This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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.

Look at the next statement. It’s in the bowl right in the middle of your page. the doctrine of eternal security is not a separate doctrine from salvation, it is salvation. That is the gospel. That’s what makes it good news. Then saved forever is good news. If I told you if you trusted Christ as your Savior, God would save you for a day, how long you think you’d be saved for? A day. If you trust Christ as your Savior, He’ll save you for a week.

How long would you think you’d be saved for? At least it’d be good. Good through a week. What if I told you it was before a month? What if I told you before a year? What if I told you it’s forever? Wouldn’t that be eternal security? It’s eternal security. He said he didn’t believe it to me half, present ten half, life for a week. Life till he sins again. Life as long as he keeps giving money and keeps going to the Calvary Community Church.

I don’t want you to go to this any church. Now look at the next statement, believing in eternal security is the only sure way of proving that a person truly believes in salvation by faith. You see, if it is eternal security, then it would have to be by faith, because if it was by your works, there’s no guarantee there on what you’re going to do today or tomorrow. So your salvation depends upon your works. And God already said, not of works.

So God not gonna save anybody because you work. So he says, by faith, by grace, if you really believe that salvation is by grace, then you’ve got no problem with eternal security. If you believe it just by your faith and what Christ did for you, you have no problem with eternal security. If you believe in, it was simply by trusting in Christ, alone, then you would have no problem with eternal security. If you do really believe that salvation is without man’s works, then you can believe in eternal security.

But you see, are there people that do not believe in eternal security? It’s because they don’t believe us by faith alone. They don’t believe us by grace alone. They don’t believe us by Christ alone. They don’t believe that it’s not by your works. They do believe us by their works. The only way a person can lose their salvation their salvation depends upon their good works. They’re trusting in what they do or don’t do as the means of their salvation.

That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. And church is a full of them and there’s preachers that are preaching that type of a message. We don’t preach that here and we don’t want anybody to be confused. We want you to know we admit what we are sinners saved by grace. We’re We’re not better than anybody else. God has saved us because we have trusted in what Christ did for us. He paid for our sins. Now look at number three.

It is impossible to please God without faith. So I want you to take your Bible-looking Revelation, chapter four, Revelation and chapter four. Because see, after you have trusted Christ a Savior and you know you can not lose your salvation because that’s the only kind of salvation God has is eternal salvation. So then what happens with the things that I do in my life? What happens with the bad decisions I make and the sinful deeds that I do and the sinful thoughts that I have, what about all of that?

Well, see, you have a choice now. You can seek to either please the Lord, your heavenly Father, or please yourself and do whatever you want. So there is a battle of the wills, God’s will versus your will. And they’re not always on the same wavelength. They’re not always on the same page. Sometimes you want to do things that God doesn’t want you to do. So you have a choice. God says, I want you to please me because of what I did for you.

And you’ll find that in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 14. For the love of Christ constraineth us or motivates us because we thus judge that if one died for all, then all were dead. And that they which live should not henceforth live. them to themselves but unto him who died for them and rose again. So God tells us what He wants us to do and why we should do it. So after I trusted Christ as my Savior, I had a choice.

I wanted to please the one who did all of that for me because I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to go to church. I don’t have to change my life. I don’t have to read the Bible. I don’t have to pray and I don’t have to give. I don’t have to be a missionary. I don’t have to win souls, but I fell in love with the Lord. And when I fell in love with the Lord, I wanted to do all that.

Isn’t it better to have a motive that I’m doing what I do because I love Him than I, well, I have to do it? I’m not here today because, well, I have to, but I love the Lord. And love is a powerful motivating force in anybody’s life. So he makes a statement here in verse 11 of chapter 4, the book of Revelation, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. Why is he worthy? Do you know who he is?

Do you realize what he’s done and what he’s going to do? He is worthy to receive honor and praise and glory from every one of us. And we ought to live our lives in such a way that brings praise and honor and glory because He is worthy. But look at the rest of it. For thou hath created all things and for get this, you know, I don’t lie in your Bible, thy pleasure, thou art and were created. You and I were created for His pleasure to please God.

But what is generally the goal of most people is to please themselves? What do I want to do with my life? What do I want to be? What do I want? No, what does God want? I have a choice. I can be what God wants me to be or whatever I want. I can do whatever God wants or whatever I want. But stop and think. If I decide to serve the Lord, my heavenly Father promises to bless me. I win.

And He will reward me when I get to heaven. I win. But if I decide to live my life for myself, I lose. And I lose rewards that I could have had. I lose, I lose, I lose, I lose. Now think about it. Do I want to be a winner or a loser? It’s your choice. You’re either going to win or lose. Basically, your choice, your decision for the pleasure of our art and we’re created. So you know why God made you and who you’re supposed to please.

So take your Bible and turn over there to the book of Hebrews, the book of Hebrews in chapter 11, Hebrews and chapter 11. And you’ll notice there’s a wonderful verse here that lets you see one of the greatest motivating forces in the Bible. What faith will get you, look, what works could not get you, faith could. Faith in Christ gets you eternal life, gets you into heaven, gets you a brand new body, live forever with the Lord and enter into pleasures and joys forevermore.

All that, what faith got you. But after you’re saved, did you know if you’ll live your life, believe in what God says about the rest of your life and what He wants you to do, you’d be surprised at all the benefits there are. Looking verse 5, by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death. Now he lived before the flood and he says, so and so lived and he died and he lived and he died and so lived and he died.

Chapter 5, they all died except one person. Enoch walked with God and he was and he was not for God took him because he had this testimony. He He plays God. And He only lived to me about 300 and something years old for a guy. The other one was going up there in 800. And He only got to live at 365. I’ll tell you, He’s just a short period of time. That’s all I’m worried is almost 290 years longer than I’ve lived.

But He plays God and God took Him. Look what He says here. That’s why He says He was translated. He didn’t die. God took him because God had translated him. For before his translation he had this testimony, see those words? He plays God. That’s it, God won’t make you live your life to place him. He’ll just make you wish you had him. You see, my life is miserable and I’m just misery. Everything going wrong and everything’s good. I’m glad to hear that.

It ought to be. You say, I’m miserable. You ought to be miserable. You see, if you don’t learn to trust the Lord and get the joy of the Lord, well then why should you be so happy? You’re going to be miserable because God says, I’ll put a yoke of iron upon your neck. neck because I’ll serve of not the Lord thy God with joyfulness of heart. I’ll put a yoke of iron upon your neck till it destroys you. And a lot of people are just living under this weight because they’ve never trusted God enough to cast all their cares upon Him.

And those cares of life will weigh you down and burden you because you’re such misery and such grief. Well anyway, look what he says here. He plays God now looking verse 6, but without faith it is impossible. See that word impossible? It is impossible for a man to please God without faith. And he says, for he that comeeth to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Tim or seek to please him.

You must believe that God is a rewarder of them that seek to please God. If I seek to please God, I’m gonna be the winner and God’s gonna reward me for doing so. Now you tell me, why shouldn’t I serve the Lord? Why should I play the silly little game? Well, I don’t know if I will. I don’t know if I want to stop all that stuff. I committed myself to Christ years ago. Nothing get to heaven, but I want His blessings and I want to learn to please the Lord.

And I want to live my life by faith in what God’s Word says. And you’d be surprised what it can do for you and the joy that it can bring. So yes, that’s what God wants us to do. Now, number four, let’s take a look at this. Look in Matthew chapter six, it is impossible, I believe for a man that once he has earned rewards to lose those rewards. I’m not saying I’m totally right on this, I just believe I am, because there’s a lot of preachers that don’t believe it.

They may be right and I may be wrong, but I’ll tell you the reasons why I believe it. In the book of Matthew in chapter six, you’ll notice there in verse 19. It is impossible, I believe, to lose rewards once I’ve earned. Otherwise, you won’t have anything unless you’re serving the Lord the day you die. It’s your only hope. Because if I laid him up and I used to think this, I did these good deeds, I laid up treasure in heaven.

Okay, the next day I messed up. Okay, God, take them away. So the next day I did some more good deeds. I laid up some more. And then next day I messed up again. He took him away. Well, this way I’m never going to have anything. If I keep losing what I laid up, then what am I going to have? I need to make sure that whenever I die, I’m doing good deeds on that one day or whenever that’s going to be.

And I can’t get nothing for any of those other times that I laid up, treasure, did all that good work. God can’t reward me for that. But then that contradicts the verses in the book of Hebrews in chapter 6 where it says, God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love. The work that I have done, the labor that I have, has to still count. But anyway, we look here in verse 19, lay up for yourselves treasure, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.

Why? What would be the reasons where moth and rust of corrupt and where thieves break through and steal. In other words, somebody’s stealing what you have. In other words, lay not up for yourselves, treasure for another, because you can lose it. Can you see that? I mean, can you come to that conclusion? The reason is because you can lose it. Yes or no? You can lose it, right? Look at the next verse. But in contrast, lay up for yourselves, treasure in heaven, where neither Moth nor Ross nor a deaf corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal.

What would be the purpose of that? You can’t lose it. Can you see that? I don’t want to add to the scripture but I want to use a little common sense that I think in the one he’s saying you laid up here you’re gonna lose it and you laid up there you won’t lose it. So is that yank theology? It might be based upon scripture. But there’s verses in the Bible that talks about let no man take thy crown.

Well, I don’t get the crown until I get the heaven. So, is somebody going to get up into heaven and take my crown? Or is because down here you allow somebody to do your work and they get your reward. Because sometimes some people will do what they’re supposed to do, but in Galatians and chapter 6 it says, bear your own burdens. Then it says bear one another’s burdens. Not only do what I do, but sometimes you have to do what somebody else does.

The Bible talks about a pastor who was nine in the death because of the lack of labor that somebody else was supposed to do, they didn’t do it, and he had more work put upon him because of that. If you’ve got five men carrying a great big old heavy log on their shoulders, and one of them says, you know, this thing is just too heavy, I can’t bear this, I quit. Now how many is left carrying that same log?

Did the log get lighter because of one man quit? It got lighter for him, didn’t it? That’s the way the ministry is. There’s always somebody that says, well, if I don’t do it, God will get somebody else. And maybe he does. God wanted Moses to be the spokesman, but Moses said, no Lord, I can’t speak. Get somebody else to do that. And God was angry with Moses and God, Aaron, and Aaron calls him a lot of trouble down the road too.

And sometimes God may have something he wants you to do. But I don’t want to do that. So it doesn’t please me. If Jesus Christ came in here right now and told every one of you in here, I want you, you, you, you, you, and you and you in the choir next Sunday. Well, who does he think he is?

I mean, why should I try to please him? I’ve got my own life to live. Well, so did he. But he gave up his, remember? Consider him. And you’d be surprised how much could be accomplished in the work of the Lord if people would not shudge their responsibility. Let God do something. Now get somebody else. But maybe God wants each one of us. Do what you can do. And God will bless you for doing it. But will rewards once they’re earned.

Because see, whenever you get to heaven, it’s eternity. It’s one long day. God’s going to reward you there for what sacrifices you made here. Do you know, let me just kind of tell you this. This is the truth. This is the truth. They say confession is good for the soul. And you say, you’re going to confess your sins? Sure, I’m going to set up a booth over here and I’m on charge of money to come in here. No. Anybody here know that I like golf?

How many of y’all have heard that? God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. All right. So I like golf. God is a lot like life. You work all day to get to the green and wind up in the hole when you get there. Now, I like God. And lo and behold, they usually wind up having to play off. The last day is on a Sunday. Everybody know that? They usually have it on Sunday afternoon. And they usually finish right at 6 o’clock.

Every Sunday, they finish at 6 o’clock. What time did our church service start? 6 o’clock. Now I know why y’all are in here. And I have this urge when I want to finish. They always finish at six. And church server starts at six. I can’t do both, can I? So I bought my television right here. And I made a mistake one time in Jordan. I said, take your Bible and turn to Daniel, channel nine. But I have to love something more than that.

So I have to give up, sacrifice a little bit. But you know what? I want to be known for faithfulness. So that when I get to heaven, God says, I know that battle you went through. I saw you, now I wanna let you watch all the reruns. But there is an advantage of serving the Lord, believing that what God said He will do and He will reward you. You must believe that He is and is a rewarder of them that diligently seek to please Him.

Do you believe that? Take your Bible look in chapter 10. the book of Matthew in chapter 10. Remember, he makes a statement here in Matthew in chapter 10. Look in verse 32, “‘Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father, which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, and will I also deny before my Father, which is in heaven.'” Oh, that’s scary. What’s he gonna deny me? It doesn’t say right there.

If I confess him, he’ll confess me. If I deny him, he’ll deny me. So some people read that verse in there. If you don’t confess and live for the Lord here, he’s gonna deny you. You can’t get in. You’ll see it has nothing to do with salvation. Has nothing to do with going to heaven. This is talking about serving the Lord. He’s talking to his apostles about going and what they’re supposed to do. So he makes the statement here and I want you to see this.

Look what he says there in verse 37. He that loveth father or mother. Now you don’t have to love God to go to heaven. We’re going to heaven because God loved us. God so loved the world. After you trust Christ to save you, if you start reading the Bible, lo and behold, you just love it to fall in love with the Lord. And love is a great motivating factor in your life. So that’s why when you stay away from church, when you could go and you’re not in the Word like you ought to be, your love for the Lord is not as strong as it ought to be.

It cannot be. It will not be. The fallen love of the Lord, you have to fall in love with the Word. Now, look what he says here in the last part of verse 37, he says, and he that love of son or daughter, more than me is not worthy of me. I mean, you’re not worthy to serve God. You’re not fit to serve God because you won’t serve God because you don’t love him enough to serve God. You don’t love enough to deny yourself certain things and you don’t love him enough to pick up your cross and follow him.

You said, all boy’s done is do you or do you not love the Lord and nobody can make you love God. We don’t love God to go to heaven but God wants us to love him because of what he’s done for us. And then he says on top of that, I’m going to bless you and I’m going to reward you when you get to heaven and it will be worth it all. And like Peter says while I go, I wish I had given him more.

I wish I had given him more.” Oh, look what he says down here. He says the same thing in verse 38, not worthy. Now, look in verse 41, he that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s, what’s that word? Reward. And in the, he that receiveth a righteous man, the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. See, we’re not talking about salvation, salvation is a gift. But rewards are earned, especially upon what you do.

Me confessing Christ before others, I’m going to get rewarded for that. But if I deny the Lord here, He’s going to deny me rewards when I get to heaven. You see, you put it in the context. We’re not talking about how to get to heaven, but you’d be surprised how many preachers are used these verses saying that you got to confess Christ before me, and that’s all standing and saying 14 verses of just as I am. And you think because you came forward in the church, I confess Christ before man.

That’s not what he’s talking about, it’s in your life. Live in such a way that you confess who you know and who you love. Look what he says in verse 42. This is the verse I want to remark. And whosoever shall give to drink under one of these little ones, they cup of cold water. Only in the name of the disciple, barely I send you, he shall in no wise do what? Lose his reward. You mean God’s up there keeping track of who gives who water?

Even a cup of water. And the Bible also says in the same chapter that when a sparrow falls, doesn’t your heavenly Father know it? Are you not more value that a sparrow that God sees you and he watches over you and he knows everything that you do for him. And you cannot lose putting God first in your life. Trust him for your health, trust him for your finances, Trust him for everything is, but seek to please him and everything that you do.

What happens to you in life is not that important. It’s what you do with what happens to you. Does it push you closer to the Lord? Or does it become a wedge and push you further from the Lord? That depends on where you are with the Lord. You see, if you wanna get closer to the Lord, you can let everything that happens, just make it closer. But if you don’t love them like you ought to and there’s something else, then you’ll let anything come in there and push your way and I’ll push you toward the things that you want and you love.

And you will live your life to please yourself, but God wants more for us. Down at the bottom of the page, I put it in bold, it’s a great verse in the book of Corinthians in chapter 15, verse 58. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding, Always the bounding. What’s those next words? Or slap my mouth. That’s what your whole life’s supposed to be revolved around doing the work of God.

You see, even if you’re married, you can do the work of God as a good wife, good husband, a good father, mother, children obeying your parents. It doesn’t matter where you are, the job you have, honor God and serve God with all your heart, wherever you are. and get this, abounded in the work of the Lord. For as much as you know that you’re labor, get this, your labor is not in vain in the Lord. That means everything you do for the Lord.

It’s not in vain. It’s advantageous for you. There is reward for you. There are blessings for you. This life is only a few years to prepare for eternity. And if you live by faith, that means you believe that what God said, it is true. And you believe that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek to place them. And you can wait till then to get your rewards. And if you’ll give God the praise, honor, and glory now, when you get there, he says in 1 Peter in chapter 1 verse 7, he says that you will receive praise, honor, and glory from God.

So you can give it here to God, and there God will get it to you. Be patient and wait, it will be worth the wait. Guarantee, look up here. This hand represents you and me, and the wall represents sin. and we all have sin on us. God loves us. Now the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. That means everybody who sins dies. And that’s what happens. So we’ve all sinned and so we’ve all going to be separated from God for all eternity in the literal fire burning hell.

But God said he loves us. Once it’s to go to heaven, to go to heaven, you have to be perfect as righteousness is God. And none of us are perfect. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection. So God says, you cannot save yourself impossible. So what was impossible for a man is possible with God. So this hand represents Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. Because God’s he can’t die. So he was born into this world and took upon him a body.

And he says, a body has not prepared me. And in this body, he lived a perfect righteous holy life. So he never committed a sin, so he never had to die, but because he loved us. He took all the sin of all the world. The debt we owed, he took it, he paid for it on the cross. Came back from the dead. And he says, the only thing that any of us have to do, regardless of all your sins you did, all he paid for.

From the person you think, that’s never done anything wrong, So the worst person you can think of in history, he died for that person. God so loved the world. Doesn’t matter who the person is, everybody. He died because God so loved the world. You and I may not love everybody like that. He did, and he came back from the dead and said the only thing he wanted us to do, believe he did it for us. So you’re saved by grace through faith in what he did.

Grace means without works. Not a works list, any man should boast. So we don’t go to heaven because of all the good things we’ve done. It’s because of what he did. He paid for my sins. So if somebody asked me, Yankee, where are you going to die? I’m going to heaven. How do you know Christ paid for my sins? There is no other answer. There’s nothing else that’s acceptable. He paid for my sins. Why? So that I wouldn’t have to.

So you see, I don’t have to pay for my sins. So you don’t deserve it. That’s what grace says, you don’t deserve it. Nobody in this room deserves to go to heaven, but we’ll go to heaven because Christ died for our sins. And when we believe it, He puts that payment to our account and we get to go to heaven. And He said, I’ll never cast you out, I’ll never lose you. And I’d give them eternal life and they shall never perish.

This is your invitation to join us for our third Sunday dinner held in the Florida Bible College of Tampa building on the Calvary Community Church Campus. The dinner is a family-style, covered-ish dinner, and a great way to showcase your favorite dish and pick up new recipes. Each month, you have the opportunity to invite your family and friends to join us for our Sunday morning service at 1030, and then stay for our third Sunday dinner immediately following noon. Third Sundays at Calvary Community Church, where you’ll be fed spiritually and physically.

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.