can be good and sometimes it could be bad.

But it’s amazing how that the little women could just wrap up great big old men around their little finger. But that’s what Betty did to me. I mean I had, you stay out of this word. But you know there’s a certain power there, the power of love. So and sooner or later somebody always gets caught in that little snare of love. love. And so it can be a good thing. But now notice what he says in verse 20, but that we write unto them that they abstain from pollutions of idols and from fornication and from things strangled and from blood.

So that was something that Jews and Gentiles, it’s not good for them to do. And so that was the only thing that they were talking about, you know, restricting them on. But he says in verse 21, For Moses of old time, hat in every city of them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day, then pleased at the apostles and the elders with the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch, with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas, surname Barabbas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren.

And They wrote letters by them after this manner. The apostles and elders and brethren send greetings onto the brethren which are of the Gentiles and Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. So they were sending letters telling them that we have not required this. Now I want you to take your Bible, just hold it right here, but look in 1 John chapter 2, John chapter 2. And there’s just a little comment made that I believe refers back to this. But look in verse 18.

First John chapter 2 verse 18, little children, it is the last time. And as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many anti-Christ. An anti-Christ is someone who teaches false teaching, a false prophet. False teacher has a false message. So there’s truth. And there’s a lie. So when you teach a lie, you’re teaching against truth. So there’s many people that are teaching against the truth. And so he says here in this verse, even now are there many antichrist whereby we know that it is the last time.

They, these antichrist, those that were not teaching the truth, these false teachers, they went out from us, but they were not of us. But for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. I believe this is referred back to Acts chapter 15, when they are those who are trying to trouble you, pervert the truth, change in the gospel.

And so the Bible tells us that we are to be in defense of the truth, in defense of the gospel, defenders of the faith. Just look over a couple more pages to the book of Jude, the book of Jude and look in verse 3. Jude and verse 3, we are to contend. Remember what Jesus said, and then build, pray, and keep, and look, and seek others to contend. He is the Lord now and forevermore. So if he was the Lord then, and that’s what he said, then he still means what he said back then.

Notice in verse 3, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith, which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unaware, not in underwear, but unawares who were before of old or ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into less diviousness. In other words, trying to teach a license for sin, teaching that you can, you know, all we’re teaching is you go out and just live in sin called anti-nomian, anti-against know me in law.

We’re against the law. We’re against the law of love even because the law of love I believe has more power than the law of the law the commandments Because love gets you to do things that the law won’t even require because when you love God you it affects your mind and your will and your emotions and Everything about you and the law you can just obey it outwardly and Nobody knows how you’re thinking inwardly. But notice what he says here.

And denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. So there are people that are wicked, ungodly, they’re false, got a false message, and they’re twisting the gospel of grace. Now turning your Bible to the book of Galatians in chapter one. Galatians in chapter 1. And you’ll notice when he uses the word another, as mentioned a couple times here, one means heteros and the other one is olos. And there are two different words, but it said in reference to there’s not another gospel of the same kind, there’s not another gospel of a different kind.

In other words, when you have the gospel, there is no comparisons. There is not another. You’re talking about extreme vetting, this is it. But look at verse 6, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. So the grace of Christ is the truth of the gospel. Anytime you add anything to the grace of Christ, it’s no longer the grace of Christ. It’s no longer the gospel, it’s no longer the good news.

So you are not to add works to the gospel because when you had one work, that means that’s one requirement you’ve got to do. Then you’ve got to find out, well, how long do you have to do it? Well, what if you don’t do it? So it produces a troublesome mind and they pervert the truth. See, the test of the gospel that has to be by grace. Grace means that it has to be free and it has to last forever.

Anyone of those is missing, it’s not the gospel. Must be free. Must last forever. This is why we tell people you cannot know that you’re going to heaven until you know you cannot go to hell. Because if there’s any way that you can go to hell in the future, you don’t know you won’t. So you can’t be absolutely sure you’re going to heaven if there’s a possibility you can go to hell. So the good news of the gospel is that when you trust Christ’s Savior, you can’t go to hell.

Shell not perish means you cannot go to hell. I like that. That’s worth telling people about. So this is why this is so important. So he makes a statement here unto another gospel. That means the heteros are a different kind. There’s not another one. Then in verse seven, which is not another, all else of the same kind numerically. There’s only one truth of the gospel. Now, sometimes you hear people say, well, some people were saved by the gospel of the kingdom.

Some people were saved by this gospel and the gospel of blood. No, there’s only one way the man gets saved. When he makes the statement here, if any man preaching to you, any other gospel than that which we have preached unto you, let him be a curse. Means it can’t be another one. It means those in the Old Testament couldn’t have been saved any other way. It means that doing John the Baptist’s time or Christ when he was here, nobody has ever been saved any other way than by grace through faith alone.

Now, look at the results in verse seven, which is not another, but there’d be some that trouble you. Remember that word trouble over there in the book of Acts in chapter 15? This is the trouble that they’re talking about because you’re talking about some of these churches, even they’re in Antioch. And you talk about Lister and Derby and Antioch and Iconium. These are churches in the Asia Minor, we call it Galatian, the Gauls that came down from about Germany and so forth and came in settling this area.

But there’s a lot of people that were barbarians, Paul goes and wins them to Christ. And then whenever he would leave, then these legalistic Judaizers would come behind them and try to take the people that he reached and change them. See, they don’t go out and try to reach their own. They wanna take somebody else’s fruit. There’s a lot of people that talk about, you know, like the cabinet and so forth. They’re not strong on soul winning, but they couldn’t build anything if they didn’t steal somebody else’s fruit because they gotta get them, get them from somewhere.

So soul winners are so shallow, and they’re so deep. So let those evangelists out there go ahead and win them to the Lord, but we’ll teach them. And so that’s what they do. And they try to seem like there’s so much more spiritual. They’re so deep. And guys like Yankee and Hank and Lee, they’re shallow. They’re so shallow because I’ll always talk about a soul when I’m given the gospel. They get into the Hebrew and the Greek get way down deep.

But if you go down deep and come up dry, what’s the value? And so understand, if you really love the Lord and you’re really close to the Lord and you’re really spiritually minded, you’ll be a good soul winner. And if they’re not winning souls or something wrong, follow me and I’ll make you what? Expert in Hebrew and Greek. No. Now, notice what he says. Last part verse 7 says, and you would pervert the gospel of Christ. That means to reverse it, to change it, to twist it, make it into something that it’s not.

And how would you change the grace of Christ, the gospel by adding works to it? You can’t change it no other way. There’s no other way to change the gospel of grace except by adding something to it because grace means it is free. So that means you got to charge. Somebody’s got to pay a price. More than what Christ did, you got to pay something too. And that is not the truth of the gospel. So he says in verse 8, but though we are an angel from heaven, so if an angel comes by and preaches something different like the angel Moroni, they’re supposed to with, you know, Joseph Smith and producing these special-eyed glasses, the urine and the thermon, he found some old place in Redmond, lo and behold they were into James.

But anyway, and reveal all kind of stuff, but the gospel is different. But though an angel from heaven preached any other God. So if that’s false, that’s how the whole religion of Mormonism is wrong. Because their gospel is wrong. And you say it came from an angel. I don’t care who it came from. He says, even though if we preach something contrary to the gospel, we’re wrong. The gospel is And this is why in chapter 2 you have Paul, rebuke and Peter, because not so much is what he said, but because of what he was doing, causing and producing hypocrisy as though these legalistic Judaizers had, you know, some legitimacy to them as though they were authoritative.

And we got to honor them. And so he would redraw from the Gentile Christians and even Barnabas was carried away with it and Paul had to rebuke them to their face. Paul was quite a man. But now notice what he says in verse 9. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man, any man, preach any other gospel, which there is no other gospel, it means it’s a by-works righteousness, not a by-faith righteousness. You only got those two choices.

Either you say by your works or you say by grace. If you’re saved by grace, it’s because he gave it to you free. If you’re saved by your good works, you’re lost. Because there is no salvation. There is no other way. There’s no option B. Well, I’ve had people say, yeah, I trust Christ by saying, but I’m going to be good just in case. No, you don’t get it. You can’t do it just in case. That means you’re not really trusting Him.

You’re gonna depend upon you. I let a person to the Lord one time by giving a simple illustration. I says, here you are, and you’ve got a foot on the water, another foot on a float, and it can support, you know, your weight. So if you put one foot on that float, now put the one foot on the water. Now, would you spill it half and half? Well, what happened? You can’t put any confidence in the water. You’ve got to put it totally upon that float to hold you up.

It supports you. And so there’s people who don’t want to do that. They want to split it. Well, you don’t get either one. You’re going down. You’ve got to trust Christ completely. And so he says, if you go back now to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 15. So there were those who want to produce trouble, to twist. Remember, they can’t get their own fruit, So they got to get somebody else’s fruit. That’s why they’ve always got to try to find ways to get to people that are already, and it says a religious, and try to win them to their way of thinking.

We like to try to win new people to Christ. But anyway, here in the book of Acts, notice what he says up here in verse 24. He says, for as much as we have heard, that certain went out from us, have troubled you with words subverting your souls saying, this is what they said, you must be circumcised and keep the law. Now look at the last part of this, you are the alignments in your Bible. To whom we gave no such commandment.

And that’s why in the book of 1 John chapter 2, they were not of us. They went out from Jerusalem, yes, but they were not of them. And their message was not the same. And they were false teachers because it says those that went out from them had a false message and they were anti-Christ. They were against what Christ taught. So we’re supposed to know this, understand this, believe this. So he says, and I just want to show you this very quickly, but look there back in verse 1 of chapter 15.

In verse 1, notice, certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren. And what were they saying? Except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. So you got to be circumcised. Well, that puts you under the law that look what he says of in verse 5, but there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.

So they had a difficult time because there’s the temple. They were making sacrifices. And allofficials, many of them trusted the Christ of Savior, wouldn’t know how to get out of Judaism.inters and there were questions and problems. And some of them had no knowledge about what to do. Some of them were told. Some of them believed. And it’s amazing. You have somebody like Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night, a rule of the Jews. And he says, we know that thou art a teacher come from God for no man can do the miracles that thou doest except God be with him.

And Jesus says, I am very impressed. Thank you. I appreciate that. No, he says, unless you’re born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. You can enter the kingdom of God. John 3 16 was the answer on how to be born again. Now, this is why all of this is so important, but now notice what he says here and look down there in verse 9, verse 9 of Acts chapter 15, and put no difference between us and them, Jews and Gentiles, purifying their hearts by What?

By faith. So how do you purify your heart? By your words. No. By faith. Then in verse 10, now therefore, why tempt ye GodBronelonged a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? 1500 years, and they never kept the law. They didn’t keep them. Why are you requiring Gentiles to keep the law when you as a Jew? You didn’t keep them. keep the law. And so you’re not saved by your works.

You’re not saved by keeping the law. And so in verse 11 notice what he says now, but we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they. The Jews will be saved just like the Gentiles. were saved the same way. Jews and Gentiles, you’re not saved by the law, but is it true that there are people like the Seventh-day Adventists that are teaching you have to keep the law? And they believe the sign of the mark of the beast is those who go to church on Sunday.

You go to church on Sunday, that’s the mark of the beast. And look how many people have received the mark of the beast. Now, it was interesting. Just recently I had somebody sent me something, so I looked at it. And it was about the President’s prayer breakfast that he just had. And so there was a guy there that was a speaker, and he was a preacher of the Seventh Day Adventist. And he preached, he’s very articulate, said a lot of good stuff.

And then underneath it, there were people making comments. And I was totally surprised when I saw some of those comments by people who had gone to Florida Bible College. And what they said was, I can’t believe how great he was. This was awesome, everybody needs to hear it, and it’s amazing that He is going to be my eternal brother in heaven. Now, look, if He’s a Seventh-day Adventist, He doesn’t believe the same gospel, I believe. I don’t care how well-dressed He was, how articulate He was.

I don’t care about nothing else. His gospel is a by-works righteousness. gospel is keeping the law. His gospel is you can lose salvation. And there was a bunch of FBC people coming about how wonderful it is and everybody ought to hear it. I thought, what in the world is happening? I can’t stand it when I see people compromising on the truth of the gospel. Just because somebody stands up and they say something wonderful doesn’t mean everything they teach and believe is the truth.

But when you say that they are a Christian and they are of the same faith and we’re all in this together and we’re going to be together in heaven. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, not so fast Charlie. Does he teach the gospel that you’re saved by grace not by your works? Men, reserve the last Saturday of the month for the iron sharpens iron men’s Bible study and breakfast at Calvary Community Church. Join us at 730 for a home-cooked breakfast.

Then, at 8am, the featured speaker of the month will present a one-hour classroom-style men’s Bible study in a relaxed atmosphere where questions and dialogue are welcomed. The scripture tells us that Iron Sharpens Iron, and this men’s Bible study is open to those of all levels, whether new believers or mature Christians. The Iron Sharpens Iron men’s Bible study and breakfast don’t miss this monthly opportunity for fellowship and the study of God’s Word. Thanks for joining us on Bible I. 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.