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

Now look at the next statement here. Number one, they were not growing in grace as they should, but they become critical, bitter. And that is one of the words of the signs of the flesh that a person is not walking with the Lord as they ought to. Let me just give you a suggestion. Before you criticize the pastor, pray for me. Can you do that? Can you handle that? And when you pray for me, what do you pray for?

Lord, take him home, take him home. get him out of here. Lord, I go to church today, but please help that preacher not to be so hard. He hurts my feelings. He stomps my toes. They’re bloody from last week. Number two, they were living according to the flesh or the old nature. Now, just very quickly, because that’s what the Bible says they were doing. Now, very quick look into Galatians and chapter five. Galatians in chapter 5 and look in verse 16.

Galatians chapter 5 and verse 16. You’ll notice now this is what the Bible says because you have a choice. He says in verse 16 this I say then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Well how do you walk in the spirit? Yeah float through the air like a haint. No. Walking in the spirit means walking in obedience to the world of God. See the Bible is God’s love letter to us. And so when you trust in Christ the Savior the Holy Spirit of God lives within you.

And the Holy Spirit of God can teach you the word of God because now you have the author of the book living inside of you to teach you what He says. And so walking in the spirit means walk according to what the spirit teaches you. It’s so simple but people are making some spiritual, you know, some fancy out there somewhere you don’t really know what he’s talking about. He says, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Why? Because you still have the lust of the flesh. You see, when you trusted Christ as Savior, God didn’t take away your sinful desires. I’ve had people say, well, when I got saved, got to go in my all my sinful desires. Why? He did not. What did you give him back to you later? He didn’t take away your… Well, I used to have the desire to smoke and I trusted the Lord And God took away my desire for smoking.

He did not. He took away my desire for drinking. No, he did not. He didn’t take away about any sensible natures. Or any of those, no, all you did is he gave you something better to live for. And you made a better choice. You found a better reason for living. And you can choose to go right back to smoking and go right back to drinking and go right back to the women or the men or you can do anything that you want to do.

But God took away your sinful desires. Why don’t He just go ahead and do it for all of us? I’ve been struggling with sinful desires for the last 58 years. And if I live another 50 years, I’m still gonna have to fight. There’s always the flesh and the lust. See what He says here, looking verse 17, for the flesh lusts against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary to one to the other, so they cannot do the things that you would.

But if you be led of the spirit, you’re not under the law. The flesh is, but not the spirit. Now the worst of the flesh are manifest. Now get this, this is so important. Worst of the flesh are manifest. Which of these? Adultery, fornication, and cleanness, he says, la diviseness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, various ambulations, craft, strife, sedition, hair, seeds, murders, and evening, drunkenness, and reveling, such like, all these things he’s oftogent time passed that they would choose such thanks and not inherit the kingdom of God.

Isn’t that clear? Now look over here. When you were born in the world, you have a flesh birth. You trust Christ to say, he gave you a new birth. This is the flesh, this is the spirit. This one can’t do anything right. This one can’t do anything wrong. And you get two birds. So when I was born to the world God gave me this one. I trusted Christ, God gave me this and I got two of them. So God said if you walk in the Spirit, won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.

So just because I walk in the Spirit doesn’t mean this one doesn’t exist. And just because I walk in the flesh doesn’t mean this one doesn’t exist. It’s that I’m letting this one control my life. And that’s why even Christians can still have the works of the flesh. And that’s why he says you’ve got a choice to make in life. And if I walk in the flesh, this is what’s going to happen. Now what were these Corinthian Christians doing?

Walking in the flesh. And that’s why they were doing the sins that they were doing. If you understand it and can discern that, then you’re moving on up. That’s what discernment, maturing in the Lord is grain and discernment. You’re honing in more about what God says and less about what man says. When you’re all in the flesh, you just know what man says and don’t know what God says. So do you want the will of God, then you have to study the word of God and replace this thinking of the flesh with the thinking from the word of God.

Is God’s love to his children? This is what God wants us to do. Now look at number three. They were sitting in judgment of those that were more spiritual than they were. See there, look during the Bible to the first Corinthians. In chapter four. First Corinthians in chapter four, and you’ll notice that they were doing some more of this comparing business. In your Bible, first Corinthians chapter four and verse six where it says, and these things brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollo’s for your sakes, that you might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be popped up for one against another.

Puffed up means you’re gonna try to exalt yourself over somebody else and you don’t need to do that. Not to be compared. And that’s the very next thing that I have done here. Number four, they were proud, proud and cause of pride. And the statement that I wrote here, I thought it was pretty good, so I put it in here for you. Pride puffeth up. 11, pompheth up dough and pride pumps up the flesh, leaving no room for grace, humility or spiritual discernment.

Pride is always right in your own eyes. And that’s why you know a person’s field with pride is when what they wanna say, do or go is contrary to what the word of God says. So they lift themselves up. Their knowledge is greater than the word of God. And therefore in their own eyes, they’re right. But it just happens to disagree with what God said, then that means that they’re lifted up with pride. And pride is from the flesh.

It’s not from because of a humble spirit to whatever God’s word has to say. Number five, they were calloused to sin in the church. First Corinthians in chapter five, look what he says here. And you’ll notice, now, there’s verses here that you can study some of these here later on in your room. Understand these were carnal Christians, fleshly minded Christians. And so they do exist. Now you’ll have some people, especially in the Calvinist movement, that will say there’s no such thing as a carnal Christian.

You’re either lost or spiritual. There’s no room for carnality. Because if you’re really safe, you’re not gonna wanna do that. So they eliminate the carnal man. So I have preached sermons, and I’ve got them on YouTube, where I talk about the carnal Christian defeats Calvinism. Because they say, well, if you’re saved, you will persevere in the faith. Well, a carnal Christian is diametrically opposed to persevere in the faith, because that’s why they’re carnal. They didn’t. And isn’t it true that there’s some people in the Bible that God took home because of their sin?

And if God took them home because of their sin, that means they didn’t come back. Well, whenever you get away, you’ll come back at the end. It doesn’t say that. No, God took them. But now, number five here in chapter five. It is reported commonly that there’s fornication among you as such fornication is not so much is named among the Gentile that once it had his father’s wife. This is what we’re talking about over there while ago in 2 Corinthians and about the sins that they have committed.

And this is what Paul is talking about. That these Christians were doing these things. I’ve had people say, well, if you’re a Christian, you’ll never commit adultery, you’ll never commit for an occasion, you’ll never commit murder, you’ll never do this. They don’t know the Bible. You see, what they’re using is not the word of God, they’re using their reason. Well, I just think if you gotta go to heaven, you gotta be good. So there’s only good people go to heaven, and they don’t know any good people, good enough to go.

Because there is nobody, has ever lived good enough to deserve to go to heaven. There is none. Because when Christ died on the cross, He paid for all the sins of all the world. Nobody was perfect. So that means nobody could qualify to go to heaven because you can’t commit one sin. Everybody’s guilty. That’s why Christ died for everybody. So now that you’ve trusted Christ to save it, does that automatically mean everybody’s now going to do right? Boy, wouldn’t it be wonderful?

Have you had children? How many of y’all in here have had children? Let me see. Some of you wouldn’t even raise your hand. You have children. Isn’t it wonderful? They just automatically do everything right. That’s automatic. They just automatically do everything right. Or have you had children and they, sometimes they do right and sometimes they do wrong? Most times they do wrong. Have you ever had to tell your children, no, don’t. Stop. Well, why? Because it comes from another old sinful nature.

natural to sin. It’s natural to be rebellious. It’s natural for us to go our own way. All we like sheep have gone astray. And the Lord have laid upon him Christ, the iniquity of us all, all. Everybody sins. And so because of the sin, and you notice what he says in verse two, you’re puffed up, but look there in your notes, proud of their tolerance and their open-mindedness. Well, we’ve got to show how open-minded, we can’t take a stand and hurt people’s like that.

So I thought this next point would be very good for you. Look at number six. They were immoral and needed church discipline. That’s chapter five, verses three through seven. You read those verses and no show. They were supposed to have church discipline. In other words, the church is supposed to say, that’s wrong and it’s not to be accepted. And be strong enough to have church discipline. Did you know that if I see something that’s wrong and needs to be dealt with, people always, the preacher’s at his job.

He’s supposed to do all of that. And then if I deal with something, I don’t think he should have done that. He shouldn’t have done that. He was wrong. I disagree with that. But if I don’t do something, he should have done something. He should have done something. I don’t know why he didn’t do something. Must be a coward. Well, he went ahead and did something. Dick tutorial dominating.

You see, people don’t like that. Yeah, yeah. Aren’t you glad nobody’s like that in this church? Look at the statement I have down here. They would not judge the sin nor conduct church discipline. What does it say about those who wrongly judge and condemn the leaders of the church when they judge the sin and conduct church discipline? If you do it, you’re wrong. And if you don’t do it, you’re wrong. You can’t wait for some people. I don’t get what it is.

But carnal Christians always said in judgment. What? Because they’re smarter. They’re wiser. It doesn’t matter how much you know about the Bible or how many years you’ve been teaching the Bible. That has nothing to do with it. I will save last week now. What do you want to know? And they haven’t got a clue of what’s going on. They cannot discern. They’re using their great human wisdom. Look at the next statement. They were taken each other to court and mistreated one another.

Spiritual believers know that life is not fair. If you’re spiritually minded, you automatically know. Well, at that’s not fair. Oh, really? You just come to run understanding that? I didn’t think it was fair when my sister would always get me in trouble and I got hooked in board. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair whenever I went to school and I got in trouble and got sent to the principal’s office and down there to the boiler room because another guy he threw an airplane.

And all I did was tell on him. So we both got to go to the boiler room and I’m talking about he lifted me high and I came down low. I have never enjoyed a weapon. I never got through it’s dead. That really felt good thing. Give me just a little bit more. No chasting for the present is joyous. But you see, some people just don’t learn because they never grow up. They’re never mature in the Lord. If I was to go over to Jesse’s house and I want to see how Jesse’s doing, what’s going on in his life, and little behold, I walk in there and they’re sitting in the living room and there’s Jesse and he’s playing with a baby rattler.

Kylo, do you realize what he’s doing? Oh, he does that every night. I’m gonna like that. That’s a little childish, isn’t it? You think, when you grow up, there are certain things you’re not supposed to do. Well, they had a problem in the church. And see, their problem was God had given to them certain gifts. And they were signed gifts. And then there was some of the gifts that were for the Jews. And then there were some of the gifts that were for edifying, making people strong to help teach them and educate them.

But the Christians see, They were falling in love with the toys, the trinkets, the things that belong to the children. You know, the little sign, we can play. And there’s people that are just like that because they’re carnal in their mind, fleshly minded. Now if you do not want to be judged as a fleshly minded carnal Christian, then discipline yourself. And that’s what the work comes from. That’s faithfulness, read and study and apply it. And seek to honor the Lord in everything that you do and watch your testimony at all times.

Be guarding. Look at the next statement here. At number eight, they were abusing their liberty in Christ and making others stumble. First, current in chapter eight, it talked about they cause other people to stumble, to fall over them. And this is why you’re supposed to be an example of the believer. Look at the scripture. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. If every Christian was that kind of an example, then other people that trust their life won’t stumble over you.

Do you lead people in the right way? If everybody lived for the Lord the way you lived for the Lord, what kind of Christian would they be? Would we be able to reach the world. Would they be so winners? Would they be thankful? This is why you always have to examine yourself. And this is why Paul, toward the end, said, examine yourself. And it just waits for the 13th chapter, 2 Corinthians, examine yourself. Are you doing what a Christian ought to do?

Are you really as spiritually minded as you think you are? Are you really studying God’s word? Do you really love one another the way you should? And they weren’t. And they were popped up and they were critical and they were bitter and all they’d use his heart. And sometimes when you tell them what they did and this is why they were accepted, here’s Paul. Paul, why are you so mean? Why are you so hard? What are you doing? Have you ever seen a child get ready to run out into the street and you say, darling, please don’t run out in the street.

There’s a truck coming and you’re just about to get hurt. Honey, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. Won’t you please turn around and come back? Is that how you do that? I don’t think so. Don’t you get out of the street! Why do you hold on to me? Oh, I just didn’t want you to get killed by the truck. And there’s sometimes you have to, the Bible says in Titus, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

Sometimes you have to be hit sharply. Sometimes kids have to be scolded. You show I would never raise my voice to my kids. Well, God bless you. You should have lived in my family for a while. I didn’t even know they could talk soft. And you didn’t want to get within arms reach of them. That’s for sure.

My daddy was not a fisherman, but we did go in a few way, the next traditions. Look at the next statement here. They were critical of Paul, number 10. They were coming to the Lord’s table. They were coming drunk. And number 11, they were acting in a frivolous way at the Lord’s Supper. They did not discern the purpose of the Lord’s Supper. They did not discern the power of the Lord’s Supper or the discern the judgment of the Lord’s Supper.

And they were relating to all of it. And the thing you do is wrong, but they were going through the motions. They were playing church, playing religion, but not serious, not between them and the Lord. And they just compared themselves among them. How is that? We’re gonna have the Lord’s Supper next Sunday And make sure everybody brings enough. Yup. Because we want to have a sociable drink. And the more jewelry drink, the more sociable we’ll get. I’ll never forget watching this one man when I went to the rescue mission.

He was standing outside the rescue mission. And he was drunk. He couldn’t hardly stand up. And he finally made it to a telephone pole. And he’s standing there. I love you. He said, how didn’t you ever drink? Give me a good reason. Hello, wall. Hugging a telephone pole. I didn’t have to do what somebody else does. You see, look, what you think about? What you missed out on? Yeah, I know I thought about that. I thought about that. Vomiting all over the place.

Can’t remember what I did. Getting sick, saying thing, doing thing I didn’t do. I really messed up my life, didn’t I? You know, to this day I’ve never had a drink of strong pink. The strongest thing I had was formula 4 to 4 coughs, and when I find out what was in it, I stopped that. You see, what are you doing now on cough? Number 12, they misused the spiritual gift that God given to them. They could not discern the difference between those things that were for children and signs.

for babes and the edification gifts that help make people strong in the Christian life. What kind of a Christian are you? Are you a spiritually minded child of God? Were you on a mind-the-spirit? Or you are fleshly minded. That means you want to mind the flesh. Remember, you’ve got the desires of the flesh, and you’ve got the desires of the spirit. And you’ll show your maturity by which one you obey. It is so clear. You walk in the flesh, you mind the flesh, you walk in the spirit, you mind the spirit.

And it’s clear cut choice and nobody can do it for you. ItAlias the decision that each one of us has to make. And so you can decide and today you may walk in the spirit and tomorrow you may walk in the flesh. Or you don’t have to wait that long, you know it’s afternoon. But you’re always coming and going. And some Christians are up here in their down here, up here in their there like a roller coaster, emotional. and they never know stability.

You serve the Lord and commit yourself to what God’s word has to say, and you’d be surprised how it stabilizes the mind. But you’d be wishy-washy, an unstable person, unstable in all of their ways, not just one or two, and all of their ways. That’s James chapter one. Look at the last thing here. The last thing, they were questioning the doctrine, the bodily resurrection, because anytime you begin to lack assurance and what the word of God says, when you lack discernment, you will begin to question your own salvation.

How do I know I’m really saved? You’ll begin to question the foundation of it. Somebody comes along and says, you know, you gotta keep the 10 commandments and bathe the golden room. You know, you gotta go to church and give money. Well, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. So now, well, what church I can go to. How much do I have to give? Well, it’s simple. Calvary Community Church. No. You don’t have to go to church to go to heaven, and you don’t have to give money to go to heaven.

I’m so glad eternal life is the gift of God. It’s not a works lest any man should boast. But once you trust Christ to save, God does want us to serve Scientxitiquid wants to serve because He wants to bless our life. You say, you don’t even want to bless your disobedient children. You want to be a blessing to your children, but you want your kids to do right. God wants us to do right because we’re going to have a knot to get there.

God wants to bless our life while we’re here. And He wants to reward us when we get to heaven. So He says here, and I put this the last two lines on this page. The devil can capture any carnal Christian at any time without fail and that they may recover themselves out of the sinner of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. Any person who doesn’t stay spiritually minded stays carnally minded and in a carnally minded person the devil can capture you.

You have no resistance. You can’t resist him and the temptations are going to be great and you’re going to fall. But remember it you did it to yourself. God’s word is simple and God’s word is clear and we have decisions to make And so, carnal Christians always justify their sin. It’s not my fault. It’s not that bad. Now whatever, you can play that game but you lose. Look up here. This hand represents you and me. The wallet represents sin.

We all have sin on us. God loves us. And because He loves us, well, He has to hate sin. And sin has to be paid for because we did it, and the wages of sin is death, and according to the law, the law has to be fulfilled. So we’ve all sinned, we’re all condemned. But God loves us and wants us to go to heaven, not hell. To go to heaven, we have to be perfect, and none of us are perfect.

We’re all sinned, we’ve all come short of God’s perfection. Nobody can save themselves. Nobody’s good enough. That’s why weLabour Savior. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord, God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because our sin separates us from God. We’re on the same boat. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. But because He loved us, all of us, He did something for all of us.

He took all of our sins. Now if He only took some of our sins, He didn’t help us. If He took all of our sins but one, He didn’t help us. And if He only took some of the sins of some of the people, we’d never know if we were included. But he took all the sin of all the world paid for them to cross and came back from the dead. Said the only thing that we have to do to go to heaven is believe that he did it for us.

And when we believe he did this for us, he puts the payment our account and we go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. That’s the best news in all the world. Let’s pray, Showery. His bow and I close, no one looking around. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, I urge you to do so. And now is a good time to do it. I am not God. I can’t read people’s minds. I’m not going to have you stand up or come forward.

I’m not here to trick you. But I do want to know what I said made sense. And if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you do that this morning? Would you trust the Lord? Would you simply, in your mind, believe that when Christ died, He died for you, paid for your sense and came back from the dead? Would you believe He did it for you? And if you’ll believe that, then He puts that payment He made to your account.

You have a payment for all of your sense. That means you don’t have any sense to pay, but you don’t have to go to hell and pay for it. Because Christ already did it. He’s already paid for him. And He gives you, there’s a free gift everlasting life. When? When you believe it. If you believe it right now, He gives you right now, eternal life. When you get up to leave, you can say, I have eternal life. I’m going to heaven when I die.

Because today I put my faith in Christ and what He did on the cross for me. Friends, you can’t earn it, you can’t work for it. But would you trust the Lord? And if you’re making that decision, I’m going to ask you in just a moment to raise your hand. Raising your hand doesn’t save you. It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you. Not going to pin you against the wall or embarrass you in any way.

But would you just slip it up very quickly and say, yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior. Yes, God bless you, sir. You can put it down. Anyone else? Anyone else just slip your hand up very quickly and put it right back down. If you trust Christ right now as your Savior, God saves you right now, gives you eternal life right now. Anyone else before we close? If you’re watching by internet, right on the screen says, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior.

Friend, I pray that you will. Father, we ask your blessings upon each person here and help distingutly to grow in grace, to grow in your word, to become spiritually minded. Where we wanna learn spiritual truth so that we can obey spiritual truth. That we don’t want to be carnally minded, fleshly minded, living in the flesh, living like lost people. But because we’re your children, and you’re our heavenly Father, well, I pray that each person here would choose to walk with you, to walk in the Spirit, to be obedient.

Thank you so much for the individual that they didn’t care about and uplift at hand that they would trust your Savior. And that Father would pray that there’d be those that are watching by internet that would trust your Savior also. Bless us, ministry. Thank you for all you do 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.

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. Hot 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.