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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’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.

When you read the gospel of John and chapter three, and it says you must be born again. To be born again is by the Spirit of God. And you and I need to understand as many as received Him, to them receive the power, the right, the authority, to become the sons of God. So we have become a child of God by receiving Jesus Christ. When you received him as your Savior, as the one who died for you. So when you believe that when Christ died on the cross, and that he was buried, that he came back alive from the grave, that he did all of that just for you.

Like I said last week, forget about Christ dying for the sins of the world just for a moment, and pretend in your own mind he did that just for me. And the only way just little though you can go to heaven is that you must believe he did it for you. Now doesn’t it make sense to do that, to believe it? That’s the only requirement. If he told you to stop all those sins, you can’t do it. It’s impossible.

If he told you to live a godly life, you can’t do it. You are naturally rebellious. You are naturally sinful. It’s your nature. Regardless of that inward desire that you want to live a perfect life, it is impossible. So God says, forget about the world. He did this just for you. So when you believe He did it for you, He gives you a new birth. Doesn’t change the old one. He gives you a new one. This new one is pure.

And that’s how God washes you from the old one is because He takes you and gives you a new one that doesn’t have a sinful nature. So you have been washed, cleansed of all of your sins that you’ve ever done or ever will do. God separated you from your sins. He separated you from your sinful nature. One day He’s going to separate me from this body and give me a new body. He can even take this old body and change it.

And He will. I’m hoping very soon. But you see, you have been washed by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Now that’s found in chapter three and verse five in the book of Titus, and you need to read that verse. But so you and I have been washed, made clean. Your soul in the eyes of God has been made purest, white as snow. God has done these wonderful things for us, all because of the payment that Christ made on the cross for us.

I wrote a little poem and I called it, I Beheld the Great Divine. How in the world can this great big old mighty God? How can he think about lo me? Now I know he thought about you too, but just that he thought about me is enough to blow my mind. And this mighty God made it possible for me to see him through the dates of grace. Only with the eye of faith. When I believed that through the cross of Christ, he gave to me eternal life.

For all eternity. That’s something to talk about. It’s a wonderful story. And this is how it goes. Just listen to it. I don’t have no music. The choir is not oo and an awn in the background. You don’t have to sway back and forth. But I do want you to listen to the words of this little song that I wrote, because it really does deal with this wonderful thing about what God has done for us. The heavens declare the power of God, the earth, the work of his hands, the world he made, and the word he gave, placed his feet, Upon the sand, I saw the Lord from the mountain peak, and I saw a man so small, I could not see how this mighty God could think of me at all.

O, with the eye of faith through the gates of grace, I beheld the great divine, through the cross of Christ’s eternal life was designed with me in mine. come now and let us reason, says the Lord so long ago. Though your sins are now as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, for the blood of Christ removes the stain that’s caused by sin and shame. His death, His grave, was the payment made, He arose to come again. Some day I’ll stroll the streets of gold through all eternity, for eyes will see and ears will hear the things God has for me, who in the eye of pay through the gates of grace I beheld the great divine.

Through the cross of Christ, He gave me eternal life. I was designed with Him and me in mine. Can you believe that He’s done all of that just for us? We deserve zero. Did you realize the heavens and the earth were designed for you and me? I don’t need those things. Did you realize that God made you just for Him, to please Him, to bring Him joy? He wasn’t made for you. You were made for Him. That this great big mighty powerful God designed all of this with you in mind.

Not a coincidence. The whole story of the cross, of God taking an individual who deserves absolute nothing and doing something for us. That’s grace. So with the eye of faith and what God’s Word says through the gates of grace, because only through grace can a man ever see the great divine. And yet God did all of this just for you and me. Look what else he says here in verse 11, He are sanctified. It means that God has not only washed you and made you clean, He’s made you pure and holy and set apart.

And then the next part says He are justified. This is how God sees you, just as if you had never done anything in your whole life wrong. All the sins that we have ever done past, present and future have all been put on Christ and he died in my place. And watch me as white as snow. I deserve nothing. That’s grace. And God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever anybody in the world would be lead that He did it for them, that He would put that payment of their account and you would not perish but have everlasting life.

You can know that you’re going to heaven when you’re dying. Now how did He do all of this? And the last part of that verse says? You’re washed, you’re sanctified, you’re justified because you kept the 10 commandments and you turn from all of your sin, make Christ the Lord master of your life. I didn’t say that. You won’t find any verse in the Bible that says if you stop all those bad things you can inherit the kingdom of God.

Now God says unless you’re born again, you can’t see it or enter it. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. the man that says, Lord, what must I do to inherit eternal life? You can inherit eternal life. And by the time Christ got through with him, he realized it was impossible. He used the law to show him you have all these riches. He says, sell everything that you have because the man was guilty of covetousness. And he walked away sorrowful because he wasn’t going give up any of those things.

He broke the law. Thou shalt not covet. So Christ used the law to show the domain, see, you cannot inherit eternal life. That’s only for the children of God. See, as a child of God, my new birth, born of God, had been made pure and holy. Therefore, as a child of God, see, I can inherit the kingdom of God. I can inherit eternal life. I’m his child. All of God children go to heaven. So as a child of God in this life, God doesn’t want me to live like the devil.

He doesn’t want me to live wickedly. If I do, I should understand Christ paid for the sin. Yes, I go to heaven when I die because you see it’s the new birth that’s going to heaven, not the Owen. So take your Bible and turn with me to the book of Ephesians in chapter 4. Ephesians in chapter 4 and and look there in verse 20. As you and I study the Word of God, we understand more and more that, yes, God’s our Father, we are His children, and He wants His children to imitate Him, to be like Him, to walk like Him, think like Him, talk like Him.

But He says, you’re going to have to be taught. So you see there in verse 20, but you have not so learned Christ. You see, whenever you as a child of God, you need to be taught the way Christ is. That’s why we studied the Bible. That’s why Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, all the time we studied the Bible. Why? Because the Bible teaches us as a child of God, how to think, how to live. When people say, I don’t need church, God says you do.

See, you’re lacking there. It’s pretty stupid, really, to say you don’t need what God says you need. I don’t need to study the Bible. God says you do. Are you smarter than God? I don’t think so. You reveal your wisdom by the decisions that you make. So the more the Bible is taught, the more you want to hear and more you want to listen, more you want to learn. But look what He says there in verse 21. If so be that you have heard Him and have been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus, You see, you’re going to put off the works of the old man if you’ve been taught how to do such.

Because see, you have to put on something if you take off something, the principle of replacement. Look up here. This is our first birth when we’re born into the world. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And that’s where we are. We live in this whole body. So God says you’re not his child. You cannot inherit eternal life and you produce all these sins that comes from that old sinful nature. So God says the only way you must be born again.

He didn’t say stop all of this. He says you must be born again. So when you trusted Christ as your Savior and him alone as your only hope of getting out of this situation, you were born of God. Now that you’re born of God, this is the new birth. the new birth born of God has no sinful nature. No sinful nature cannot sin, cannot sin, cannot die. This is a new birth. This one can inherit eternal life. This one gets to inherit the kingdom of God.

This is the one that’s going to heaven when you die. So God says, as a child of God, you have an old man and you have a new man. He says, put off the old man. In other words, as a child of God, don’t live like this. Don’t live like a lost man. Live like a new man. You’re a child of the king. Live like a child of the king. Act like a child of the king. Use the language of your father.

Look what else he says here. In verse 22 that you put off concern in the former behavior conversation. The old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lust. That’s this one over here. That’s the old one. God gave you a new birth and gives you a choice. And that choice is will you now walk in the But according to the deceitful lust, that’s this one over here. That’s the old one. God gave you a new birth and gives you a choice.

And that choice is will you now walk in the… Spirit. Look what he says in verse 23. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind. The spirit of your mind. God says do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. See when you got to say God didn’t transform your life. He gave you a new birth but he didn’t transform your life. Your life will be transformed from this one to this one as you renew your mind.

And as you study the Word of God and learn Christ and apply those principles in your life, your life will be changed. See, a lot of people trust Christ to say that they have eternal life, they’re going to heaven when they die, but their lives are not changed. Are you still safe? Sure. You’re just not maturing in the Lord. You’re not going to grow strong in the Lord. One day, yes, this one, this old man, he gonna die. And they’ll just take that old body of yours and bury it.

But absent from the body, present with the Lord. You get to be with the Lord in heaven. So he says in verse 24, and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness, and what? True holiness. as holy as God. Whew, that’s this one, not this one. So you and I, we struggle between these two. We go back and forth between the new and the old. Sometimes we can be so wonderful and so sweet and so holy and so godly.

And boom, just that quick. We can become so mean and so ugly and so hateful. True? You know it’s true. But see, there’s some people to tell you that, well, if you still have the old man and those desires to do wrong, that’s a sign you’re not saved. It is not. It’s a sign that he’s still alive. And when you trust Christ as your Savior, He gives you a new birth. This one is born of God. Now, I want you to see this.

Look in chapter 5. Chapter 5 in verse 1, where it says, little children, be, therefore, followers of God as their children. It means to imitate your heavenly Father. Then he talks about how we’re supposed to walk. And he says, to walk as Christ loved us. Then look what he says in verse 5, for this ye know, no hormonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God? So here you are, and you’re a child of God.

This man has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. He isn’t going. So why should you let this old man influence you? Do you realize who you are? Do you realize where you’re going? Live here now the way God sees you. You are washed. You are sanctified. You are justified. That’s how God, your heavenly Father, sees you. And He says, look, imitate me. You know the shame of a lot of people is they want to be some Hollywood star.

Some of these guys that all this junk and music Trash, teenagers want to… That’s their heroes. That ought not be. You know the Lord ought to be your hero. He’s the one you want to be like. More than anything else in the world. He ought to have the greatest influence in your life, the Lord. Because you see, the way we were, we didn’t have a chance. God did what He did because He loved you. He saved you all by grace.

You deserved nothing. I deserved nothing. And we’re going to inherit all of that because God allowed us to be born into His family as His child. And that day when you trusted Christ as your Savior, maybe you didn’t understand all that God has for you. But one day eyes will see and ears will hear all the things God’s promised us. So he made the statement up here in verse three, he says, but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be in your underline these two words, not once named among you as become of saints.

You see, you were a saint because you were sanctified, made pure and holy by Christ. You are a saint of God. Now God says, as a saint of God, don’t let those sins of the old man be once named among you. Well, that’s almost an impossible life to live. And yet the Bible says God gave us the Holy Spirit to indwell us to help us, to live the way God wants us to live. And he says that when you fail, we have an advocate with the Father.

I’ve got somebody better than Perry Mason, never lost a case. Jesus Christ is my lawyer, and he defends me. And God says, if I will confess my sin to my Father, he is faithful and just to forgive me and will cleanse me from all unrighteousness. That’s because I am his child. And only even my Father can forgive me of things that I do after I’m sages, because when Christ died, He paid for all those sins, not only the past, but also the future.

See, your heavenly Father cannot forgive you of a sin in the future if His Son had not already paid for it in the past. Did you understand? Can you really follow my thinking? I sure hope so. Take to speak for an hour and nobody gets what I’m saying. But as you go down through here, it will make so much sense that you see and understand as a child of God, God wants us to serve him. But we don’t serve the Lord to get to heaven.

There’s things that God doesn’t want his children to do. You are a saint of God, live like one. And don’t worry about somebody accusing you of you who you think you are, some little holy Joe, you’re better than everybody else, oh you’re way up here, Mr. Righteous, huh? Let them say whatever they want. You just make sure between you and your heavenly Father you wanna please him. And other people who mock you because you wanna live a godly life and a righteous life.

It’s because your righteous life is a rebuke to their unrighteous life. If you live godly, their lives become ashamed to them. So the only way to justify themselves is try to bring you down and they will buddy they’ll get out that little magnifying glass and see what they can find is fault in your life so they can justify why they don’t do what they should do. Look up here, this hand represents you and me. The wallet represents all the bad things we’ve done.

Have we done any of those? Everybody has This field, everybody, flesh and blood, have all sinned. And because we’ve all sinned, we’re all condemned. Because we’ve all sinned, we have a debt to pay. The wages of sin is death. But God loves us, and He wants us to go to heaven, but to go to heaven, not one sin can get in. So God has got to work away. This plan of salvation, the plan on how God can get us who have no right to go to heaven.

How is he going to do it? Man could not have figured out this plan. You see, if it was left up to us, we would just try to improve our lives by not doing some of these bad things. And then just the good ones you get to go in the bad ones. Oh, see, that’s religion. Almost all religions teach the same thing. You’ve got to be good. And it won’t work. God had a better plan than what man has.

Here’s God’s plan. God says, you can’t earn it. You can’t work for it. You don’t deserve it. I’ve got a good idea. I’ll send my son into the world. And he’ll live here for 33 years. and he will not commit one sin, so he won’t have to die. I’m going to let my son be sacrificed and die in your place. So Christ came and took our sins and died in my place. And God said that he raised him from the dead.

And he says, if you and I would just believe he did it for us. I’ve had people say, well, that’s that easy believerism. You know, it’s easier to believe that you have to work your way to heaven than it is to accept it as a gift. To earn your way to heaven, that’s easy beliefism. It’s easy to believe that. It’s been in the coming. People believe it. Majority of people do not believe that eternal life had been totally paid for.

And all that we have to do is accept it as a gift. Most people don’t believe that. There might be somebody sitting here right now or watching on the internet that never really have accepted Christ as their only hope of going to heaven because they believe they have to have a part. They got to be good a little bit. They got to help when God’s already said, no. No help needed. It is finished, paid for and for. Would you simply accept it as a gift?

And when you do, God says you become His child, you get to go to heaven. Wash from all of your sins by giving you a new birth that has no sinful nature. You have been made pure and holy. You have been justified just as if you have never and declared righteous. See when he says, no you not, that the unrighteous, but that’s the law. You and I have been declared righteous. So when God sees me, God sees a righteous man, not because I live righteously.

When God sees me, he sees a saint, not because I live like a saint, but because he hath declared me such. Let’s pray. With every head bowed and every eye closed, and no one looking around. If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, friend, right now is probably the best time to do so. Not tomorrow, right now. You see, God knows who you are, and He loves you. He paid for your sins. Friend, don’t worry about your sins. He’s already took care of that.

You can’t earn eternal life. You can’t work your way there. So why not right now in the quietness of this moment just between you and the Lord’s and Lord? I believe Christ died for me, and I’m going to trust him right now as my Savior. And friend God said, if you would believe it, He would give you the free gift of eternal life. And you become His child. Can you imagine? You walk in here and in just a brief moment of time, by faith alone, you become a child of God with eternal life.

Isn’t that good news? That’s the best news in the world. So if you’re making that decision, never done it before. I’d like to know and I’d like to have prayer for you. I’m going to ask you if you’ll just slip your hand out very quickly and put it right back down. I’m not going to embarrass you. I’m not going to have you stand up and come forward. But as anyone at all say, yes, preacher, that made sense to me and I will trust Christ as my Savior this morning.

I want to be certain going to heaven. In one I’ll be full of clothes. And we’re done. If you trusted Christ as your Savior, your chalice of God, you’ve been declared righteous. Serve the Lord with all your heart, not to get to heaven, but because you are going there. 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. 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.