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Bibleline Bibleline, Dear God’s Word on Bibleline, Everywhere, Every Time, Dear God’s Truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bible-lined website at calvaryoftampa.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.

We read just a moment ago how that God says, woe unto the man that strived with his maker. Why would a man want to go against God? Fight against God. Well, be like you going up against this wall right here trying to push that wall down. You can’t win. So don’t fight God. Find out what God wants you to do and just go with it. You’ll enjoy life, it gives you purpose to life, and you know that the one that created the heavens and the earth, that created you.

You’re working together in harmony with Him. And it’s so important. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Isaiah chapter 45 and verse 6. But look there in verse 6. That they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, there is none else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.” That little phrase and I create evil, don’t let it bother you.

God creates the results of evil decisions. For example, you may choose the sin, okay, but God gets to choose the results of the sin. God can say, because you did this, this can happen. If you do this, this can happen. It’s called the law of sowing and reaping. So God creates all those consequences of wrong decisions. And it is God that can choose to bless the good results of good wise decisions. So we’re the one that makes the decision, but God’s the one who is in charge of the consequences.

Isn’t that awesome? Just understanding that helps you in your life to make wiser decisions. as I the Lord do all these things. Then in verse nine, we’re going to Him that strive us with His maker. There was a little story here, and let me just share this with you. Says that a college professor and about atheist was teaching his class. He shocked several of his students when he flatly stated he was going to prove that there was no God.

Addressing to ceiling, he had shouted, God, if you’re real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. and I’ll give you 15 minutes to do it. The lecture room fell silent. You could have heard a pin fall. 10 minutes went by. Again, he taunted God’s end. Here I am, God, I’m still waiting. His countdown got down to a last couple of minutes when a Marine just released from active duty and newly registered in the class walked up to the professor, hit him full force in the face, sent him tumbling from his lofty platform.

The professor was out cold. At first the students were shocked and babbled in confusion. The young Marine calmly took a seat in the front row and set silent. The class fell silent, waiting. Eventually the professor came to and was badly shaken. He looked at the young Marine in the front row when he regained his senses and could speak. He said, what’s the matter with you? Why did you do that? God is busy watching over my squad in Iraq. He sent me to take care of the small stuff.

I love that. Hit him one more time. And I was talking to the teenagers just Friday night about not mocking God and the way you mock God is you mock sin. Because you say, I can do this and get away with it. God says you can’t. You try to prove to God you can do whatever you want to do and there’s no consequences. There’s consequences to our decisions. So down here in verse 12, he says, I have made the earth created man upon it.

I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens and all their hosts have I commanded. He created the heavens and the earth. He is your maker and you’re not here to fight with God. Look what he says there in verse 17. But Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation. You know, that’s the same as Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. This is John 3, 16. How that God’s going to save with an everlasting salvation. See, there’s no temporary salvation.

When God saves a person, He saves them for how long? Forever. See, there is the gospel in the Old Testament. Look at verse 18. For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God in self, that formed the earth and made it. He had established it. He created it not in vain. He formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord. There is none else. There is no one beside God. God had a plan. The plan of salvation was not designed by an individual.

So look what he says in verse 19. I have not spoken in secret in a dark place of the earth. I said not unto the seed of Jacob. Seek ye me in vain. I the Lord speak righteously. I declare things that are right. So if you understand that God is a good God, a righteous God, a perfect God, a holy God, a just God, then God can do no wrong. So there’s no reason for you and I to ever get mad or bitter at God.

Now this same God that did all these things allows things in this world to happen to us. We may not understand fully the reasons why but that doesn’t mean that God is wrong. Then He makes a statement down here in verse 22. I want you to look in verse 22. He says look unto me and be saved all the ends of the earth. Salvation is not in a church, it’s not in a kingdom, it’s not in good works of anything.

Salvation is in the Lord. Look under me be ye saved all the ends of the year for I am God and there is none else. There’s only one true and living God and even though this is in the Old Testament written 700 years before Christ ever came, the salvation that God promised was based upon His Son coming into the world. He says in verse 23, and you heard this statement mentioned in the New Testament. But here it says, I have sworn by myself, the Word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return that unto me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear.

Now when you read these verses there in the book of Philippians in chapter 2, where it’s talking about these screams, same scriptures, and it talks about the Lord. And he says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, that though he was God, he thought it not Robert to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation. And he took upon himself the form of a servant, became a man. And he suffered and suffered under death.

And the Bible says that whereby God had highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. Those scriptures comes from right here. And so if those scriptures come from right here then this is talking about salvation. Eternal salvation in the Old Testament, in the book of Isaiah before Christ ever came.

But it tells us why Christ had to come so that God could fulfill the promise that He made. Look upon me all the ends of the earth and be saved. Everybody can be saved and there’s nobody else that can do it. So then if there’s no other person that can save them, then evidently Jesus Christ must be gone. That’s awesome. Looking at verse 25, in the Lord, L-O-R-D caps, that’s Jehovah. In Jehovah shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory.

So how are you going to be justified through the Lord. You’re not justified by the law or anything else. See, even the Old Testament taught justification by faith and faith alone. Now look in verse 5 of chapter 46. He says to whom would ye liken me and make me equal and compare me that we may be like? You can’t compare God, Our God, our God, who is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ with any other God. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Luke and chapter 3 verse 23.

Jesus Christ, though He’s going to come and come. Had to come at a certain time in a certain way, in a certain place, certain city, certain year. All these details are given in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament, it’s reality. There is the prospects in the Old Testament and the expectation. But now the real thing happens. And whenever the real thing happens, some of the people did not see nor understand. Let me read this to you. This is by Ari Torrey.

Says here, Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Why should the Son of God step down from the throne of heaven? Lay aside his infinite glory and consent to enter this world to the lowly door of Bethlehem’s manger. The incarnation was for the purpose of the death. Jesus Christ’s death was not a mere incident of his human life. It was the supreme purpose of it. He became man in order that he might die as man and for man and give his life as a ransom for many.

That’s the reason that he came. He came as a man that he might die as a man for the sins of man. Here in the book of Luke, there is the genealogy of Mary. In the book of Matthew chapter 1, it gives a genealogy of Joseph. Here is the line of Mary and it is the son-in-law of Helai. He doesn’t have two fathers. And so as you go down through here and you see the genealogy of Jesus Christ from Mary and it goes all the way back.

But the purpose of this is to prove that Jesus Christ is a man. Because you see he could not pay for our sins as God, he had to do it as a man, but he had to do it as a perfect man. So this is the reason for the virgin birth. Mary was also of the same line of David. And Joseph was of the other line, but that one had a curse on it. So by Joseph, Mary and Mary, did Jesus be in born?

He didn’t have the sinful nature of the man. But he has the legal right because Joseph was his legal father. And that’s why you have here in verse 23, and Jesus himself being again to be about 30 years of age, being as was supposed the son of Joseph, but he wasn’t his son. In verse 31, it makes a statement last part of it, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David. So you see, David had Nathan, David had Solomon.

And so both lines, represented the king and one as the son of man, but they all went through David and then on back into Abraham. But this genealogy goes all the way back to verse 38 which was the son of Enos which was the son of Seth which was the son of Adam, the son of God. So he goes all the way back to the very first man showing that Jesus Christ the lineage goes all the way back Jesus Christ is truly he is a man.

Now take your Bible and turn there to the book of Matthew. You’ll notice in Matthew chapter 1 when it makes this statement. In verse 1 this is the book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham. Now here see it doesn’t go all the way back. It doesn’t go all the way back to Adam. It only goes concerning Abraham. See God had made a promise to Abraham that he was going to make of him a great nation and through this nation, God promised to David who came from the line of Abraham that he would be the king of Israel.

So this is why the book of Matthew pictures Jesus Christ as the king of Israel. The book of Luke you’ll find this is where in chapter one Dr. Luke gives the story of of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, and tells about stuff that you don’t find in the others. Because it show in Jesus Christ as a baby, as a child, and he grew in wisdom and statue and so forth. He was a man. Luke pictures Jesus Christ as a man and the other one pictures Jesus Christ as the king.

This is why in the book of Luke it says in chapter 4 talks about, Behold is born unto you this day in the city of David a Savior. A Savior was born in Luke, but in the book of Matthew show us where the king was born. In chapter 1 of Matthew it says, born a king. In Luke, born a Savior. You see, the king doesn’t pay for our sins. But the Savior as the man does. So that’s why Jesus Christ has to prove that He is both and can do both jobs.

This is the problem that Israel had. They pictured the Messiah coming, but only as the knight in shining armor that’s going to set up a kingdom and deliver them from the iron hill of Rome and set up this beautiful kingdom of all the earth. So they looked at the king and they forgot about the Savior, the babe. But now notice here in Matthew chapter 1, so he starts in verse 2, Abraham begot Isaac and Isaac, Jacob and Jacob, Judah and so forth, and then on down the line down to verse 6, and Jesse B.

got David the King. David the King, he got Solomon and so forth. So this here’s David and Solomon and you read the book of Luke and it’s David and Nathan because it’s talking about two lines. One for Joseph to claim the throne of Israel and the other one a human individual that could make the payment for the sins of the world he had to be a man. And so this is why the virgin birth had to take place. Look there in Matthew chapter 1 and you’ll notice it comes all the way down to verse 16 and Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

But nowhere do you find that Joseph is the Father of Jesus Christ. He was not the Father. Jesus Christ was born because the Bible says the Holy Spirit, hovered over Mary and it says that Holy thing that shall be born of these shall be called the Son of the highest. In other words the Holy Spirit fathered Jesus Christ. Now go back over there to the book of Luke and chapter 2 here it says in verse 8 and there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night.

Hello, the angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were so afraid. And the angels said unto them, Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which I be to all people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord, and then talks about the sign that they’re going to find. How are they going to find this child?

And all of this is written so that we could know and understand and believe that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be. Look there in verse 40 of chapter 2. And you won’t find all these types of things written in the other book, but you’ll find them here in the book of Luke, because Luke, Dr. Luke, writes it from a medical point of view from a physician’s point of view. And the child grew, waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him.

Look down there in verse 52. And Jesus increased in wisdom and statue and in favor with God and man. That means increased in wisdom mentally. And it says and in statute physically and in favor with God spiritually and with man socially. So in every area, Jesus Christ as the perfect man, perfect in every way, never committed his sin, and he knew perfectly how to deal with everybody under every circumstance. Never did it wrong, never just mean retaliation, but everything he said, what he thought, what he did his whole life.

Now, what was the purpose of this perfect man coming into the world? Just to live a nice, beautiful, glorious life, he was born that he might die, that he might pay for our sins. Let me read this to you. So he didn’t have a beard of gray, nor a cute round button nose, eight rain deer never pulled a sleigh, he never wore red velvet clothes. No one ever wrote of him or wrote to him, advising that they’d been nice.

In fact, it almost been forgotten no one ever really thinks twice. So let me tell you of the reason that we celebrate this day. It’s not just the winter season to give us a holiday. He was born to us a tiny child on a steel and silent night, a bade so small, so meek and my own, to save man from a sinful plight. He cared so much that he left his home in heaven up above. To be born on earth, he gave up his throne, the greatest gift of love.

So why then is it Santa’s story told on this sacred day? Why does he get all the glory with a man made grand display? Itorage to us to tell the real story, we must take them to the stable, to ensure that all the Christmas glory is not given to a fable. There’s no Christmas without Jesus. We must help the blind to see. the reason why we celebrate is God’s gift to you and me. So remember to think of Christ this season and to tell His story to all because Jesus is truly the real reason, not because of a man in a mall.

I want to close to these words. Look over there in the book of Philippians in chapter 2. This is really, I guess you could say Christmas in a nutshell, but not not only that, but it gives us the purpose of our life in a nutshell. So look there in verse 5, talking about how should a person think the attitude, because if all this is true, that means there really is a heaven, there really is a hell and we really have important choices to make.

So it says in verse 5, let this mind be in you, no word learned to think like this, was also in Christ’s Jesus. In other words, this is how he thought. His actions were by product of the way that he thought. So God says, let his mind be in you. Think the way God thinks. And what was that? He said, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, because he is God.

He’s not stealing something from God. He has God. Made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant. You know, down here, sometimes we become very concerned about our reputation. But I guess all I need to do is just take care of my character, my reputation, and take care of itself. In other words, you go ahead because of your character, you do right. You can’t determine what people think about you. Your reputation is what you are in life, but your character is what you are in the dark.

the reason why you do what you do. You can’t make somebody else exalt your reputation. But he says here in verse 7, but made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. What I want you to see. Before he became of no reputation and became a servant, he already existed.

Before he became a man, he already existed. Because it says, in verse 6, who, being in the form of God, who? Being in the form of God. He existed before he became a man. And this is what people need to understand. Jesus Christ did not begin when he was born in that little baby’s body upon this earth. Jesus Christ existed from eternity past. Jesus Christ was God. And he says here in verse 8, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself to his heavenly Father, became obedient unto death, the death of the cross.

Him dying was an obedience to his heavenly Father because he was obedient even under death so his death was an obedience to obeying what his father wanted. It means that was the purpose of why he came and he was obedient to that purpose. Now get this. In verse 9, where for God also had highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. Things in heaven, things in earth and things under the earth.

We read this verse just a while ago in the book of Isaiah that at the name of Jesus every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now in view of that, in view of that, what should that do for me? How should I be? Now that all this is true. Verse 12. Wherefore is here because of what just went before it. Wherefore it might be loving as you have always obeyed.

Now he’s talking about here you are. Now Christ, at this kind of a mind, he obeyed his heavenly Father’s will even unto death. Wherefore let his way of thinking be in you that even though he died, God highly exalted him. Here we are. He wants us to be obedient, even under what? Death. And then whenever we get to heaven, God will highly exalt us, not just getting to heaven. That’s not the exaltation. Being exalted in heaven is a position because of our obedience after we trust the Lord, because this obedience here in verse 12 not talking about your salvation.

This is talking about you are saved. Now what? So he says, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, not work for it, but work it out. Work out that which God has put within. See, the Holy Spirit lives within you to work through you. Now let that happen. He that hath begun a good work in you will perform if you just get out of the way.

Then he makes his statement. Verse 13, for it is God which worketh where? In you. So his work is not over. Just because he saved you and gave you eternal life, his work is not over. That’s just the beginning. Have you not only allowed God to save you from hell, giving you eternal life and you’ve learned to have him, will you let God continue the work in you that he began? Do you actually believe you have reached your potential as a Christian?

For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good what? His good whatever pleases God. It is the will of God for him to work in you to make you whatever pleases him. Get verse 14. Do all things without murmuring and disputing. Look at verse 15. That you may be blamed and harmed as the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation or world. And you ought to underline these words.

Among them, in other words, this is talking about our life now. This is where we are. Among them, ye shine as lights in the world. God loves us, but He hates our sin. And for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God in a place called hell. No wages of sin is death. But God loves us and wants us to go to heaven and to go to heaven, we have to be perfect as righteous as God and none of us are perfect.

And God says, you cannot save yourself by your good works. You need a Savior. This hand represents Jesus Christ, He’s the Lord, God in the flesh. He came into this world because He loves us. He hates our sin. The Bible says it separates us from it, so Christ took the sin, papal and the cross came back from the dead. Instead of, well, believing did it for us, he’d put this payment on our account. We’d get the good of heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us.

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 to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, You can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. If you wish to hear today’s program again or would like to download a free MP3 of today’s or any previous Bibleline program, go to BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the spinning globe in the upper right corner of our home page.

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 broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friends, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. 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.