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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 at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bibleline website at Calvary of Tampa.org. We pray that you’ll 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.

God made a promise to Abraham that he would save by faith, that a man could not save himself by his works. And this was 430 years before God ever gave the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. So God did not give the law to be saved. He already promised that he would save by faith alone. And that’s the only way a man could be saved. So that was the greatest promise that’s ever been made. That God would justify a heathen.

And I was a heathen. I was lost by faith alone. All I had to do is believe that when Christ died, He died for me and I trusted Him as my Savior. Look at number nine there in your nose. Number nine is the greatest law ever given. See, that’s what makes this the greatest story because everything about it was so great. What makes it so great? Well, the greatest promise that God ever gave was that He was saved a man by faith.

And He made it to Abraham, and yet He had to have His Son make it possible for Him to keep His promise. You see, if Christ had never come into the world, God could not have kept His Word. He could not have kept his promise to save a man by faith if Christ had not died and paid for his sins. Because he, God, made a law, a righteous law. And in that law, it says, the soul that sineth shall die.

Now, while you’re in Romans, look there in chapter 3. Romans chapter 3, Luke now in verse 19. Now we know that what things, so ever the law say it, it’s safe to them that are under the law and get this. that every mouth may be stopped and you’re to underline all the world become guilty before God. God made a law that condemned the whole world. What a law. That’s the greatest law that’s ever been given was God’s law. All every nation makes laws, every state legislature, county, city, but he made a law that governed everybody in the whole world.

Never been a law like that law. That’s the greatest law that’s ever. All the laws in America are because of the laws that God gave. By the way, they’re still in effect. They were never given to save anybody. Christ did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill the law. The law is still wrong to steal. It’s still wrong to lie. It’s still wrong to commit adultery. It’s still wrong. God didn’t say it’s not wrong anymore. Like the law is going to be, no, no, no, no, no, no, it’s still wrong.

still ascend. And it says, I shall make unto thee no other graven images. I shall love the Lord thy God with all thy hard mind, body, soul, and strength. That’s still a command. It’s just a man can’t keep it. Man can’t fulfill the law. But that doesn’t make the law bad. Romans 7 says that the law was perfect, the law is spiritual, the law is good, nothing wrong with the law. Well what’s the problem? You and me, we couldn’t keep it.

And because the law condemned everybody, well did God give the law for a man to be saved? No, he already promised all he had to do is trust Christ to save you. But see people won’t trust Christ if they think they can save themselves. So God gave the law to lead us to Christ. The law was never given to save a man. Can’t save a man. Look at number 10. Number 10. The greatest son ever born was given. I’ve got two sons.

One’s here and one’s in heaven. Love both of my sons. My sons I think were pretty good. But not a one of them was perfect. All they were close. I think my grandson is it doesn’t matter how much we love them. They’re not perfect Just beautiful little baby down here is not perfect They’re gonna find out in very soon That little baby has a sinful nature got it from the mother Just joking believe it or not. I believe it’s passed on by the daddy Who hated to admit that?

but the greatest law brought the greatest condemnation that the whole world becomes guilty. So that’s what helps make this the greatest story. Everybody in the world needs a Savior. This is this wonderful? Everybody needs a Savior. We’re all in the same boat. And God’s in His Son, and he’s the only one that can save. He was the only one that was innocent, he was the only one that didn’t sin, so he’s the only one that didn’t have to die.

But he chose to die because he loved his father and he made this statement in John chapter 14 verse 31. He said that the world may know that I love my father even so I I do. In the words of Christ says, I’m doing what I’m doing because I want the world to know how much I love my father. Now he loves us, but it was God love for us that sent his son and because the son loved the dad so much.

He’d do anything his father asked. So he was was willing to die for us because he loved his father and he died on the cross, came back from the dead. And God says that all those who come to him, he will give to the Son. He says, and I will know why he has ever cast them out and I will never lose them. You have eternal life and you get to go to heaven whenever you die. Pretty good news.

Pretty good news. your Bible and turn there to the book of 1 John and chapter 4. 1 John chapter 4, 1 John chapter 4, look there in verse 9. God is love. God in order to prove love must have an object of love. He needed to have something that He can show that He He loves. And he created a man and a woman, Adam and Eve, put him in a garden and all the world. And the beautiful garden was made just for them, just for mankind, because he loves us.

But Adam and Eve, if they had never sinned, would never have known the love of God. you and I know. It was because of sin and God permitted sin and all the wickedness it comes because of sin because it gave the Lord an opportunity to prove to us that He loves us by doing something for us we could not do for ourselves. So there has to be something so bad that he had to save us from. Something so bad would want to be saved from.

We could just say, I wish that I could just be annihilated and there’s nothing else and I don’t know why exist anymore. In other words, think of how many years went and I wasn’t around. I didn’t exist. I didn’t miss anything because I wasn’t here. Wouldn’t it be neat if you could just say, okay, I’ve had enough. Stop the earth. I want off and I don’t exist anymore. If it could all go through that, then death may be within the end at all.

And that’s it. But we know according to the Bible. Death doesn’t end at all. There is an eternity. And God tells us about a place called hell and tells us how terrible it is. How wicked it is. How hot it is. How long it is. The suffering. The smoke of their torment of sinned it up forever and ever. And they have no rest day nor night. They’re like wondering stars in the Mr. Blackness forever. There has to be the most wicked thing in all the world in order for us to appreciate the love of God.

Because he’s got to save us from something we couldn’t save ourselves from. And God allowed all of this wickedness and so forth to prove that He loves us. You say, well, I may have proved just the opposite. Then you’re not looking correctly. You say, you and I don’t have to spend eternity in hell. You can accept the love of God, or you can reject the love of God. He that believeth on Him, God gives us His righteousnesses upon him.

He that believeth not the wrath of God’s all in him. It’s a choice. This made sense to me 50 years ago. So I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. I know that I have eternal life and I know that I’m going to heaven when I die. Now, hearing your notes, there’s a few of the things that’s mentioned here, the greatest event in human history was the cross. And mainly that time of the death and the barrel and the resurrection of Christ is all tied in together here.

There’s nothing alike those few short years that Jesus came into the world. Now you stop and think there’s a lot A lot of people who tried to rule the world. And you could name me, no Hitler, and Stalin, Mussolini, and all the rest of them, all the way down through time, Napoleon and Alexander, they all wanted a rule world.

And they all ruled by force to conquer, to kill, to threaten, terrorize. We have people today who want to take and terrorize the world. Willing to kill anybody and everybody as long as they can dominate and win, conquer the world. And yet the Bible talks about come, desire of nations come. This desire of peace and joy and happiness. This is the Lord. The desire is Christ. The desire that you and I have to live forever. eternal peace and joy all this that we want that’s Christ That’s what you really desire and how many people live their whole lives Chasing soap bubble the dream and and they don’t want anything to do with Jesus And he’s what you’re looking for He’s always been there You need the Lord God is so designed this world that there is nothing in this world that can bring the peace that joined the happiness

like the person of Christ, Christ. And the Bible says that this desire of nations that He will come and one day as King of kings and Lord of lords, He will rule the world. And He will rule for a while as the rod of iron. But see, he rules because he is a God of love. You and I are not supposed to serve the Lord because we’re afraid he’s going to beat us up, though he can, but because we know he loves us.

And our lives are supposed to reflect our love for him. So as we study the word of God and we see these things, and he makes a statement here in verse 9, and this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. And live through him means to have eternal life, not just the length of life, but the quality of life. This life is in his Son and he did have the Son, have life, and he did not the Son of God, have not life.

These things have arisen to you that believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life so you and I can know that we’re going to heaven whenever we die. And him dying on the cross, when you stop and think about all the histories of the world, the kingdoms of the world, and they all give recognition to the date when Jesus Christ was born into this world. It’s either before Christ or after Christ.

Anyway, they want to cut it. It’s because of him. And yet he only lived maybe 33 and a half years. One little old fellow been born. Let’s just pretend he wasn’t God. Why is all of this about a man? If he was just a plain ordinary normal man, look how many people are meeting today to sing about this man, to worship this man. Look at the books that have been written about this man. Look at the nation of America that was founded on the principles of this man.

If he was just a man. What a man. But he was God. And you’re not going to go to heaven because you believe he was a good man or a great man or that he was a prophet. You must understand he is God in the flesh, God. And he that have seen the Son have seen the Father. He says, I and The Father are one, were the same one. You and I in this life would probably never understand it all.

But when Jesus Christ went to the cross, He had made the statement, I am the light of the world. And the Pharisees says in chapter 8, John, He said, you’re not the light of the world. Thou bear us record of thyself and thy record is not true. He says, I’m the light of the world. He says, and when you put me on the cross, you’ll know who I am. My Father will tell you who I am when you put me on the cross.

And when Christ was put on the cross, the Bible says that the veil in the temple was rent from the top to the bottom. The Bible also says that when the light went out, darkness was upon the face of the earth, when he was on the cross. The Bible also says that the rocks were torn in two and many of the saints would slip arose and came out of his grave after the resurrection. Because he says I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And Christ says when you put me on the cross my Father will tell you who I am. I told you I am the resurrection. I told you I was the way and that veil was ramped from top to bottom as the only way into the holy of holes and to the very presence of God. He said, I am the light of the world and they didn’t believe that. And God through the main switch of heaven and all of the universe went dark.

I believe Jesus was who he claimed to be. I don’t believe a dying man on the cross could make those things happen. I believe. I believe. Look at the last statement I have there. The Father’s testimony bears witness that Jesus was truly the Son of God. Now I can’t make other people believe it. I just know that it made sense to me. And I didn’t understand a lot about the Bible. I really didn’t know the Bible. I had never heard of John 3 16 until that night when I was 18.

My father-in-law showed me John 3 16 and told me the story. The greatest story I’d ever heard in my life. I did not know that Jesus was the Lord. I did not know that he died for me. I did not know that I could have eternal life. I did not know I could be certain of going to heaven when I died. I did not know I could become a child of God. I did not know that he could be my father.

I didn’t know. I didn’t know that. But after that night, I knew it. He told me the greatest story ever told. Since you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior, have you ever told the greatest story in the world? What about all the people that’s never heard? Do you talk to people about football, basketball, girlfriend, boyfriends, talk to them about Christmas and all kinds of things? Have you ever told the greatest story in all the world where they can understand it?

A lot of people have never heard. They’ve never heard. Look up here just a moment. This hand represents you and me and the walla represents sin. Now we are all born into this world and we’re all sinners. And because we are sinners with an old sinful nature, we bring forth sin. And everybody sins. So we’re all in the same boat, everybody in the world. Now God loves the whole world. Now he gave his law, the greatest law, and it condemned everybody.

So nobody could save themselves. Nobody was exempt from the law. It condemned the whole world, the whole world is guilty. So God says you cannot save yourself. That’s why Christ came to show you how much He loves you. So Christ came into the world because God so loved the world. we sinned his son, born of a virgin, had no sin, took upon flesh, tabernacle among us. And the Bible says that because he loved us, he took our sins and paid for them on the cross, came back from the dead.

And God said, if you and I, if we would believe that he did it for us, he would put this payment to our account and his righteousness, though it’s under all, it’s only upon those that believe it. Now you say, well, I don’t believe that then his righteousness is not put to your account. You won’t have to worry about going to heaven. You won’t go. You don’t have to believe it. But you will go to hell. You will go to hell.

If that’s what you want, that’s That’s what you can have. It’s not because anybody makes you do it. That’s your choice. You can laugh at it, you can mock it. You can do anything that you want. It’s not gonna change the fact that God loved you and he offered it to you and you rejected it. He said, well, I’ll think about that down the road. If you died today, that was a decision today. No decision is a decision. to wait that’s a decision.

Oh I plan on getting right you know down the road right before I die. I had a girl call me the other day well she’s my cousin. She’s about my age. She says yeah I was just thinking about you and thought I’d call you. I said well great I appreciate that. I said well how you doing she says well like at one foot in the grave and the other one on the banana peel. She says, I said, it’s that bad, hon.

She says, it’s that bad. She said, I’ve smoked all my life. She said, Yank, I can’t quit. She said, I’ve tried. She says, I’ve already lost one lung and I’m losing the other one. The doctor says, I’m dying of cancer. She said, all because of smoking. I said, well, I lost my mom because of it. I lost my two sisters because of it. And I says, I buried probably 25, 30 of my relatives that all died from it. My dad died from it.

I says, a lot of people just get hooked on it and they can’t quit. I says, but do you know where you go when you die? She says, oh, yes. I had led her to the Lord years ago. I said, release. I said, I’m gonna be coming up to Georgia in a week. I said, maybe I’ll get a chance to come by there and see you. And it’s a joy to, yeah, you lead them to the Lord. But you want so much more for people, but you can’t make people, you can’t live their lives for them, you can’t make them make decisions.

People do what they really want to do. If you really want to quit, you will. And if you don’t, you won’t. That’s how simple it is. Because if you just don’t know, I don’t need to know. You can decide. Are you trying to tell me the God of heaven, the Holy Spirit, and living and dwelling within you, can’t give you the power that you need to stop something? Do something? That’s a cop out of I ever heard it. You can do what you really want to do.

And you will when you really make up your mind and you won’t until then. I’m not God. I don’t play God in people’s lives. But I don’t fall for the stuff. Does it excuses? That’s the flesh. That’s the flesh. God says you can control it. Yes, I can’t. Yes, you can. I can’t. Yes, you can. Dr. tells you you’re down to cancer unless you quit smoking and you’ve got to quit within a week. Doc, I quit. My sister, right before she died, she’d gone to the hospital and the doctor has told her.

Says. I don’t want you coming back into this hospital if you’re not going to listen to me. He says you’re dying of cancer. He says you won’t quit your smoking. She said if you don’t care about your life, he said there’s nothing I can do for you. And she says I don’t think I can wait for a doctor to talk. Anyway, the doctor told me she says she’s not to come back into this hospital. It wasn’t long here’s my sister again.

He says, I thought I told you not to come back and let you quit your smoke. She said, I quit. He says, when did you quit now? And then she’d get in the bathroom and sneeze. She’d go outside and sneeze. They were on their quit when I owe the God bless my sister. My sister’s in heaven. I’d rather her smoke here than smoke later. But… I’d rather her smoke here than smoke later. Aren’t you glad? Aren’t you glad God loves you in spite of the problem?

I don’t care about your sins. He did something about sin. One day whenever you leave this whole world and that whole body of yours, he will have totally delivered you. Your new body is not going to have any of that problem. Right now, it’s a battle and you go through it and that’s not what I did because of it. And it’s rough and hard. I know.

But that doesn’t mean all the fact. God loves you. He paid for everything you’ve ever done, ever will do. And he says that if you’ll believe he did it for you, he’d give you eternal life as a gift. You get to go to heaven and what Christ did for you. Let’s pray, shall we? Never hit bow and every eye closed, no one looking around. If you hear this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, God loves you.

He sent his son to prove it. He died and paid for your sins. All you have to do is the only thing you can do. Will you believe he did it for you? If you don’t, the wrath of God abides upon you. If you believe it, the righteousness of God is given to you. You. It’s under all, but it’s only upon those that believe. Will you believe it? With heads bowed nice and closed. If you say, yes, that made sense to me.

And preacher this morning, I believe Christ died for me, and I’m going to trust Him as my Savior. Now, if you’ve never done it before, would you do it right now? If you’ve already trusted Christ as a Savior, you don’t have to do it again. But if you have never done so, and you say, that made sense to me, I can see it’s a gift. It’s free. I can’t earn it, can’t work for it. I know I can’t deserve it.

So by grace, I accept it. I believe he did it for me. And so friend, would you believe he did it for you? And God said, he’d give you the free gift of eternal life. Would you just slip your hand out very quickly and put a right back down? I’m not gonna stand, have you stand up? I’m not gonna embarrass you. It’s over and done with when you make a decision. But if you hear this morning, you say that made sense to me.

And I wanna be certain of going to heaven when I die and pray to God wants to pray for me. Would you slip your hand out very quickly? You know it all, just slip it up very quickly, put it right back down. Our Father, we thank You so much for this time together. We thank You for Your blessings to us. We thank You for the free gift of eternal life made available to us because of the death, the sacrifice, the substitution or payment of Your Son, in whom we are thankful in Christ and we pray, Amen.

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 six 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 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.