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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. 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 prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us at 813-884-4328, or you can donate on the homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Turn in your Bible to the book of Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 and 9. I believe these two verses are very, very important. They’re two of my favorite verses in the Bible. I learned them a long, long time ago. They’ve been a lot to me and I thought I could wear them out But believe it or not, you just can’t wear them out. They just keep saying the same thing and they’re powerful verses.

But look during your Bible Ephesians chapter two verse eight and nine, four by grace are you saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. Now I have grown to love and appreciate the power that’s in the gospel because it’s either by grace or it’s by works. If it’s by works, there is absolutely no power whatsoever to save a man. And the reason is simple. A man cannot save himself by work so there’s no power there.

But when you talk about grace, it means that it takes the man and pushes him aside and tells you about Jesus Christ because you can’t have grace without Christ. And if you’re going to have Christ, it’s going to be grace. Years ago, I told a story and it’s a true story, but this year is important to me and I kind of go by certain periods of time that I’ll remember certain things. Now I’ve had a lot of experiences over the years, but as time goes on, they’re not as sharp as they used to be.

They’re not as clear as they used to be, but there’s certain stories that they stay as fresh as fresh can be. One is when I trust the Christ as my Savior. I’ll never forget that day. I’ll never forget what happened that day. I was there and I was there when it happens, so I don’t know. But since then I’ve had a lot of other things happen to me and somebody said, do you remember? No, I don’t. On the way to church this morning, Betty says, do you remember blah, blah, blah, blah, and I says, no, don’t recall that at all.

And it’s getting more, there’s more of them than like that. But the longer you live, the harder it gets to remember everything. And it’s not that I forgot anything, it’s just that I have to delete something because my hard drive is only so big. So if I want to learn something new, I got to delete something. That’s what I tell her when she goes shopping. Honey, if you bring in something new, something has to go out old. Oh, that’s not working so good.

So we have to build more closets, things like that. But I want to give you a story today that I have told a long time ago. And it means an awful lot to him. It’s called the Dora Lake story. I never saw the power of the gospel like it did in Dora Lake. I enjoy listening to Greg Steer tell some of my testimony because I like the way he tells it better than I do. And it was a great experience leading a couple of his uncles to the Lord and some of the things that have happened.

And he’s milked it for all it’s worth. Ray Stanford, when he found out about Ephesians 2, 8, 9, they said that he he milked it for all it was worth. In other words, you build a whole ministry off of Ephesians 2, 8, 9. Some people would think, well, that’s all they know. These people from Fort Ababa College, all they know is the gospel. Well, we might know a few other things, but this was a story that I want to read a couple things to you.

This is the true life story of a Minnesota community that was being held hostage by a religion of darkness. When the truth of God’s grace shown forth in the light of the gospel, how great was that light? That’s in the flyleaf of the book that I wrote called the Dora Lake story. And I want to say this, it’s difficult to tell a story that happened over 50 years ago. But many of those things to whom this story relates have already passed on.

They already didn’t have it, a lot of us people, but there’s a lot of them that have not passed on. The issue that’s depicted in this story is a story about the age-old battle of eternal security versus temporary salvation. Just how long really is a man saved? And so if Jesus Christ doesn’t save me forever He really doesn’t need to save me at all. Think about it. If he can’t save me forever, then he doesn’t need to save me at all because it has no value to it.

If it’s only until I sin again, then he might as well just keep it. Because I am a sinner. I was born a sinner just like you. So I am addressing a bunch of sinners today. I know you came in, thought that you was pretty good. You had yourself way up on that totem pole up there. And you’re such a great individual. But in the eyes of God, he says, we’ve all sinned, we’re wicked, we’re sheep, it’s gone astray, and we’re rebellious.

Not much good. Read Romans chapter 3. but I’m thankful for the Lord and what He’s done for me. A man that was the pastor of the church up there in Dora Lake, Minnesota. It was the Christian Missionary Alliance Church. His name was Floyd Seekings. I had met him, but after everything had taken place, he wrote this little article and he sent it to me. And this is what he says about their little place of their end, Northern Minnesota. Nestled in among the Norway pines and the heart of the Chippewa National Forest, in Northern Minnesota lies a very unique little community called Dora Lake.

To make a visit to that beautiful wooded paradise is to step back into time. The rest of the world didn’t wait for Doraleke in its mad rush for advancement and modernization. And he goes on and says a lot of things about that little sleepy town in northern Minnesota called Doraleke. The religion taught and lived there in the woods was truly the fire and brimstone kind, with great emphasis placed on sin and damnation. So they had preachers come in and they’d always preach, you know, a hell-fire and brimstone, turning from your sin, Christ the Lord of your life, and hitting the sawdustray on.

So many had never heard the clear gospel of Jesus Christ. He said, it was believed that it was necessary for one seeking salvation to turn from all of his sins and live a righteous and holy life. For the most part, this theology had served well in keeping the saints in line and hold on the standards high for the cause of Christ. Sadly, it had also served to alienate many of the younger generation from the church and from the hearing of the simple gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ.

Many had tried walking the sawdust trail several times. This was a method of walking the aisles to approach the mourners bench which they had done at the front. That was begun by the late evangelist Billy Sunday. Due to the rain and mud in these old logging camps, they would put down sawdust to keep them from sinking down into the mud. A direct quote from one who had seriously sought to get right with God was, I walked the sawdust trail 40 times and got nothing.

What was wrong? He thought that maybe God didn’t want him. Most who had tried a few times and seeking to get religion felt rejected and remained on the outside looking in. Now when I had gone to this church, many of the younger folks were no longer ago. It was a church of old folks. They didn’t go to church, but they knew you should. They didn’t keep the commandments, but they know you should. They know you’re supposed to support the church, but they didn’t.

They were lovers and they’d be out in the woods working, making a living. And it would get cold up there in them, temper woods. And I’m talking about it would get down to 40 and 15, 16, 70 below zero. I have been there when it has been that cold. Many of these were younger lumberjacks who had made attempt after attempt to clean up their lives, live like the great old saints of the church. They succeeded for the most part for a day or two.

Sometimes a few desperate ones held out for several months, only to fall back into their old habits of sin and be lost again. Only to now be a little harder to get saved the next time. They felt God’s Spirit convict them and draw them to religion. They were still far away from God’s real plan of salvation. So what is the use of trying? Now what I’m telling you right now is going on also in every church in America. There’s people who believe just this.

Many of them wanted to be saved. I heard from several who made the statement, when I know that I can live the life, then I’ll become a Christian. Consequently, they were never ready to be saved because they could never lived the life they knew was expected. And so they don’t want to be a hypocrite, so they just weren’t ready yet. I’m not ready yet because they can’t live the life yet. Most of them were related to each other that was in the church.

So one man who was among the number of believers had a part of the church for many years made the following statement, if I see a pretty girl and have wrong thoughts about her, And then I step into the street and get hit by a truck. I’m going straight to hell. His salvation was always on the line, depending on how well he lived the life. And there’s a lot of people who go to church every Sunday and believe the very same thing.

I’m saved as long as I live the life. But when I no longer live the life, then I’m going straight to hell. Or I’ve got to get saved again and again and again. Well, let me give you this. Now this is written by the pastor that was at the church. This is what I had walked into, people with this thinking. From close observation from a pastor’s point of view, it seems that for the most part they disregarded all but a few of their outward sins and felt they had lived the life acceptably, in other words the ones that was already in the church, they’re doing a good job.

As long as they didn’t smoke, drink, swear, or commit adultery, they felt a measure of security by living the life. And thus they continued year after year guided by this warped view of sin and their need to live the best they knew how. So there are people who don’t consider themselves a sinner as some people count sinners. I mean, they weren’t that bad, but they were in the church, older saints, living the good life. They didn’t see their little sins as a problem, only the big ones, and they didn’t do the big ones.

Outwardly, they were without spot, they thought. Doctornally, they were evangelical, they thought. Religiously, they were faithful and zealous, they thought. Spiritually, they were spirit-filled, and they thought their final judgment would depend on God, they thought. What did God think about how good they had lived the life? In the beginning, I need to go all the way back to when I was at Florida Bible College. I was a student in 1968 getting ready to graduate and I didn’t know where I was going to go.

And wherever the last chapel speaker was from, I’m going there. I’m going there. But the last one he came in was a guy named Cliff Taylor. And he was a missionary. Everybody looked up to this missionary. And he would go to Indian camps. And he was looking for an evangelist to go to the Indian camps with him. When I heard that man, I perked right up. To go to Indian, right in horses and teepees and bows and arrows. You know, long range and tanto.

And I told Ben in, we’re going. My kids were all excited. They couldn’t wait to see the Indians riding them ponies and, you know, living in TPs and all. We didn’t have a clue what to expect. We put everything we had in this little old Pontiac station wagon. So when I left Florida Bible College, we left in a little station wagon. We got to Sebring, Florida, and they had a little pop-up trailer. So we got that, and I’m on my way.

I have no job and I just spent most of my money on that tent trailer because we’re going to go to Indian camps. So we wind up in Romanos State Park in Oklahoma. And that was my first experience with some Indians. I did make a mistake. I was talking to my first meeting with them, trying to make the gospel clear and simple. And so here’s these little Indian kids and they’re just as, I didn’t know if all of them was on drugs.

They just looked at me. They didn’t smile. They didn’t crack it. And my jokes were awesome. And they would not laugh at any jokes. They just sat there and just look at me. And I thought, man, I done told the best one that I’ve gotten, no response. So finally I was trying to make sure they understood the clarity of the gospel. And I said, and God is not an Indian giver. Every one of them, they look right at me.

And I thought, this is where I die. And I realized, I done done it now. And I could see the tomahawks and the knives coming out and they’re fixing to take a few But I started talking as fast as I could and they finally calmed back down again. But I haven’t made that mistake again. But I wanted to make the gospel clear. That was a Roman estate part. We left from there and wound up going to Chanto, Arizona, where we worked with the Hopi and the Navajos.

And then we left from there and went to Ames, Iowa. And then we left from there and went up into Blackgut, Minnesota. And then Pine Ridge, South Dakota. we wind up in Denver, Colorado. And there was a church there, the Northwest Evangelical Free Church. I had a pastor there, his name was R.T. Yeder. And he was the pastor, but also on the board, where Dr. Clifton L. Fowler started the Rotman Bible College. And then he retired and went to Florida and led Ray Stanford to the Lord.

And now I’m up there and I became his assistant of the college that wound up leading Ray Stanford to the Lord. What a world. If that worked for a while, and then I was there for about a year and a half. But that fall, this guy was getting me to go and travel and speak in different places. And so when I would go and speak with the Christian Businessmen Association, and I’d give the gospel and they’d fly me to Utah and Nevada and different places Wyoming, Anyway, this one time I need you to go and speak to these hunters.

Hunters that comes in from everywhere and they go to a place called the Hunters Bankwood. They’re in Walden, Colorado, one of the Coes that’s real close to Frazier, which is the coldest place in America in the winter time. So they had me go to this Hunters banquet. So that means it has to be in the run of October. Elk season. I’d never seen an elk. So we went to this hunters banquet and I didn’t know anybody except this one guy that got me to go there.

And so they’re all sitting around and they’re all eating in steaks and I mean eating good stuff. And so after they all got through eating they asked me if I would say something. So they gave me about a half an hour to speak. So when I spoke I gave the gospel, like I always do. I explained the gospel how that God so loved the world, paid for all of our sins, died on the cross, came back from the dead and said, the only thing we had to do was believe he did it for us.

He’d give us eternal life. And I says, once God saves you, he gives you eternal life, and he never casts you out, never lose you. You can know that you’re going to heaven when you die. And I’d let him know that, yes, I have trusted Christ as my Savior, he’s paid for my sins. And the reason I can’t go to hell is because I don’t have any sins to pay for him. And the reason I can’t go to hell in the future because he paid for those two.

I don’t have any sins to pay for it. And you can’t know you’re going there until you know you can’t go there. And I can’t go there, why? Because the only reason you go there, because you gotta pay for some sins, well I didn’t pay for mine. Christ did it for me. I’m clear, I’m good to go. I made it clear as best as I possibly could. Now, if it was over with, four men came walking up to me.

I had never seen them before, didn’t know them. And they all had a beard, because they had made a vow that they would not shave until they got their help. It was gonna be around here for some, no, they still they all had a beard. I thought they were men of knights. So they came up and said, we like what you said. Would you come to Minnesota and speak at our church? I said, sure. And they gave me a little card.

I gave him a phone number on the back of the track. And I thought I’ll never see them again. But by January, I got a call. They wanna know, you remember, you promised that you’d come up here. Sure. So they told me the dates and so forth like that. So I talked to the pastor of the church there, and I said, what do they believe? Because I didn’t know anything about Christian, Eastern, and your alliance church. And he says, well, they’re Dr.

Statham, similar to ours. I said, okay, then there’s no problem. Cause I just want to know. So anyway, we… Go to Minneapolis and guy Floyd seeking to pick me up and drove me up there and I’m thinking this is we’re driving. Where’s the people? It was in the dead of wintertime. This isn’t like in March. And there’s no red lights and we’re supposed to be in Dora Lake. I didn’t see a stop sign. I didn’t see a red light.

I didn’t see a place that hit your horse. And I thought, where’s the people live? He says, they’re all over the place. OK? The snow was real high. And they had cleared it off. And you couldn’t even see over some of the banks. It got to the church. And it was a little church. I turned to boonies. And the house was next door to the parsness. And they put me upstairs. And I thought, Lord, this is gonna be interesting.

I was wondering what no world’s gonna happen, but anyway, I got a good nice sleep. And that morning, there was some people showed up. So they came out of the woodwork, they were there, it wasn’t a great crowd, but it was a good crowd. And so I gave the gospel like I usually do and had several people trust Christ’s savior. Well, a guy came over to see Floyd and told him, and says, I know he’s your guest speaker, But I want you to know I do not agree with what he’s teaching.

But because he’s a guest speaker, I’m going to stay away and I don’t want to cause any trouble. And Freud says, OK, but he told me. So that night, I told him, I said, we’re going to have a Bible study where you can ask questions and answers. So they came that night and I didn’t know who was who. And so I opened up for questions and answers and one person raised their hand. What about James chapter two? So I explained James chapter two.

Do you have to keep the 10 commandments that go to heaven? They were just waiting to say no. And I says, no, you don’t have to keep the 10 commandments. When did somebody else ask them the question? Then somebody else asked the question. And finally this one guy stood up and he didn’t ask the question, he was making a statement. He said, I want everybody here to know. I don’t agree with you. We don’t believe what you’re teaching because they knew what I was teaching was eternal security.

Once you’re saved, you’re always saved. And they don’t believe that. And this year one lady, she stood up and she looked over at him. I’m sending up there because I’m just taking questions. She looked over here and she says, sir, I went to your church for 10 years. And I never understood how to go to heaven until this morning. So why don’t you sit on and shut up? And that’s when I understood there’s some preachers here. I found out later there were five of them, five preachers.

Because see that guy, he said he’s not gonna come back and cause injury, he went around and he told everybody, don’t let your people go to here this Yankee Arnold. He is a false prophet. Well, they hadn’t heard a false prophet before. So they came to see what I was like. He did better advertising for me than anybody. And so everything was rocking along pretty good. Been finally all one night. I was at Jim Smith’s house. I was laying on the floor.

I had a bad bank trouble. I had to have a thing around my kind of like a vest, but had two steel rods in the back of it. And I had gone through that for a while. And I was hurting. And I was laying on this floor because I could hardly stand up. And I was in such pain. And I used to think, Lord, why are you gonna let me go through such pain? I’m not, I’m good to tell people how to go to heaven.

But anyway, he got a phone call and says, Jankie, there’s some men up here. They wanna talk to you. And they said, now I’ll tell you now, they’re planning on doing some harm and running you out of town on a rail. I said, well, let’s just go see him now, I guess, and get it over with my back, just kill him anyway. So Jim Smith, we got in the car. We drove up to their house. And none of these guys had been to any of the meetings.

But their wives would come home and tell them what I said. This guy, he says from Colorado, he says, you don’t have to go to church to go to heaven. You don’t have to keep the 10 commandments that go to heaven. And all of that made them mad because they know you do, but they didn’t. So anyway, we got to his house. They opened the door and I walked on end. I just assumed that he followed me in. But he stayed at the door, but I didn’t know that I walked on end into the living room.

Next thing you know, I’ve got about four or five guys. And they came at me. And I mean, they were in my face. And they started hollering and yelling and screaming right in my face. They were mad. I didn’t find out until later they had planned on doing me a lot of harm. One guy said they were fixing to do away with you. I mean they were going to do away with you. And I said you mean, yeah that’s what they mean.

I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time. I just thought they just want to come and talk to them. So finally I told them I said, would you give me ten minutes then you can ask me any question. They agreed. So they backed off and one went to the corner and one went on and said over there. And so I started talking and I gave the gospel as clear as I knew how. I even did the wall of illustration.

Let me show you what, so you’ll know what I did. This is you and me. This is sin and we all have sin on us. God loves us, hates our sin. The Bible says all have sinned, we’re all condemned, we’re all going to hell. But God loves us, wants us to go to heaven, to go to heaven, you got to be perfect, as righteous as God. None of us are perfect. None of us are good enough to go to heaven.

We cannot earn our way to heaven. This hand represents Jesus Christ, he’s the Lord God in the flesh, came into the world because he loved us, hates our sin because it separates us from it. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead, and said the only thing we had to do is believe he did the force. And I quoted Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. And this one guy, he looked at me, he says, are you through?

And I was. Time was up. Like I keep my word. I says yes. And this one guy is sitting on the couch. He says, that verse you just read, can you show me that in the Bible? I said, yes, I can. He says, do it. These are all lumberjacks. And they were not so much as big, but they were, I’m a preacher. One time I came to North Side Baptist Church, my first day at church, and I went to the door and people coming out shaking my hand.

And this one lady came out and she shook my hand and said, all your hands are so soft. Well anyway, I’m not a lumberjack. So I had to get control of myself. He said, show me. So I took the Bible and I went over to it, and I showed him he phasing until eight and nine. And he looked at it and he read it, and he looked up, he says, you fellows, shut up. It’s in the Bible. He trusted Christ to say, he was just like that.

When he saw that it was free, it was a gift. There was another guy standing over there on the wall, his name was Chan Adams. He says, I see it, I see it. And he ran out of the house. The other two, they didn’t. But eventually we wound up leaving. But I didn’t know that when Chan ran out of the house, he went to his house. It was just right down the street. He walked in there to his wife and he told his wife, he says, honey, I’m going to heaven.

She says, the blank v blank blank you are. He said, no, no, no, no, no, no, I’m going to heaven. You are not going to, if anybody’s not going to heaven, you’re not going to heaven. He says, honey, I am. He picked a candy bar up off the table. He said, here, take this candy bar. She said, I don’t want no candy bar. Take the candy bar. take the candy bar. That’s the way it is. And she understood God offers it and you receive it.

That’s the way it is. It’s free, hon. It’s free. And she trusted Christ as her Savior. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment enjoyed our commitment to the clear Jesus Christ. You can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing 813-884-4328. That’s 884-4328. That’s 884-4328.

To listen to today’s message again, or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our homepage at Bible.org and go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030, and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

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, believing that the Lord is coming soon. And just keep looking up.