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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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

But the reason we want people to go Lord is because we know that one day they’re going to die. If nobody died, we wouldn’t have to worry about it. But since everybody is going to die, everybody needs to know how to go to heaven. If there’s anything you want to get right in this whole world, it ought to be you’re right about how to go to heaven. Would it be a shame for you to come to church for 20, 30, 40 years?

And then you die, you don’t go to heaven because you really didn’t get it. You thought you had it. You thought he had it nailed down, but you weren’t really saved. Now, I know that there’s people who think they are saved and they’re not saved because I’ve let a million people do the Lord that have not really trusted Christ as their Savior. I got a couple this morning on my email. Now I know I’m saved. Now I know I’m going to heaven when I die and they didn’t know it before.

I’ve had pastors from the Philippines and other countries where the people now I finally get it. So it’s not something that everybody understands, but I want you to take your Bible very quickly and turn to the book of 2 Peter and chapter 3. 2 Peter and chapter 3, because it is the will of God for everyone who trusts Christ’s Savior to grow in the Lord. Grow in grace. To grow up somebody said well where did you grow up? Well I grew up in Athens, Georgia.

Well somewhere along the line I had to first get to Athens, Georgia. I can’t grow up in Georgia but where’d you grow up? Tampa, Florida. Have you ever lived there? No. Well you may have a problem with that. Something doesn’t jive. No. When the Bible says here in verse 17, you therefore belevent seeing you know these things before beware lest you also been led away with the air of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness, but in verse 18.

He’s talking to the believers. Christians can fall from their faithfulness to the Lord. I can’t lose salvation. Once you’re saved you’re always saved, but you may not always be walking with the Lord and you can stumble and you can fall. So he says here in verse 18 but and here’s those three words grow in grace. You can’t grow in grace unless you are in grace. You have to get in grace before you can grow. No person can grow into salvation.

You have to first have salvation before you can grow in grace. You have to get in grace. And that’s the problem. Many people think they are. They have people that pose, fess the Lord. I believe in Jesus. Where are you going to go today? Well, hell if I don’t change. But I believe in Jesus. I’ve been saved from what? Can you still go to hell in the future. Oh yes, then you don’t get it. You don’t understand it. And if somebody was to ask you this question, you mean I can go out here and live as I please still go to heaven when I die?

They, oh no, no, no, no, no, they don’t get it. You mean you’re trying to tell us that you can go out here and live like you please and still go to heaven when you die? If you trust in Christ’s Savior, yes. And any preacher who says, no, don’t get They don’t understand the gospel because they still believe that you ought to live as a Christian in order to go to heaven. And be so close and so far away.

I want you to take your Bible and turn with me very quickly to the book of Matthew in chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7, just to show you this very quickly, we won’t spend much time here. But in Matthew and chapter 7, and while you turn in there, some of you already have your scriptures found, but look there in the introduction. While they appear to be on the opposite extremes of the theological spectrum, the consistent Calvinist That’s who believes in perseverance of the saints.

Well, if you really got it, you’re gonna live it And if you don’t live it, you don’t have it So you have to live it to prove that you got it But if you don’t live it whether then who becomes the judge of how well you’re living it How well do you have to live it? Well, you got to live the Christian life. Okay, how well? I mean, can I miss church once or twice? Even if I miss three times in a row, I’m kicked out You know, like in college classes, on excuse absences.

The next statement, if you don’t live it, is because you never had it. And the absolute Armenian who believes you can lose your salvation, arrive at the same conclusion in the end. In other words, if you believe in Calvinism and you have to live it to prove that you got it, then you can’t know you really had it until you die. And if you’re an Armenian, you believe you can be saved today but lose it in the future, you really don’t know you won’t lose it so you still have to wait till you die to find out you got it.

That’s not the gospel. That is not good news to anybody. Good news is that you can be justified today. Declared, righteous, be given the free gift of eternal life and God will never cast you out and never lose you for the rest of your life. Now for example, I trust the Lord when I was 18 years old and Christ I pay for all my sins, I’m going to heaven when I die. Regardless of whatever I’ve done, I’m forgiven. But what if I had waited?

Because not some people say, well, you can’t go out here and live like the devil and still expect to go to heaven. If you do all these bad things, no he gonna keep you out. All right. Let’s say I didn’t trust the Lord when I was 18. I’m gonna wait till I’m 99. And I’m going to live to 99. But if I trust the Lord when I’m 99, everything I’ve ever done, regardless of how bad it was, God will save me and forgive me for all those bad things.

I’ve done 99 years old, and I trust the Lord. If He can do that when I’m 99, why couldn’t He have done the same thing when I was 18? Because He all those sins that I’m going to commit, He already paid for it. So it’s not when I trust Christ as my Savior, it’s that what did He do for me? He paid for all of my sins, not just up to the time I was 18 years old, and then the rest of it doesn’t count and I can’t go to heaven because I do all the bad things in the future.

My destination is not based upon how I live my life. It’s on whom that I trust to save me. And that’s grace. I don’t deserve to go to heaven. I didn’t deserve it then. And then after 58 more years, I still do not deserve it. But I’m gonna go to heaven because Christ paid for my sins. Now, He looked here in Matthew chapter seven, look at verse 21. You’ll have to admit that there were some people who posed fast the Lord, but did not possess the Lord.

See in verse 21, Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. But he that doeth the will of my father, which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name cast out devils and thy name done many one to four works. So they believe they should go. I can come in.

I told somebody just this the other day. I said, let’s just pretend. I’m God. I always like it when I pretend. I’m God. This is my heaven and you just died. You show up at the perfect gates and I say, well, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you tell me? And I said, what am I? Because I’ve been good. Because I’ve been good. I’m sorry, but you have to be perfect. Well, nobody’s perfect. That’s the point.

That’s why you had to accept somebody who was and you’re getting on his account. See, Jesus Christ went and paid for all the sins of the world and you have to come through Christ. No man come up unto the Father except through the Son. You don’t come through Christ, you don’t go. You don’t get in and it doesn’t matter how good of a life you lived and how meaningful you were and it’s in sheer you were but you don’t go.

So you can profess that, well, I know I’ve been to church all my life. I’m signing the choir and I take up the offering and I do this. None of that matters. Nothing matters except one thing. Did you or did you not trust Jesus Christ and Him alone as your only hope of going to heaven? You said, well, I live better than most people. It has nothing to do with how you live. And people cannot believe that. So that’s why in their mind, I live better than other people.

So I deserve to go more than they do. do. No you don’t. You see heaven is a perfect place. You have to be perfect to go there. And it doesn’t matter how good of a life you lived. Have you ever sinned once? One sins all it takes. Can’t get in. But anyway, I want you to look at the next statement. Number one, eternal security does not mean that all who profess to trust Christ actually possess eternal life. Do you want to wait until the last day.

Do you want to wait until you face God to see if whether or not you’re going to make it? Wouldn’t it be good news if you knew it ahead of time? Of course, to know it ahead of time. See, I already know I’m going to heaven whenever I die. But before I understood that I was always under the impression, you know, if you’re a good little boy, they get to go to heaven. Nobody ever knew where the girls went.

But the good little boys go to heaven and the bad little boys don’t get to go. And so you wonder whether or how good do I have to be to go? And how bad do I have to be to go there? Have you ever seen a guy leading the singing? Oh, and the role is called up yonder. I’ll be there. Well, I mean there. Now, look at number two. eternal security does not mean that all who trust Christ plus their good works are eternally secure.

God never promised to save anybody if they add their good life to it. God says you’re saved by grace. Only thing you can add to it is your good works. And so if you’re going to be saved by good works and you try to add that to grace you have a null grace because grace means the absence of work and works means the absence of grace. So his salvation going to heaven is it by works or is it free?

And the Bible says the gift of God, he turned like his the gift of God. If it’s by grace in this verse of the gift, it cannot be by your works. Regults, what you think in your mind? Doesn’t matter, well that’s not fair. You’re not the one they call on it. You’re not the judge. You didn’t make heaven, you didn’t make hell, you didn’t make yourself. You got to go by the one who who made those plays, and this is what he said.

He says, it’s free. And yet there’s a multitude of churches today, and preachers on the ready, you own television, telling people they’ve got to be good to go to heaven. You’ve got to give money to go to heaven. You’ve got to join the church to go to heaven. No, you don’t. You don’t have to give one penny to go to heaven. Never. And you don’t have to do one good work to go to heaven. You don’t have to go to church to go to heaven.

Now most preachers won’t say that because they want people, and they want money. I’m gonna be checking out of here pretty soon. If the Lord is a teary, it won’t pardon me too long. Well, I don’t need to tell you a lie. What do I need to lie to you for? I’m gonna tell you the truth because I don’t want you to be somebody who professed that you know the Lord, but you really have never trusted Him in your Savior.

You don’t possess Him. Does He have you? Do you have Him? I know the Lord. And Jesus says there in Matthew chapter seven, He said, the part for me, you workers of iniquity, He said, I never knew you. I never knew you. In other words, you never trust the Christ of Savior. That’s why it’s so important. Now, in Titus in chapter three, look at it very quickly. We’ve got a number of verses that we want to look at, but we won’t get to cover all of them, of course.

But in the book of Titus and chapter three, right after the teas and timethies, but in Titus and chapter three, look there in verse five. You don’t have this first underlying in your Bible. I would highly recommend it because it’s a good verse to sow somebody. Look how it starts off. It starts off with not by works of righteousness which we have done, but in contrast to according to his mercy he did what? He saves us. You see, you were not saved because of your works.

You didn’t earn it. You don’t have a right to be saved. It is a gift of God. And that’s why he says, he saved us by the washing of regeneration. That means giving you a brand new birth born by the Spirit of God. You find that in the book of John in chapter three. And in chapter verse three and verse five. So take a Bible and look at two other verses. Now these two verses are some of my favorite verses in the whole Bible.

And these verses are worthy of men referred to over and over and over again. I have led many, many people to the Lord just by explaining Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. I was up in Minnesota one year. And it was a dark day in my life, I thought. Everything seemed to be going wrong. I had back trouble, I was landing on the sky’s floor. My back was killing me, I couldn’t understand. And before that, say I had a big old thing, I had to wear around me, I had two metal bars the back of it and I had to tighten the nuts and I could hardly walk.

I mean I went through that for several years. Anyway I’m laying on the floor and the phone, the guy says there’s some people that want to meet with you. And they hadn’t come out to any of the meetings but their wives had and so the wives were going home and telling their husbands what I had said. But you didn’t have to keep the Danke members to go to heaven while they knew you had to do that. And so there was going to, no, they’d cure me, they were going to ride out of town on a rail and they had planned on doing some other things too but I didn’t know that at the time.

I didn’t know they’d plan on taking me out of this world. They were planning on doing evil to me but I didn’t know that. If I had known that, I wouldn’t have went to their house that night. But I said, well, why don’t we go see them? I said, okay, I said, go with me. Yeah, I’ll go with you. So we went to see this, these people, there was about three full guys there. And when I went in there, it looked like a local hanging cloud in there, And anyway, I went on in and the guy I thought was falling right behind me, but he was He stopped at the door, but I didn’t know that’s all I didn’t live in them Next thing you know I got out through four guys and they all come right at me and they hollered and yell and screaming at me and getting in my

Face important. I mean they were they were mad. I haven’t even I’ve never met him before But they knew you had to keep the 10 commandlessly go to heaven And that’s when I had I said, can I just have 10 minutes? uninterrupted and then you can ask me a question you want. So they agreed so they backed up against the wall one went over there and sat right across from him and sat down on my couch and I said as much as I could that was the fastest ten minutes of my life and finally one of them says are you through?

I hated to say it but I was. He says that verse you read he says can you show me that in the Bible? I said yes I can. He said do it. I opened my Bible to a physician to eight and nine and I walked over to him. I got down where he could read it and look what it says for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast it was contrary to everything they had heard.

They said, you’ve got to go to church. Now they didn’t go to church. You got to live in good light. Well, they didn’t. But they know you’re supposed to and you’re not supposed to go around telling people opposite of that. And you got to keep the tent commandments. Of course, they didn’t know what they were, but you got to keep them. And so when I explained that to them, he looked up and he says, the other guy says, sit on it, shut up.

It’s in the book. They believed the Bible. They didn’t know what it said. I’m not sure what it said. Pieces two, He went to the church to say to that night “$He made me the next morning. He trusted Christ to say to that night, he became the elder in the church that started to occur later. And another guy that led to the Lord that night, he became the other elder. And then his son, well, they met me the next morning, he trusts the Lord, went to Florida Bible college for a year with five kids.

And when he went one year. And they started to, and he was the pastor of the church for about 35 years. All because of the fees to eight nine. a powerful verse. Look what it says. He was, oh, I know the Bible. I’ve been through the Bible. You understand that. If you don’t understand that, you didn’t get it. For by grace, are you saved? Through faith, that means you put your faith in what Christ did for you. That not of yourselves, it’s not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, blessed any man should boast and yet you’ll be surprised how many people think we’re going to heaven because well I live pretty good I’m doing the best I can I’m as good as anybody else and don’t get it has nothing to do with your eternal destination because the eternal life is the gift of God it’s free Look at the next statement. Eternal security does not mean that knowing for sure that you are saved forever should be a license to sin, but rather grants you liberty to serve Christ.

I’ve had so many people say, well, all you’re doing is giving people a license to sin. 🙂 Okay, if I don’t tell them the gospel, what are they doing anyway? What are they doing anyway? How are people living their lives now? If they had never met me, if I had never said a word, they’re still doing exactly what they want to do. They’re living higher, but they want to do it. live. So don’t blame it on me for how they live and don’t blame it on me or God or the gospel when people live like the devil.

I know God and I know the Bible and I believe in the Lord and I don’t try to live like the devil just because I believe that I have eternal life and I’m going to heaven when I die. Just the opposite. I want to live for the Lord with all my heart and serving all the days of my life. I want to live as God as I possibly can. And it’s because I don’t have to.

Just the opposite. Because I know he loves me because he paid for all of my sins. And I know he loves me because he gave me eternal life and he never cast me out. And I know it because he, I’m his child and he’s not my heavenly Father. And also I understand that He said, he’d bless my life if I would serve him and he’d chase me if I didn’t. And I would rather have God’s blessings. I’m often wondered why God allowed me to have a dad that beat the tar out of me every time I turned around.

To let me know, it’s better to obey than disobey. Because now I have a heavenly father. And my heavenly father doesn’t go around didn’t up in the morning and says, I’m going to get yankee today. Now my earthly father, He would give me a weapon just for general principal. He didn’t have to know what it was that I did. He just know I did something. And I’d get a weapon. If I got one in school and I got home, I got another one.

And he didn’t take me out behind the woods yet. Didn’t do it anywhere he was at any moment. Now let me tell you this. And this is truth, right where I am. My dad came to the house one day. Remember, we lived, we out in the woods. My dad was a bootleker. We didn’t live in town. Somebody said, you raised on the wrong side of the tracks? No, there weren’t no tracks. I didn’t even sure there was roads. But anyway, my dad brought this guy to the house and he was going to eat with us that night.

And let me know. We had a table, but we had two benches on each side of it. And my momma sat down there, and my daddy said on this end, and there was me and him and their sister, Ned. Ned was always a little bit older than me. And across from me was Lizzie, and then there’s this guy. I’d never met him before, but he said right there, I still remember his name, manual freeman, never figured his name, and I’ve tried to, but I can’t even forget him.

I only met him one day, my whole life, and I remember his name. And there’s a reason for remembering his name. We’re sitting there eating, and my sister sitting beside me and cheating, elbows me. It says, yeah, she says, look at him, and I say, look at him. He’s ugly, and I land. My dad’s like, what are you laughing at? Nothing. He said it like that. And we ate some more. Yeah. He looks like a monkey don’t eat. Five six years old.

My laugh. He was funny. I looked over at him. Yeah. This time my dad says, what are you laughing at? But the way he said it, you know, it ain’t going to work this time. I got to tell him why I’m laughing. Now, I’m five six years old. I haven’t learned the art of lion. But they always say, you know, it’s always better to tell the truth. No, it ain’t. My daddy says, what are you laughing at? I just, just as quickly as I could, I just says, he looks like a monkey.

My dad came back with his hand, took me clean off that bench. I went airborne all the way to the wall, and down to the floor. Then he picked me up, and he took me outside, and he finished killing me. I died. I died a number of times. Guess what happened to my sister? Nothing. Nothing ever happened to her. I always got in trouble. But I never wanted to get close to my dad. It was close to your father?

No. But I got me a heavenly father, and I’m not scared of him. And he is just. But I think I want God’s blessings upon my life instead of God having to chase in me. I wanna be a happy kid. And I find out if I obey my heavenly Father, I’ll be so much more happier. And I know he’s going to bless him like so that he promised. So I serve the Lord not because I have to, but because I want to.

Now some people think, well, you’ve got to do right. But they don’t. Well, they did. Well, why don’t they? If you’ve got to be good and good to go to heaven, I’m going to earn it. Yeah, well, when are you going to start? That anyway, that’s mentioned that number four does not mean that a Christian can’t live as he plays and get away without chastise them. chastise them. God said He will chasten His children. So I’m His child. So I know my heavenly Father says that He loves me and He chastens every son whom He received it.

So can I live like a place? Yes! Can I get away with it? No! Do you understand that? Your kid, born into your family, your daddy, the kid walk up and he says, Mom, Dad, I just ought to let to know. So it’s I’m your child, I’m always your child, right? Right? So therefore I can live like I please you. Try it. And when you were a little kid, what would they have done to you? Murdered you just like my daddy did me.

If you had any good parents at all. Now, look down at the next statement. I want you to see this because it’s so important. The absolute assurance of eternal salvation is based on the unfailing and sure promises of God. Now we covered this very well in Sunday school class this morning. You said, well, I wasn’t there. Yeah, no. Anyway, in order to show the contrast between grace and works, Paul in Romans states this. Now look at this verse. This is awesome.

Put this right there in the book, Romans in chapter 4. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace. In other words, if you work for your salvation. Then that means that God is in debt to you. God must pay you because you earned the right to go to heaven. So he says, now to him that work is the reward not recognized. So your salvation would not be by grace. It would be because you did such a good job and God is in debt.

He owes you. But do you think that’s what the Bible wants to do. How to go to heaven? No, look at the rest of it. But to Him get this, that worketh not, but believe it on Him that justifyeth the young Godly, his faith is counted for righteousness. In other words, if I will simply put my confidence in what Christ did for me, He paid for my sins. So that means if I really believe that’s it, I don’t have any sins paid for.

Now people, they hear that, but they can’t believe, they didn’t, I can’t believe you said that. You can’t go to hell because you don’t have a sense of pay for, who do you think you are? Well, what do you think I’m going to heaven? Because I don’t have any sense to pay for. Who paid for my sins then? Jesus. Well, how many of my sins did he pay for? Now if it was 99.1%, he didn’t help me now. Why?

That one sin don’t mean? He paid all or he didn’t do me any favors at all. And he can’t save me. Don’t read and he can forgive me of all my sins and he paid for all my sins. 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 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