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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 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 Bibleline 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.

If you will, take your Bible and turn to this portion of Scripture. Isaiah chapter 6, there’s something here that I want you to see because there’s two truths, two main truths that permeate the entire Bible. One of those is that God is holy, God is righteous, God is perfect, God is pure. There is no sin, no fault, no No flaws, no mistakes in God. And Isaiah said that when I saw the Lord, I saw myself. And until you see God and how holy and righteous He is, you will never see yourself the way you really are.

Because you see, you can compare yourself with others and not see yourself that bad. But when you compare yourself to perfection, to holiness, then you can realize there is a serious problem. This is why the Bible talks about the word justification throughout the Scriptures. The question that keeps coming up is how can a man be right with God? How can a man be justified in the eyes of God? And you’ll notice that he says here in verse 3 of Isaiah chapter 6, and one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory. Now this is a picture of God in heaven. As you read the Bible, you never at one time ever see God admitting to one mistake, one imperfection, one flaw, because there is none with God. Jesus Christ was the manifestation of God upon the earth. And as you call the life of Jesus Christ from birth until the day He died, there was no fault, no flaws in his son. Jesus Christ was as perfect, was as righteous, was as just, was as holy as the Father.

The Bible says that you and I need to be just with God. We have to be justified. Therein lies the problem. The Bible, throughout, declares that God is just, God is holy. But man is a different story. Look in verse 5. Then said I, woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips. If you see God the way God is, then you can see that you come far short of the holiness of God, far short of the perfection of God.

When he saw God, he saw himself, and when he saw himself, he saw the people, and he said, I dwell in the midst of unclean people. And then the Bible says in verse 6, then flew one of the seraphim’s enemy, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth and said, lo, this has touch my lips and thine iniquity is taken away and by sin purged.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord’s in whom shall I send and who will go for us. Then said I hear my sin me.” He had to first see the Lord. I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Romans and chapter three. The book of Romans and chapter three. Romans chapter three is a picture of you and I. We love it when we go to the studio and have a portrait made of ourselves or our family.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re going to stage a picture of you that you want to put on the wall many times you’ll make sure that every hair is in place? And the wife wants to make sure that your tie is straight, if you weren’t a tie. Your clothes are clean, and little Johnny looks fit and span, and the little girl has got on a pretty little dress. The wife is sitting there looking beautiful, and you stage it, and you’re trying to show it as good as you can.

to look your best. But here’s how God sees us. Look there in chapter 3 of the book of Romans and verse 4. God forbid ye let God be true every man a liar as it is written that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and mighteth overcome when thou art judged. Every man a liar. Look what he says down there in verse 10. As it is written there is none righteous, No, not one. And down in verse 12, they’re all going out of the way.

They’re together becoming profitable. There’s none that doeth good. No, not one. Verse 13 says, their throat is an open sepprika or like a grave. Their tongues, they have used deceit. The poison of asp is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Feet swift as shed blood, destruction and misery are in their ways. The way of peace they have not known. there’s no fear before God of God in their eyes of this is how God sees man.

And when you boil it all down, this is what he says in verse 23, For all, all men all over the world, all mankind have all sinned, and come short of the perfection of God. That’s why when you study the Bible, all the way through talks about the righteousness, The holiness of God and the sinfulness of man and the plan of salvation is how to get man justified in the eyes of God. Take your Bible-looking a book of Titus in chapter 3.

This is the method on how God is going to justify a man. Justification is the righteous act of God. How can a righteous holy God make Atk sinful man as good as God and God be right in doing it? God must be just, unjustifying a man. How’s that going to be done? Here in the book of Titus in chapter three, look there in verse five, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.

How is a man justified by the mercy of God? That’s why throughout much of the scriptures is by grace through faith. This is what God does. This is what man does. Man’s part is only to believe in the part that God did. God did the work. Man simply accepts that work, believes in that work. But man cannot add to that work. Man cannot take his little 25 cent efforts and add it to the work that God has done. It annulls salvation.

So any person who tries to save himself by helping God, by thinking that his going to church or giving money or being water baptized or any good deeds is helping in his salvation of that man. If he’s trusting in his part as far as works go, that man is not saved. He’s lost because you cannot add to grace. One work added to grace means grace isn’t grace. Grace means that it’s free. It was all done by the work that Christ did.

Man cannot justify himself. He cannot help in his justification. He can only by faith accept the work that Jesus Christ did for him. Look what he says there in verse 7. That being justified by his grace, but it is by our faith. God says every man by faith, your Faith in Christ Grace. So God says every man can be saved. I believe that every man has the ability to trust. Every man can put his confidence in something. You can put your confidence in me to get you to heaven.

But there’s a problem. I don’t have the power to get you to heaven. So your faith in me is in vain. I can’t help you. You may put your faith in your own good works to get you to heaven. You still are put in your faith in your confidence where you choose, but your good works can’t get you there so your faith is in vain. You can put it into anything that you want. You can put it into this church by your giving money and your good deeds and maybe joining the church, but that can’t save you so your faith is in vain.

Your faith is not in vain. If you’re trusting in what Christ did for you, then your faith is not in vain. You can be saved and go to heaven whenever you die and be justified by faith and faith alone. See, in verse seven, that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. See, eternal life is something that God does not give to sinners. Eternal life is something and a gift that God gives to those who are justified.

Those who have been made righteous and pure from the sins that they’ve committed and God gives every man this free gift of eternal life because as a child of God we inherit eternal life. Now these things are so important to keep in mind. Now take your Bible and turn all the way back to the book of Job. The book of Job and chapter nine. Job and chapter nine. The Bible tells us that Job went through an awful lot concerning his testings, the trials that he went through.

He lost, I believe, the respect of his wife. He lost his wealth. He lost his health. He lost a lot of things. He lost his patience with his three friends. But here Job asked the question. He does it in several places, chapter 14. I believe in verse 10 he makes the same statement about, how can a man be just with God? A chapter 25 of the book of Job says, how then can a man be just with God? Here in the book of Job in chapter nine, look in verse one, then Job answered and said, I know it is so of a truth, but how should man be just with God?

How can a man be just with God? Because he says, I can’t find anything that I’m doing the wrong and I cannot explain why I’m going through what I’m going through. Because I cannot understand why God is letting this happen to me. Because I don’t think I deserve it because I don’t know of anything that I’ve done that’s wrong. And God was simply testing the faithfulness of Job, the building, the character of Job, not trying to show Job how far he’d come, but how far he has yet to go when you talk about, oh, I’m righteous in my own eyes.

God is holy. And you won’t see how sinful you are until you see how righteous God is. So how is a man gonna be made just or righteous with God? Now, notice what he says over there in verse 20. And in verse 20, he said, if I justified myself, my own mouth shall condemn me. If I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse, though I were perfect, yet when I not know my soul, I would despise my life.

He despised the very day he was born, because he has no answers. He doesn’t know why things happen the way they did. He could not explain it. He could answer his friends that ask him, why is all this happening to you? They were accusing and blaming him. And he said, I just don’t know. And he pours out his heart to God. He said, if I could justify myself, it still bothers me. But the thing is, justification is not. By you declaring yourself good enough.

Have you ever talked to somebody and they said, I think I’m good enough to make it. That means they have justified themselves good enough to get to heaven. They have declared themselves righteous. I go to church and I don’t beat my wife, I pay my bills and I don’t hurt nobody and I don’t do anything wrong to nobody. I’m a pretty good guy. They have cleared themselves. They justified themselves. Now God says a man is not just because you say and you declare yourself to be justified.

So you cannot do it by positive thinking. Notice up there in verse 27. It is not by you being sorry for the way you’ve lived. It’s not because you’re remorseful for all those sins you committed. He says, if I say I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness and comfort myself. I am afraid of all my sorrows. I know that thou will not hold me innocent. It’s spite of how I see it. Though I’m sorry for what I did, I don’t understand why I did that.

I felt bad. I felt remorse. I felt this way. I felt that way. All these feelings. If I could clear myself, I know God will not hold me innocent. Then how can a man be just with God? Look in verse 30, he says, it’s not by washing. It’s not by quitting. It’s not by any works. He says in verse 30, But if I wash myself with snow water, make my hands never so clean. There’s never been this clean before.

If you could get some soap and some acid if you had to and make sure there’s not one dirt spec on your whole body, you’re still unclean. And whenever Isaiah lifted up his eyes and he saw the Lord, he said, I am a man of unclean lips. I’m unclean. Whoa is me. Every man. Oh, is you. You are unclean. You are dirty. You are as filthy rags. You are a sinner. You cannot clear yourself. You’re not justified by yourself.

All of us all put together cannot justify one man because we say he’s just. I’ve had people say, well, if anybody made it to heaven, I knew that dear old Aunt Suji did, she would give you the shirt off of her bath. She was the sweetest person. And therefore I know she’s in heaven because she was a good person and she went to church and she was there to do with that. That is not why she’s going to heaven.

If dear old Aunt Susie didn’t trust Christ as her Savior, she’s in hell. And all of the nice compliments that we could ever pay upon any person because of how they lived does not justify a person. Only God can declare you righteous. And it only takes one sin to condemn your soul to hell. That’s why you need to be justified. And he goes throughout the Scriptures here over and over again, talking about how can then a man be justified?

Take your Bible and turn to the book of Romans in chapter 5. The book of Romans and chapter 5, The means of our justification is by grace through faith, and the Bible tells us that we are justified by the blood of Jesus Christ. Look there in verse 9. Romans chapter 5 and verse 9. Much more than being now justified by what? By His blood. blood was the payment that was used to pay for our sins. If you paid for your sins, it’s death in hell.

So Jesus Christ had eternal life and that life was in the blood and He says the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls for the life of the flesh is in the blood. So when he gave his blood, he shed his life. And the life that he can give to you and I becomes of the payment that he made is eternal life.

He made the payment for all the sins of all the world and paid for all of our sins. Christ did that for us. And God will declare you and I righteous because of the payment that He made. And that’s why He says, much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved fromntax through Him. No other way for a man to be justified. When is the man justified? When is he just? am I going to be someday or was it yesterday or is it going to be tomorrow or was it when I got saved?

The day I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior. That day, that moment, that payment Christ made was put to my account as though I made it. And that moment, God declared me righteous. He declared me justified. I am one of the just that the Bible talks about. You, if you trusted Christ as your Savior, have been just if I’ve cleared of all charges against you. How is a man to be made righteous with God? Only because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

That was the payment that was made. Take your Bible and look there in the book of Romans in chapter three and verse 24. Here he says, being justified freely, that means that you do nothing. It means you pay nothing. It means you don’t do any works whatsoever. There’s no charge to you. It means that you don’t promise that you’re going to stop something or start something. You simply are receiving something. You’re receiving your justification just as if you had never sinned.

Being justified freely by his what? his grace. That means unmerited favor. God did it by his desire and God did it by his power. Because grace is the desire and the power of God. Like I said before, God may have had the power to save you, but if he had no desire to save you, you’d still be lost. And if God had the desire to save you, but not the power to save you, you’d still be lost. Aren’t you glad he had the desire to save you and the power to save you because God loves you and you can’t explain that.

But the last part of that verse is what I want you to say. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, the redemption means that He made a payment for you to buy you off the slave market of sin. He made a payment. That was the ransom payment that He made for the sins of the whole world so that anybody in the world and God said, I need somebody because They’re all people of unclean lips. All the people are wicked.

And I need somebody to go tell them, Isaiah says, Lord, here am I. Send me. Here am I. Send me. I want you to take your Bible, look in the book of Acts, and chapter 13. The book of Acts and chapter 13. How many sins are you justified from? How many sins are you justified from? If he doesn’t justify you and clear you of all of them, he didn’t do you any favors. It’d still be lost. How many sins would it take to condemn you to hell?

Just one. It’s simply put like this. Here you are, you’re hanging over a cliff. 10 links in a chain. How many links has to break before you fall? Just one. Does it matter which link? You say, I didn’t commit adultery and I haven’t killed anybody and I haven’t done this. Yeah, but have you ever lied? God says, let every man be what? A liar. Okay. So that one broke. You’re falling. You’re falling. You’re hopelessly, you’re lost. You’re going down and there’s nothing you can do to save yourself.

God has to reach down and save you because He loves you. Has nothing to do with you loving Him. You’re not saved because, oh, I really love the Lord. That’s all fine and good, but that’s not going to get you to heaven. And you can say, I’m going to go to church and I’m going to try to do right now. But prove to God how much I love him. If you don’t accept him as your Savior, you’re lost. There is no other way.

No other way. No other name by which a man can be saved. Here in the book of Acts chapter 13, look in verse 39. And by him, all get that all that believe are justified from how many things. All things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. The law of Moses is the 10th commandment. You can’t be justified if you kept the whole law. You’re not going to be justified. You’re still lost. So God says, by your worst, you cannot be justified.

Take your Bible looking at the book of Galatians and chapter 2. The book of Galatians and chapter 2. Remember this, you are justified the very moment that you accept Christ as your Savior. Remember the story in the book of Luke, the publican and the sinner stands there in the temple and the Pharisee says, boy, I tithe all that I have and I do these good works and He’s good, he’s good deeds. And he ran and raided and bribed on himself for how good he was.

And there was a man who stood there and he bowed his head. He says, I’m not even worthy to look up. Lord be merciful to me, a sinner. The Bible says that man went down to his house, what? Justified the wind. When he left, that means he was justified then, right then, on the spot. He was justified. When were you justified? The day you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior. Now if you never trusted Him and only Him as you’re only waiting to get to Heaven, you’re not justified.

You’re not going to Heaven. Unless you trust Christ as your Savior before you die, you are lost. You can be sitting here, you can be sipping into church here for 30 years. 30 years. I don’t know if you’ve been in a church for a thousand years. If you haven’t done that one thing, you’re lost. Doesn’t matter how good you live and how intended you may be and how sincere you may be, you’re lost. Doesn’t matter how much you know about the Bible, how much you can quote, how much money you’ve given, nothing matters.

It’s all to, it’s all in vain. Unless you trust in Christ as your Savior. Look here in Galatians in chapter 2 and verse 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Isn’t that simple?

Isn’t that clear? Look up here just a second. Here’s the Lord and here’s us. We have to be justified just as if I’ve never sinned. I’ve got to be equal with God. God is perfect in lives in heaven which is perfect. And God says you have to be perfect to go there. God says you’re not. So being justified is being made equal with the Father. Well the Father finds no fault in you. He finds no sin in you. Because when He looks at you, He sees you through His Son.

He sees all of us through his Son because when we trust Christ as our Savior, we’re placed in Him. We’re in His Son. And so the Son is in heaven and we’re in Him. This is how God sees it. So God has judicially declared and justified in doing so and declaring you and I righteous. If a man could be justified by any means other than the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, then Calvary and all that great sacrifice that Christ made was the biggest blunder in history.

Not by works I may have done, but by the blood of God’s own Son. Not a merit wrought by me, the blood of Christ my only plea, justified by grace alone, for Through his work he can atone, forever settled, free at last, justified by sin is past. Tremendous thing, you’re justified the very moment you trust Christ as your Savior. Now God wants those who have been justified to live like you’ve been justified. Live the way God sees you. God sees you as his child.

Live like you’re a child of God. like you’re a child of God. If you’re a child of the King, use the language of the court. Learn to quote his word. Talk about his word. Praise the Lord. Honor him in your life because you have been justified by grace through faith and that alone by the payment that Christ made on the cross. 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 homepage.

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. By broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvary oftampa.org. Thanks for joining us on Bible Live, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, 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