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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 by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage.

We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family. And when people die, they’re still alive. But the people that are without the Lord, they’re looked upon as being dead, means separated from God. So you and I understand that whenever we die, means we’re separated from our body, it’s not the annihilation of a person. You still exist, you’re just separated from your body.

So death is you being separated from your physical body, and everybody’s going to die. If you think, well, I’m just going to die and they’ll put my body in the grave and that’s all there is to it. Have you died before? Then how do you know that’s true? That’s what you hope is true. But why not listen to the person who died and was buried, came back from the dead? Know anybody else that’s done that on their own? Jesus is the only one to come back from the dead.

And it says, now this is the way it really is. You see, if you die, you can’t come back. You can’t make it happen. But the one that did can. And so we have interesting things here in the Word of God. The poor man, he received compassion. You see, he said he was in Abraham’s bosom, the individual, the writer that God used to write the Gospel of John. It says that he laid his head upon Jesus’ bosom. It means he was as close as he could get.

That’s as close as you can get. That’s as close as he could get to the great patriarch Abraham. Did you know that he was isolated and probably nobody wanted him? Nobody met his need. A poor man. A beggar. Now he is comforted. And it says, in thou art tormented, he is comforted. You see, we in this life, we don’t always have the comfort that we would like. There’s a lot of struggles that we go through, a lot of problems and hard aches of all kinds, disappointments and discouragement and despair.

But you see, it’s so short a period of time. It’s just this little lifetime, time of life, and it’s temporary. But there’s something that’s going to be for eternity. And you and I are going to be blessed and comforted for eternity in something like a place called paradise. Forever and ever. No more sorrow, sickness, death, and disease. Why? Because there’ll be no more sin. All these things are because of sin, sin in the world. So the Bible says this is what it ought to be and the way it’s going to be.

You see Abraham, it says, could not show mercy to the rich man. What was the one thing the rich man says here? He cried in verse 24 and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Mercy. He couldn’t have mercy on him. After the man is dead, there was no more mercy. We have people today who teach that whenever you die, you can go to a place called Purgatory, which is not in the Bible, and that somebody can pray you out of there and help ease your time there and your pain.

But that’s not taught in the Bible. You see, there’s a way to be sure of going to heaven. I’m so glad I can never go to purgatory. I can never go to hell. I’m going to heaven whenever I die. Whenever Lazarus died, see, he didn’t go to purgatory. Two men died. One went here, one went there. They both didn’t go to the same place. That’s contrary to what a lot of religions teach. Jesus is the one that tells the story.

And you notice what he prayed, he says, Father Abraham. Evidently they thought at one time that’s all they needed. As long as I can say that, hey, I know who my Father is, is Father Abraham. Look there in the book of John in chapter eight. The book of John chapter eight. And look in verse 19. Verse 19. And you notice the Jewish people had, I guess you could say a special bonding to Abraham. And they thought just because we are of the lineage of Abraham, we got it made.

That’s all we need to do is just make sure that we are of the nation of Israel. Well, look what he says in verse 19, then said they unto him, where is thy father? Where is your father? your father because he talked to them as though he always referred to somebody else being his father. All right now see Joseph was not his father and he says in the last part of verse 19, ye neither know me nor my father.

If he had known me, ye should have known my father also. So, so you see, they said, they knew who his daddy was because they said, we know that your father is Joseph. They made the statement, we be not born a fornication because they knew that Mary and Joseph, they had a child before they got married. So it’s like a mockery back to him. We’re not born a fornication. We know you were. See there in verse 41. He says, ye do the deeds of your father.

Then said they to him, we be not born of fornication. In other words, we didn’t come from outside the matrimony of marriage. But now look what he says up there in verse 38. Look at verse 38. I speak that which I have seen with my father. And ye do that which you have seen with your father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said unto them, if you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.

But now you seek to kill me, a man that have told you the truth, which I have heard of God. This did not Abraham. You do the deeds of your father. And that’s why they said what they said. And then Jesus said what he said. I loved have been there and seen this. In verse 42, Jesus said unto him, If God were your father, because he said, God is my father, because he said, I am the son of God.

That would make Jesus God. But look what he said. You loved me not. For I proceeded forth and came from God. Neither came I of myself, but he sent me. So he says in verse 44, You are of your father, the who? The devil. This is what Jesus said to him. See, Jesus never read Del Carnegie’s book on how to win friends and influence people. See, he should have took that course. Because Jesus should have known, you’re going to make those people mad.

They’re not going to like you offended them people. But he says, you are of your father, the devil. Now, look at verse 52. Then said to Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast the devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets, and thou sayeth, If a man keep my sin, he shall never taste of death. Thou greater than our father, Abraham, which is dead, and the prophets are dead, whom make a style thyself. Who do you think you are?

And Jesus said, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing. It is my Father that honors me. Of whom ye say, He is your God. Yet ye have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I should say, I know Him not, I shall be a liar just like you. Does that seem like he’s tipped Owen through the tithers? What’s he calling him? Liers? He says, I’d be a liar like you. Looking for him, first phag, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad.

They said unto Jews and to him, Thou art not yet 50 years old and hast thou seen Abraham. Have you seen Abraham? Well, he slapped my mouth. He had. So he said, no, no, no. in verse 58, Jesus said unto them, verily I say unto thee, unto you, before Abraham was, I am. See, Jesus was Jehovah. He is the Lord. He is God. He said, I was here before Abraham was. They said, you mean you seen Abraham? Yeah. Now, Jesus knew that he was setting him up.

And it says in verse 59, and so they all got together and honored him and thought he was a wonderful man and everything wonderful happened to him. And they took up stones to cast at him. They didn’t like what he said, but did he lie? He told the truth. And so they thought just because father Abraham, so here’s his rich man, in health, Father Abraham have mercy on me. Hey, I know you, your father Abraham. He didn’t know him.

Go back to the book of Luke. If Abraham could not give him mercy. I’ll bet you the Pope can’t give mercy either or the priest can’t give mercy nor can this preacher give anybody mercy. I’m not God. You see, you must accept the mercy of God while you can accept the mercy of God. That means you must do it before you die because after you’re dead there is no more hope. There is no more chances. It will not work that way.

Did you know the rich man, he must have been hot. Because he says, sin lassar that he may tip the tip of his finger in water and cool, Mike Tongue. He must have had a hot tongue. I bet his whole body was hot. Did you know that he was able to see, to recognize, he was able to remember. Because he said, son, remember that thou in thy lifetime. thou in thy lifetime.” So when a person is in hell, he can remember his lifetime.

Did you know that in the Word of God it tells us that when we get to heaven they’ll come a time when God will wipe away all tears from our eyes and the former things will not be remembered. Did you know the only thing that goes to heaven is going to be the second birth, not the first birth. Things that happen in the first birth you’ll no longer remember only that which is in the second birth. I got two of them.

And the day will come when we get to eternity. I will not recall all those things that can bring me hurt or harm or pain or grief or sadness or sorrow. God believed they’re all begun. But did you know the rich man and And those who have not accepted Christ as their Savior will remember their sins forever. I believe they’ll remember their opportunities forever. All the chances that they had and threw it all away. As you can see here, was he able to talk?

He can talk without a body, but he can talk. God is a spirit, but can God talk? Can God hear? Can God speak? Yes. And he says that the Bible talks about grief, not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can grieve. He says, you don’t need a body for that is for our advantages in our lifetime. Could the rich man feel? Could he feel? I am tormented in this flame. I’m tormented. And the Bible tells us all these things about him.

Did he have desires? He had desires. He desired that he would send left, so he could go talk to my brothers lest they come to this place. So he still had something that he wanted done. He had, I believe he had regret. But he also had a request that he would be able to preach the Gospels lest my brothers come to this place of torment. See, a lost man in hell doesn’t forget all of those things. but remembers these things.

If there’s any place you don’t want to go, then I’ll be hell. Not only because of the heat. The fire, but the loneliness. The Bible says they are like wandering stars in the midst of darkness forever. It’s not like you can look over there and say, hey, there’s Jan Velasquez. Hey, hey, you good to see Jan? Oh, you know, you look over there and hey, there’s Jesse. Hey! You’re not going to get together and take up an offer and collect enough money to build up, put an air condition in That’s not going to happen.

Did you know that he was able to pray? He cried out to Father Abraham. He was also able to argue because Abraham told him, says, they have Moses, they have the prophets, let them hear them. He says, nay, no. He’s arguing already. He’s in hell and still argues. He said somebody went from the dead, they’ll believe it. He says, they will not. And the argument, some people never learn, never listen, never payin’ attention.

The rich man will remember all eternity. His sins and all of his guilt. Isn’t it sometimes when you’ve done something wrong, you know you shouldn’t have done it? Isn’t guilt an ugly thing to you? Don’t it make you sometimes just feel rotten? How’s it like to feel a light way for eternity? to have all the sorrow, all the grief, all the hurt, all the pain, forever, and never be taken away. It’s just not like the man died and okay, he went to hell.

No, listen to what he’s saying. Listen to what happened. Who told this? Jesus told this. You see, that’s what makes it so important to talk to people about the Lord. It’s so important. You know what? I was, I was sitting at the, um, little restaurant the other day and, uh, when I’m with somebody, I don’t do as much as I, when I’m by myself, because I can’t always hear. I can’t carry on conversations sometime because of the noise. And I just, I just can’t hear.

I can’t discern what people are saying and just drive me up a wall. But when it’s nice and quiet and nobody was in there, everybody had left and this lady come through and she was, she was cleaning. And so I’m drinking, making up a coffee and I got my Bible and she came by and she looked over. I saw her look. She went on and did some more thing. They made me she came back. She said, what you reading?

I says, I’m a preacher and this is a Bible. And I says, I’m studying. Oh, sorry to bother you. I said, ma’am, it’s no bother. Okay. So she went around and did something and she came back by. I says, can I ask you a question? She said, sure. I said, do you know where you’re going to go in your day? She said, I guess I’m going to hell. I’m going to hell. She just said it like, you know, it’s an accepted deal.

That’s where I’m going. I said, ma’am, you can know you have eternal life. Would you like to know? I said, if you’ve got a couple minutes, I can explain it. She says, yes. So she came a little bit closer and I explained it to her and she trusted Christ as her Savior. And then she got teary eyes. And she just, thank you. She went and cleaned some more. I went back to reading it. It wasn’t long before she came back up here.

She says, can I ask you another question? It’s sure. She says, one of the reasons that I thought that I would definitely go to hell is because I try to commit suicide. And I knew that if you try to commit suicide or if you commit it to suicide, you go to hell. She says, can you explain it to me? I says, ma’am, is it suicide or sin? She said, well, yeah. I said, paid. He paid for all the sin.

And she looked at me and she started smiling. She says, thank you. And then the tears started coming down to the table. With the smile. Smiling in tears. She says, thank you. Thank you. And she went back cleaning the floor and stuff. when they get to heaven and they see all these kids that trust the Lord of some of these adults that trust the Lord because of all your contacts that you’ve had in the people on your job and your neighbor and all that, it will be worth it all.

Because see this lifetime it’s temporary, it’s temporary. Eternity is a long time and that’s why it’s so important. I didn’t make up this story. the Lord did. You see in verse 26 where it says the word, can not, can not. Beside all this between us and you there is the Lord did. You see in verse 26 where it says the word, can not, can not. Beside all this between us and you there is a great goth fix so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot neither can they pass to us that would come from Then in other words, they can not.

In other words, whenever you die, wherever you are, there you shall stay. People say, well, they’ll get a second chance. It doesn’t teach that. God’s word doesn’t teach that. If you don’t trust Christ as your Savior before you die, there is no other chances. There are no other opportunities. It’s over. And it’ll be that way for all eternity. The rich man died and in hell he lifted up his eyes immediately in a place of torment. You see, if hell wasn’t real, then I don’t have a message to preach.

You don’t need a clear gospel presentation if there’s no place to be saved from. If there’s no consequences, but there are consequences. All of them are written down here in the Word of God. You know what I thought about when I read this? He says, go back and talk to my five brothers. In my mind, not off the bat, I wondered. I wonder where Mom and Dad was. I wonder where mom and dad was. He didn’t mention mom and dad.

I wonder if he could see mom and dad over there in paradise. Well, why wouldn’t he have talked to them? Send them back so they can talk to my brothers. Wonder where mom and dad was. You know, when I trust he crisis my savior, the first thing that came to my mind, I wanted my mom and step dad to know the Lord, to go to heaven. I wanted my brother and my sister. Oh, I didn’t care about the rest of the world.

I wanted my family. Because I knew that probably they never heard and understood the gospel. They’re probably just like I was. Nobody ever told them. And I tried my best to tell them because I was a little rude and crude. I didn’t know how to make it simple. I think they kind of rebelled against my presentation. I was a little sarcastic probably. Hard. I cared but I didn’t know how to care. I loved them but I didn’t know how to love them.

I was compassionate, but I didn’t know how to be compassionate. I didn’t know how to do things. See, this is either true or you ought to cut it out of your Bible. What do you think we ought to do? Believe it? Did you know there might be people that will never hear the gospel unless they hear it from you because a lot of people never come to church. They’ll never be a church. And there’ll be funerals and they’ll go to funerals, but most of the preachers never give the gospel.

They just don’t make it clear. We try to make it clear because we really care about where people are going to go when they die. Let me show you this. I got a few more things I could say, but I can go on and on. But you know, one of the things that he did say, it says that if somebody went back from the dead and they heard and understood, they’ll repent. So he already knew what they needed to do.

He already knew what they needed to believe. He just wouldn’t do it. He knew what the requirement was. God hath commanded all men to repent. It means to believe, to change their mind about saving yourself by your works and simply trusting Christ. So every man is commanded in the Word of God. Everybody has to repent. It does not mean turn from your sin to be saved. You see, you don’t have to turn from sin to be saved. You have to die for your sins.

You have to die for your sins. Christ didn’t just turn from my sin. He died for my sins. And so when He died, He made a complete payment. And all I have to do is believe He did it for me. Look up here, this hand represents you and me. The wallet represents all the things we do that’s wrong, all of our sins. God says that He loves us. That means He loves me, loves you. He hates what we do wrong.

Just like you love your children, you don’t like what they do wrong, or you’re supposed to love your kids. I’m not sure my mom, dad ever did, I don’t know. But anyway, God loves us. And He says for us to pay for the sin is eternal separation from the Lord. So since everybody’s sinned, everybody’s guilty. The whole world, their mouths are stopped. Everybody’s guilty. God says to go to heaven, you have to be perfect. Nobody qualifies. Nobody’s perfect. God says, by your works, you can never be justified, or just as if you never did anything wrong.

In other words, He’s saying, all your good things won’t take away your bad things. You can’t be cleared by doing all the, going to church or giving money. Not gonna pay for your sins. You need a death payment. And God says, you cannot earn eternal life. This hand represents Jesus Christ, He’s the Lord. God in the flesh, He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from it. So Christ took the sin, paid from the cross, came back from the dead.

And God said, if you believe he did it for you, he would put this payment that he made to your account. You see? You may believe he died and paid for the sins of the whole world, but that won’t get you to heaven. You have to believe he did it for you. And when you accept what he did for you, then you know, oh, my sins are paid. With my sins are paid, there’s no payment for me to make.

I don’t go to hell and pay for sin. He paid for it. I don’t go to heaven because I deserved it. I’m saved by grace. Grace means unmerited. 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. It’s a gift, it’s totally free. And God says, all that you and I have to do is believe He did it for us. What will that sound hard?

You don’t have to promise anything, stop anything, start anything. Salvation is receiving. It’s not you doing something, not you giving God something. You don’t give Him your heart, your lung, your liver, your toes, you don’t give Him anything. Salvation is you receiving from God what God has, not me giving something to God. And so he says, when you believe it, you can know that you have eternal life. These things have been written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.

Know that you’re going to heaven whenever you die. Everything I just said is on the back of these flyers. And you never know. Somebody might get one on their door and read that thing and trust Christ as Savior, tune into the Internet or listen to the radio broadcast, or maybe just read it and trust Christ as their Savior, and check out those verses in the Bible. Wouldn’t it be neat? I want you to have a burden for souls. I want you to have compassion.

I want you to care. To do nothing speaks volumes about you. It’s going and doing and talking, making something happen. Let’s pray, shall we? Friend, I don’t know everybody. You may be here a number of times. Maybe this is the first time. Maybe you’ll never come back. But I want you to have eternal life. I want you to go to heaven when you die. I can’t save you. I’m just a man and I needed to save you myself. But I know a Savior, His name is Jesus.

He died on the cross to pay for your sins. And He said, if you would trust Him, if you would believe that He died and paid for your sins, He would give you as a free gift everlasting life. Would you trust Him? If you’re making that decision, it says, yes, that made sense to me. And I will trust Christ as my Savior. And preach your life for you to pray for Him. I’m going to ask you just a moment to raise your hand.

Raise in your hand doesn’t save you. It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you. And I like to know, I like to have prayer for you. If you’ve already trusted Christ as your Savior before, then you don’t need to do it again. But if you’ve never trusted the Lord, don’t you want to go to heaven? Don’t you want to be sure of going to heaven? Don’t you want to know it now? Would you trust Him now, this moment?

If you’re making that decision, say, preach or pray for me, I will accept Christ as my Savior this morning. And I’d like for you to pray for me. Would you just slip in it very quickly but right back down, it won’t all. Just God bless you, sir. It won’t else. This is so important. You don’t know how long you’re gonna live. But if you trust Christ right now, as your Savior, God saves you right now and gives you eternal life as a free gift.

If you die without Christ, you’ll spend an eternity in a literal fire burning hell. It doesn’t have to be that way. And when else before we close, Our Father, we thank You so much for all You’ve done for us. We’re thankful for these that indicated by an uplifted hand that they will accept Christ as their Savior. By doing so, they become Your child. That payment You made is put to their account. They can stand up and say, I know I’m going to heaven because today I trust You Christ.

That’s my only hope of going to heaven. We ask Father, Your blessed upon each one here. In Christ’s name 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 are 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. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the radio broadcast link. If you are 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 broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and 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.