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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. in your Bible to the book of Isaiah 61, the book of Isaiah in chapter 61. In Isaiah chapter 61, there’s a statement here mentioned about the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 1, Jesus Christ mentions this in the New Testament when he was talking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

He says in verse want the spirit of the Lord God is upon me. So you have the Trinity right there in that verse, the Holy Spirit, Lord God Father upon me son. Because the Lord hath known me to preach good tidings unto the meek, he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And the last part of that he didn’t quote in the New Testament but there’s a reason.

Now look at in verse 3, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mornings, the garment of praise for the Spirit of heaviness. Now remember that all the trees are cut down, dust to dust ashes to ashes. But God is able to miraculously bring beauty out of ashes. Look what else he says here in the last part of this verse that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified.

What he’s talking about is because of Jesus Christ coming into the world, he was born, took on flesh, never committed to sin, and when God examined him, he had no cause for him to die. So with all the people born in all the world, there’s only one that had no sin. That was Jesus Christ. So God says that he’s going to take the seed from this tree, Christ. And God said, He’s going to plant the seed. And He’s going to bring beauty out of ashes.

And it’s going to be a tree of righteousness. God has another tree. So lo and behold, that’s where you and I come in. You and I, when we realize from the Scriptures that we’re all sinners, We can’t save ourselves, and there’s no good work that we can do that would be good enough to get us to heaven. And if you had to live good to go to heaven, then you’d have to wait until you’ve done it to see if you made it.

So you’d have to wait until you die. So how would anybody know now where they’re going when they die if you’re going to heaven because of your good works? You’d have to wait until you lived your whole life and then see whether or not at the end does my good outweigh my bad See, it’s not a matter of the good outweigh in the bad God won’t have any bad at all There’s our problem So God says you cannot save yourself you need a Savior So that’s why when you trusted Christ as your Savior When you believe he died and paid for your sins God gave to you as a free gift ever lasting life Take your Bible look there in the book of Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 and 9.

I want to show you two of my favorite verses in the Bible. Ephesians 2 8 and 9 And you’ll notice here in chapter 2, this is on page 1251, and you’ll notice in verse 8, 4 by grace are you saved. Well, why would you have to be saved by grace? Because nobody can be saved by their works. There isn’t anyone good enough. So it doesn’t matter how good you are, you do not have any evidence that you’re perfect. All the evidence is contrary to you being perfect.

If I was to ask you this question, have you ever done anything perfect? Are you perfect now? Do you perceive that in the future you will be perfect? No, because you have been a sinner, you are a sinner, and you will stay a sinner. Unless God intervenes, and lo and behold, that’s where we are. So we have all the evidence that we need, that we’ve all come short of God’s perfection. So that’s why the acts is laid to the root of the tree and we’re all going to be cut down.

That’s why the wages of sin is death. Everyone’s going to die. Now Jesus Christ had the tree of righteousness, the fruit of righteousness, so He didn’t have to die. Well, all the sins that we have done was put upon history. He died in our place. God took that seed that was planted and all those who believe in Him, the payment He made is put to our account and we can have a new birth. We become a new plant born of God.

Now here in Ephesians 2.89, for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. So you’re not saved by your works. You are not kept saved by your works. So where does works come in? Well after you trusted Christ as your Savior, it is the will of God that we do good works. See, look in verse 10. Verse 10. He says, for we are His workmanship.

You know the self-made man. God performed this work. He’s the one that saved you, gave you eternal life, made you His child. For we are His workmanship. Now get this. created in Christ Jesus. That means you have a new birth born of God and then the last part of it says unto good works. So does God want you to bring forth good works? Yes, he does. Does everybody bring forth good works? No, they don’t. Look at the last part of the verse where he makes a statement half before ordained that we should walk it.

In other words, it is the will of God that all of God’s children walk in good works. That’s the book. But it is also the will of God, excuse me, that everybody trusts the Lord. God’s not willing that any should perish. God wants everybody to be saved. So because that’s what God wants, does everybody get saved? No. So do all of God’s children serve the Lord? No. Some of God’s children or obedient, some of God’s children are disobedient. But did you know our obedience to God is still boiled down to those still two great commandments?

One is, do I still, do I love the Lord? And my love for the Lord is revealed by, do I love one another? So should I love one another? Why yes, but am I loving anybody to get to heaven? No. For example, let’s take a man. A man has a wife. And let’s say we’re going to put them over here. Let’s take another man and another wife. Let’s put them over here. Now, this couple over here, they’re saved. This couple over here, well they’re lost.

They don’t know the Lord. Can the lost man still love his wife? Do lost people? A lost man? Does he love his wife? I think so. If they have kids, then they have kids. Can the lost man? Can he still love his kids? Over here we got a Christian. Can the saved man? Will it be automatic? He will love his wife. If he has kids, will he automatic? Will he love his kids? He can be a believer and not love his wife.

He can be a believer and not love his kids. You can have a lost man over here who loves his wife and not be saved. And love his children and not be saved. So if you’re looking for evidence whether or not a man is saved or not, if you look at the evidence, you might say they’re lost and they’re saved. Who they are. This man, he takes his wife and children to church. Is that good or bad? That’s good.

That’s good. Here’s a saved man and a saved woman and they don’t go. This lost couple over here, they read their Bible and pray. And the Christian over here, he doesn’t read his Bible and he doesn’t pray. So who deserves to go to heaven? They don’t deserve to go because you don’t have to be good. you have to be perfect. So all of their good deeds don’t get them to heaven. This is what blows people’s minds. But this is what Jesus said.

You don’t get to heaven because of how good you are. You’ve got to be perfect and no one’s perfect. You must trust Christ as your Savior. But if you looked at the evidence, there might not be any evidence that they love God or they love people. This doesn’t sound right. Did you know when he says for by grace or you say, this is what he’s talking about? Nobody deserves to go to heaven. Well, why should they get to go and not them?

Because they trusted Christ as their Savior and they didn’t. Here you are sitting here this morning. It doesn’t mean you’re better or worse than anybody else. But some people might live better than you. But if you don’t trust Christ as your Savior, see, you don’t go to heaven. And that person you know that drains and smokes and runs around and does all those bad things, but that man may have trusted Christ as a Savior and he gets to go to heaven and you go to hell.

You say, well, it’s not fair. We’re not talking about that. You say, well, that’s not worth it. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about God. God, see, made salvation as a gift to whosoever would believe it. Anybody that would accept it. Now, let me show you something that most people really get all bold up about. Take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians, and you’ve got to stay with me now, or you’re going to get mad at me, and I don’t like people being mad at me.

1 Corinthians in chapter 2, see, if a man is not saved by his works, you cannot use words as the evidence of why he should be saved, or go to heaven. You said, well, what about after you trust the Lord? Well, after you trust the Lord, does that mean you’re automatically going to serve the Lord? Let me kind of break that down for you. First Corinthians in chapter two, I want you to notice there in verse nine. But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

He makes a statement in verse 10, but God hath revealed them unto us by a spirit. Yeah, the spirit searches all things. Yeah, the deep things of God. So when you trusted Christ as your Savior, you trusted Christ as your Savior. You were born of God from a incorruptible seed. See that tree over there? That’s the new birth. That one over there, that’s the old birth. when you still have sin in your life as a Christian, it’s not a sign that tree does not exist.

It is a sign that tree still does. Let me repeat that. You’re a Christian. If you still have sin in your life, it’s not a sign that one doesn’t exist the new birth. It’s a sign the old one still does. You still have an old sinful nature. You still do things that you should not do. So while you’re looking for the evidence, you might find nothing but the fruit of this old tree, even though you can’t see that birth.

Why? Because you see the new birth is a spiritual birth. You know that we just covered this morning and the sun is you’re talking about God. Immortal. The only immortal. The only king lives forever and on land. Well, this, this God never does anything wrong. Never makes a mistake. And when you trusted Him as your Savior, He gave you the free gift of eternal life. And as a child of God, we’re supposed to learn from the Lord the thing that God wants us to learn so that we can do the things that we should do, but the evidence.

We keep coming back to the evidence. What about you as a believer? Are there any signs that you are genuine? Keep us in mind, if we have the signs over here, we want to look at these evidences for this man. Or let’s say that, okay, now he’s a Christian. He ought to have some evidence in his life. Or what should those evidence be? Let’s just list a few off the top of our head. Well, he ought to go to church.

And he ought to love his wife and kids. And he ought to pay his debts. He ought to read his Bible. He ought to pray. You ought to go Friday night, so when in, I mean, we just make a whole list over there that if he’s really saved I mean that we ought to have something you know got to have something But every bit of these evidences that we use Must be something that the lost man can’t do Because if the lost man can do the same thing that the Christian can do How does it prove he saved?

Because if that’s the evidence that proves he saved, why doesn’t the same evidence prove he is? Can the lost man go to church? Love his wife and love his kids? Can the lost man give money? Can the lost man pray? Go to church? Show me the evidence of what a Christian can do that a lost man can’t do. You’ll have fun. But if it’s the evidence that proves He saved, it must also prove that the lost man is saved.

So we’ve got to have something better than that. We have some evidence that’s incontrovertible. I mean, you cannot dispute it. And it’s all based upon the Word of God. God said so. to go talking about how that God is, well, he’s invisible. Christ when he came was visible, but if he’s invisible and we are his children born of the Spirit of God, your new birth is a birth of the Spirit. You can’t see a spiritual birth. And in most cases you’ll never see the spiritual fruit.

Even all of those that trust Christ is Savior on Friday night, so when in if you looked at Him, they probably looked just like they did before they got saved. The body never changed. In many cases, deeds never changed because it’s a spiritual birth. When God says we get to heaven, He’s going to reward us for what we’ve done because in the eyes of man, He may not see nothing miraculously in your life? What is these divine attributes of your life that really sets your part from that lost man?

You may never see any change whatsoever, though we may look for them without little glasses and because we’re looking for certain things. We can be wrong in our judgment. Wouldn’t it be a shame for us to examine Peter Amato and come to the conclusion He’s not saved. So how do you know? Wait, wouldn’t wear that tie if he was really saved?

He wouldn’t got a haircut. I think it’s too short. He must not be saved. He’s wearing glasses. That’s a sign of imperfection. Left my home. And you can be wrong in your judgment. You know, the only way that I believe that Peter Amato is a saved man is because he told me he was except in the payment Christ made on him for him alone. And he was trusting Christ as his Savior. And that’s the only evidence. You see, the saved man, the lost man, can have the same evidences in their life.

Both love the Lord. Both can love their children. Both can love their wives. Both can have good job. Both do everything right they know to do. They both go to church. They both give money. But there’s only one thing that’ll get him to heaven. If he doesn’t trust Christ’s Savior, does he go? Then all this other stuff doesn’t matter, does it? Because the lost man does everything that the Christian does. There’s only one thing that separates him. One of them trusted the Lord.

One of them didn’t. The only reason you’re going to heaven is because you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior. How you live your life after your Savior, yes, you have a wonderful, loving heavenly Father but might beat the Torah to you because he loves you. Maybe take you home before your time, but you see, your salvation depends upon what Christ did for you. 52 years after I trusted Christ as my Savior, how I have lived or whatever I’ve done and accomplished, that is no proof that I’ve ever trusted Christ as my Savior.

But I do believe this. I believe that if you love your wife, there ought to be an evidence. I believe if you love your kids, there ought to be evidence. I believe if I love the Lord, there ought to be evidence. But you see, whether I do or not, you can have evidence, but God’s the one that knows whether or not you really love. Can you have all the signs that you love your wife at the same time you’re running around, honor?

Can a man be an assistant coach and give the impression he loves those little boys? Oh, he really did. But wicked. But in the eyes of others, wonderful individual. So can people be wrong? Did not they try to present evidence for a jury to come up to a conclusion decision? We’re always looking for evidence. And all I know is I want the world to know that I love my father. That’s why I do what I do. But the evidence that I give to you may not suffice you.

And some people’s eyes that might be good and some people’s eyes, they could care less how you live, or the standards that you have. Or whether or not you go to the right church or you pray enough or you give enough money. So the Bible says some wonderful things. I got something I wanted to share with you, but it’s too close to the end time. I’m talking about my time up there that I’m not going to be able to do an adequate job.

And so I might just cover that tonight, but it goes along with what I’m saying right now. It’s the other part of my message, but it only takes about 15 minutes. But I think I better not try to attempt that which is beyond my ability to perform. I do want to explain this to you. If you’re here this morning and you never trust the Christ as your Savior, see, I’m not denying the fact. You may love God. You may worship God.

Baba talks about people that did. And you may love your family. You may love your kids. Try to be the best mom and dad in the whole world you can be. That’s commendable. That’s wonderful. But we’re not talking about how good you live your life. We’re talking about how to go to heaven. To go to heaven, you’ve got to be perfect. is perfect. There’s only one that’s perfect and that’s God. Look up here. Let me show you this. This hand represents you and me.

This wallet represents everything we’ve done that’s wrong. We’ve all sinned. So God says because of sin and that’s the evidence we’ve got an old sinful nature. Why do I do all these bad things? Because you’ve got a sinful nature. It’s your nature. Why does a dog bark? It’s the nature of the dog to bark. But wouldn’t it be a shame to tell the dog, dog? You stop acting like a dog and I’ll make you a chicken. When can the dog stop acting like a dog?

That’s why there’s preachers that tell people, stop your sin and turn from all of your sin. Don’t sin anymore. You’re right. Nobody can do that. It’s impossible. You can’t turn from your sins. Why? It’s on the inside. That’s the nature that you have. That’s why you do all those bad things. You can pick the apples off the tree, but that doesn’t change it from being an apple tree. But God so loved the world. He loves you. He loves me.

He hates what we do wrong. And for us to pay for this sin is eternal separation from God and hell. And Jesus said, he’s looking for the fruits of righteousness and there aren’t any. He’s looking for perfection. There aren’t any. So he says, he’s going to lay the axe to the root of the tree. He means he cuts down every tree. That’s not perfect. That’s why the wages of sin is death. That’s why we’re all going to die. And because of that, we’re all condemned to hell.

So there is no hope for man by man. You can’t stop it. You can’t change it, you can’t help it. You’re in a heap of trouble. And this is what God did for us. See, God says He wants us to go to heaven. But to go to heaven, you’ve got to be perfect. His righteousness is God. None of us are perfect. We’ve all done things wrong. Nobody’s good enough. So God says, you cannot save yourself. People have heard about this all their life.

Let this hand represent Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord, God in the flesh. He came into the world because he loves us. He hates our sin because it separates us from him. So Jesus cries you had no sin, didn’t have to die. So he didn’t have to be cut down. So why did he die? Well, it’s very simple. He took our sins and died in our place. Paid for all of our sins, came back from the dead and God said that if we would believe he’d get it for us.

Now if he had told you to stand on your head to spit, wouldn’t nickel you try it? Aren’t you glad he didn’t tell you to do something hard and complicated? All he says, this is all you have to do to go to heaven is will you believe that I pay for your sins? You see, if I believe he paid for my sins, I’m not trying to pay for my sins. See, I’m not going to church to try to pay for my sins.

You know, if I do enough good, it’ll pay for the bad. I’m not giving money to pay for my sins. I’m not trying to pray to pay for my sins. I’m not doing anything to pay for my sins. I’m not doing anything to try to earn my way to heaven. I’m going to heaven because of what Christ did. Christ paid for my sins. And if I believe he did it for me, he puts the payment to my account and I go to heaven on what Christ did.

You got it? You got it, you go like this. You go like this. There you go. It works. Let’s pray, shall we? every head bowed and every eye closed. No one looking around. If you hear this morning and perhaps you have never trusted Christ as your savior, I want you to understand you don’t have to live the life. You don’t have to promise a live a Christian life. You don’t have to promise God you’re gonna stop anything or join anything.

Friend, that would just make your religious hypocrite. Christ died for your sins. The only way you’ll ever get to heaven is believe he did it for you. You don’t have to join this church. You don’t have to give any money. I don’t want anything from you. I want you to receive something. You see, the Lord offers you eternal life as a gift. And if you accepted, you would have it. Will you believe it? With headbound eyes closed and no one looking around if you hear this morning and say, preach of that made sense to me and I will trust Christ as my Savior right now.

I would love to know it. I would love to have prayer for you. I am going to ask you in a moment to slip your hand up. Raising your hand does not save you. It just lets me know that what I said made sense. And you say, that made sense to me. I am going to trust Christ as my Savior. Is there anyone at all before we close? Just slip it up very quickly and put it right back down.

Say, that made sense to me. Yes, God bless you. God bless you, sir. God bless you. I appreciate that. Anyone else? Just slip it up very quickly. So, I am not going to have you forward. not gonna embarrass you, God bless you, God bless you. Are there others? Yes, God bless you, sir, God bless you. Anyone else? See, if you trust Christ right now as your savior, God said he would save you right now. Give you eternal life, and you can know that you’re going to heaven when you die, because he loves you so much.

Anyone else before we close? Hi, Father, we thank you so much for the free gift of eternal life. You love us so much. And what I thank you for each one of these that by an uplifted hand have indicated that they would trust Christ as their Savior. We know that when they do so, you promised in your Word to give them eternal life and that they would become your child, that you never cast them out and never lose them.

We thank you so much for all you’ve done for us and for giving it to us in such a way that we can have it and understand it, it’s free and that you’re never taking cast us out, never loses and Father we can know that we’re going to heaven. Thank you so much. In Christ and in 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 1-800-576OTAL. 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 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 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast 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.