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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.

Now the reason that Jesus Christ only came into the world wants to pay for sin is because man only has to die once. So if he died for me, he only had to die once. Because I’m only gonna die one time as far as in this world is concerned. I’m gonna die one time. Physical death, God gave to John a vision of the last judgment. So take your Bible-looking Revelation, chapter 20. So that means that a person who is gonna stand at this great white throne judgment needs to be getting prepared because you need to have and to bring with you all the evidence that you have that can justify God not condemning you because that’s what it’s going to be about.

So as you live, you might want to try to remember since you’re not going to trust Christ as your Savior, you’re going to have to defend yourself in court. Now see you’re not going to have some, the paramecing thing going to be there for you. You’re going to be there and you will have only you and your good works and what you say and think and what you’ve done as the evidence to either clear you or condemn you. It’s going to be one way or the other.

And by the way I thought I’d just throw this out. You You better not have one thing against you. Because see it won’t take 10 things against you. All God needs is just one little piece of evidence. All God has to do is prove that you’re not perfect. You’ll have to prove you are. Because see heaven is perfect and you’ve got to be perfect to go there. So you better be ready and prepare your case because you have a date with destiny.

You got a date with God. And you’re going to make that appointment. So it’s an appointed time. It’s appointed every man. Revelation chapter 20 and look in verse 11. I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it from who faced the earth and the heavens fled away, there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life.

And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to the works. And the sea gave up the dead, which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead, which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast in to the lake of fire.

The setting, what are we going to have there? Well the setting is this. It’s called the Great White Throne. So it’s going to be a great judgment. not a little bity-dinky thing, this is the biggest judgment of all time. God even says that the Christians are going to judge the angels and set in judgment upon the lost man in the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 6. It’s great because of its power. It’s white because of its purity. And the throne, well that pales you the purpose of it.

There’s a judgment going to take place. Now at this judgment it is the judgment of the unsaved dead. You see there’s not many people from Adam and Eve all the way down that have died that have never trusted Christ as their Savior. You see those who trust Christ as Savior, acts in from the body present with the Lord. So whenever we die we go to be with the Lord. But the lost man, the person who does not trust Christ as Savior, Well, it’s not the same for them.

They go to a place called Hades in the New Testament Greek Old Testament called Sheol, but it’s the place of the departed them a place of torment It’s not the final hell So when he says death and hell delivered up the dead is talking about death delivered up the bodies and hell delivered up the souls Because at this one there is what we call the summons where God summons the bodies from the grave and the souls out of hell, and they will stand at the great white throne judgment.

At this judgment, it is an awful place. It’s an awful place because there are sinners standing before God. is perfect and God is righteous, but a man is going to meet his maker. In the old testament put it this way, he says, prepare to meet thy God. You and I are one day going to see the Lord face to face, but that will be at the judgment seat of Christ when we’ll literally get to see the face of God.

Wouldn’t that be something for for Tom and for Tad, the first one they ever see will be the face of the Lord. I had to look at y’all. They’ll get to see the Lord first. But it’s an awful place because the sinner has got to stand before a perfect righteous holy God. Can you imagine how uncomfortable people are going to church? How uncomfortable they are reading the Bible Or have you ever seen anybody really get uncomfortable when you want to talk to them about how to have eternal life and go to heaven when they die?

Just think of all those, and they don’t even want to be there. They don’t want to be there. It’s an awful place for them, but this is where they’re going to be. It is an awesome person that they’re going to have to come face to face. This is God, but I want you to take your Bible look there in the book of John chapter 5, the gospel of John and chapter 5. We often say that, you know, there’s God and He’s going to be there and He will be there.

But I believe the one that’s going to do the judging is going to be Jesus Christ Himself. And here’s the reason. In John chapter 5, looking verse 22 and the Father and the Father, judge of no man, but have committed all judgment under the Son. The Son is going to be judging. And He is God. And this is when everyone is going to realize, you know, he says in the book of Philippians in chapter 2 that God had highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name.

That is the name of Jesus. You know, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that He is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. Every knee will bow. Now you and I have already accepted Him as our Savior. We know He’s God. We’ve already accepted that as a fact. But there’s a world out there that doesn’t believe that. But when life is all over, God says the rest of them are going to bow. But it will be too late.

You see, you can accept him as your Savior now, but he’s going to be your judge later. And at the judgment of there will be no mercy. There will be no mercy. And this is what he wants everyone to recognize. This is who I am. When they ask, who are you? I am. I am a God.” And that’s who he was. It’s also going to be a very awkward moment because that’s an awkward position. You see what? They don’t want to be there.

They don’t want to be there. But they’re there and they got to stand whether they like it or not. We have probably, and there’s a possibility. There could be sitting in this church right now, an individual who does not believe that there is a God. Or don’t believe that it applies to them. Or it’s not going to be that bad. But they ought to listen to what God said. It is going to be that bad. Hell is going to be hot.

And eternity is going to be that bad. long and that there will be no escape and yet it doesn’t have to end that way because God says that he saw love the world. That means everybody in the world. He’s already made a payment for the sins of the whole world and all they have to do. The only thing they can do is believe that Jesus Christ did it for them. So Revelation in chapter 20 says, and there was no place found for them.

They didn’t belong there. They don’t belong in heaven. And hell was actually created for the Devilman’s Angels. You say, well, when we go to hell, you know, I’ll see Bob over there in Frank and George and Peter Amato, and you know, I just see all those people. And so you say, well, I’ll see all those people there. No, you see, hell is dark. There is no light there. He says, they’re like in the midst of darkness forever. I don’t know if you’ll hear, but you won’t be able to see darkness forever in hell.

Now I want you to see there in verse 12. This is the summons to them chapter 20 and verse 12. I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. those three little words stand before God. They’re gonna meet their maker. They’re gonna meet God. They’re gonna stand before God. And he says, small and great. It doesn’t matter whether or not you were rich or whether you were poor. Whether you had a lot, you had a little. Whether you were somebody or a nobody.

Big shot, little shot. You’re all gonna stand there. Down here, you can buy you away out of a lot of things. Get away with murder. And a lot of people do. But with him, you won’t get away with anything. And there’s four categories, I believe, achievers of some people that are going to be there. And that’s those that are totally rebellious. To any truth, don’t believe in God. Don’t bother me with God. My mind’s He’s made up. He don’t even exist.

Like as one of the boys said to his dad, Dad, do you think God’s going to get mad because we don’t believe in him? You see, you know there’s a God. If there is no God, why you fight him? He don’t exist. But he does exist. The self-righteous people, so who’s the self-righteous people? Well, the do-gooders. You see, human goodness is the worst form of evil when it’s used as a substitute for salvation. I’ll repeat that statement. Human goodness is the worst form of evil when it’s used as a substitute for salvation.

And there’s a lot of people who are trying to do good deeds. Those good deeds is an evil thing to trust in when salvation is free. But there’ll be people there because they think they were good enough to make it on their own. And they’re gonna bring up all those good things that they did, kind of like the third group. And that’s that self-righteous, hypocritical person that’s religious but lost. They go to church. They give money. They pray. They do all the good deeds.

The only thing they haven’t done was trust Christ as their savior. And so there’s people who are gonna be greatly surprised whenever they let us in. Or say, I don’t know you. I don’t know you. Depart from me, you that work iniquity. Because they were trusting in their good deeds to get them to heaven. And God says that no amount of good deeds can ever save a person. It’s a shame, but a lot of people just don’t get it.

Then you have the centers that know that they’re centers, but they plan to get saved someday. And they think that if they become a Christian, they won’t have any fun in life. So they want to do all their sinning and right before they die, they say, okay, well, I’m old and grey and I can’t do anything. I ain’t no good to the world. Anyway, I’ll trust the Lord now. Well, that’s great if you can know that you lived to that length of time and you’ll have that chance at that time and if you’ll think that way at that time, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

People that are intending to get right with the Lord. And sometimes they don’t even know what that get right means. I’m gonna get right, I’m gonna start going to church. I’m gonna start doing right. Well, you don’t have to do right to go to heaven. Only thing you can do is trust Christ as your Savior. He’s already died and paid for your sins on the ground. You can’t get around Christ. You can’t get to heaven and you can’t get to the Father except through the Son.

And if you reject the Son, you don’t get to go to heaven. You see, God didn’t leave it up to you and I to devise a way to get there. That’s chapter 17. There’s a statement made here that I believe is very important. He says in verse 31, because he, God, hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world. Now look up here. And it just say that God hath appointed a day in which He’s going to judge the world.

He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, where he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead. In other words, this is true because he came back from the dead. He came back from the dead. And that’s the one that’s going to be the judge, the one that came back from the dead. And he’s going to judge the world. Get the last part of that. He had given assurance on all men in that he had raised him from the dead.

And when they heard about the resurrection, they began to mock. You can’t hold court if the judge is dead, and you can’t hold court if the defendants is dead. Or if you got to go to court next Monday and you died on Sunday, you don’t have to show up. Did you know that? So what God did is He sent out a summons and He summoned all the dead, brought them back to life and is going to have them up here at this great, quite-thrown judgment and they’re going to be judged.

Look in Romans chapter 2 and verse 16. Romans chapter 2 and verse 16. The secrets will be revealed. The secrets will be revealed. You see, there’s a lot of things that the lost men have done They think nobody knows, nobody knows. God says in one place, that which was done in secret will be shouted from the housetop. And that which was covered shall be uncovered. And here in Romans 2 in verse 16, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.

Get this, God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. See, God’s the judge, But he does the judging through his son. And he says, there’s secrets that men have. Or wouldn’t it be a terrible thing if God could pull down of that screen and show everybody everything you think there’d be a mass accident out of this room. And I’d be first.

And if I couldn’t get to that door, I’d go to that door over there. You see, there is no door over there. there will be one. But you be surprised. There’s things that you have thought about. There’s probably things you’ve done that nobody else knows about. And see, there’s people that need to understand God says every man shall be judged according to what he’s done. Look there in verse two of this same chapter. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to what?

According to truth. Look in verse 6, who shall render to every man according to his deeds. verse 11, for there is no respect of persons with God. Now, so God says there’s a judgment coming and every person is going to stand at this judgment. For the lost man, he’s going to find out how much punishment he’s going to receive in hell, because of truth and light that he rejected, rebelled against. You and I, see, we stand at the judgment seat of Christ.

That is a rewarding stand for us. But I do believe that the judgments in the Christ, even for God’s people, there’s going to be tears shed when we see what we could have done, when we see rewards that we could have had, when we see positions that we could have ruled and rained with Christ and we forfeited them because we didn’t think it was important. But that’s for the believer. But that doesn’t determine our destination. Our destination was determined by our belief that Christ paid for our sins.

This is not to determine their destination. All of those who stand here and are judged here are cast into the lake of fire. This is to determine the amount of punishment they see in hell. Hours was to determine the amount of rewards we receive with the Lord. The books were opened. God is even at this very moment photographing this service. Now we have Roger up there and he’s photographing everything that I’m saying. People anywhere in the world, if they got a computer, can watch what we’re saying and doing right now.

If man can do that, don’t you think God can? God says he knows every thought. Every word, every deed. All of your acts and all of your motives. On every person, from the time you were born, the books were opened. The next thing I want to mention to you is this. There is the sureness of this judgment. They were judged. They were judged. The judge bid if it says they’re going to be judged according to their works and then it renders a verdict, then And God did look at the evidence.

And God did make a decision. And it’s a sure thing. And his decision is final. This lady went to have her picture made. Looked just like her. She didn’t like it. So she took it back. She says, this picture does not do me justice. He said, ma’am, you don’t need justice. You need mercy. There’s three great words in the Bible. three great words in the Bible. And one is mercy. You’ve heard about mercy. Mercy is not getting what you deserve.

You see, we’ve all sinned. We deserve to spend the eternity in a literal fire burning hell, a place of God, in a lake of fire. That’s what we deserve. Because we’ve all sinned against a holy God. God is perfect. He’s righteous. He has every right, he could do this. But not getting what we deserve, that’s mercy. That’s why we want God’s mercy. We talk about the grace of God. It means that there’s a wonderful place called heaven and the holy city that I don’t deserve this.

But for God to give me that, that’s grace. I’m getting something I don’t deserve. Now, justice is getting what you deserve. At the Great White Throne Judgment, there is no mercy, there is no grace, but there will be justice. And if a person rejects the mercy of God now and rejects the grace of God now, he will have the judgment of God upon Him, and that will be justice later. Prepare to defend yourself, because if you lose, there is no court of appeals.

In closing, every person, especially the lost man, needs to understand this. They have a date with destiny. They’ve got a date with deity. They’ve got a date with the second death because he says here in the book of Revelation. In chapter 20, death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. The book of life is the Lamb’s book of life.

The Lamb’s book of life is the one that you’re born into by faith in Christ. When you trust Christ as your Savior, your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life. Look up here. If you’re here this morning and if you have not trusted Christ as your Savior, you have an appointment with God, a date with deity. You’re going to meet the Lord. And God says He’s going to judge your works. And those are your evidence what you’ve thought, what you’ve said, what you’ve done, by the evidence that’s going to be presented, are you able to win in court against God?

Because if you can’t convince God by the evidence that you’ve never sinned, it will not matter how much good you’ve done. Did you ever sin one time if you did, you’re lost. And you cannot save yourself. And that judgment, there will be no more mercy, and there will be no more grace, only justice. You’re going to get what you deserve. I don’t want what I deserve. That’s why 49 years ago, sitting in the little living room in the happens, Georgia, I wanted God’s mercy.

I didn’t want to go to hell. I wanted God’s grace. I want to go to heaven. And it made more sense to me than anything I’ve ever heard in my whole life. So that night I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior. I was 18 years old. This man represents you and me and the wall of represents sin. We all have sin upon us. Now God says he loves us, but he hates our sin. And for us to pay for sin, eternal separation from God.

And since we’re all sinners, we’re all in the same boat, we’re all condemned. And God says you cannot earn eternal life, you cannot work your way to heaven. It’s not by your good deeds. You see, heaven is perfect. And you have to be perfect to go there. Well, we’re not. So Jesus Christ, God’s Son, came into this world because He loves us. So he took our sins, paid for them on the cross, and came back from the dead. Now the issue is not about your sins.

He already took care of that issue. Now is will you accept it or will you reject it? You see, I’m not better than anybody else. I believe he did it for me. And if you’ll believe it, then he’ll save you too. So when I believe he did it for me, he put this payment to my account. When you believe it, he’ll put it to your account. and you get to go to heaven on what Christ did. So see right now, you can trust Christ as your Savior and you don’t get to go to hell.

That’s mercy. You get to go to heaven, that’s grace. But if you reject God’s grace, there is no way to be saved. Cause He says for by grace are you saved? Through faith that not of yourself, it is the gift of God not of works, lest any man should boast. No man can save himself by his works. by grace and grace alone. Let’s pray, Sean. 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 Bible Line 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, 3-3-6-3-4. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live 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 everyday, believing that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.