Bibleline Radio Show – 2007-05-21 – Hebrews 6:4-6

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Hank Lindstrom. Coming to you from Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Declaring God’s love through radio and television. Providing real answers to an ever-searching world. Got a question? Dial toll free at 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. Now here’s the host of Bibleline, Dr. Hank Lindstrom. Well, good morning and welcome to Bibleline. Great to be with you today. Thanks for tuning into the broadcast. We look forward to being with you every day Monday through Friday. This is Monday and we’re coming to you live from our studios right here in Tampa, Florida at the Calvary Community Church.

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We have Bible right in front of me here and we’re going to talk about Hebrews chapter 6. It seems like more people get confused about this passage and Hebrews has a number of passages that I would consider difficult. And apparently most Bible teachers consider difficult because you’ll find very few commentaries written on Hebrews. I think they all want to avoid it because they find it difficult to explain. But really, it’s not that tough. I have a series that I taught ten hours of teaching on Hebrews.

We cover all the difficult passages and we try to get those answered for you. We hope that you’ll maybe consider getting that series on CD and you’ll be able to go right through the book of Hebrews with us, verse by verse. In any case, Hebrews here is addressed to believers and is talking about maturity and moving forward as a Christian in chapters 5 and 6. And it says in verse 1, therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ.

go on to maturity, not laying again. The foundation of repentance from dead works. Now what in the world does that mean? Repentance from dead works. Well that’s really how we get saved. Repent means to change your mind. It comes from the Greek word metanoia and it means a change of mind. Meta means change. Neuia means mine. The two words together metanoia mean a change of mind. And it’s really saying here and what a wonderful phrase and I hear I have never heard in fact that preacher ever hollowed us out from the pulpit.

It would certainly be good if they did I think and that is repent from dead works. Repent from dead works. What does that mean? Most people are trusting in their works to get them to heaven. I would say most of what is called Christianity is teaching works are necessary for someone to enter heaven and I see it all the time in and tracks. I hear it all the time on the radio, on TV evangelist, and of course in books I read, it’s everywhere.

It seems like works for salvation is the main belief system out there. When the Bible tells us salvation is not of works, and here this verse is telling us that works cannot produce life. They’re dead. They’re not life producing. Christ is His life. Jesus said in John 14, 6, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. And no man can come into the Father but by me. John 11, 25, Jesus said I am the resurrection and the life.

He’s God. And God is the source of all life. No life can exist apart from the fact that God is the one who not only has given life but sustains life. And if you want to live in heaven forever, you will not find life or eternal life or forgiveness of sin or an entrance into heaven by your works. The Bible says the foundation by which we got saved is that we laid that foundation of repentance, a change of mind from works being able to save us, recognizing that they are dead works.

They cannot produce anything but death. The Bible teaches that if you try to work your way to heaven, you’ll not make heaven. So you’ll experience the wages of sin which is death, which ultimately means not only physical death, but the second death which the Bible describes as being cast into the eternal lake of fire. Revelation 20 verse 14 says that they were cast into the everlasting lake of fire. This is the second death. So every unbeliever will experience two deaths.

the first death being physical death, the separation of the soul from the body, the second death, the separation of the soul from God, in hell forever. But if you’ve been born again, if you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior, recognizing that your works cannot save you, but only Christ can, then you will find that you’ll only die once. In other words, somebody said it this way. If you’re born once, you’ll die twice. But if you’re born twice, you’ll only die once.

And guess what? There will be some that will be exempted even from that first death because we’ll be raptured up, transformed into our new bodies on the way up, and we’ll never experience death at all. Jesus talked about it. And John 11, 26, He said, there are some that will believe that are living when I come back and He says they shall never die. They’ll never die. Wow. So there is a group exempt from death that will never die that are the ones that are living when he comes back.

There are pictures of it in the Old Testament. Enoch was one. He never died. He was walking with the Lord one day and all of a sudden the Lord translated him. Or you might say, beamed him up. It’s almost a Star Trek type of an event. He got caught up or beamed up or translated right from where he was to be with the Lord. That’s what’s going to happen at the Rapture. And we who are living when it happens, and I think we’re getting close, it could be the Lord would come maybe even this year.

I’m not at eight-center, but I certainly am looking all the time as we should be. If you’re the normal Christian, and the Bible is what defines the normal Christian, you will be looking for Christ’s return. If you’re normal, as the Bible describes it, you’ll be witnessing every Christian that is normal. assumes it throughout the New Testament, you’re going to tell somebody else about Christ. It’s the Great Commission. We’re to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

Certainly it’s assumed that the normal Christian would be witnessing, would be looking for Christ’s return, and so on and so on. Numerous things. So, here’s talking about moving on to perfection, not laying again this foundation of a change of bind. He says, He says, From Works that we need to recognize that they cannot produce life, but they are dead works. And then says, Faith toward God. We place our faith in what God did for us at the cross by sending his son to die for you and for me.

And that’s when we’re saved. Then he goes on down and it says that if we were to fall away in verse 6, in verse 4 it says it is impossible for those basically that are saved. have points here that mark out that these are people that are genuinely saved. They were enlightened, they tasted of the heavenly gift, I believe that’s eternal life. The Bible says in Romans 623, the gift of God is eternal life. This heavenly gift is eternal life, I believe, and numerous other verses we could quote, but then it says made partakers of the Holy Spirit.

You can’t receive the Holy Spirit until you get saved and you receive the Holy Spirit when you get saved and every believer has the Holy Spirit in dwelling them. So these are saved people. It takes the good word of God and the powers of the world to come. Verse 6 says, If they should fall away. This is not talking about losing your salvation. That’s impossible. It’s impossible. But it’s talking about falling away, as it says in chapter 2 of Hebrews, drifting away from the things of God and of the truths that are taught in God’s Word.

And you can drift away. You can kind of move off the track and kind of just be in neutral and not going anywhere as a Christian. A lot of Christians aren’t going very far. They don’t make any real progress. And so it says here, if you fall away, which means that you kind of drift off and you get away from serving the Lord, it says it’s impossible, verse 6, to be saved again. That’s what it’s saying here. It’s impossible to notice what it says here in verse 6, excuse me.

It says it’s impossible to renew them again under repentance. That’s the foundation. That’s how you got saved. You changed your mind about how sin was paid for. It cannot be earned. It cannot be paid for by works, works only produce death not life. And so somebody who is attempting to be saved by works will not make heaven. So the basic decision you made when you got saved was you changed your mind and realized works won’t save me, only Christ can save me and you trust Christ.

Well it says it’s impossible to go back and do that again. So what it’s saying here is if you get away from serving the Lord you don’t have to go back and become saved again, you’ve never lost your salvation, but you need to get back and serve the Lord again. It says if you attempt to be saved again, which some people try to do, in some churches they’re born again and again and again and again and again, they get saved supposedly, which I don’t believe they do, because they believe they can lose it, they’re really trusting in their works, they’re not saved at all, but then supposedly they lose it, they come back and they get saved again and then they lose it during the week and they come back and get saved again and the Bible teaches no such doctrine as that.

Once you’re saved as it says here, it’s impossible to go back and be saved again because you’re already saved forever by Christ’s death. And when you attempt to, if you do attempt to be saved again, you crucify to yourself the Son of God afresh. So this is basically crucifying Christ to yourself. Christ will never die again, but you crucify to yourself and it says you put him to an open chain. You give a bad message, a bad testimony because you’re saying to people that Christ one time definite across wasn’t sufficient to save you forever.

So you have to go back and crucify him all over again. Interestingly, that’s what the Mass does. Every time the Mass is offered up, Christ is crucified all over again. The Catechism The catechism says the mass is the unbloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ again to pay for sin. And then the next question in the catechism I have here on my desk says, is it the same sacrifice as that of Calvary? Answer in the Roman Catholic catechism is that the mass is the same sacrifice as that of Calvary.

So the Roman Catholic Church teaches it’s the sacrifice of Christ all over again to pay for sin. every time the masses offered. Can you imagine how many masses are offered up and how many times Christ has been crucified? Over and over and over and over again, the Bible says that’s impossible. You simply do it to yourself and you are giving a bad message, you’re putting Christ to shame by saying that his one-time death He was not sufficient. I love Hebrews 1-3.

What a great verse it is about our salvation. Speaking of Christ, it says, Christ being the brightness of God’s glory, the expressed image of His person, upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself. Notice when He had by Himself, when He had by Himself, purged our sins. Christ by Himself purged our sins at any set down. That meant the work was done never to be repeated. Christ will never die twice, three times more.

times, four times, five times, or millions of times as some have crucified him so many times over. It’s amazing. But the Bible teaches he’d only die once and by himself without our help he paid for all of our sins at the cross of Calvary. I’m so glad he did and I’m saved and I’m saved eternally and I trusted Christ as an 18 and I receivedATURES the wonderful gift of everlasting life. And that was the best news that I’ve ever heard and never will hear better news than that.

You can’t get it any better than that. I think God loved you. So Hebrews chapter 6 goes on to say that we need to continue to labor for Christ. God is not unrighteous. Verse 10 tells us to forget our labor of love. Whatever you do, God will remember it and reward you in heaven. So get back serving again. You don’t go back and try to become saved again. That’s impossible is what it’s saying. All right, we have Jack in Tampa, Florida, and we’re going to the phone lines.

The phone number is 1-800-576-3771, and we’re welcoming Jack to the program from Tampa, Florida. Good morning, Pastor. Good morning. Pastor, a few weeks ago, I was listening to the radio with Dr. James B. Kennedy, and he had a guest on 90 minutes in heaven. This particular man was in a car accident, was killed, was pronounced dead, and then another pastor came and prayed over him and he came alive. But during that time he said he was in heaven, he saw certain relatives.

I was in a bookstore looking for this book. I came across another book called 23 Minutes in Hell. This particular man died, well, he was sleeping and he woke up in hell. He described what it was like. I’m still shaken up what I read in this book, to be honest with you, what he went through. Then Jesus came and pulled him out. Of course, he said he was a Christian. Anyway, I did finally find this book about 90 minutes until my question to you is, I know you don’t believe, and I agree with your thinking on this, and it’s not your thinking it’s what the Bible said.

But these demons that were in hell, he said they were enormous, they were gross looking, it smelled so bad, you wouldn’t even, it would kill you, it was so hot that in normal human being would just know and it was torment and it was just horrible and it just shutters the think of some of the things I read and it basically Jesus gave him a message tell the world that I’m coming very very soon it’s happened to him in 1998 did you happen to read these two books as of late I know they just came out I don’t know if you I’m better than you were the first one but I don’t agree with either one of them you know nobody goes to hell and comes back In fact, nobody goes to heaven and comes back.

It says in Revelation in chapter 1, Jesus said that he has the keys to Hades. First of all, nobody’s in hell yet. Hell is really reserved for Satan and his angels first. Matthew 2541 says, depart from me cursed and nevertheless enfired for the devil and his angels. the thousand-year reign of Christ, Satan is cast in and of course is co-hearts, the false prophet and the Antichrist are cast in prior to that. And those three are in first, then Satan’s angels.

Then the unsaved of the human realm are brought up out of Hades, which is a separate place, a place of flame and torment for sure, in the heart of the earth, not a purgatory. Nobody ever gets out of that place to go to heaven. They all wind up in hell forever, but they’re cast in the hell, but not until after the great white throne judgment where the unsaved dead are given a degree of punishment and hell. So Christ has the key.

Nobody’s letting anybody enter out. And if you’re saved, you go to your absolute friend about you, President of the Lord, you’re not coming back. Now Paul is an exception where he was killed and I believe God resurrected him. And that was a real experience in Acts 14. You can read about it and then 2 Corinthians 12. He actually was caught up in the heaven, but he said he heard things and saw things that were unlawful for him to talk about.

So to keep his mouth shut, God gave him an illness, an infirmity, in his flesh. The Bible says to buffet him and to keep him humble so that he wouldn’t talk. And so he was not allowed to talk. So why are these guys allowed to talk? They’re not allowed to talk. This is I think some of the nonsense that we have out there today that is totally unscriptural. And I like, and we have the book here in our Resource Center, One Minute After You Die by Erwin Lutzer.

And he doesn’t try to tell you that he had the experience of going to heaven or hell and coming back. But he describes exactly what it will be like using the scripture. That’s wonderful. A powerful book and a comforting book for somebody who’s grieving. If you know somebody who’s about to lose someone or has lost someone recently, this is a great book to let them know about the afterlife and about many have gotten saved through this book. It’s a good one.

But I totally reject the other as being false. The devil, of course, wants to get you to read things that may or may not be true, and in this case I believe are not true, and he tickles your ear. What does it say in Second Timothy? They would not in the last days endure sound doctrine, but they would heap to themselves teachers because their ears want to be tickled and they want to read these stories which are basically fiction.

They are not true. We have Corrine and she’s a listener from Alabama and or maybe it’s he, I’m not sure Corrine. Welcome to Bibleline we’ll find out. Yes sir. Good morning. I just think. How you doing? Right. Me and my brother was talking last night and we were trying to understand the revelations chapter 21 and 22 about the New Jerusalem. We didn’t understand. I told them that I knew someone that could explain it to us and tell us what it mean.

And if you could explain it. Well the New Jerusalem is the heavenly city which is God’s city. It’s the city of the living God it says. Hebrews 1222 and we’re going to go there and live there with the Lord and he’s going to be living in the city with us. He’ll be the light of the city and we’ll fellowship with the Lord forever never. This city is huge. It’s larger than the moon and it will orbit the new earth and Revelation 21 and 22 give us a lot of detail about the size, about the materials that it’s built out of and who is going to enter which its only believers, there are twelve gates and each gate is named after one of the sons of Jacob.

So you have to go through a gate named after a Jew to enter heaven. So obviously Israel plays a major role in bringing us salvation through Christ who would come through the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and God has wonderful promises that will be fulfilled in the future for Israel. And one of those, of course, is the blessing that they will be the gates of heaven, or the New Jerusalem will be named after the sons of Jacob. Hopefully that helps a little bit.

I would read carefully Revelation 21 and 22. That’s the most definitive passage about this. Now, there we have Laurie in Newport, Richie, and she says, is it wrong for Hank Hennigraft to tell his listeners not to stand behind Israel? He says we should not because the Bible says not to stand behind any one specific ethnic group. What should be a good response? She wants to call his radio show to defend Israel. How would you defend the Bible’s position? I believe it’s all the way back there in Genesis 12-3 where God says I’ll bless those that bless thee and I’ll curse those that curse thee.

So there’s no neutral ground allowed for there. You’ll find that same promise was reiterated much, much later when Balaam in the book of Numbers was being hired by Balaam, the king of Moab to curse Israel. And They all got a message from God there. You better not try to do that. You might remember the story His donkey was headed down the trail so he could pick up his reward for selling out the nation of Israel and The donkey saw the angel of the Lord with a sword there ready to kill bail And the donkey stopped and of course bail got angry and he kicked and beat his donkey to get him to move forward Obviously when God opened his eyes and he saw what happened and the donkey spoke to him He has got a lot of them to realize, oops, I just was killed by the

Lord himself because I was going to be disobedient. And he reiterates that whole promise. How can anyone curse this people which God has blessed? And God’s promises to them will still be fulfilled in the future? If not, then we have a God that’s a liar. He made promises that he never intended to keep. Or he’s an impotent God that made promises he’s not capable of keeping. Or thirdly, the correct answer is he’s fully going to keep these promises to Israel.

I think we’re living right now watching the God preparing Israel for the Messiah. They are already back in their land and they are going through the time of difficulty the Bible said that they would. Laurie, thank you for that call. Obviously we need to stand with Israel more than ever as believers. Those who do are the ones in the judgment of the nations that Christ will commend for having given water in His name and to have clothes and helped and assisted.

This is the Gentiles who get saved helping Jews during the tribulation period and they’ll be commended by Christ for doing so. Thank you, Lord. Great question. I believe that position is wrong and we should defend Israel and be behind them for sure. They need salvation through Christ, but we need to be standing beside them in these days and no doubt God is blessed America because we have, but I think God is going to bring a curse on Israel on America because we are turning against Israel.

We’re going to go to break and come back and do a second half of Bible lines. Keep your radio tuned right where it is. I’m Dr. Englundsstrom. This is Bible and we’re coming to you live out of Tampa and we’ll be back in just a few moments. Don’t go away. Don’t go away. Bibleline will be back in a moment. Give us a call at 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. I am Dr. Inglitzer. It’s great to be with you. Thanks again for tuning in today to Bible Line.

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Would you like to call Bibleline and ask Dr. Lindstrom a question? You can. Just pick up your phone and dial 1-800-576-3771. Now here again is Dr. Hank Lindstrom. Alright, we’re back from that break and it’s Bibleline and we’re coming to you live from Tampa, Florida from our studios right here at the Kelbrick Community Church around the pastor. And we look forward to being with you each and every day. This is Monday, and we should be here all week long, Monday through Friday, and hopefully you’ll be tuning in.

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But Bibleline of course needs your prayers and needs your support. I want to thank you in advance. God bless all of you who do give to Bible and we’re going to go to the phone lines again. The phone number is 1-800-576-3771 and we have Joyce in Charlottesville, New York and welcome to Bibleline from New York. Joyce. Yes, Dr. Hank, how are you? Good. Good, Dr. Hank, I have two questions. In Act 837, when the eunuch wanted to be baptized, and he asked Philip, what do I have to do to be baptized?

And so it’s said to him, believe with all that in heart. And the eunuch said, I believe that Jesus is the son of God and he was able to be baptized. Does this mean that you can’t be saved unless you believe with all your heart, meaning absolutely no doubt? I don’t think it means without doubts, but it means that you’re not trusting in anything else but Jesus, that he alone is the Savior. So you’re not trusting in baptism, church membership and other things, but with your whole being, your trusting Christ alone, not to save you.

I see. And my second question is, the other day, excuse me, a fellow called in about a minister who had murdered his wife, it told himself. And his church had determined that he probably was never saved. And you said, not true, because a Christian can’t commit murder and still be saved like David. And I agree in certain cases. But then what does 1 John 3, 15 mean? When it says, who so ever haters his brother is a murderer? And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

That’s a good question. Of course, that applies to all of us. I think everybody has experienced hatred sometime or another and therefore you have committed murder. But the interesting phrase there in that verse is you know that no murderer had to turn a life abiding in him. Eternal life, let me read that so I get it exactly right here. It says no murderer had to turn a life abiding in him. Eternal life doesn’t abide in us, it abides in Christ.

So the key answer is over in verse 12 of chapter 5 where it says he that hath the son half-life and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life. So we are all sinners. We’ve all lied and of course we’ve hated them, sure sometime in our lifetime, and so we were actually committed murder in our mind. And the Bible is saying that eternal life doesn’t abide in us. In sucks and abides in Christ. So if you have Christ first twelve chapter five, he that has the son verse eleven that we might as well back up here first on five eleven says this is the record that God have given to us eternal life.

In this life is in his son, it’s not enough in the sun. So if you have Christ you have like if you don’t have Christ, you don’t have life. And then verse thirteen my favorite. These things have been written to you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life because you have not given you the creeps of the have Christ in you exactly exactly now I see that thank you so much doctor well you’re sure welcome thank you Joyce from Charlotteville New York listening in every day up there and God bless you we have Doug in Saint Petersburg welcome Welcome to Bibleline, you’re on the air.

Hello. Hi Doug. Yes Dr. Lincolnsen. I had a question, believe the Bible teaches that there will be 12 thrones in heaven that the Apostles will sit on to judge the Israel. Yes. And my question was since there’s 13 Apostles, there’s a Bible teach which 12 that will be. Well, it won’t be… won’t be Judas, Judas was never a believer and Judas goes to hell because of his unbelief. He never was a believer at all. And so it would be obviously the 11 plus, I believe the one that replaced Judas was Paul.

So I think those would be the 12. Yeah, but what about the one they replaced Judas? I think Peter was totally out of order. They shouldn’t have picked him. know if you read Acts 1 and 5, Jesus clearly instructed them to wait. W-A-I-T, wait, not conduct business. Peter got antsy in those 10 days while he were waiting or should have been waiting. And he said, I think we need to select somebody to replace Jesus. He was out of order and he caused all kinds of grief for Paul, the rest of Paul’s ministry.

As Paul in every letter has to defend his apostleship because a lot of folks thought that Matthias would be the one. But Matthias disappears the moment he’s elected. You never see his name appear in scripture again. He’s gone and he must have been a nice guy and probably the best choice based on human intellect that they could have picked, but that wasn’t God’s choice. And I think if you read Galatians 1 you see what Paul was having to defend himself over because he says, and he must be referring back to that incident in Acts chapter 1, In Galatians chapter 1 you see Paul saying Paul an apostle not of been neither by man.

He’s referring back to that election that Peter had but by Jesus Christ himself. So Christ picked up Paul and Christ didn’t pick the fiest. Peter did. That was an election of men and he says I’m an apostle not of men neither by men but by Jesus Christ himself. So I think that that was a big mistake. Peter was acting out of order. He couldn’t wait ten days. He couldn’t sit still. He was an anti-type of guy. He spoke before he thought many times, as you know.

And obviously he said in one case, you know, that Lord, he didn’t want Christ to die on the cross. And he says, not so Lord. And then he had Christ turn to Peter so he’d get behind me, Satan. And because that was Satan speaking through him. Satan didn’t want him to be the Redeemer by dying on the cross and Peter didn’t understand that. Okay. So I believe that’s the answer and I thank you for the question and I believe that Paul is the one that replaced the others.

We have Benjamin in Clearwater, Benjamin, welcome to Bibleline. Good morning. Good morning. Today is in Ezekiel 40a. It is a temple there and revelation, a lamp, I would like to know if that is the same temple. If so, if it is the same temple, why the merchant is different? Because if you look like it, it’s a bigger than that one. Well, the answer is just the same temple, but it’s been refurbished by Christ. When Christ comes back, he’s going to take the third temple, built right after the rapture, and make it into a glorious temple.

If you read the book of Haggai, in one chapter we have all three temples mentioned in one chapter, the temple of Solomon that had been destroyed, the temple that they had built when they came back from the captivity in Iraq there in Babylon, and the second temple, that’s what that one was, and how that it was nothing in comparison to the first one. Then it talks about the third temple being the most glorious of all, and that’s the one Ezekiel describes which it’s after Christ has returned that he will obviously refurbish it and make it absolutely the most gorgeous temple that has ever been on the earth and that’ll be the third one but the even the second one After it had been built, didn’t look like much, but then Herod obviously did some refurbishing and work on it and made it a beautiful thing.

The temple in the time of Christ was absolutely beautiful and it was often referred to as Herod’s temple and it was really the Lord’s temple, but not Herod’s. But Herod did a lot of architecture and building there that made it absolutely beautiful. So the third one will be the same way. It will be built in not too significant in appearance. When Christ comes back and cleanses it and it will be the most beautiful of all read Haggai chapter 2 and you’ll see all three mentioned and that the last temple will have more splendor than the first temple of Solomon.

Thank you for that question. Tomorrow night we have the last two class hours. We’ve already done class 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. In the morning night we do two more class hours and we’ll do class 9 and 10 and finish up this series called In Time Controversy. If you live in the area and you want to come and sit in for free tomorrow night you’re welcome to be my guest. I think you’ll enjoy it and see what it’s like to sit live in the classroom.

I think you’ll find it very, very interesting and of course you’ll watch how we stream out to the web and people can actually subscribe and take the class from anywhere in the world, isn’t it amazing. If you want to come out, you can if not, you can of course call in and get in subscribe to the class and get the passcode and watch all 10 hours. The last two tomorrow night will be live for you but then they’ll stay in our time and you’ll be able to watch them for quite a while.

We’ll leave them up for you and you’ll watch all 10 and you’ll get the video and the audio and you’ll be able to really enjoy it. I hope you will. We have Jim down in Pembroke Pines calling in, leaving an off-air question. Let me give you the phone number by the way before I answer Jim’s question. 1-800-576-3771, 1-800-576-3771. Jim in Pembroke Pines in South Florida calls in and says many on Christian radio are saying that we need to reclaim America for Christ.

Otherwise future generations will be lost. They never say that we are in the end times. Is this because of predarism? And you know, it could be because the philosophy of predarism and replacement theology is that we’re in the Kingdom now. And basically the Church is responsible for bringing peace on the Earth and to spread Christianity throughout the world, which of course is true, that we need to do that. But we are obviously going to see Christ come back and we’re not going to be able to bring this world around to make it a better place.

It’s not going to be a revival. So many people teach that there’s going to be a revival. If you read 2 Timothy 3, it says evil men will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, right up until Christ returns at the rapture. So we are not to expect revival. In fact, within the Church it says in the last days, 2 Timothy 4 verse 3, that they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust they will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they will turn away their ears from the truth and be turning to the fables.

We see that today. Wow. There is so much unsound doctrine today. It’s hard to know what to believe anymore. I hear people say that. They say, I’m getting confused. Well, guess what? That’s what Satan wants. And it’s because the churches are not teaching the word of God. And I hear it all the time. I heard it yesterday from guests that said they’ve learned more from listening to Bible then they have in all the many years that they’ve been in church all their life.

Now that is a sad commentary on the churches today because that shouldn’t happen. If every church was doing the job and teaching the Word of God, they wouldn’t have to say that they learn more from Bible and just a few months than they have in all their years in church. But we hear it all the time. People are telling us they’re not learning. They’re not being taught. And so they don’t even have a clue as to what they believe in when they hear different conflicting views.

Sometimes they throw their hands in the air because they don’t know the answer. Jim, I think you probably got your finger on the pulse there. You’re probably right. We have Frank in Tampa, Florida. And Frank, welcome to Bibleline you’re on the air. Yes, sir. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with a study they had. I’ve seen it on public channel about two years ago. They had a study about people in different parts of the world that are eight feet tall and still growing their growth glands and their brain never stopped.

I haven’t seen that Frank, but I know the NBA has some pretty tall fellows that are really reaching up to the sky. Boy, and I feel sorry for some of them because can you imagine the difficulty getting clothes, shoes that would fit you? And also when you enter a house and try to drive a car, I remember I had a friend at the University of Florida when I was there and he had one of those cars, car was a little teeny foreign car with a sunroof and when he got in there he was so big a fellow football player from the University of Florida at the time that his neck and head went out through the roof and he drove around with his head exposed.

It was so funny to watch this but the car was not big enough really for him and so that’s the problem that comes but that’s fascinating. It’s interesting that what we are seeing here in these days I don’t know if anything I haven’t read anything on that. We have Sean in Richmond, Virginia. Welcome to Bibleline Your Honor. Well, we got the list one. I had a question about some commentary that you had at the beginning of the program. We spoke about widespread churches are preaching works for salvation.

And I was under the ministry that didn’t preach actually on… you know, on you do worse because you’re safe. Amen, well that’s great. Right, did you, I was wondering, because people, when I was there, I had a lot of doubts sometimes about my salaries because I wasn’t really sold out. It was still doing a lot of things. A lot of people are, think that people and I didn’t script your least people there. Not believing that they may or doubted their salvation themselves because they’ve taught I taught well because you’re saved.

You should be doing X, Y, and Z. If you’re not also wanting, if you’re not going to church, if you’re not reading your Bible, then you know, you can’t be saved. I don’t know who you think you’re saved. Well, I… Well I think they may be but certainly the devil knows how to rob them of their assurance because you know once you’re saved, you’re saved forever as I illustrate. You know when I was born into my dad mom’s family I was their son whether I was obedient or whether I was not obedient.

I made up my bed when I went off to school in the morning or whether I didn’t make my bed. I was still their son. There were rules in our house and I was encouraged to follow them. If I didn’t, I would be probably restricted. My allowance might be cut. If I was obedient, I would be maybe given extra privileges and maybe my allowance might increase. But I was rewarded for good and I was punished or disciplined for wrong.

I was still there son no matter what and I still am there son even though now I’ve lost my mom and dad I’m still there son I’m related to them there’s no way I can get out of that and the same thing is true once you become born again your god son period but obviously the joy of the Christian life comes when you really serve from the heart because you’re grateful for what god did for you at the cross but we don’t say to be saved rather serve to be saved we serve because we are saved.

I do think it’s a form of preaching works. Well, absolutely. I think sometimes they hold that hammer over you that you’re not really saving unless you do these works and that’s true. And by the way, when it talks about fruit, it’s not talking about your works. It’s talking about your converts. In other words, you’ll know a tree by its fruit and the fruit will tell you what kind of tree it is. So, it’s talking about, for example, if I was an apple tree, you would expect on my limbs I would have little apples.

If I was an orange tree, you’d expect all my limbs I’d have little oranges. But as a Christian tree, what would you expect? You’d expect little baby Christians to hang off my branches. And so the fruit of the Christian is really the people that you are influencing for Christ and that when you examine, hopefully my fruit, the people that I influence, you’d find them solid in their doctrine, that they would testify. They know they’re saved and they have eternal life based upon the Scriptures telling them so and that they believe the Bible to be the Word of God and they believe that God exists as a triune being and so on and so on.

And so you’d be able to quiz them and get good answers from them hopefully and that would be good fruit. But if you talk to a cult member, you know the whole tree is rotten because you only have to talk to one Jehovah’s Witness to find out the whole Witness movement is wrong and so the fruit is bad. So it’s not talking about our works. doesn’t say you’ll know them by their works, it says you’ll know them by their fruit.

And so you can examine the… some of my fruit and they’re all over the world and My fruit should give you a good answer when you talk to them about their salvation about their belief system Whereas the fruit of a cult member would be rotten fruit as you can tell quickly by a few questions that they don’t have the right answers But do you think that these people that are trusting the fact that they That’s the unfortunate thing is that that gets them confused and they really ultimately might think they’re saved by their works and that may not be saved.

saved it all. And I can think of ministries that do that. And I think that that is the case in some places. So you really get your finger on that one because I think people, because they hear that unless they have the works, they’re not really saved, they think that they have to do the works to be saved. And that message comes across to those lost people that come into their influence. And they really don’t get saved because they’re trusting in doing the works to prove that they’re saved and never really do trust the Lord.

Okay. Thank you Dr. Eric. I appreciate it. Thank you. I know it was Sean up in Richmond, Virginia. There’s confusion. You just have to go back to the Bible and believe the simple promises. We have Debbie in St. Petersburg calls in, leaves an all-fair question for us. She says, in the Old Testament, what was their salvation for their sins since they did not have Jesus dying on the cross like us? Was it obeying God or the 10 commandments or what?

And Debbie, the answer is just the same as for us. They were told in advance about Christ coming. Abraham, for example, in Genesis 15, was told about the promised seed, Christ that would come. He believed that promised, Genesis 15, 6, and it was counted to him for righteousness. So Abraham was saved or made righteous by faith. You read Acts 10, 43. I’d write this one down, Debbie, because Peter here summarizes the whole Old Testament. He He says to Jesus, which in the Old Testament is Yeshua.

Yeshua is the Hebrew, which means God who would save you coming in flesh. And the English equivalent is Jesus. It occurs over 130 times in the Old Testament. And Peter says to Jesus, or Yeshua, you have all the prophets with him. That means all the Old Testament writers wrote about Jesus. He’s in Genesis. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth and so on throughout the whole Bible. And it says that whosoever believeth in his name shall receive the remission of their sins.

So Peter sweeps the whole testament and tells us everybody was saved by trusting Christ as Savior. And the gospel is there in the Old Testament. It says in Galatians 3 8, God foreseen the Scriptures, foreseen the God would justify the heathen through faith preached before the Gospel on Abraham. Read that. Galatians 3 8, Abraham heard the Gospel, believed the Gospel was saved by trusting in the Gospel. We have kin and Tampa. Florida calls in and leaves us off our question, does the New King James Version have the same missing versus as the other new versions and do I have an article on it?

Yes, we do have an article on the new King James. It’s got a number of problems. They have just disappointed me because I was hoping they would just make the King James new by changing the words that are a little bit archaic and bringing up the speed, but they did more than that. They’ve changed the plan of salvation. In Matthew chapter 7 when it says narrow is the way. They change that to hard as the way. That’s unacceptable. That’s a different concept.

It’s not hard. It’s narrow in the sense it’s exclusively in Christ. Christ is the way. You trust Him and you’re saved. Nothing hard about it. In fact, it’s so easy that people the people sometimes reject it because it’s simple and easy that Jesus paid it all. We do have an article on it. If you’ll call our operators, I’ll be glad to send you that free. But it will show you the key flaws of the New King James. If you want to go further, we have a book here called New Age Bible Versions that really nails about 20 of them for you and gives you specific examples of what they do.

And you know, really open your eyes. I would recommend that book highly to anybody who’s questioning what translation they should be reading. We have Steve in Clearwater, Florida. He leaves us off our question. What do you think the rapture is this year? I never said that. I’m saying it could potentially happen this year. I’m not a date setter. So it says here in the question, why do you set a date? I haven’t set a date. The Bible says we’re not able to tell this.

I agree with you. I have never set a date. I’ve watched for Christ to come every year, Steve. And if he doesn’t come this year, I’ll be watching next year. That’s what we should be doing. The Bible says there’s a special crown given to those who watch and love Christ appearing. Second Timothy 4a, you get a crown for doing that. I’m always looking. I believe he’s coming. And I say he could. come this year. He certainly could. I believe that, but I’m not a date setter.

I’m not saying he’s coming this year at all, Steve. So somehow he didn’t hear me correctly and I’ve never said that. We’ve got to run. We’ll be back again tomorrow. I hope you’ll join me. Don’t forget the classes are tomorrow night. If you’re in driving this, you’re welcome to come sit in for free in my last two classes, class nine and ten of the series I’m teaching. We’ve got to run, but keep looking up Jesus is coming and I believe He’s coming soon Steve.

I believe He’s coming real soon. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a presentation of Bibleline Ministries of Tampa, Florida. Your donation to Bibleline makes it possible for this ministry to continue in your area. Bibleline’s address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Or visit Bibleline online at biblelineministries.com. Be sure to tune in for another edition of My Belign from Calvary Community Church of Tampa, Florida. Well, I’m Dr. Englund Stromer. We had fun being with you today. I hope you’ve enjoyed the program.

And I hope you’ll listen all week long, Monday here through Friday. And I tell your friends about it, help us grow our audience, tell your friends in other parts of the country, and overseas in other countries. That by the line is there on the internet. We have missionaries around the world. the Bible. People are telling their friends, their missionaries, hey, get Bibleline up on your website, BibleLineMinistries.org and we have 148 countries that have logged on. Isn’t that amazing? I mean, really.

So if you have missionaries and they’re looking for the good teaching that comes from Bibleline, they can get it on their internet anywhere on the planet earth. That is wonderful. And we’re excited about that. As I said earlier today, we met people in Israel from Nigeria, southern and northern Nigeria that listen and watch Bible on the internet. It’s exciting. We’re excited now about the new door opened up to us where we’ll be able to be on 60 minutes a day on shortwave across the whole continent of Africa.

Pray for us. We need your prayers. We need your support. This is May. If you want to help us for the month of May, you can send a gift by mail or you can give a gift by credit card over the phone. We certainly could use your help in carrying out this big mission to reach the world. You know, it’s a great mission, but what a challenge Christ has given us. He said, go into all the world and preach the gospel every creature.

The one other thing about Bibleline here is that I can be right here in America and Reach out to the whole world right now 147 countries on the internet But also we can reach now the whole continent of Africa my short way This isn’t this a marvelous age To be living in and you can share in the blessings and the rewards by giving to and praying for Bible and would you consider calling us one 800 576 3, 7, 7, 1, and give your gift for the month of May to Bibleline.

God bless you. Have a great day. Keep looking up. Jesus is coming. I believe soon and we’ll be back Lord willing tomorrow. Join me then. Have a great day. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a presentation of Bibleline Ministries of Tampa, Florida. Your donation to Bibleline makes it possible for this ministry to continue in your area. Bibleline’s address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida. 3-3-6-3-4 or visit Bibleline Online at BibleLineMinistries.com. Be sure to tune in for another edition of Bibleline from Calvary Community Church of Tampa, Florida.