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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 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.

I want God to reward you when you get to heaven. I want people to be in heaven because they heard the gospel from your lips personally. So I want to encourage you to do that. There are some that are getting some of that boldness. Peter was talking about some of the people that, well, when they first started out on Friday night, so when it was a little shy and timid. And now it’s like it doesn’t even bother them. They just go and they can talk to just about anybody.

And so do pray for these kids. Look at everyone in the light of the gospel. Ask yourself, are they saved? Use every opportunity to give the gospel weddings funerals showers birthday parties neighborhood parties when you ask to give a testimony of what is going on in your life Christmas letters and so forth this way if there is ever just one person in a group that is not saved You had shared the most important information they could ever need Also for the Christians who hear you shared the gospel over and over them.

They will learn how to present it clearly Now, what I enjoy is when I do a wedding, I like to give the gospel. And then whenever you do a funeral, funeral is a good place to go fishing. And there’s opportunities when somebody, a loved one, passes away in your family. That’s a perfect chance to be able to talk to people about the Lord. Sometimes it’s the only time people listen. Now, I’ve had people say this, they love the Lord, they love the gospel.

But when they die, they have somebody else. Do the funeral that’s not clear on the gospel. If you have the power in your hands, the authority to determine, who should do your funeral? Try to have somebody that will give the gospel, because the person that’s dead, they’re dead. The funeral is not for the dead person. It’s for those that are still alive that we may teach our hearts to number our days and apply our hearts on the wisdom. That person has died.

They’re already wherever they’re going. They’re there. They’re not in that body. And so therefore use that as an opportunity to get the gospel to the people that might come there for no other reason and may never darken the doors of a church. And don’t naturally assume, well, the preacher will do the funeral. If you don’t have it down, I won’t be doing the funeral because see there may be somebody else in the family that will determine it and there you go.

If you can choose and you can make that decision and it’s in your hands, try to make the wisest decision. People will think about where are they going to be buried and their insurance policy and the headstone and what they want on it and a verse of scripture and all the flowers and where it’s going to be and everything except the gospel. As long as a preacher says nice wonderful things. I was doing a funeral one day for my aunt and she had a son that was in another state.

I never got a chance to talk to him, but she had wanted me to do her funeral, so I was going to do her funeral. There’s a little white church way out in the woods where my daddy was buried. So I’m not there and everybody’s middling around so forth, so we go in there for the funeral service, and we had a couple of songs, and he’s sitting there in the family and all of them. and you know. So I got up here and I started doing the gospel.

I talked about this and that, my relationship with her. It was a few nice little things at the beginning, and that the people here are here, it’s a testimony of their love and appreciation and the flowers and all that kind of stuff. And I started going to the gospel. I got about halfway through this hand represent you and me and this wall represents sin and I was going through. He gets out of his seat. comes up on the stage.

Walks right up to me and whispers in my ear and he says, that’s enough of this stuff. Just say some nice things about my mom and let it go. I don’t want no more of this. And he turned around and walked back down. He said, I says, once again, let this hand represent you and me and walla represent sin. And I went ahead and did it all over again because he had interrupted me. And I went through and I gave the gospel, gave an invitation, had several trusts to the Lord.

Now can that happen? Oh, I’ve had it happen. But you’ve got to determine what are you committed to? She had wanted me to do this because she heard me do it years before and she trusted Christ as her Savior. And her sister, my Aunt Grace, I had led her to the Lord. And I did her funeral. So I got a lot of people, the relatives, that trust the Christ to save you because I explained the Gospel to them. But look down here.

Most Americans think they are a Christian because we are known to be a Christian nation. Most religious people would say they are saved. Only to find out they think they are saved because they do religious things. The best question to ask is, do you know where you are going when you die? If the person says he is going to heaven, then you can ask him how he knows that. His answer will help you know if he really is saved.

Is he trusting in any good thing he has done? If he says he is eternal destiny is by his faith in Christ and not in his works, then you’ll know he’s probably a Christian. But you’ve got to ask him the question. I usually don’t ask a person, well, are you saved? And you can? Are you a Christian? You can do that. But I believe number three, they’re the best question to answer is, do you know where you’re going to go when you die?

It demands an answer instead of just yes, because that answer leads into another question. How do you know? Down at the bottom, if he answers incorrectly by saying he knows he is going to heaven when he dies because of some good thing he has done, you can say that you too used to think that that was what would get you to heaven. But you found out from the Bible that there’s only one thing you could do. They began to share the gospel with them.

You see, don’t just let it go. If you get a good opportunity to talk to somebody about the Lord, you’d be surprised who God may send your way, how God may just open up a door and give you an opportunity that you wouldn’t have had no other way. In the next page, page three, learn to use clear terminology so that the person truly understands the gospel. Salvation is only what Christ has done and none of what we can do to earn it or merit it.

The issue will always be helping people understand the difference between grace and works. That’s always the issue in salvation. Is it free or do you have to earn it? And if they say they can lose it, they believe they have to earn it. There is no other way. If you really believe it’s free and you really believe it’s by grace, then you have no problem believing that it lasts for eternity and that you can’t lose it. They God will never cast you out.

But if you believe you can lose it, then you don’t believe it’s free. You believe it’s by your works because you’ll believe that by something that I do can take my salvation away, then by your obedience it’s keeping your salvation and they don’t understand the gospel. Look at those two things here. Grace and works on the the gray side, trust Christ as your Savior. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, receive Christ as your Savior, accept Christ as your… Oh, that’s the same thing because that’s just receiving something.

See, a gift is something you receive. Works is something that you have to do on the work side. Surrender your all. Make Christ the Lord of your life. Give Jesus your life or turn from your sin. That’s all things that you have to do instead of something you simply receive. Those are dead giveaways to a works gospel. And this is where some of these nuts are teaching terrible, terrible stuff. I do not recommend them whatsoever. And they’re on the radio and they’re well known.

But they do not have a gospel message, a clear gospel message. I can’t say clear because they don’t have a gospel. Their message is not the gospel. Because salvation is all of Christ and none of us, the biblical terms denoting grace are trusting, believing, receiving, accepting. And you can use any one of those words, and it won’t be no problem. Most people can understand that. It just means that you’re accepting what He already did for you. That’s salvation. All of the works terms require a person to do something poor salvation to ask, surrender, give.

Make. Remember salvation is not us doing something. It is what Christ has already done. Until a person is born into God’s family, he is unable to do anything. The work’s term can only be used once a person is already saved and you’re helping him to grow as a new Christian, not to become a Christian. You do not try to get your children to be obedient or promised to be obedient before they’re born. Would that be a problem? Would that be a problem trying to get your children to promise they’re going to behave before you let them be born?

Promise? Are you going to be in there forever? No, you let the children be born and then you have to teach them. You have to educate them. And that’s what I believe the Word of God relates it to the Father and Son relationship. Avoid using the phrase, ask Jesus into your heart. Because this is unclear and often a child thinks of this literally. Remember that we do not need to ask but rather we receive what he has given. See, asking Jesus to come into your heart doesn’t mean Jesus is going to come into your heart.

You can ask Him to come into your heart, your liver, your lungs, your eye, your toe. I don’t care. That doesn’t mean He comes in just because you asked. Find the verse that promises that. There is it one. So see, if you will do what God says to you, if I trust Christ as my Savior, Him and dwell on me automatically takes place. But you can ask Him to dwell you and never trust Him and you can’t have it.

So you can’t have Christ and dwell on you just because you asked. You can’t get Jesus to live in your heart, because you ask Him to. There’s no chapter and verse for it. But if you’ll trust Christ as your Savior, He will indwell you. To see Him indwelling you is a result of trusting Him. So people today are asking people for the results without trusting. And so this is why kids get all confused and messed up and even adults believe it or not.

The next thing, a determined to use only clear, biblical terms so that the lost people can understand the wonderful grace of Jesus that is able to save their soul. These are the seven steps that you always see me use and probably Hank Lindstrom did the same thing. But anyway, look at this here. I want you to look at all seven of these things here very quickly. And now look up here, you’ll notice that I always do the wallet illustration pretty much the same way true.

You can just about word it. Let this hand represent you and me and the wallet represents sin. And the Bible says that we have all sin. See number one, number one, all have sin. See, that’s the first point. I’ve learned this 46 or 7 years ago and I’ve been doing in exactly the same way ever since. And then I say the payment for sin is death. The wages of sin is death. The pay for the sin is eternal separation from God in a literal fire burning hell.

So we’ve all sinned and the wages of sin is death. So that’s why we all have to die. And it’s not just one death, it’s two death. One, physical death and two, spiritual death, eternal separation from God. So the wages of sin is death, separation. Now, the third thing I always say is God says, heaven is perfect and to go to heaven, we have to be perfect, no sin. So whenever you watch me do it, now I don’t say point one, point two.

And when you talk to somebody, you don’t have to say, now the third point is, leave all the points out. It’s just that you know how it’s supposed to flow and see a person’s mind can follow something logically. These seven points are just, there’s only one thing a man has to do to go to heaven. That’s to believe it. But there’s a line of understanding that if they understand this point, I am a sinner. Well, what’s the results of that?

Well, death. Well, I want to go to heaven. What go to heaven? You’ve got to be perfect. But nobody’s perfect. We have all sinned and come short of God’s perfection. And so because of sin, we can’t get in. And God says, you cannot earn eternal life. You can’t work your way to heaven. point number four, you can’t earn your way to heaven. There’s nothing that you can do. So being a sinner is bad news and going to hell, that’s bad news and got to be perfect to go to heaven.

That’s not good news for you and you can’t earn your weight. Well, that’s bad news too. So all All that, that’s the bad news now. It’s time for the good news. And number five, Christ died. So look up here. This hand represents Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us and He hates our sin. So number five is always Christ died for us. So you’ve got to present the problem before you present the solution.

Now if you just throw all this stuff out and you can say, you know, this is you and me and we’ve all sinned. And then if you just believe it, you can have eternal life. That doesn’t mean a person who should have just because you throw a wallet from one hand to the, there’s no power in this. The power is in the message. This only illustrates the message. This just helps us to explain it to somebody. And a person’s mind, if I know that I’m a sinner and I know that the wages of sin is death, then I have to be perfect to go to heaven and I’m not.

And then I can understand why I can’t earn my way to heaven. why? Because you got to be perfect and I’m not perfect. And I know that I’ve sinned and I’ve got to go to hell. So I need a Savior. But see, then Christ died. He came and took all of our sins, paid for them on the cross, came back from the dead. Because I believe that you ought to throw that in there. That to me is important. Came back from the dead.

And God says that all that we had to do was do what? Because of this, what do we have to do? Believe it. If we will believe, He did it for us. John 3, 16, all we have to do is believe it. And we can know that we’re going to heaven. Number seven, go to heaven. Number seven, you can know you’re going to heaven. Five Christ died. It says so simple. It just goes to, it just flows. I didn’t originate.

Dr. Stanford taught us this. He gave us a few unique things at Florida Bible College. One, he gave us the Christian youth wrench ministry that nobody ever had. He gave us the Heaven track with the clear gospel presentation on nobody ever had. He gave us the two natures that made serving the Lord simple and easy to understand. And he gave us the wallet illustration, the seven steps. He He gave us the simple, basic tools that made us unique. We were different.

No other Bible college had what we had. So then when I go to Colorado and I started a Bible college, this was the basics of why we did what we did. When Hank Lindstrom started his college here, this is why he did what he did. And it’s all because of what’s on this paper and our responsibility and then to teach people how to do it. It looks like it’s a simple thing, but people have to know the Bible because people will ask you questions and if you don’t have the answers, their questions and their doubts will become yours.

And that’s why it’s so important. So anyway, as you go down through there, those are the seven steps. You can stand in front of a mirror. I did this. Stand in front of a mirror and practice doing this and trying to see if you can get it right and try to see if you can cover all seven See, if you learn the seven steps, you’ll know which ones you left out. And see, any one of these you leave out, you’re taking away some truth from the story.

Which one of these do you think would be best to leave out? We’re going to leave anything out. Which one should we leave out? I can’t think of any of them. So that’s why I include every one of them in every message. Because I don’t want to leave out any of these because if a man is lost, which one should I leave out? Number five, Christ died? Should I leave it out that you can know you have eternal life?

I can’t leave that out. That’s what you’re talking for. But what about just believe? Only believe. Should we leave that one out? You’ve got to be perfect to go to heaven. Should I leave that out? No, that’s the problem. I can’t earn my way to heaven. Why should I trust Christ as my Savior? I think I can’t. So I can’t leave that out. Well, how do I know I’m not good at it? Well, you’re a sin. See, there isn’t any of these.

And yet, if you just throw them out there, it’s something like this. You’ve got 10 acres of ground and you want to build your house. So you throw some blocks on it, you throw some motor mix out there and you throw some bricks out there and you throw some rebar out there and you got everything to build a house. But it’s not together. You can’t live it because it’s not together. You got to do this and then this and then this and then this and then this and then you got to do the foundation to put it in and so forth and then you build your walls and your roof.

So there’s a system and And in a person’s mind, they can understand it if it has a logical sequence to it. So you don’t take this thing and just think, well, just as long as I throw a wallet from one hand to the other, I gave the gospel. Not necessarily. Did you explain what the good news was? There’s no power in this thing. This is only a wallet. I will admit one time I was sitting in a restaurant and this girl named Jenna Hausselton, she was, I don’t know, 15, 16 years old.

She was sitting beside me. And she was about eight or 10 of us sitting around. And after church on Sunday night, you know, just kind of like what we do around here in Guadalajean, a village in. Anyway, she said, I’m going to witness to the waitress. I said, okay, and I had to lay my wallet down there, beside me. And she came by the waitress dead. And I said, you know what it is? She says, yes. wallet. I said, yeah, it’s a wallet.

So no wallet. I said, no, she said, well, what is it? I said, to sin, this she jumped back about two feet. She tells her I don’t say then. And I said, let me show you something. And I explained to gospel and she trusts the Lord, generally burning. She was mad because she had planned on winning the two of the Lord. I remember one time I first went to Florida Baba College down there. It was on Sunday morning. And everybody stood around in a four year They had a bigger four year one we have here.

And it wasn’t long before this new person come up and started coming down the sidewalk. And Dr. Seymour says, here comes somebody new. I’m gonna get him. I’m gonna get him. And so there was, I don’t know, 5, 6, 7 guys in there. And so as soon as he got inside the door, Dr. Seymour started toward him and Hank Lindstrom went over there, well, welcome, good guy to have you and welcome right away and held on to his hand, told him right to the side and says, and let him do the learn.

Dick Simmel was one of the instructors at Florida Bible College, too. I remember the first time I said in Dr. Hank Lindstrom’s Sunday school class, down to the old grove. And so I had to decide what class I’m going to go to, and so I just thought, I’ll go in here and I’ll sit down. So I’m sitting there, and it wasn’t long before, you know, Hank was teaching or something. I don’t know what he was teaching on. And it wasn’t long before another person came in and sat down, and I didn’t know them.

And all of a sudden Hank Lindstrom said, now let me show you this. I thought, what in the words he doing? He’s doing that has nothing to do with what we were talking about. I mean had nothing to do what we’re coming It’s just like you know click everything else is off and He started giving the gospel. They gave you a invitation person. Trust me. But See that’s where his main focus was on and everything else. It didn’t matter But I remember that this is something a certain Image of what I can remember and that was in 1964 by the way So my memory isn’t totally gone yet, but I remember a few good things.

When you find out that a person is unsaved, remember you have asked him if he knew if he would go to heaven when he died. Then you can begin sharing the gospel by sharing your personal testimony. You’d be surprised how many people that I’ve opened up a door to their understanding by giving my own personal testimony. And I used to tell all the teenagers and the college kids and it camps. I always remember these three things. So they’re right there.

What I thought, what I found out, what I did. What I thought, what I found out, what I did. So when you’re given a test, that’s what you’re doing. What I thought, what I found out, what I did. So number one there, what I thought I had to do to get to heaven. What do you think you have to do to go to heaven? Well, I thought I had to be good. I really did. I thought I had to be good to go to heaven.

But of course I never knew how good. Nobody ever told me that. So that would have been nice to know, am I good enough? So most people think that you have to be good to go to heaven. Of course then they have to wait until they die to find out they’re good enough. So since you don’t know the future, you don’t know if you’re going to be good or bad. So then of course you’ll have to wait. So then how can you say you know you’re going to heaven now?

If it depends upon how good I got to be endors why most people don’t know where they’re going when they die. But you and I know that you can know it before because it doesn’t depend on how good you are or how bad you are See that’s the misconception that most people have if you believe that you have to earn your way to heaven Then you’ll have to wait see if you made it But if you think it’s free, but you can have it now and you can know you’re going and that’s what the Bible says So I always thought of what I thought I thought I had to live a good life join a church be water baptized believe in Jesus and do this and stop that and join this and all that.

And so there’s always something somebody thought, what do you think you have to do to go to heaven? On the little heaven track, that’s one of the questions. What must I do to go to heaven? What do I have to do? And we list a few things in there. And of course, if you know the truth of it, if they check all of them except the last one, they failed. Because there’s only one thing you have to do to go to heaven.

The second point is, what did I find out? What did I find out? Well, I had a man one day sit down with me with the Bible and he explained to me how to have eternal life. See, you can work out your own testimony, you can make it long, you can make it short and sweet. You can tell it in two minutes and you can tell it in an hour. But it should have certain basic things to it. What I thought.

I thought you had to be good to go to heaven. What you found out, you know, I was 18 years old, sitting in a little living room, and my father will explain to me how that Jesus Christ died on the cross, paid for all of my sins. And all I had to do is accept the payment he made for me, and he would give me as a free gift of a lasting life. Well, that was the best news I ever heard.

Well, what did you do? Well, that’s the next thing. What I did, I trusted Christ as my Savior. Because if you didn’t do that it doesn’t matter what you thought or what you heard you didn’t do anything about it So when I heard that all I had to do was they leave well, I can believe that that’s on the level anybody can have it So it’s not a matter of you performing something living good enough to get it You know that it’s free.

See there that statement I placed my faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone as the one that died for all of my sins and rose again He gave me his righteousness in exchange for my sins so that I could receive the gift of eternal life in heaven. So he took my sins and when I believe it, he gives me his righteousness. Well, that’s good. And you know what? He took the initiative. He did his part and paid for my sins on the cross 2,000 years ago.

And what was mine? Just believe he did it for me. And believe in is not a work. God’s Word says so. So I have down here my testimony explained now you’ll notice that whenever you give the the seven steps that I’ve given to you before and Explaining the gospel you can take each one of those points and make it part of your testimony You see the way to sin is death, but the first one is I am a sinner.

We have all sinned So I can start off with the testimony of I’m a sinner. That’s what I am I do things wrong. I am not as good as I’d like to be.” And I found out that the Bible says the way to sin is death. And then I heard that you had to be perfect to go to heaven. See that’s point number three. And then I realized that I couldn’t earn my way to heaven. That’s point number four.

It’s not a works. Number five, Christ died. I heard Christ died on the cross and paid for my sin. And number six is just believe. And all I had to do was believe it and he would give me as a free gift ever last. life. And number seven is I know I’m going to heaven. See, I can give my testimony to you. One of the biggest things you’ll ever do is learn the seven steps in order and it’ll help you when you do the little wallet illustration.

It’ll help you when you give a testimony. It will really help you in a lot of ways in your life because you’re trying to make the gospel clear to the person that you’re talking to because a lot of people do not know where they’re going to go when they die, and you do. So you’ve got to make it simple for them to understand. Well, that means that you need to make it simple in your mind to follow. And this is what this is for.

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

If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, Calvary of Tampa.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