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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Won’t take you Bible. Turn to the book of Galatians, the book of Galatians. I love this little old book. It is the backbone of Christianity. This little bitty book, very powerful, covers a lot of issues. It’s one that all of God’s children should really know and know very well. And so in the book of Galatians, we know that God is the author of the book. But he used human writers and they wrote what God told them to write. And so like you take the book of Hebrews and you would automatically know, well that’s probably written to the Hebrews.

It’s not intelligent that is. But now when you write the book of Galatians, and they were mainly not Greek but Gauls that came down in about the third century before Christ. And so they had settled in places like a conium in Listra, and Antioch, and a darbeem. And so they settled these areas in Galatia, and here comes Epossepal. And so when he went there, he led a lot of people to the Lord. And these were mainly some barbarians. But there’s legalistic Judaizers that came from Jerusalem and they would like to follow the Apostle Paul around and you see they can’t produce their own fruit so they got to try to steal somebody else’s.

It’s just like a church you get a watch you don’t try to build a church upon you know stealing fish from somebody else’s goldfish bowl. You want to be able to try to win some of the people yourself and and so forth. And I thought it was great that we had some people who have trusted Christ’s Savior here in the ministry have decided to want to serve the Lord be a part of the ministry and have done so and I thank the Lord for that.

But if you’ve got a piece of paper or some notes that you could write down, it would be good to write some of these things on or even in the flat leaf of your Bible, someplace or you can write some notes on it because you can’t remember everything. I can’t remember everything. But sometimes somebody might say something and you say, you know what, I’d like that and then you write that down. Because a short pencil is what?

Better than a long memory. short pencils better than a long memory. And so we have here in the book of Galatians, many would call this the bottle cry of the Reformation because it’s this book and justification by faith that is so important. Just hold your place there in Galatians chapter 1 and just look over there in chapter 2, or make it chapter 3, where it makes a statement in verse 8, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith.

So we know that however God is going to justify somebody, it has to be by faith. It cannot be by works. So the book of Galatians is going to let us see that there is no other gospel of salvation than justification by faith. And the test of the gospel is that it has to be by grace. And if it is by grace, it has to be free and it has to last forever. And you’re one of those missing that it’s not gospel by grace.

And it’s easy to believe in eternal security if you believe that salvation is by grace. There’s no problem in believing that because if you really believe salvation is by grace, what’s the problem with how long he saves you? You mean he could save you for a day? Does that be our head? Yeah, that’s all right. Well, what if he could save you for a week? What about a year? What about a hundred years? What about a thousand years? What about forever?

If it is by grace, it’s no harder for God to save me forever than it is to save me for a moment. Because grace is grace. So the book of Galatians is doing a deal with the subject of grace versus works, grace and law. And so it covers these things here and it’s a tremendous book. And I used to love to teach it in Colorado, but I don’t think I’ve taught it since I’ve been here as far as in the college or anything, but that thing might change.

But it’s the great charter on our Christian freedom, because when you understand the book of Galatians, you understand that there’s a thing called anti-nomian, anti-against-nomian law. So there’s people who believe in anti-nomian. They’re against the law together, and I have been accused of being an anti-nomian. And that what it means is, and what they were trying to say is that I believe you can just trust Christ to save you. Live like the devil and it doesn’t matter. If in person listen to me long enough, they always know that it does matter.

But if you’re trying to save yourself by putting yourself under the law, that isn’t going to work. And it does matter. And so they, we have what we call legalistic Judaizers, people that are trying to put people underneath the law. Now churches they were started by the apostle Paul in the very first his missionary journey and Antioch and Iconium and Listera and Derby and you’ll read about some of these places in the book of Acts, especially from chapter 13 on down to chapter 15 so far and they had sent Paul out on the missionary journey and he went to these cities and some ventures didn’t happen to them and a lot of people they did they trusted Christ of Savior.

Now there’s a couple errors that these legalistic Judaizers that they taught when they came and started messing around with some of the Apostle Paul’s, you know, his product, his fruit. And they were teaching him things and turning them against the Apostle Paul and trying to put them underneath the law. And so Paul has to write this letter and this is one book, believe it or not, that doesn’t have a few things in it. It doesn’t talk about, well, it doesn’t have any praise in it.

I mean, he doesn’t praise anybody for doing anything. And there’s no honor that he bestows upon anything or anybody. And there’s no congratulatory. He’s like, you know, you did a great job. And I’m proud of you. Blah, blah, blah. There’s none of that in this book. This is just plain, hard-hitting. It’s a rough book. And so he’s straight to the point and pulls no punches. and he really hit some pretty hard. And James is a little bit like that, and they’re earlier books in the canonicity of the New Testament books.

But also, we have Galatianism, which is, they’re trying to add grace and works together is a mixture, and the book of Galatians will clearly explain how that you’re saved by grace, not by your works, not by the law, and it shows you this difference in here. Now, it was written to correct some of the problems that people were having. And you see, it’s written to expose false teachings. You see, you can’t expose false teaching, except by true teaching. And if you teach people the truth, then they’ve got the light to discern air.

And so you don’t teach the air, you teach the truth and the truth will discern the air. But sometimes you have to say what it is, that’s right, in order to let people see that what is wrong, like Ephesians 2, 8, 9. It’s not only says what the gospel is, it says what it is not. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that’s the end of it. No, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works.

Why would you have to say not of works? If it is the gift of God, because people need to know there’s a negative and you hit that and you let people see, It is not of your works. So a lot of people, they don’t understand that, but Paul has to also defend his apostleship. And to let people see that you’re saved by faith and faith alone, it takes a very strong stand in the very first chapter about the gospel and what it is.

And curse it is everyone who teaches another kind of message. Remember this, if a man is saved by grace, the only way you can add and have another gospel another message you have to add something to grace. If grace is grace and it’s no works to it, the only way you can have another message that’s different from that message is you got to add works to it. Then that makes it another message. Then it’s no longer the gospel of grace.

You can see that, right? You understand that? I hope you do. So, understanding that the first two chapters we say that these are like personal chapters about the Apostle Paul himself. And it lets you know how he received the Gospel and then how he took a stand for the Gospel. So in chapter one, how did he get this clear Gospel message? Did he get it from the other Apostles? No. because he said he got it straight from the Lord.

Look what he says here in Galatians in chapter 1, look in verse 11, but I certify you brethren that the gospel which was preached of me, I got it from the other apostles. Is that what he said? I got it from John MacArthur. I got it from sprawl. No, no, no, no. He got it. Well, where did he get it from. Let’s see where did he get it from. Verse 12, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of, well, slap my mouth, he got it from the Lord.

So the gospel that he preached, he got it straight from the Lord. He didn’t have to learn it from anybody else. And so did the gospel that he preached? Was it different than what the apostles were already preaching? Because I have some people, they say, well, no, the apostle Peter and Jesus, they had a different gospel than what Paul preached. He preached the same gospel because there’s only one gospel. You can’t have another gospel that tells how to be saved because if you’re saved by grace through faith and not of works and even puts a curse on anybody who adds works to the gospel, then he could not have ever had any gospel that included works for it.

Because then it wouldn’t have been good. Then that means every man that was not saved by grace could have been in time past saved by their works. Well if they could be saved by their works, why couldn’t we have to be saved by our works? But no man was ever saved by the law. Man’s always been saved by grace. That’s why when he says in chapter 2 in verse 8 of the book of Galatians when he says, and God foreseen that God would justify the heathen through faith, priests and before the Abraham said that he would be justified by faith.

Well that was 430 before the law was ever given. So Abraham was justified in verse 6 of chapter 3 in their regulations where he says Abraham believed God and it was counted in him for righteousness. So how was Abraham saved by believing God? Faith alone. And what Christ was going to do. But he was looking forward. And so they were not saved by the law because he said God would justify the heathen by faith. So So nobody’s ever been saved by the law.

Never had been. So that way Peter and the other guys could not have had a different gospel on how to be saved because they met each other. They came together in chapter 2. And when they were there Paul says, you know, these pillars in the church. He says it didn’t matter to me who they were. He says they didn’t have anything to add to me. He really didn’t have anything to add to them. But he says, no, they wanted me to go to the Gentiles, and Peter would go to the Jews, and that was fine.

There’s just maybe one other little thing about helping the poor, that was fine. But you see, Paul had to get the gospel, he got it straight from the Lord, not from any man. And then he took a strong stand, and how do we know he took a strong stand? because he had to face the man called Peter, because Peter came to his church and he started in Antioch and split his church. Peter was a church splitter. Did you know that?

Just look what he says here in Galatians in chapter 2 and look in verse 9. And when James, Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnum is the right hand to fellowship, that we should go into the heathen and they into the circumcision, you know, the Jews and Gentiles. Only they would that we should remember the poor, the same which I also was born to do.

But when Peter was come to Antioch, I would stood him to the face because he was the first pope and he should have never done that. Was Peter the first pope? No, but he did get a pop straight from this. I kind of reminded when I was a kid growing up, I used to always eat these rice crispies. You know rice crispies? Snap crackle and pop. Now that I’m in my sevenies, that’s all that happens is snap crackle and pop.

Well, anyway, don’t move that along. But he says he was to be blamed. It means he was at fault. He did something that he shouldn’t do. And so the apostle Paul takes Peter to task in front of everybody because what he was doing was compromising the truth of the gospel. And we’ll get into that later. But these are two personal chapters of dealing with the apostle Paul himself. Now, when you get into chapter three, chapter four, it gets along the lines of doctrinal.

There’s two doctrinal chapters here. And so you’ll find out in chapter three when it talks about how did you begin? Let’s see there in verse three. Are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit? Are you now made perfect by the flesh? So he’s talking about how were you born? And how were you born? And so if you go down through this chapter, it will explain a few things, but he lets you know you had to be redeemed and tell him that you are under the law and Christ died to redeem you from the curse of the law.

And so that’s what the Lord teaches in His word and that how you are under the law until you came to faith in Christ. But once you come to faith in Christ, you’re no longer under the law and you’re free from the law and the reason you’re free from the law is simple because you’re a dead man. Look what he says down here in verse 19 of chapter 2 when he says, for I through the law am dead to the law that I might live under God.

See, the reason the law cannot condemn me in the future is because the law cannot condemn a dead person. Well, when did I die? When I accept that his death is my death, I died and the law can never touch me. That’s why there’s no condemnation to those that are in trial. I can never be condemned again. Shall not come into condemnation. Why? Because you’ve already died and paid for your sins. when you really understand that it’s a miraculous thing.

So in chapter 3 he says, oh foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should not believe the truth? He said, you started off believing the truth now because you’ve had some Judaizers come in here and teach you some lies, you’re falling for it. And he says, remember when I was there first time he says you would have plucked at your own eyes and gave him to me because he says when he wrote this book he says, see what large letters I’ve wrote with because we believe that Paul had probably eye trouble and people were so sorry they loved him to death and they would have given their own eyes.

He says, where is this joint happiness now? He says, in my your enemy because I tell you the truth? Well they had a lot of things to learn and he had to kind of slap him around a little bit and so he did and he lets him know that in these two chapters that are very doctor and showing you about the law and then if you’re looking chapter 4, he’s talking you about as a son, the law and a son.

And once you trust Christ to save you, you’re now a child of God and so it’s laid out in a way that’s very easy to follow, very easy to understand. But you’ll notice there also in chapter 4, I want you to look at this, look in verse 19, because you see when you come out of the law and then you’re born into God’s family, there is a birth and it’s amazing that in this chapter it just so happens that it talks an awful lot about your birth.

You see there in verse 19, my little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you? Because you see they’ve trusted the Lord as their Savior but they weren’t growing in the Lord. And so He wants Christ to be formed in Him. So after you trust the Christ a Savior God wants to transform you into the way He is. And that’s what he’s talking about, till Christ be formed in you. That is growing in the Lord.

And that’s what you’re supposed to do. But you’ll notice up there in verse 22 where he says, for it is written that Abraham had two sons. So here you’re going to have two sons, two births, one represents the law, flesh, one represents the spirit, the new birth. So there’s two boys that are mentioned, two women that are mentioned, two births that are mentioned, and then explains that in verse 28. See that in verse 28. Now we brethren as Isaac was are the children of promise.

But as then he that was get this born two times it’ll be mentioned here in his one verse. Born after the flesh, that’s your first birth, and that was born after the spirit. Second birth. Two birth, flesh, spirit. I had somebody just email me the other day. You can’t prove one thing about what you said about there have been two natures. You have two natures or that you’ve been born twice. You can’t prove that anywhere in the Bible or that we have an old nature.

Don’t you read the Bible at all? I mean, take and put off the old man, put on the new man. That’s fine in the book of Colossians, also in the book of Ephesians? Where in the world are they getting off? They must be on another planet, but they don’t know their Bible. But now notice in that verse 29, But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit. You got your first birth was a flesh birth, right?

And then when you trust the Christ you got your second birth, spirit birth. Which one persecutes the other? It is your old nature that’s persecuted the new one. The new one doesn’t have to do any persecute doesn’t do it. But that’s why you take those and you come straight across over there and in chapter 5 and look in verse 15 and verse or verse 16 You see, you’re born in chapter 4, you’re walking in chapter 5. This I say didn’t walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

So chapter 5 and chapter 6 lets us have, you know, is the production. What comes in your life as a result of what you say you believe. So it’s very, you know, practical. Something that we apply and that’s what God wants us to do. So you have first two chapters, personal, next two chapters, doctrine of the next two chapters is the application of the knowledge. Now that you understand, it says walk in the spirit. And then in chapter six, all the things that we’re supposed to do and pray in, and all those things that God wants us to do.

So we do that. Now let me just mention this to you because it’s good. You can label these simple chapters, there’s only six little old chapters. But Paul told the truth in chapter 1 about the gospel. And he told the truth about the law in chapter 2. And he told the truth about grace in chapter 3. And he told the truth about the Son in chapter 4. He told the truth about growth in chapter 5, and he told the truth about God in chapter 6.

But you can also take all six of those chapters and you can lay it out to this away because in chapter one it tells you where the gospel came from, the Lord Himself. And who the gospel came through? The Apostle Paul to us. Somebody allowed God to use them to bring the gospel to us. Everybody in here, if you know Christ is your Savior, this is the gospel, God to you somehow. It had to come through somebody, somewhere, somewhere.

And in chapter 3, who the gospel came to, and the child is born a son in chapter 4. The child stands and walks in chapter 5. The child runs in chapter 6. But these are simple little things to kind of keep in mind because you’re studying one of the greatest books in the Bible, the book of Galatians. Now take your Bible and look there into book of Galatians chapter 1. The book of Galatians chapter 1. The apostle Paul was an apostle, Ephot from Stellot to sin.

He was sent personally by Jesus Christ himself. Means he saw him after his resurrection and personally sent by the Lord. God says he was an apostle and he was sent personally by God. Now we believe that as Jesus told him, He says, as the Father hath sent me, even so send I you. Now we have the word of God, and as we read the word of God, you’ll hear some people say that God has called me to preach. God’s called me to go to this country or that country or this Indian tribe or wherever.

Well that’s because as they read the scriptures and they heard God’s voice and God called and so they respond and so I think God wants me to go here. God wants me to go there. When I was graduating from Florida Bible College, I didn’t have a clue where I was gonna go. All I know is I’m done. They said I’m done. I think they were glad to get rid of me. Because I used to ask a lot of questions.

Oh, I’d ask a lot of questions. And one time Dr. Stanford, he says, you know sometimes Yankee, he says, you got a piece of gold. He says, and then sometimes you got a piece of coal. I thought, hmm, hmm. I knew who was trying to compliment me, maybe 50% of that. But I was always inquisitive. I always got to ask questions about it. How do I know this and how do I know that? And can you prove this, so forth?

And he used to drive Dr. Cameron up a wall. But he was always so gracious. He was always so gracious. And he was so full in jolly. If you just, you know, Jesus come on. I mean, when he prayed, he prayed scripture. When he talked, he talked scripture. He was just, he was one living Bible, but very great man. But here he said, Paul and apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.

And all the brethren which are with me unto the churches of Galatia. So it’s not to one church, it’s all the churches in Galatia. Grace be to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. They say that grace means a Greek greeting and peace is a Hebrew greeting so it covers the whole base. So whether you’re a Jew or Gentile, grace and peace be to all of you. So look up here. This is you and me.

And this wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. Now God loves us, hates our sin, but He loves us. And because all of us have sinned, we’re all condemned. We’re all in the same boat. And this is our flesh birth when we’re born into the world, and there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves. But God wants us to go to heaven. And to go to heaven, we’ve got to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect. We’ve all sinned. So we cannot save ourselves by our sins.

works. This hen represents Jesus Christ, he’s the Lord God in the flesh. Came into the world because he loves us. He hates our sin because our sin separates us from him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die, but because he loved us. He took all the sin of all the world. Paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. And the only thing he wanted us to do to go to heaven is to accept the payment he made for our sins.

He made a payment. He was the payment. So that’s why when you accept Christ, He is my payment for my sins and the scars in His hands and in His feet is the proof of payment that, well, that’s your receipt. And how long am I going to have this receipt? Forever. He said, I’ll never leave you and never forsake you. He was my payment for how many of my sins, all of my sins. So the only reason I’m going to heaven today and the only reason I was going to heaven 58 years ago it will be the same reason I go to heaven 50 years from now if I should live that long and it’s all because he paid for my sins and people will hear this that’s why he said you cannot be justified except by faith believing that what he did is sufficient.

You see if I believe this is sufficient then I’m not I’m not going to try to earn my way to heaven. I’m not going to put myself under the law and try to be good enough and keep the law and do this. No, no, no, no, no. I’m trusting what he did. And once I trust him, he gives me as a free gift, everlasting life. Never cast me out and never lose me. Best news in the world. Let’s pray, shall we?

With his bow and eyes closing, I want to look in the ground. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, why not trust him right now? Just believe that when Christ died, he died for you. And by trusting him, he saves you, gives you eternal life and it’ll never cast you out and never lose you. If you’re watching by internet, right where you are, on the screen it says, yes I’ll trust Christ as my Savior. If you’ve never done so, I pray that you would.

You don’t have to let us know, you don’t have to raise your hand, you don’t have to sign a card, and you don’t even have to punch on the computer. But trust Christ is your Savior that you have to do. Follow we thank you again for your blessings, thank you for this time together. And we thank Thank you so much for bringing everyone together tonight and for giving us a good service this morning. Thank you for this day. All you’ve done for us in Christ’s name.

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 live today and every day believe in that the Lord is coming soon just keep looking up