This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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. I can’t make you do anything and you know that. I know that. Because if I was God, I would. But I’m not God, so I can’t. All I can do is tell you things. I have no power over you, no control over you. I’m not a dictator, I’m not God, I’m not the Holy Spirit.

I’m just a man. Just a man, just like you. But something happened to me when I was 18 years old. I started studying the Bible. And the Word of God got into me. And I began to think about how I began to think about this and that. What I wanted to do with my life. What I wanted to accomplish. Where I wanted to go. It began to really play tricks in my mind and I battled back and forth the will of man versus the Word of God.

And I’ll tell you, I fought some battles. But I’m so glad that I went ahead and just did what the Word of God said do. And now 50 years later, as I look back, I can see how God has blessed. And it’s not because somebody’s better than somebody else’s because they’re somewhere along the line, because the Holy Spirit works in your life. And you begin to grow a little bit, and you’re learning a little bit more, and you grow some more, and you want to do something, you want to accomplish something, and you don’t want to waste your life.

You know that everything in this world is going to pass away. It’s not going to last. So why try to be able to mansion here? It’s going to pass. But what I accomplish for the Lord, that’s what’s important. That’s what’s important for you and it should be. And I want you to see that, look there in the book of Ephesians in chapter two, Ephesians chapter two, look in verse 10. And verse 10 says, for we are His workmanship. He’s the one that saved you.

Now he wants to continue working on you. You see, he gave you eternal life. He’s already saved you from hell. Now you’re going to heaven and he’s the one that’s doing the work. And he makes a statement. Well, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. You see, this is what God wants in your life. Now, you may not perform. You’re still saved from the penalty of sin, but you will not have the power that you need to be saved from the power of sin in your life.

And that’s where a lot of Christians have ruined their life, they’re ruined their testimony because they will not do what God wants them to do. And because of that, there’s a price to pay. But look at the last part of it. He says, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in that we should, should. Not that you have to or that you will. Is it possible for a lost man to defy the will of God? Yes. God is not willing that any should perish.

That means nobody’s going to perish? No, they still will. Why? Because they can defy the will of God. But there’s a price for doing so. Can a Christian defy the will of God for his life? Yes. God wants us to perform these good works. That’s why He left us here. But you can say no. I ain’t going to do it. Well does that mean God’s not going to keep His Word and save you? No, because His promise was not based upon you.

His Word is based upon His Word. He promised and he’ll never cast you out. He’ll never lose you for no reason. We go to heaven on what he promised, not what we promised. But as a child of God, God said, if I would serve him here, he said he would bless my life. Well after 50 years I should be able to look over my life and say, well did he keep his word? Yes, he did. He’s done just like he said he would do.

And I’m looking forward to the day when I get to heaven because I believe I’m going to see thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people that have led to Christ over the years. But you see, that’s because somewhere along the line, you have to dedicate your life to him and say, I’m going to serve the Lord. So God wants to save us from the power of sin in our lives. Now look at letter C, talking about the future tense, the future tense.

I will be saved from the very presence of sin when I die or when Christ returns for me. Turning your Bible to the book of Romans in chapter 13. I want to see this verse. Romans in chapter 13. I want you to look there in verse 11. Verse 11 says, and that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation near than when we believed. So we believed his past tense.

So salvation is near now. In the words, is this the result of I’ve finally been good and I’ve been haven myself and now God’s gonna going to take me on home and I finally earned the right to go to heaven. No, no, that’s not what he’s saying. See, I have been saved when I believed on Christ. God saved me and gave me the free gift of eternal life. I became his child. Now, I can say this. It’s been 50 years ago.

So now I am here 50 years down the line. But I can also say that now my salvation is near than when I believed. salvation of what? When I say, no, no, no, no, no, no. See, I’m going to be saved one day from the very presence of sin. I won’t be here. God’s going to take me out. God’s going to save me out of this world. It’s going to take me clean out of it. So I’m looking forward to my deliverance from this world and from the sin in the world.

You see, I believe on him and that saved me from the penalty of sin. I am now being saved from the power of sin and the day will come when we’ll be saved from the very presence of sin. We won’t be in its presence anymore. And God says heaven, there is no unrighteousness there. That’s why not even a lie. No sin can enter heaven because heaven is a perfect place. So I have been saved, saved, saved. It ain’t all over yet, but it’s as good as done.

Because when that takes place, I’m out of here. And I will not have this old body with this old sinful nature. I won’t have to worry anymore about having victory over the flesh and so forth. The battle is over. All the war is over. I don’t know about you, but you can get mighty tired and weary in this old life. You can get weary doing right, but you get weary and God says, don’t become weary and well doing. For you showers, you’re going to reap.

It’s just down the road. Just don’t worry about it. Just be patient. We’ll reap in this life what we sow. So down. The next thing to understand, this is about salvation. You got that clear. Two things about the Christian that he needs to always remember. One is salvation. I have been saved. I am being saved and I will be saved. be saved. That’s your whole life. Now the next part is on service. On this thing about service to understand these three little simple things.

Look there at number one, a letter A, chastening. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 7, I want you to look at it real quick, Hebrews and chapter 12, after you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior, yes, your God’s child, you say, well, what if I don’t serve the Lord. Okay, God will not make you. Now He’ll make you wish you had of, but He won’t make you serve Him. But look what He says in verse 5, chapter 12 and verse 5.

These are very important verses to understand. So in verse 5 He said, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speak unto you as unto children. My son despised not thou the chastening of Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. Did you know that your heavenly Father who gave you birth you’re his child born into his family and in this life. Now remember you’ve already been saved from the penalty of sin. You ain’t going to hell. That’s an issue you don’t have to worry about again.

But in my life to understand that if I do not serve God the way God wants me to serve him, My heavenly Father says, I can choose to rebel, but He will choose the form of punishment. Isn’t that fair? You can choose the sin and He can choose how to punish it. Ooh. And you don’t know exactly when or how He’s going to do that. That’s the mysteries. God doesn’t tell us everything. And how God disciplines one person doesn’t mean He’s going to do another one the same way.

Well, I saw them do it and get away with it. Man, every time I do something, I never get away with it. That’s where it’s been with my life. Kids can do all kind of mess up in school, but men, let me try it. One time I get nailed. I always get caught. I often wonder how come my mama, and you know you say that she had an eye in the back of her head. She dies in the back of her head.

Well, she just knows her kids were bolt onto. But God is always watching. And he wants to bless us. But sometimes he has to change. because we refuse to do what God wants us to do. And so it says our Heavenly Father is going to chase in you. He’s going to whoop you, for what it means. He’s going to spank you just like you would your child. Like we used to do when we weren’t afraid of the government. That’s why we don’t have that in discipline anymore because we’re afraid of the government going to take away our children.

You got to take your child, go to the social service and say, here’s my child. Now we’re going to have a decision. Either you raise them or I’m going to raise them. You want to raise them? You take them. I can’t take them, go ahead. If I can’t raise my child, then I don’t need my child. I can’t help my child. You can’t raise a child, correct, unless you have the right to discipline to correct a child. In the day we didn’t got so afraid, we can’t do anything with them.

And then we wind up raising a bunch of these little monsters and then they’re the one that controls the home. And then they control the school. Now if you don’t like what I’m saying, just be thankful for what I’m holding back. Looking for seven. He said, if you endured chasing, dealing with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chafes and not? So God is going to chasten you. It doesn’t mean he’s going to kill you.

Now he could take you home. He could be taken home. He says, some are sick and so forth. And many are dead because of it. And many are just plain way Christians. And God sometimes will just take him, put you on the shelf and not use you. But you don’t want to be put on a shelf. You want God to use you. Wouldn’t you rather have the blessings of God? I’d want the blessings of God in my life. And this is what God’s talking about.

Now, I want you to look at this because you need to see this first. Look in 2 Timothy chapter two, 2 Timothy and chapter two. Just turn to you left a couple of pages there. And look in verse 21. This is to the Christian, to the believer. You say, well, what if I’m not sure I’m saved anymore? and you have questions and doubts and remember this, if you have at a time in your life, trust the Christ is your savior, and you dependent upon him to take it to heaven when you die.

Then God says you’re going to heaven depends upon him keeping his word, he promised. And if you question and you doubt, it does not call God the question and God the doubt. And God says this, look there in verse 19, nevertheless, the foundation of God’s standard sure, having this seal and you ought to underline this part of the verse. The Lord know of them that are His and then He makes this statement. Let every one, that name of the name of Christ turn from sin, depart from iniquity.

That’s the will of God for His children, but not all of God’s children do what God says to do. And God says that there’s vessels that He uses, vessels of honor vessels of dishonor, a vessel that showed God’s grace and mercy and vessels that showed God’s anger and his wrath. See there in verse 20, in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver but also of wood and of earth, some to honor, some to dishonor.

Now he’s relating it to you and I. In verse 21, if a man therefore purged himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto what? Honor. But But see, that’s something that you do. You have to purge out of your life those things that would cause you to be a bad vessel. See, God’s looking for a clean vessel that he can use for his honor, for his glory. Somebody that will say, Lord, here am I, use me. But means you gotta discipline your life.

We live in a time and age where nobody wants to discipline anything. We’ve got insurance on everything. And so it doesn’t matter how I live, what I do, drive recklessly, no matter how I got insurance. We didn’t have all of that there. Everybody was more careful because you were responsible. And it was a price you had to pay. Today it doesn’t matter about things like that. You know what I noticed, let me just mention this to you. It’s a little sidetrack, but over in India, I mean, there’s peeming millions of people.

And you know, in most of the towns, in the cities, there’s no red lights and stop signs. There’s a few here and there, but most of them not. And I mean, there’s people going all over the place and they even drive on the wrong side of the road. The cars got the steering wheel on the wrong side than inside the car. And the first two days I’m there I am in panicville because I can see a car coming at me and he’s on the wrong side of the road.

And I’m on the passenger side and I thought I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. And they just miss you. You could just about picking each other’s pockets and not, you know, close. And then there’s people, these little rickshaw things, and they drive those three-wheeler deals, and they pick up, and there’s thousands of them all over the place. And everybody over there seems like everybody runs around on the motorcycle. And they got a picture of a woman going down the street.

She’s sitting on the back side saddle of her husband who’s riding the motorcycle, and she’s got a baby in her arm. There’s no seat belts, and she’s doing about 40 miles an hour. They’re all over the place like this. And there’s people walking and when they all come to an intersection, there’s no stop signs. There’s no red lights. Everybody just works their way through it. It’s just like if after we after church today and we say we want everybody to go to the fellowship hall, do we have to put red lights and stop signs here?

But everybody can get up and walk around and make a log in and you just walk through it. They do that with their vehicles. We’re decars. It just blew my mind. I thought that’s why we have all these traffic jams here in town. This is one of the worst places I’ve ever seen. It’s because they got red lights and stop signs. Do away without them things and this first come first served and nobody hitting each other. It was incredible.

I thought, man, that would have limited a lot of problems here in America, but they don’t have the expressways over there and they’re not going 75 and 80 miles an hour either. But here, you know, there’s areas of responsibility that we have as God’s children, and we need to discipline ourselves, and majority of God’s people don’t like to be disciplined. We don’t want anybody telling us what we can and cannot do. And you know what else I saw, what all that was going on over there?

And if you’re on a motorcycle and they pull in front of you, they’re just pulling in front of you, and you pull in front of somebody else, and it seems like everybody comes at all different angles. I never saw anybody getting mad. I didn’t see anybody, bless anybody. But here in America, I can drive down the street, and if one person pulls in front of me, I’m ready to take this thing and turn into a tank, and make them pay, because you realize I could have been another 15 feet further down the road.

And I think, look what you did, you held me up from getting someplace important, and we get mad at each other, we have road rage. I didn’t see the first person over here with anybody. It’s a different world altogether. But over here, we don’t do that. It’s not that we have a bad case of Me first, we have a bad case of Me onlyitis. I have no idea how I get sidetracked on these things. Well, I’m right here in 2 Timothy, but I did want to see that in verse 21.

If a man therefore purge himself, he shall be a vessel unto honor. And then in verse 22 he talks about what you need to flee. And in verse 23, things that you need to avoid. And then he talks in about the next one, you’re a servant, you’re a servant. Look what he says in chapter 2 there, and look down in verse 3, thou therefore in verse 3, endure hard as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warth entangled himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who have chosen him to be a soldier.

You and I, we can become so entangled with the affairs of this life that we don’t have any time to do what God wants us to do. And we make choices that affect our whole lives. There’s one thing that I wanted my kids to know and my grandkids. Now, I may not convince them total of everything, but I want them to know that they have a dad or a granddad that wants to practice what he preaches, that puts the Lord first.

I have tried to since I trusted Christ as my Savior. The first 18 years don’t count. I was a bad boy. I really messed up. But since that day, when I trusted Christ as my Savior, and I fell in love with the Lord, and the Lord became more real to me than the clothes that I’ve got on my back, more real to me than my wife and my kids, more real to me than you. I can’t make that happen to everybody.

And I don’t know why it doesn’t happen to everybody. I haven’t figured it out yet. But I just know this. God’s been good to me. And I can’t see me doing anything other than just serving Him with all my heart. I wish I could get everybody just to love the Lord and everything else will fall into place. You see, when you don’t love the Lord right, you think He doesn’t love you. And love is a very powerful motivating thing.

See, the last thing I have done here is the motive. It’s two motives, love and fear. Love is so powerful, but I know that if I don’t serve a Lord because I love Him, I know I’m going to fear Him. Because I know he’ll chase and discipline me and maybe take me home before my time. Oh yeah, I’m ready to go to be with Lord, but I want to go when he’s ready, not because he had to take me because of my bad testimony.

Serve the Lord while you can. There’s a guy that we had over there and he was driving us around and I was in holy fear. I really was. After a while I got to where I could accept it and relax a little bit. I felt like I guess they ain’t gonna hit nobody and Then I’m not gonna get smashed And everybody else seemed to relax and enjoy us. Yes, I will too So I’m sitting here in the front seat and the drivers over here.

That’s already backward to me And I asked him I says, um, can I ask you a question? He just looked at me. Yeah Real talkative guy I Guess he had to really concentrate on driving So there’s people walking all over the place too. And I says, are you Christian, Muslim, Hindu? And he says, I’m Hindu. Okay? I thought we’d strike up a conversation, but it was just one-sided so far. And after a while I asked him again, I says, I says, are you going to heaven when you die?

He says, I don’t know. I don’t care. I says, don’t you think about the future? He says, no. He’s answering every question the wrong way so far. He said, I don’t think about it. And then he kind of let me have a few little line sentences. He says, I only think about now today. Don’t think about tomorrow. tomorrow. don’t care about tomorrow, just today. He said, I said, well, what about heaven? And so I said, don’t care. Now, a Hindu can believe in many gods.

And I might come back as that old cow over there, or that dog over there in that yard, or somebody else, or whatever. And that’s dependent on how good I am here. But there was such nebgousness in this thinking that no couldn’t prove, couldn’t solve anything. And so I realized I’m not going to get too far here. I said, when we get to the meeting on Thursday night, I said, I want you to listen to what I say. He wouldn’t come into the meeting.

He stood outside and he listened to the window. And so that’s the Thursday night that we had, I don’t know, 5,600 that said that trust Christ is Savior. And everybody got into the van and we got ready to leave and he was still standing at the door. I said, did you listen to me tonight? He says I listened to you. I said you really listen. He said I listened Okay, I’ll let it go. What’s he listened?

We had the graduation I’ve been preaching two hours every day until the graduation and that was on a Saturday and I Says I want you to listen to what I have to say today. He says I’ll listen So he stood outside and he listened to the windows because they didn’t have glass on the windows just embars So he listened to what I had to say. When I was all over with, and we got really getting the card, and I knew I only got 24 hours before I was the last time I ever seen him.

And I got ready to get in the car, and I asked him, I said, did you listen to me tonight? Today? And he said, yes, I did. I said, did it make sense? Did you understand? He says, I understand. I said, where are you going to go? And he says, I’m going to heaven. I had to turn away because I got teary eyed. Didn’t say much just enough. Now, a man doesn’t know and then a man says, I know.

And I talked to him a little bit about serving the Lord, telling his wife and his two kids. I saw him one more day and I said, don’t you listen to me again? And I was on that Sunday who we left that night. And it was so neat. I forgot about the five or six hundred. That one became so important to me. See, a lot of times we think about if I can just reach the masses, you have sometimes you need to focus on just one person.

Isn’t there just one person that your heart burns for? One person, maybe it’s an aunt or an uncle, a relative of some kind or an in-law, an outlaw, an uncle who they are, somebody you work with. and it burns inside of you. I wonder if they know Christ is their Savior. Maybe you can’t do it all at one time, but a few words here and a few words there and a few words down the road and you start working because you care about people and you want them to know Christ is their Savior.

But anyway, if you’re here and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, this is what I told them, that you tell me if it was clear or not. This is you and me. You see, we’re all born into this world and we’re all sinners because we’re sinners. We commit sin. The wall represents sin. We all have sin on us. Now God says that He loves us, but He hates our sin. I realized while I was over in India, I needed to get me a new wallet, but I got me some bigger sin.

I want to make sure y’all see the sin. Can y’all see the sin? Yeah. I left mine at home. This is y’alls. But we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, short of God’s perfection. And to pay for sin is eternal separation from God in a place called hell. But God says that He loves us and He wants us to go to heaven and to go to heaven. We have to be perfect as righteous as God and none of us are perfect.

We’ve all done things wrong. Nobody’s any better than anybody helps. of sin we can’t get in and that’s the same for everybody. So it doesn’t matter what religion you are, it’s not important. It’s that have you trusted Christ as your Savior. You say God says you can’t earn eternal life, you can’t work your way to heaven by your good deeds. Church can’t get you to heaven, no church can’t, no preacher, no priest, nobody can get you to heaven. You can’t even get yourself there.

Your good works don’t even count. We’ve come short. 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 Him. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. And God said that if we would believe He did it for us, if we would trust Him as our Savior, He would put this payment to our account and we get to go to heaven on what Christ did for us.

He that believeth, hath everlasting life. What did you got to do to go to heaven? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved from the penalty of sin. Would you believe what Christ said? He promised, all you got to do is believe it. If you’ll just believe it, he’ll never cast you out and never lose you. If you’re here this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ is your Savior. Would you trust Him? Would you depend upon Him to take you to heaven when you die?

He said if you would trust Him, He would save you. He means what He says. He won’t lie to you. So in the quietness of this moment, if you hear this morning, you say, I’ve never trusted Christ as my Savior, but I want to know that I’m going to heaven and preach out life for you, pray for me. I’m not going to have you stand up or come forward. I’m going to ask you in just a moment to raise but raising your hand doesn’t save you.

It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you and you said, in preacher, I will trust Christ as my Savior. I want to know that I’m going to heaven and I like you to pray for me in closing. Would you just slip in it very quickly and put a right back down? Anyone at all say, yes, pray for me. Anyone at all before we close say, yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior this morning.

I want to know that I’m going to heaven when I die. Our Father, we do thank You so much for all that You’ve done for us. for us, for the free gift of eternal life. And Father, I thank you so much for the opportunity to be able to go and represent this church and to present the gospel and to have so much fruit, fruit that abounds to their account. We thank you for this time together, and ask your blessings upon each person here.

In Christ 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 tool 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 10-30 and at six 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.