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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 message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Turn in your Bible to the book of 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy. I, let me share just a few thoughts with you. Because we’re living at a time where people want to redefine whatever it is that it stood for so long. And when you know the truth, you don’t have to redefine it all over again. Just keep believing what you were taught. Keep believing truth. And the doctrine that we have, what we’re supposed to say, this is what I believe.

Well, down the road, I don’t have to renegotiate that. Because what I heard years ago, and that was true then, well it’s true, it ain’t changed. I found out that one thing will help you to stay clear of anything is that the gospel itself is the lens by which you study the rest of Scripture. The Scriptures, I believe, will teach itself. If you spend enough time looking at it, this truth explains this one, and this one, this this one, this one.

And the Word of God will do something that no commentary can do. It will teach itself. You study the Bible and it will enlighten you. And you can study it. And the Holy Spirit that God gave lives inside of you. The author of this book lives inside of me. Therefore, I believe I’ve got something that’s better than knowing Hebrew and Greek. I got the author of the book. And whatever it says, it cannot disagree with other scriptures. It has to dovetail.

God’s Word cannot jeopardize other parts of the scripture. No one verse stands alone. It’s all united together. It’s a perfect book. It’s an awesome book. But here in 1 Timothy and chapter 4, I want you to look there in verse 1. It says, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times, some shout, depart from the faith. Now when it says, depart from the faith, I believe it’s talking about people that knew the faith, people that were solid, that were grounded, that knew truth.

But then they change, they depart from it and begin to teach the doctrine of devils. Remember, the devil is also trying his dead level best to take those who know the Lord, love the Lord, love his word, and put a little twist without them knowing it. Deceiving. It sounds good. It looks good. And by great swelling words, they come up empty. But they sway people. That’s why I want people to look at the book, look at the verse, and you can see it for yourself.

If I teach contrary to this book, you should come see me. Say, preacher, where’s it say that? Well, what about this verse? Or what about this verse? Now, look there in verse two, where it says, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. I don’t believe this is the lost people doing this, and the lost people having their conscience seared. I believe it’s people that knew the faith departed from it. The Apostle Paul had to deal with people who did just such a thing.

So can it happen again? I believe so. Now look what he says here in verse 16. Verse 16 says, take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine continue in them. For in doing this thou shalt bow save thyself, and then that hear thee, save them from what? Hell, no we’re not talking about hell, we’re not having salvation. But we are talking about saving people from false doctrine, from the teaching that comes from the devil. You see, he takes and puts a little twist on truth.

There’ll be some truth, but a little poison that’s added to it just enough to destroy the the true intent of what God’s Word really says. So you have to be very careful concerning those things. Not looking in 1 Timothy and chapter 6. 1 Timothy, chapter 6. And looking in verse 1. So in verse 1, he says, let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor. That the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.

That the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. You see, I have a great appreciation for the truth of the gospel. And I do not like it when people say the gospel is, and the gospel isn’t that. Or adding something to the gospel more than what God said, or stripping it of all of its content. You see, when you add something to it, you destroy its power. When you get it, you’re destroying its power. I don’t believe that God has given to me or anyone else the right to temper with his message.

We’re supposed to take and teach it the way God gave it and trust it. I’ve had a lot of people to say, you ought not teach that eternal security thing because that causes people to think they can go out and live like they please. So you ought not put that in there. Well the only way I can present the gospel is to teach eternal security. I don’t know how to give the gospel without convincing them of eternal security. That’s what it’s about.

He that believeth on him should not perish. That means you will not go to hell. That means you’ll never go to hell. You can’t go to hell. That’s eternal security. Know that you have eternal life. That means knowing that you’re going to heaven. So that means you can know it. Well that means you can’t lose it. If you can know it, I know I’m going to heaven. So I don’t know how to teach the gospel or preach the gospel without teaching eternal security.

I believe the teaching of eternal security is the gospel. That’s what makes it such good news. Because it’s not good news to be saved for an hour or a day or a week or a month or maybe even a year. I like the idea of knowing that I am saved forever and that I’m going to heaven. Look what he says here in verse two, and they that have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them service because they are faithful and beloved partakers of the benefit.

These things teach and exhort. In other words, he’s challenging what how you treat other believers. If you work for a person that is over you and they are a believer, he’s saying here, they do them service because they are faithful and beloved. This is what you need to be careful of. Don’t despise Christians and try to take advantage of them. Do you work for a Christian in your job? Just because they’re Christians should you take advantage of them or should you work hard?

You should work hard and do right because after all, they’re working for the Lord and you’re working for the Lord too. You just in a different position, but everybody should understand as a child of God whether they’re servants or whether you just work for a master that’s a believer, but there’s challenges in God’s word about what we should and should not do. But then he says this in verse three, this is very important. If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and get this in your underline this and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, it means all of the teachings in the Word of God leads a man toward godliness.

God’s Word will never lead a person to be carnal. doesn’t lead you to feed the flesh. The Holy Spirit is holy and He will only lead you to do that which is holy. There are teachings that tells you to do things that you shouldn’t do. But these are rebukes to people that know truth and misuse truth or start denying truth and change in truth because there’s people that have itchy nears and they like the preacher to tickle their ears.

You know, tell me something that makes me feel good. Are there any feel good preachers around? Yeah. But notice what he says here in verse 4. He is proud knowing nothing but don’t know about questions and strife of words where upcometh envy and strife and railings and evil surmising perverse disputing of men of corrupt minds destitute of truth Supposing that gain is godliness. From such do what? Withdraw by self. You have to be strong enough to set boundaries for your friends.

What kind of friends you’re gonna have? Who you gonna listen to? Who you gonna walk with? The church you attend? All these things are very, very important because they can make a difference in your own personal life. Look in verse 11, Flee these things follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meatness, fight the good fight of faith. And he’s talking to a young preacher boy about what he needs to do. Because if he’ll do this and listen, he’ll save himself from the false teachings, but also the people that listen to him.

Now you know and I know that there’s wolves in sheep’s clothing. and they will try to strip the gospel of its power. They may not even be some, I don’t think, or aware that they do this, but they do it. And it’s so critical. Take your Bible also and look in Titus in chapter three. The book of Titus in chapter three. Now we know how bad we were because it’s illustrated up there in verse one and two and three of this is the way we were.

for in verse three says, for we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lust and pleasure, living in malice and envy and hateful and hating one another. That’s the way we were. Who was? That’s the human race. That’s the way we were when we were lost. But the next word says of verse four, but after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared. And so it’s not of works because if it was by works, all these people that do all these things are good works, they could make it.

So God says it would be by grace through faith and that alone. And as he says here in the scripture, this not of works list, any man should boast, not of works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he have saved us. So he says that he has shed this salvation upon us. And then he says there in verse six, where he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Then he talks about now that you are saved and there’s a place for good works. And verse eight talks about maintaining good work. Well, he just said in verse five, you’re not justified by your works. That’s for salvation. When it comes to living your life for the Lord, God wants you and I to maintain good work. And it doesn’t mean to just start doing good work, but gotta maintain it. Have you ever seen DOT with signs out and there’s men working on the road you’re traveling on?

Cause they gotta maintain the road. Otherwise it gets potholes in it and you know, if they can just start falling apart. Well, there’s there’s wearing tear on things. They got to maintain Your Christian walk. It’s one thing to start walking with the Lord now. Can you maintain that walk? Can you keep at it? As he told him continue Continue stay at it But see there’s the devil who wants to stop us from walking with the Lord Stop us from maintaining good works because it ruins our testimony and is able to use it against us and against other people, believing what we have to say.

You don’t see the devil. I don’t see the devil, but I can see his handiwork. I’ve seen God’s handiwork and I’ve seen the devil’s handiwork and he’s real. So he makes a statement here in verse 8, this is a faithful sin in these things I will with our firm constantly that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable on the men. This is what God wants us to do.

But some of God’s people will not maintain good works. They will not stay in sound doctrine and they could become a heretic in that you can rebuke them and say things to them, try to help them. But God says, if If they don’t hear it and they won’t believe it, then let them alone. Reject them. Now, that sounds difficult. That sounds like a hard thing for people to do. But there are some people I just let alone for the simple reason that I don’t think I can help them.

And there are some people that develop wrong doctrines that are not sound. And therefore, when we start talking about, you know, we want to have a Bible call. You think this. Should all the people who teach in the college be on the same page, doctrine? Oh, what about the version of the Bible that we use? You think we all should be used the same kind of Bible? Do you see a problem if we didn’t? What about a teacher that teaches Calvinism?

But they love the Lord. Should we let them be a teacher? No. Hm. Y’all are fanatics. Y’all are just… I mean, you aren’t very kind. All this should be more loving. And you’d be surprised the things I get called because I refused to budge. And I don’t think I’m planning on doing it anytime soon. Take a Bible look in the book of Galatians. The Galatians in chapter 2. Galatians chapter 2. The Apostle Paul, after he had trusted the Lord, spent some time on the backside of a desert.

desert, God had given to Him the gospel that He wanted Him to have. He says, the message that I had, the gospel that I preach, did not come from man. I didn’t receive it from man. But by the revelation of Jesus Christ Himself, and that’s in the book of Galatians in chapter 1 and verse 11 and 12. But hearing Galatians in chapter 2, look what He says in verse 5, To whom we gave place by subjection, no not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.”

In other words, it didn’t matter what others thought about it, and even though they come to spy out the liberty that you have in Christ, there’s always somebody trying to say that, well, you do have to keep the commandments, or you do have to be circumcised, or you do have and they add something to it. Well you know if you’re really saved you know you ought to go to church but they don’t mean auto that means you will and if you don’t that will ask the sign you really weren’t saved.

See those are a little cliches that tries to get you and I to change and preach a different gospel. If it is by grace it has to be totally 100% all by grace and if it is totally an all by grace, then a man’s works. Good or bad can’t touch it before after salvation. It doesn’t matter. How I lived before had nothing to do with how God saved me. He didn’t say me by my works. Good or bad. It had no effect upon grace.

After I’m saved, nothing that I can say or do can never affect my salvation by grace. It is my position that I have in in Christ. Now here in Galatians in chapter 2, Paul did have a little run in with somebody, and this guy was none other than the great apostle Peter. Now you know, there’s no way that you’re going to rebuke the apostle Peter. Paul did. Paul did. Because what he was doing was hypocrisy. He was saying he is a Jew, but he was living like a Gentile and not under the law.

Well here comes some legalistic Judaizers down from Jerusalem and Peter because of the persecution that happens to Christians because they Flora the law. He begins to compromise and when he did that Barnabas compromised and then when he did that he led other people to compromise. Oh because one man compromised because of the fear of the Jews, Barnabas, who was Paul’s sidekick, compromised and then let you know it. Can you believe this that Peter went to see the church in Antioch that was started by Paul in the split his church.

The great Apostle Peter split his church. Now, do you think that would make Paul upset? It really did. And so he says there in verse 11, but when Peter was come to Antioch, I would stood him to the face because he was to be what? And this was the first pope. The infallible pope. How can this be? Well, evidently the first pope wasn’t infallible and he was married. In verse 12, for before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles, but when they were come, he would drew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumstances that he feared the producing and fear produces compromise.

When you’re afraid you’ll compromise. Then he makes a statement. He says in verse 13, and the other Jews dissimulated, disassembled, which is hypocrisy, likewise with him, in so much that Barnas also was carried away with their dissimulation. And when I saw that they walked out uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, because what they were doing was saying something about the gospel that wasn’t true. And they were teaching that you have to keep the law, that you have to be circumcised.

Well, when it came down to it, Peter winds up siding with the Jews on something he knows isn’t true, but he compromised. Now do you have to keep the law to be saved, or do you have to be circumcised to be saved? Paul knew, no, Peter knew it, but because of fear, he compromised. And by his actions, he was put in his stamp of approval upon the message of the legalistic Judaizers. So he says in verse 16, Peter, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, but by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

That’s what he said to him. We know this, and how can you put yourself back underneath this law? So yes, he hit it hard because it was influencing other people. Every man, if he knows the truth, is supposed to stand for the truth of the gospel. And as Paul says, in defense, he says, I am in set for the defense of the God to defend this message, even against your own body of believers. And that’s always what happens. Looking verse 19, he says, for I threw the law and dead to the law.

If I’m dead to the law, then the law has no power over me. The law cannot touch me. The law cannot condemn me. Why? Because the law didn’t die. I did. You see, and that’s why I died in verse 20, I am crucified with Christ. I died. I died. died to the law. Therefore the law can’t condemn you. So why am I putting myself back under the law which Christ died to redeem me from? So therefore we’re supposed to know this and believe it.

Now look here in the book of Romans in chapter 16. Romans in chapter 16. Romans 16, look there in verse 17, He says, now I beseech you brethren. So we’re talking to brethren. Mark them, which calls divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and join up with them. He says, and avoid them. Should, in a church, everybody should believe the same thing, right? right? And if they don’t believe the same thing, they ought to go to a church like they believe.

But don’t try to change this church into something else, because if you do that here, you got a tiger by the tail. There’s some things that I will not tolerate. I’m so glad I don’t know of any. So that’s great. But I have a lot of my friends that I’ve had over the years. I’ve gone to the Bible college with them. And we all were on the same page, we believe the same way, but did you know as years have rolled by?

Some have departed from that faith, that sound doctrine. No longer as solid as they used to be. Now that breaks my heart because the consequences of following wrong doctrine is you’re not going to be after souls. I don’t know of another teaching that’s contrary to what we believe that will cause you to reach more souls. Believe in Calvinism, you’re not going to be that effective and so in. But when you have the message, we will win more people to Christ because of the clearness of our gospel.

You start muddying it up or gutting it, it’s not going to be effective. I’ll bet you there’s not anybody that’s ever trusted Christ as their Savior because they heard. Believe in Jesus for eternal life. Produce five people that got saved because that’s all they heard. That’s fine if you know the content. All I tell people to do to be saved is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I shall be saved. Believe on Christ and He’ll give you eternal life.

That is the truth. But you’ve got to have the content. And without the content, believe on George. Believe on James. Believe on Thomas. Thomas, right? You can say believe on anybody unless it’s the one we’re talking about in the Bible. So therefore it does make a difference, a big difference. Now what this means is it means you get a, ah, you know, one of those black markers and when you see somebody that teaches wrong you go up to them and you put an X on their head, forehead.

Because it said, mark them. I hope some of you all know when I’m not telling the truth. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which caused divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned. In verse 18, for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the word serve is important because see I don’t believe this necessarily is talking about people who are teaching false. I mean, they’re teaching false doctrine, but they could be people who once knew the truth and no longer believe it.

A lot of people change their views after a while. I’m thankful that as I know of, I don’t know of many views that I’ve changed it over 50 years. I’m just thankful I got it right at the first time. But he says this. He said, and by good words, fair speeches, deceive the hearts of the simple. So it’s possible. That’s why you have to always be in the Word of God. That’s why you always come to church. If you stop, listen, with what you know right now, you stop going to church.

Just stay home, whatever. Just start listening to anybody on a radio and TV, but you never come back to a sound church. Do you know it won’t be long? You won’t be sound. You won’t be sound. You won’t be sound for one reason is because you don’t believe in having to go to church. That is a bad doctrine. When God says that we should, and there’s people that say, I don’t think so. That means you’re smarter than God. God says we need each other.

We pray for one another. We encourage each other. And so we should always keep our eyes and ears open. 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 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. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.