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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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

We understand what salvation is. Look at the next statement, service. Service has to deal with the flesh and the spirit. So when you trusted Christ as your Savior, God did not save that old man of yours. See, when you were born into the world, that which is the flesh, just flesh, that which is born in the spirit of spirit. We all have a flesh birth. That’s what I see in front of me. It’s your physical birth. When you’re born into this world, you have an old sinful nature.

You sin naturally. That’s why you like to be in, well, rebellious because you want your own way. Oh, we like sheep have gone astray. whatever we want to do. And God says, that’s the flesh. These are not the children of God. See, all those that want to law, those are not the children of God. When you trusted Christ as your Savior, you became a child of God. No, you’re born of the Spirit. So you had these two natures. I’ve been born twice.

Once when I was born in the flesh, physical. And then when I trusted Christ as my Savior, spiritual birth, and never mixed the two, they’re separate. See, a lot of A lot of people think God saved this old man, and so we send him the church, and if he don’t live right, then you have a reason to question, this man ain’t saved. Well, because look what he does. Look how he lives. Well, that’s the flash birth. See, when you trust in Christ, God gave you a new birth.

Didn’t change this one, gave you a new one. This one is born of God. And if it’s born of God, it doesn’t have a sinful nature. Born of God. God doesn’t have a sinful nature. If it has no sinful nature, it cannot sin. If it cannot sin, it cannot die. If it cannot die, how long will you be a child of God? Forever. It’s separated. And in the scriptures, you’ve got to separate this. And if you don’t, you’ll put it all together and think of God saved that old man.

Well, if he got saved, then why is he still doing what he’s doing? See, I have this old flesh. He’s still sinful, still wicked. I can’t trust him, but I also got a new birth. And so I can walk in the flesh and live like a lost man. I can walk as a child of God in the spirit. And that’s the way it is. That’s the truth of the scriptures. Look at the next statement. The results of this, the results as a child of God.

And I usually tell this to a person I led to the Lord. Over there at the hospital with Betty at five or six, it indicated they would trust Christ as their savior. Then I will always say this. Now look at me, let me show you. When you’re born into God’s family, you’re a child of God and you have a choice. You can be an obedient child, disobedient child, but you’re still God’s child. Just like I’ve got children born into my family.

Once they’re born into my family, they’ll always be my children. And so if they’re obedient, they’re mine. If they’re disobedient, they belong to my wife. No, they’re still mine. So I got a choice. I can need to be an obedient child or disobedient child. Means I can walk in the spirit or I can walk in the flesh. If I walk in the spirit and if I decide as a child I’m gonna serve the Lord, God will bless my life here.

Reward me when I get to heaven. If I’m disobedient here, then God’s gonna chase in his disobedient child. See how simple that is, clear that is, you have a child born into your family. Once you’re your child, they’re always your child. You can’t unborn them, try it. They’re always your child and if they will obey you, you’re happy. If they’re not, you’re not happy and somebody’s going to get a weapon. So you have a choice. If you obey, your heavenly Father is going to bless your life and he’s going to reward you when you get to heaven.

See, going to heaven is already taken care of. That’s because of what you believe. Now we’re talking about what you do. If I do the right things, God will bless and if I do the wrong things, God’s gonna chase in me and maybe take me home before my time. So that’s an understanding of the chasing and rewards. And you have to understand that in your mind, or you’ll be really confused in your Christian life. You’re always saved by grace.

Once you’re saved, you’re God’s child. Then as a child of God, God wants you to serve Him. And if you do, God will bless you. If you don’t, God’s gonna maybe take you home before your time or He can chase you in a lot of ways. Now, look down to bottom of the page. I wrote a few things down here, it’s points of clarity for a reason. These are little statements that I have made over the years. And so I thought I would just make a list of some of these things and hopefully they’ll make some sense to you because they help to clarify these things in your mind.

The first thing that you cannot know you’re going to heaven until you know you cannot go to hell. You see, if there’s always a question that in the future I could go to hell, then you can’t say you know you’re going to heaven. If there’s a possibility of going to hell, then you can’t be sure you’re gonna go to heaven. I’ll say if you say, yeah, I’m sure I’m not gonna do anything. I’m always gonna do the right thing.

I made up my mind. I’m not gonna do that. I said, is it possible? It’s possible, but what I’m not going to. I said, I’m not talking about it. I’m talking about if there’s a possibility of going to hell in the future. Why? Is that a possibility? Oh, I could do something that I’m not supposed to do. So I’m really bad sin. Well, wait a minute, when Christ out on the cross, He paid for all sin, except the really bad sins.

I mean, if they’re really bad, He didn’t pay for those. When He died on the cross 2,000 years ago, how many of your sins were in the future? All of them. Well, if I, 10 years from now, I can rule out really bad. Well, isn’t that still in the future? But isn’t that covered? I mean, I got an insurance policy here. Is it good? Jan, is it good or not? She works at an insurance. Y’all don’t know insurance? It’s covered.

Now, look at the next statement. Salvation is not about building a relationship with God, but escaping the damn nation of hell. Which one of these demands urgent attention? which do you think would demand urgent attention? I want to have a relationship with God. So there’s always this question about what is a relationship with God? Now we’re going to skip over because I’ll come back to this in just a little bit, but I want you to see the one statement that I mentioned right in the middle of the page I have the word relationship verse fellowship.

You see that? Relationship versus fellowship. Fellowship is mentioned four times in three verses. Relationship is not mentioned one time in the entire Bible. Isn’t that amazing? Almost all preachers today are talking about you having a relationship with God. Why don’t I use that phrase? Because it’s not in the Bible. Then I’ve got to try to explain what do you mean by relationship. If I were to say, Here’s my daughter, she walks in here and says, what’s your relationship to that lady?

Well, she’s my daughter. She was born in my family. That’s the relationship we have. You could say, I didn’t mean that. I mean, what is your relationship? How y’all getting along? Can they mean that too? Like I said, what is your relationship to Peter Motto? Well, I sing in the choir and blah, blah, blah, and he does this and blah, blah, blah, and you go to one and, wait a minute, that’s not salvation. Salvation is not you have any relationship with God.

A relationship can be a process in time. See, whenever you trusted Christ as your Savior, you became a child of God. Look at the statement I have wrote here. That which we have seen and heard, declare we’re going to you that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. You see, the Word used in the Bible is fellowship, not relationship because there are two different things and one muddy is the water.

Because now you don’t understand what do you mean by you need to have a relationship with God. Because see, you could have a relationship with a lot of people. But that’s a process of how you’re getting along what you’re doing. That’s not salvation. Salvation is a moment in time. nothing to do with my life that I live or how I get along with God or how I get along with you or anybody else. Look at the next statement.

These things right we under you that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him declaring you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, fellowship, the Lord is walking in the light. It’s walking with God. And that’s why after you trusted Christ as your Savior, it’s the will of God that all of His children walk with God.

And you have fellowship, two fellows in a ship going in the same direction because the boat can’t go both directions at the same time. And how can two be agreed unless they walk together unless they be in the green? So you’re in agreeing with God and you’re walking with God. That’s fellowship. Your relationship, you’ve got to explain that. And now always going to have the same explanation. It’s like today people are using the word repentance. But nobody knows what it means.

Sometimes it just means a change of mind. Others it means turn from your sins. And it can be confusing. So the Bible says he that believe it. If you’re an unbeliever and you believe, you’ve changed your mind. You repented. But to repent of your sins, that’s confusion. Because now you can know what sins, how many sins, for how long? Then you’re all confused. That’s not clear. the Word of God is clear. It is not confusing. God is not the author of confusion.

And anything that depends upon you, that’s confusion. Depends on Christ, it’s clear as a bell. I trust Him, He saves me over. If I serve Him, He’ll bless me. If I don’t, He’ll chase me. That’s clear, that’s cut. Don’t muddy the waters, but people do. Anyway, page two. Eternal security is not a separate doctrine in salvation. It is salvation. Therefore, it is the true and only proof of one’s belief in the gospel. You see, I believe the gospel. Do you have eternal security?

Well, I don’t know. You don’t believe the gospel. John 3 16, I want you to turn there because I want to bring out a few points in this verse. John chapter 3 and verse 16. You’ve heard the verse many times you probably can quote it. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The Hoosah whoever keeps the 10th commandment goes the Calvary community church and pays 50%. Is that what your Bible says? Some of you don’t even know because you even look at it.

For God so loved the world. That’s everybody. He gave His only begotten Son, one. Everybody but one. One was given. His only begotten Son. That whosoever opened invitation to all, whosoever does what? This has to deal with believing. This is salvation. Believe it in Him should not That means will not go to hell. If you’ll believe, you will not go to hell. In the last part of that verse, and have everlasting life, that means you will go to heaven when you die.

That’s guarantees. Now if you believe John 3 16, you have to believe, I cannot go to hell, and that I will go to heaven if you don’t believe that, you don’t believe John 3 16. Can’t you see that? He that believe it on me, present in the half right now, half what? Ever lasting life. If you believe it, you have everlasting life. If you don’t believe it, you do not have everlasting life. Look at the next statement. Salvation is a decision to trust Christ.

Salvation, being saved from it, is the decision to trust Christ because that’s all you’re deciding. There are no other decisions to make. This is the primary decision. Will you, will you not trust Christ as your Savior? That’s done in a moment of time. In other words, the moment you do that, that moment you’re saved. It’s not a process. It’s not, I’ve got to live like a Christian. I’ve got to go to church now and I’ve got to give money now and I got, no, you don’t have to do anything.

Eternal life is free. It is the gift. It’s in a moment of time. One moment of time. When you believe it, you have it. Believe it, half, present tense, everlasting life. Now look at the next statement. Salvation is a decision to trust, not a commitment to serve. So, the federal thing gets a decision, I’m going to serve the Lord now. No, that’s not salvation. That comes after your saved. And that is in a process of time. I trusted Christ as my Savior in a moment of time, 1960, September the 17th.

It was on a Friday night. It’s never happened happened again. But my work with God, my fellowship with God, my relationship with God has lasted for 57 years. See, that was a commitment that I made that I want to walk with my Heavenly Father. But there are two different things, and if you get them mixed up, you’re going to be filled with confusion. Look at the next statement. If perfection is required for heaven, then the gospel we preach must make a man totally and irrevocably perfect at the very moment he believes.

If 57 years ago in that little old living room I trusted Christ as my Savior, then I’m saved. And if I’m saved, whatever is required to go to heaven, you’ve got to be perfect to go to heaven because heaven’s a perfect place. I’m good to go. So the gospel that I preach must make a man perfect that very moment that he trusts Christ as Savior. That’s the new birth. This is the one that was born of God, has no sinful nature.

So the moment you trusted Christ as Savior, you were made perfect in Christ. He gave you his righteousness. See this coat I got on up here? See if I didn’t have a coat, And I needed a cloak of righteousness to go to heaven. Christ come along and when I believe on Him, He gives me His cloak of righteousness. And I go to heaven on what He gave me, His righteousness. And I go to heaven on what He did for me.

I hope that’s clear and simple for you. Look at the next statement. The Lord Jesus Christ loved you so much you would rather die than live without you. Now get this next statement. His death for your sins was to give you a choice. It didn’t save you, but He gave you a choice. You see, before Christ died, there was no choice. There was no options. There was no way. There was no hope. We were all without God in this world.

And Christ going to the cross and dying for the sins of the whole world is the only thing that gave us a choice. God did not just automatically choose you to be saved, and others not to be saved, He made a payment for the sins of the whole world, so that everybody, you got a choice. You can choose now to be born into God’s family. You didn’t get that choice the first time. You didn’t get to choose your family.

You didn’t get to choose whether you’re male or female. You didn’t get to choose anything. You didn’t make a choice. Now God gives you a choice, and you can choose to accept Christ or reject Him. You can go to heaven and you can go to hell. And nobody else can do this for you. Not another person alive in this world can make that decision for you. It’s not because, well, my parents are Christian, so I’m good to go. No, if you’re a parent or a Christian, they go, you don’t.

And it doesn’t matter how good and soon as he was, and she’ll give you the shirt off her back. If she doesn’t trust Christ as Savior, she doesn’t go to heaven. Only those who be lead that he did it for them. See, that’s clear, that simple. Clear cut. There’s not a lot of wishy washy stuff in the Bible. That’s because people cannot take God at His word and they add to it. Now, leave it alone. God knew what He was saying.

Look at the next statement. Without Christ, there is no choice. It’s either heaven or it’s hell. And the only way you can go to heaven is through Christ. The next statement, free will of man versus the sovereignty of God. God in his sovereignty means God can do whatever God wants to do. Chose to give man a free will. Free will musts include choice. No choice, no free will. And so I believe that God has given every man the right to choose.

Free choice. Nobody can make you trust Christ as your savior. and nobody can make you serve God. You can live like the devil if you want to and most people do and you know it. You can go out of here and commit any sin you wanna commit and nobody probably will stop you till after you committed it, didn’t they might put you in jail or blow your brains out. You can go commit adultery. You can become a homosexual. You can do anything that you wanna do.

But it’s still wrong. still wrong, still sin. And God will judge His children. You cannot, as a child of God, live as you please and get away with it. You can live as you please, but you can’t get away with it. Your heavenly Father knows His children. Look at the next statement. Only a saved man can commit, surrender, or promise to serve Christ. See, only after that woman has been delivered from the condemnation of Mr. Law, and she dies, and he has no hold upon her.

Now she is free to marry another, and we’re the bride. And the day is coming when we’re gonna be married at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Now, as a child of God, I can commit my life to him. I can promise to love him and serve him and do everything that God wants me to do, but I don’t do it to go to heaven. I don’t go to church so I can go to heaven. I don’t give money so I can go to heaven.

I don’t support mission so I can go to heaven. I’m going to heaven because of what he did for me, not what I do for him. Now that I am a child of God, I got a choice. I can choose to serve God with all my heart. And you can’t stop me. Then I can’t stop you. I can’t make you serve God and you can’t make me serve God. I serve the Lord because of what He has done for me.

Not what He’s going to do. I serve Him because of what He’s done. He set me free from the condemnations of the law. I have eternal life and I’m going to heaven when I die. And I ought to be so thankful. I’ve got all the reasons in the world to serve the Lord with all my heart. Look at the next statement. Neither are millionism means that’s people who believe you can lose your salvation, or Calvinism you must persevere to prove that you have salvation can produce security of salvation.

Neither one, or many-ness them, people who say, yeah, you’re saved by grace, but you can lose it. And then there’s other, well, if you really have it, you’re gonna serve him. No, I’m a child of God now. I have a choice. If I don’t serve God, I may choose to walk in the flesh. and live like an old center. Commit every sin in a book. But I say, well, you lost your salvation. Oh, no, I didn’t. I have two births.

This one doesn’t sin. My old one does. So I haven’t lost my salvation. I can’t lose my salvation. When you understand, it’s clearing your mind. If you swelter over this because you don’t get it, you’re gonna have a confused life. You’re not gonna know for sure. Are you saved or are you not saved? And that last little statement talks about only believing in Christ. Can you have security? But if you have security at all, it’s got to be eternal security.

If it’s not eternal, secure, then you have no security. See, when I became a cell of God, I’m now a cell of God for how long? Forever. It can never change. God will never cast me out, never lose me. Never lose me. He’s the Savior, not me. So people who teach you can lose your salvation means you’ve got to commit a sin Christ never paid for. But how many of my sins did Christ pay for? Well lo and behold, that’s why you can’t know you’re going to heaven till you know you can’t go to hell.

And the reason I can’t go to hell, I don’t have any sins to pay for. Christ died for my sins. How many? All of them. If I got a payment for all of my sin, there’s no sin to send me to hell. That was the best news I ever heard in my life. Now, the last little thing I have done here says the seven contents of the gospel message is for clarity. This is why we make the gospel clear and simple by using this wall of illustration.

Look up here. Don’t go to sleep now. It’s time to wake up. This hand represents you and me. This wall represents sin. We are all sinners. That’s the truth. That’s a fact right out of the Bible. We have all sinned. The wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God. So we’re all condemned. We’re all in the same boat. But God says to go to heaven you’re going to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect. So we can’t get to heaven because we’re not perfect.

But God loves us. But there’s no way for us to keep the law to go to heaven because he says, not by works of righteousness which we have done. So there’s no good works that we can do to save ourselves. Now if there was a bad heaven, I qualify, get to go there. Now if there’s a good heaven, that’s questionable. If there’s a perfect heaven, definitely no. So you have to be perfect to go to a perfect heaven and none of us qualify.

No one’s ever lived good enough to go to heaven. Now this hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into this world because he had no sin. He didn’t have to die. So we were over here underChapter Law, condemned, can’t save ourselves. No hope he hates our sin because it separates us. So what Christ did is he took all of our debt, all of our sins, he paid for them to cross and came back from the dead.

And God says if we would believe he did it for us. So all that God wanted you to do when he came back from the dead is will you believe he did that for you? So when you believe he did it for you, he puts this payment to your account and you have eternal life. And number seven is you can know that you’re going to heaven. This is the only way you can know it. There is no other way of knowing you’re going to heaven is it has to be free and it has to last forever.

I have eternal life and I’m going to heaven when I die. So whenever I die and if they have somebody come up here and do my funeral and they’re not clear on the gospel, protest. You tell whoever’s up here and they’re saying the wrong thing, you get out of there. That’s not what that man believed. I’ve had a lot of people that will pass away. and then they’ll have some sinful wicked preacher that doesn’t know the gospel do their funeral.

Don’t you ever let somebody know the gospel do your funeral? He’s getting that last chance, that last word to talk to those people, and that may be the only time they’ll ever hear the gospel, and then they get a friend blubber about nothing. Oh, he was this wonderful sweet guy, and we know we all have to be good to go to heaven. That’s when you pull out your gun. Pfft. Don’t do that. I about to stop with that. Let’s pray, shall we?

I think y’all need prayer. Head to bow nice clothes, no one looking around. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, when do you think would be the best time to do that? Tomorrow, next year, isn’t it an urgent situation? Right now, to trust Christ is your only hope of going to heaven. There is no plan B. Is it the Christ or not at all? You cannot earn it. It’s free Will you believe that when Christ died he died for you?

Will you believe that? If you’ve never trusted Christ in Savior and you’ll do it today if you do it right now I’d like to know it and I’d like to have prayer for you I’m not gonna have you stand up and come forward I wouldn’t embarrass you for anything in the world, but right where you’re sitting if what I said made sense You say pretty good that made sense to me and I want to know that I’m going to heaven So today I will accept Jesus Christ right now as my Savior.

And friend, if you’re making that decision, would you just let me know by slipping in a real quick, put it right back down? Yes, God bless you, man. Anyone else? God bless you, sir. Anyway, I’ll just slip it up real quick, put it right back down. I’m not getting embarrassed, and I’m not going to have you come forward. It’s over and done with when you make that decision. If you trust Christ right now, He saves you right now, gives you eternal life right now.

And they’ll never cast you out. When you get up to leave, you can say, I know I’m going to heaven. Why? Christ died for all my sins and I believe He did it for me. Anyone else before we close? Anyone else? If you’re watching by the internet right on the screen, it will say, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior. I pray that you will. Father, once again, we thank You for loving us, watching over for blessing us. And we thank You Lord, especially for these that indicated by an uplift at hand that they will trust Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross for them.

By doing so, they become your child, your child forever, that you’ll never cast them out and never lose them. But we pray, Lord, that because they are, you know, your children, they get a Bible and read and study it so that you can talk to them through it, that they would talk to you through prayer, not some still-didn’t-made of speech, but on a father and son relationship that followed that they would get into a good Bible, believe in and teach in church so they can listen and learn and grow.

Thank you for all you do for us. In Christ’s name we pray. 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. Taught 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.