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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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

All the way back to Moses. This is written in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 30. And way back in the Old Testament, these scriptures were fixed in the reed, are from that person of scripture, way back there, and this is what they mean. Now sometimes the scriptures tells us things that wasn’t previously known. Now for example, when you read in the book of Jude, when it says an Enoch walked with God, and that he was a preacher. And he preached this.

It says that he preached about the Son of God, the Lord, coming in glory to execute judgment upon all the wicked and has about three verses there. But whenever you go back to the Old Testament where it says there in chapter five of the book of Genesis, in it what with God and he was not for God took him. That’s all there is. Not until we read the book of Jude in the New Testament right before the book of Revelation, do we find out that in it was a preacher and he preached about the Lord and that’s Jesus Christ coming in power and great glory and to execute judgment.

But we wouldn’t have known that if it hadn’t been revealed here in the book of Jude. So there’s a lot of things that were told and a lot of things they knew and yet not written down in Scripture. So how do you know that? Well, remember it makes this statement in a book of 2 Peter in chapter 2, where it makes the statement that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Talk about how wicked the world was, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

And God used him to build an ark for the saving of his household and the whole human race. But when you read 2 Peter in chapter 2, it makes this statement. And it was a preacher of righteousness. Now we didn’t know that he was a preacher of righteousness. Never said that. Not when you read back there in the Old Testament, but he was a preacher of righteousness. Now we’re talking about man’s righteousness, so you’d think he’d be talking about the righteousness of God.

So see, they did preach. And what about the message before it was written down? In Romans in chapter 10 it talks about their line is going out through all the earth, talking about the message that is preached by the revolving of the stars and the sun and the earth and all the heavens. So when you read the book of Psalms in the 19th chapter when it says, and I saw the handiwork of God and it talks about how that God had done all these things and that the sun goes forth as a strong man to run a race.

And all those things were to teach a story. And the stars had meaning. The sun had a meaning. The moon had a meaning. And so God taught many things. That’s why we today, we have many people that have twisted astronomy and turned it into astrology and turned it into something wicked. And at the same time, the twelve signs of the Zodiac are mentioned in the scripture in the book of Job. So God is the one who designed the Zodiac, the 12 signs, and those 12 signs are the teachings of the Bible.

But today they have been corrupted, and now we have the complete word of God, so we don’t use those anymore. But now the people have taken that which God has given. And begin to worship the heavens and try to make meanings out of all of it and under what sign were you born. And maybe some of y’all got up and read your horoscope this morning. If you did, that’s wickedness. That’s wickedness and ungodliness. And so an abomination to God.

That’s not why God gave it. Just like there’s people today, they may worship the church house and they worship the Bible. but not the God that made the world and the God that made the word. They don’t worship him. And so people can worship the creature more than they create her. So things change. But the word of God still means what God intended. So here in the book of Romans in chapter 10, look here in verse five, for Moses described the righteousness, which is of the law, that the man which doeth them shall live by them.”

In other words, if you want to live, and in chapter 8 of the book of Deuteronomy it talks about this, and also in the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 30 it talks about this. But he says, I said before you this day to choose life or death. In other words, whether you live or die, and he’s talking about physically there, obey my law. And so there’s laws that God gave to the nation of Israel that affected their protection upon the earth, their blessings of God upon their land, and their help, all these things, and they had to make choices.

They make the right one, God blessed, they didn’t, God cursed. So God said it before them, they had decisions to make, but they did not keep the law. They didn’t obey the law. So the law was the reveal that every man has sinned. Come short of God’s profession. By the law of in verse 6. But the righteousness which is of faith, so now in verse 5 the righteousness of the law and verse 6 the righteousness which is by faith.

So chapter 10 I believe is time to get us to understand if you’re not saved by the law and you’re saved by faith. Where does faith come from? Where do you get it? He got the law from God. Do you get faith from God? So there are people who believe that by grace or you say through faith and that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God and they think that the faith is the gift of God and they translate Ephesians to 8 and 9 to mean that.

So that means that if you want to be saved, you have to wait until God gives you the faith. God give me the faith. So if that’s true, then no man can be saved until God gives him the faith. And if he doesn’t trust the Lord, it’s not his fault, it’s God’s fault. So that’s fatalistic. That’s not what the word of God teaches. You see, faith is not the gift of God. Be saved and have an eternal life. That’s the gift of God.

For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourself. It’s the gift of God that’s the reference to your salvation. That’s free. But where do you get the faith from? Because some people believe and some people don’t believe. Every man is born with the ability to trust. You start with your parents. You have to trust them. Maybe you knew it or didn’t know it. You trust them to feed you and protect you and do whatever for you.

But as you grow, you may get to the place where you have doubts about your mom and your dad. Whether or not they can do this or do that. And you question whether or not there is bright and wise as you once thought they were. And then after you live about another 30 years you’ll find out what they were smarter than I thought But you can put your faith in anything You see a man can put his faith in the pew to take him to heaven But that doesn’t mean that you can take you there You can put your faith in this church to take it to heaven But that doesn’t mean it can take you there you see you’re the one that determines where you place the faith So you can place your faith in the Lord or you can place your faith in things

But the thing is Can that thing that object of your faith do what you believe it can do? See it’s not the size of my faith that gets me to heaven. It’s the object of my faith. I Could put a lot of faith in this microphone to take me to heaven and I got lots of faith. I really believe that doesn’t make Mounted Heel of beans that’s they don’t have no power and So a man can trust in his good works and it has no power So he says, when you trust Christ as your Savior, he gives you eternal life.

You go to heaven and what he did. So where does the faith come from? So then, so then, you know that you need it because that’s where you get the faith of righteousness. A righteousness God gives you by faith. Well, where are you going to get this faith from? So look there in verse 17. And you ought to underline this verse in your Bible if you haven’t underlined it yet. So it calls, we’re talking about if a man is saved by faith, then where does it come from?

So faith cometh by what? Hearing and hearing by the word of God. And you can’t trust in the Lord unless you hear about the Lord. And then you can’t hear about the Lord unless somebody tells you about the Lord. And so therefore, that’s why a man is to speak with the mouth and confess with the mouth of what he believes in his heart so that others can hear and understand how to be saved. It’s not a matter that you and I have to go up into heaven and get a whole of God and bring him down here.

And we don’t have to go down into the pits of hell and get ahold of God and bring him up here. So I don’t have to ascend or descend and yet this scripture comes from the book of Deuteronomy where it says shall you ascend into heaven and bring down the Messiah or reach down into hell and bring up the Messiah? Wait a minute, what’s the Messiah doing in hell? Because that’s what the scripture says. See there in verse 6, but the righteous witches of faith speaketh on this wise, say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven?

That means to bring the Messiah down. Who shall ascend into heaven? But that is to bring Christ down from above. This is a quote from the Old Testament that was said by Moses. You say, well, Moses didn’t understand anything about Jesus Christ. Doesn’t it say in the book of Hebrews in chapter 11 that Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ to be greater riches than the treasures in Egypt? evidently he made his decision based upon Jesus Christ and upon the treasures that he would have with the Lord and therefore he was able to muster up I guess the courage to leave everything that he had and to take a stand that he was going to deliver Israel from the iron grips of Egypt.

The only problem was that he was willing to do it 40 years before God was ready. He’s going to do the same thing, but he did it 40 years later. The timing wasn’t right. He was the right person, because he said he thought that God was going to deliver Israel by his hand, but they didn’t believe it. And so he left and went on the backside of the desert for 40 years. He learned the ways of the world for 40 years, came to the conclusion, look what I am, 40 years on the backside of the desert, realizing that he wasn’t nothing.

And God had to unlearn him, teach him some new things. And then God had to retrain him. And so the man lived to be 120 years old, and a great man. But now look what he says in verse 8. And this is all in the Old Testament in the book of Deuteronomy. Verse 8 says, but what say it hit? The word, excuse me, verse 7, let’s get verse 7. who shall descend into the deep? That is to bring up Christ again from the dead.

If this is what it meant to bring up Christ again from the dead, then evidently they knew that Christ, the Messiah, came from heaven and was on the earth and will be there and will be killed and come back again from the dead. That’s Old Testament. So they knew that the sacrifices that they were making would not save them because they were not to trust in them. What if they weren’t to trust in those sacrifices? Just what? Then were they to trust in?

God doesn’t save people two different ways. Everybody’s always saved the same way. We’re saved by grace through faith. They were saved looking forward to the cross, the payment the Messiah would make, and we’re saved looking back to that very same event. So we’re saved by faith on both sides of the cross. Then look what he says in verse 8, but what say it that the word is neither even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which we preach.

Why should we preach? Why should I tell people how to have eternal life? Because they can’t be saved except by faith. And they can’t have faith to trust the Lord unless we tell the gospel message. So we preach the gospel so that people can hear and understand it and trust the Lord. We are not responsible for their decision. I am not responsible for any man trusting Christ. Or rejecting Christ. I have nothing to do with that. I and you are just to be faithful to give the gospel.

So whenever you give out a track, you’re giving out the gospel. When you get people to read a book or you talk to them on the telephone, see you don’t have to be behind this podium up here to be a preacher of the gospel. Every child of God is to preach the gospel some way or another. So you preach. And by that somebody liable to believe. And their eternal destiny. nation rest upon that truth. Now if you don’t really believe that then you won’t have a great desire to get it out but if you really believe that then you do.

I was thinking the other day about a guy named John Van Reiter, that big old John. Now I’m gonna say this and he’s not here but I’m gonna tell it anyway. John Van Reiter went to Bible college when I did but John Van Reiter he got into a different kind of a ministry. He wound up working for the police force. And working for the police force, he became an undercover agent for the drug narcotics and stuff. And so he would, he’d be a plant and he grew his hair long, like a hippie, had blonde hair, long hair.

Can you see this big hippie? Picture big John, big hippie. And he had, you know, he would dress up and he said if people knew who he was and what he was doing, they would have killed him. He had a very, very dangerous job and he tells stories of how him going down in Colombia and all the drug rage that they’ve made and people that have been put in jail and people that have been killed. But he made a choice.

That was a decision. Well, after a few years, you know, he’d been in there long enough, he was able to retire. And then he got him a nice place up there in Massachusetts and then he wind up selling it. But you know what he does? He invests his money in spiritual things. He’s helped me out whenever I needed it. And he’s done the same with Wally and he’ll help Freddie Coyle. And now he’s down there in Mexico and he called me up and said, I want you to go to Mexico with me.

So I’m trying to get together about 200 preachers down here and I want you to come down and talk to him. But he pays. You know why he does that? And he don’t want no money from nobody because he’s made his own money and he’s got enough to live on. More than he needs. So he invested, but why does he do it? Because he believes this. Do what you can, why you can, and that people will trust Christ as their Savior.

And I forget how many thousands of those things that he ordered too. And he’d been passing and getting those things. And he says they designed that little coloring book for the kids. It’s nothing but the gospel in it. And they go across the border and those little kids just grab those things and color those things and they’ve got stories. And they see they invest their time, their effort, whatever they can do, their money for the sake of getting the gospel to other people.

Now you’re gonna live and you’re gonna die and the thing is is what did you do with the time that God gave you or whatever God gave you? See all of us have a responsibility to the Lord to do what we can with whatever God has blessed us with. But now get this in verse 9 Remember we’re talking about how is a man say by faith and that a man has to hear it Because if he doesn’t hear it then he can’t believe it and he can’t trust So he says in verse 9, that is, if that if thou shall confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shall be saved.

If you believe this, if you believe it, now you don’t confess with your mouth to be saved, but you confess what you believe. Only way that we can spread the word is I confess with my mouth what I believe in my heart. I believe that Jesus Christ died on that cross, paid for my sins, came back from the dead because I believe he did it for me. I confess with my mouth for the last 46 years I want people to know it.

I want them to hear it. Because if somebody hadn’t told me, then I wouldn’t have heard it. And I couldn’t trust Christ because I had never heard the message before. And like I said the other day, I’ve never had anybody ever witness to me. You know who I have had witness to me though? I’ve had folks, I’ve had Jehovah’s Witnesses try to win me. I’ve had Mormons try to win me, but I’ve never had a Christian try to win me.

Now ain’t that something? And you know they’ll be out there and they’ll be knocking on doors and the other ones be riding their bicycle and dressing their suit and they’ll go all over the world and they will give two years, Mormon, two years out of their life to just full-time evangelism before they do anything that’s what they do. And all their morning people say they support them full time full support for two years to be a full time missionary and they send them all over the world.

BYU that’s what they train them for. So they can go out all over the world and they set them up and they take care of them, they support them. And they grow. They really do. They don’t worry about anything. All their needs are taken care of. And all they do is commit themselves for two years to evangelism. Knocking on doors and riding your bike. How many miles they put on them? I don’t know. You see, they believe what they believe.

And how many times have you ever had a Jehovah’s Witness knock on your door? They’re not Jehovah’s Witnesses, they’re false witnesses. But they’ll come by and they’ll knock on your door. Because see, they believe that you’re they’re working for the kingdom. They’re trying to establish their own righteousness. They have a zeal of God, but not according to them. And those that know the truth, those that believe that this book is true. It is most difficult like pulling teeth, get a person to witness to get them to pass out tracks, to get them to pray for the lost.

And yet it’s so simple. He says it’s by faith and faith alone. And this is why Paul made the statement. He says, brother, my prayer and hearts desire for Israel is that they might be saved. And in first part of chapter 9, he says, I would be willing to give myself to be separated from God, to be a curse from Christ for my brethren. In other words, be willing to go to hell so that his brother could go to heaven.

And like I told you last week, I’m not there yet. I got a ways to go before I’m at that point. I’ll have to admit, I am not willing to go to hell for one person. Are you? Think about it. Are you willing to spend an eternity separate from God if it would get one person saved? I’m not. I don’t want to be separated from God for all eternity. Try to go into your bedroom or a closet space where you can get alone and turn out all the lights and just let it be dark.

Picture yourself in hell for all eternity in the flames of eternal conscious torment forever and ever and ever and knowing that you will never get it will never end. And you had a chance and you took, did not take advantage of it. at that really be you talk about a living hell because the body will burn but not be consumed. But see if we only had a vision, could catch it, could see that. But you can’t make somebody see something.

Because as you read the Word of God you have to see it. And as I read the Old Testament I don’t see much scripture in the Old Testament that talks about the literal place of hell, though it’s there. And sometimes the word is just shield and refers to grave, sometimes pit, sometimes death, sometimes hell. And in Psalm 16 is talking about hell, the place where the departed go. Not talking about the grave, but it’s a real place and you and I are supposed to believe that.

But he makes the statement here in verse 11, for the scripture says, Who so ever believe it in him or on him shall not be ashamed. In other words, you’ll not be ashamed or Ever regret that you ever trusted the Lord You’ll never be sorry We sing a song sometime from the choir. I’ve never been sorry That I trusted his name remember that song somebody gonna help me out singing it over here I just go for it. I’ve never been sorry that I trust the Lord.

This thing when we get to heaven, we’re not going to be sorry we did so. Now down here you may be afraid or ashamed that somebody knows you’re Christian. But in heaven you won’t be. But the Lord says, I will be ashamed of you because you were ashamed of me. That doesn’t mean you don’t get to go to heaven. You still get to go to heaven. But you’ll be ashamed because you never witnessed one. And the Lord says, live now because one day he’s coming and in the book of 1 John in chapter 2 verse 28, now my little children abide in that when he shall appear we shall have confidence and not be ashamed before him and his coming.

And a lot of God’s children are going to be ashamed. A shame they never did what they could have done. Because we’re not asked to perform miracles down here. We’re not asked to be supermen. We’re not asked to do anything we can’t do. We can do what God wants us to do. All we have to do is just explain the gospel to people. So when you leave, make sure you have tracks and make sure you try to talk to somebody this week.

Always ask the Lord, Lord, let me talk to somebody this week. Somebody, give a track to somebody. That’s the Word of God. Somebody, I’ll be trusting the Lord from it. And it may lead to an open door where you might get to talk to them about the whole thing and explain it to them. You see me do the hand gesture a thousand times, learn how to do it. Be an expert at it. A soul winner is nothing more than a person who makes the gospel clear for the lost man to understand.

The power is in the message. It’s not in you, it’s in the message. In other words, the message is in you, yes. But God can use you. Look up here. This man represents you and me and the wallet represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God says that he loves us. He hates our sin. And for you and I to pay for sin is eternal separation from God. In hell. 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 because heaven is perfect.

God is perfect and we have to be perfect to go into heaven. But we can’t because of sin. God will not allow us into heaven. So how can God get rid of the sin? Remember, the sin is not just the sin that I commit. It’s the sin nature that’s within me. I could take this away and I still can’t get in. Because you see, the sin nature is still inside of me. I committed this because I am a sinner.

So God has to give me a new birth, not change me, not change me, not send me to church and do all of the deed. God has to give me a new birth. So this hand represents Jesus Christ, he’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world. He has no sin, no sin nature. So he has no sin. But Christ, because he loves us and hates our sin, it says that he hates it because it separates us from him.

So what Christ did for us, He took our sins, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead and said, if we would believe it, He would give us His righteousness. And if God gave me His righteousness, then I would be as righteous as God. Can I go to heaven if I’m as righteous as God? Well, yes. That’s a righteousness that God gives to me by faith in what He did for me. And God says, once you trust Him, He’ll never cast you out and never lose you.

Best news in all the world. Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bowed and every eye closed and no one looking around, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your savior. Right now, why not just talk to the Lord and say something simple like this? Lord, I know I’m a sinner. I don’t understand it all, but I know that I’ve done things wrong. I believe that Christ died, paid for my sins, and I’m gonna trust Him this morning. There’s my only hope of going to heaven.

Friend, I’m not gonna have you forward, not gonna embarrass you. But right where you’re sitting, if what a said made sense, would you say, yes Lord, I will trust Christ as my Savior right now. And friend, by doing that, God will give you eternal life as a free gift. And He’ll never cast you out, never lose you. And you can know that you’re going to heaven when you die. Would you believe it? Would you trust Him? If you will, we’ll just dip you in it very quickly and say, pray for me.

I’ll trust Christ as my Savior this morning, and I’ll like you to pray for me. Is there anyone at all before we close? If you’ve already trusted Christ as your Savior, do you see the responsibility? All of us as God’s children are responsible to preach the gospel. One way or another, find a way, find a way. Because one day we’ll all stand before the Lord and give an account of ourselves. I won’t be judging you. You won’t be judging me.

We all have our own heavenly Father, and we’ll stand before Him. And you don’t want to be ashamed before Him in His coming. Our Father, we ask Your blessings upon each one here, as Father Your protection, because we’re living in a sinful world. The devil would like us to do everything in the world, but talk to people about their soul. He help us to have the confidence and the bones that we need and use this for your own engloring Christ name we pray.

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. Life broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.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. Just keep looking up.