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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 message will be a blessing to you and your family.

You know there’s some things in life that you only get one chance to do some things. You only get born in this world one time. No reruns, no instant replays, no nothing just one time you’re born into the world. And as far as your life goes, you only get to live life here one time. You don’t get to do that over again either. So what you do, you did and that’s it. You don’t get to do it over again.

Bible also tells us that one day we’re going to die and we’re only going to do that one time. So we’re only born once, we only live once and we’re only going to die once in this whole world. Somebody asked me one time and says, how come you only finished the tenth grade? Well, I didn’t want to go into the eleventh grade. My dad was in the eleventh grade. Now, I didn’t want to be in the same grade with my dad.

Of course, you know, that was just a joke, but there are some people who had to repeat, you know, the first grade and the second grade and the third grade and repeat a lot of grades. But sometimes you have to take and repeat a class. Now, there’s some people that even get married. I mean, time suppose you get married, well, once if a person died, you can get married again. Sometimes people get married, well, it didn’t work that time.

We’ll try it again. And then if that doesn’t work, we’ll try it again. There’s some people in life that, you know, you can try this little religion and you don’t like that one. Well, it changes to this religion. And you don’t like that. Well, it changes to to another religion and they can just change and change and change. But the day will come when you run out of time and hopefully as we go through life we have found just exactly what we’re looking for and it’s the right one and you can stay on track all the days of your life.

Well sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. Look there in Romans in chapter 7 in verse 15. When it comes to the Bible there’s a lot of times people believe that you know if I try harder if If I can just get the right religion and the right rules and if I owe babies rules and regulations and someday I’m going to make it. I never saw my mom and dad in church. I’m not growing up for 18 years. I never saw them in a church.

I never saw them read a Bible and I’ve never seen them pray. We never had none of that in our home. So I wasn’t raised in church. My daddy was a bootlegger. That means he stole corn and jugs. I was a little bit like it is right here. Look what he says in verse 15, for that which I do, I allow not. And for what I would, that do I not. And what I hate, that do I. Well, that was me to a T.

I had been told and what I’d heard was that if you’re good, you go to heaven. If you’re bad, you’re going to hell. So I think of the fact it’s true. I’m gonna bust it wide open. But I thought I’d wanna try to do the best I can. So I know I never drank. I never tested, tested drop. I never swore a cuss word. and I never smoked and I figured, you know, if anybody makes it, surely I will.

But I didn’t know God. I didn’t go to church. I didn’t read the Bible. And I prayed though, but I really didn’t know who I was praying to. I was hungry for the Lord. I wanted to know if it was true. I wanted to know that, but I didn’t want to get trapped in some man-made religion. If then I do that, which I would not, I can send unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it but sin that developed in me.

And I knew that the harder I tried the worse things seemed to get. And even if you say I’m not going to try, I’m not going to do anything wrong. I’m going to do right from now on. You fail. You keep failing and you fail miserably. We don’t live up to our own standard because most religions are nothing more than a different name, a different set of rules and regulations. And so you can go to this religion or this religion or this religion or this religion or that religion and there you have a few things that required maybe a little different than the other but principally it’s the same thing what you got to do this to get there and if you don’t do this you ain’t going And so I didn’t know what the rules were.

I’d heard that you posed to keep the Ten Commandments, but I have to be honest, I didn’t even know what they were. So I said, we got to believe the Bible. Well, I believed the Bible, but I had no clue what it said. But I didn’t want to go to heaven when I died. But nobody ever told me explained how I could know. Now, look what he says in verse 18. This is a very revealing verse. Though this verse, and these verses I’m reading right now is about the apostle Paul after he had been saved, about 25 years, it still is showing you the conflict that we have in our life with the if you’re a lost man, that means you’re a man that doesn’t know where you’re going, and you try to earn your way to heaven by trying to keep the law because although this is talking about obeying

the law and as much as you want to obey the law, God says there is no flesh to be justified by the law in the sight of God. Why? Because nobody can keep it. Nobody loves the Lord thy God with all thy hard mind body soldens, but nobody does thou shalt not covet Everybody does thou shalt not lie everybody does they say well haven’t done all the other ones So you have to keep the law perfectly or you don’t keep it at all And it doesn’t matter which one you break because the wages of sin is Death the soul that sent him shall die so everybody sins and breaks the law so everybody’s condemned So that’s the condition of the whole world so the law cannot save a man The law just shows you how righteous God is and how unrighteous we are So no man can keep it and this is for the frustration in most religions is they’re trying to earn something

God says is free look what he says in verse 18 for I know that in me that is in my flesh It’s so body we have develop no good thing for to will is present with me But how to perform that which is good. I find a how do I perform? Okay, I’m going to keep the law to go to heaven. Well, the problem is, there’s nothing wrong with the law. See, the law says over there in verse 12, where for the law is good, the law is just, the law is holy, the law is spiritual because God gave it.

But there’s nothing wrong with the law. It says the problem is, is me. I can’t keep it. So I find in me, that is in my flesh. I got a problem. I got a sinful nature. I sinned naturally. It means it’s not against your nature to sin. It is within the realms of your nature. We all do things wrong. We think wrong. We have lustful thoughts. We say wicked things. We hurt people and we are very covetous. And so we are very materialistic and we think about the things of the world.

So we have a problem here. In verse 19 he says, for the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. doing the very thing that I don’t want to do. It would be great if I say, you know what? I am going to live for God for the rest of my life. And I’m not going to do anything wrong from now. Starting today, right now, I’m not going to do anything else wrong.

How long? How long do you think I can last? How long do you think this would be good for? Now I… How long you think I can last? How long you think it would be good for it? Now I got to call what’s good, what God calls good. And I’ll have to call bad what God calls bad. But I preached the other night talking about it’s not that bad. Remember it’s not that bad because we don’t think that what we do is that bad.

But what that bad is is very wicked in the sight of God. God requires perfection to go to heaven and people can’t get it. See to go to heaven heaven is perfect. For me to get there I got to be perfect. Well heaven is perfect. God is perfect and to go to heaven I got to be perfect. Well am I perfect? No I can’t go. Okay who gets to go? Nobody. You mean nobody’s going to be in heaven? not lesser perfect.

So you can’t get to heaven. Nobody in the world. So trying to obey a bunch of rules and regulations and all the religions of the world, religion comes from two Latin words, re-inlegio, meaning to bind back. There’s people trying to do all these good deeds, trying to bind themselves back to God by what they do, and God says it’s not that way. Have you ever got a job and you didn’t like that job, you didn’t like the boss or whatever it is, so you got another job?

Everybody ever done that? I’ve done that a lot of times and I’ve got another job. What about a doctor? You’re the doctor and he tells you something’s wrong. I don’t like you. I’m gonna go to another doctor and So we go to another doctor and we don’t like this medicine. We can get some more medicine So you get chances and opportunities isn’t it wonderful? We can change our mind a thousand times And we can keep making corrections all that we want to but now look there in the book of Romans in chapter 3 I want you to look in Romans in chapter three.

You’re right there. Just turn back one page and look in verse 23 For the wages of sin is death Death is the wages. That’s what you receive because of sin. So if you didn’t sin that you wouldn’t die You didn’t sin you wouldn’t die Why does everybody die? Because everybody sins Sin came into the world because of one man and death by sin But if we didn’t sin, we wouldn’t die. The death is not the punishment. Death is not the punishment for sin, but the wages, that’s what you earned.

You earned the right to die. That’s a wage. You go to work and you work for a week and the guy on that Friday gives you a paycheck. Well, you earned that. Well, God says to die, you earned that. You earned the right to die. That’s physical death. So we all die because we earned it. But punishment in the book of Hebrews in chapter 9 verse 27 is appointed under every man. wants to die and after this the what?

The judgment is the punishment. So everybody’s gonna die but there’s a judgment after that. If there’s anything that you and I ought to be right on because you don’t get another chance, some things you can change your job and you can even get another woman. You can get another boyfriend or get another girlfriend and you can you know do a lot of things like that. Get another doctor. On this issue of how to go to heaven, once life is over, you better get it right.

Do you understand the consequences if you don’t get it right? You get one chance at this. In this life and this life only, you got one chance to get it right. And look of how many religions there are. And you got one Bible and look how many different translations that you can come out with and how many different views you can come out with. It’s a how do I know which one’s right? If you’re a Mormon and born in a Mormon family, guess what your Mormon parents are going to try to teach you to be?

Mormon? If you’re born and your parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses, what do you think they’re going to try to teach you to be? And if you have parents with Catholic, what are they going to try to teach you to be? And not on down the line, every religion tries to convince their kids and anybody else they can, they’re right and if they’re right they’re wrong. All religions can’t be true. They can all be right. Somebody’s right. Somebody’s wrong. How do you know?

Oh I got my little old people ain’t up here and I got all these thoughts and these various religions. How do I know which one’s right? Well God broke it down so we could understand the truth of it and how easy it really can be. So take your Bible and look there in the book of 1 John chapter 5. 1 John and chapter 5. I love of this verse. I didn’t know it was in the Bible until I was 18.

But in 1 John chapter 5 looked there in verse 13. And look what it says, these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have what eternal life. So does the Bible say that you can know you have eternal life? It says you can know it and it says there these things have I written unto you that believe. It’s not to those who join the church keep the tent commandments you know it’s just those that believe and it’s written to those that believe on somebody on the name of the Son of God, which is Jesus Christ.

Do you believe on Jesus Christ? These things have I written unto you that do that. He didn’t write to everybody that believes whatever they want to believe. Only those who believe this that you can know you have eternal life because not everybody else can know it. If you try to earn your way to heaven, he never said you can know you’re going to heaven if you earn it. He never said if you went to church you can go to heaven?

No, he didn’t say that. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 and 9, these are two very important verses. Look what it says in verse 8, 4 by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the what? Get of God and get verse 9, not of works lest any man should boast. So we know this, Can you know you can go to heaven? Yeah, can you know you have eternal life? Yeah. Can you earn it? No, not of works.

So not of works means not of works. Somebody says, well, it all depends on how you interpret it. Okay, how would you interpret not of works? I interpret it, not of works. It means you don’t earn it. If it says not of yourself, that means there’s nothing that I do, nothing that I do that will save me. Nothing that I have to depend upon me doing or getting done. Trusting means that I am dependent upon somebody else to do the work.

So if I trust Christ, then that means my going to heaven depends upon Christ. Not upon me, depends on Him. Now, He said He would save me. He will give me as a free gift ever lasting life. And if He gives me everlasting life, it will last for how long? It’ll last forever. And that way you can know that you’re going to heaven when you die. Look in Titus in chapter 3. The book of Titus, in chapter 3, where it makes the statement in verse 5, not by works of righteousness, Which we have done.

So there’s not, I’m not saved because I did some works of righteousness, not because I did something. I’m going to heaven because I did not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. And so that in verse seven that being justified by his grace grace means on merit it means you don’t deserve it Grace means you do not deserve to be saved and God says you’re saved by grace If you’re saved by your works, then it can’t be grace Remember the illustration I gave you’re not long ago My coat on that’s works my coat off.

Well, that’s grace So he says that if it’s by Works then it can’t be by grace Otherwise work isn’t work, but if it is by grace, then it can’t be by works. Otherwise grace isn’t grace. See how simple that is? If God says it’s free, that means you don’t earn it. No code. But if you believe this by your works, well then see that messes it up. Now is it free or you got to earn it, but it can’t be both ways.

You see, God’s gunning saved me in taping heaven and don’t cost me anything. He did all the work, He saved me by His grace and it’s a gift. It’s not by my works and he’ll give me eternal life. Well, if he gives me eternal life and it’s forever, then where am I gonna go when I die? Well, I’d go to heaven But if it’s by my works, how would I know if I’m trusting in my works to help me?

All you gotta do is if if I don’t do the things right, I Don’t have the works Well, I still go now if I won’t get there because I didn’t perform then I was trusting in my works to get me there because if it’s totally by grace there’s nothing that can keep me from going to heaven. Either he paid for all my sins or he paid for none of my sins. If all my sins are paid, how many would I have to pay for it if he paid for all of them?

None. Let me show you a simple illustration. This hand represents you and me and wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. Now God says we all have a sinful nature and so that’s why we produce the sin. But to get to heaven I got to be perfect. I can’t have no sin. Well that’s the problem. I can’t get into heaven because God won’t allow sin into heaven. So that’s why I can’t go. You can’t even. So what happened was God says the wages of sin because you sinned, you deserve something for that.

So God says I’m going to pay you and the payment for this sin is dead. You get to die. That’s physical death. Everybody died. But when you die, it also cares with it. Eternal separation from God in a literal fire burning hell. So there we are. We cannot save ourselves. We can’t change the situation. We can’t do anything for ourselves. God says you cannot save yourself. It’s not what you can do. So you don’t have to go to church to go to heaven and you don’t have to give money to go to heaven.

You can’t buy your way there. Well, how can I get there? This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord. God in the place came into the world because He loves us, but He hates our sin because it separates us from Him. So what Christ did for one person, He did for everybody in the world. He took all the sin, paid for them across, came back from the dead, and said that if we We would believe that He did it for us.

It put that payment to our account and we would go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. That’s a gift. That’s free. Where am I going when I die? I’m going to heaven. Why? Because he, my sins have all been paid. He paid for how many of my sins? All of them. And when Christ died on the cross 2,000 years ago, how many of our sins were in the future? All of them because we weren’t even born yet.

Well, can he pay for our sins before I commit him? Well, he did, but he hasn’t died since I’ve been born. That means if he’s already died to pay for all of my sins, he paid for my sins from the time I’m born to the time that I died, he made a payment for my sins, all of them. So if I accept that payment he made for me, then I have a payment for all of my sins, not past sins, not just present sins, but all my sins.

So I have a payment for all of my sins. And he puts that payment to my account. I get to go to heaven on what Christ did for me. That’s a gift. That’s free. I didn’t earn it. Didn’t work for it. If I offered you my wallet and you accepted, what would you have? Empty wallet. And if I offered you my Bible and you accepted it, you would have a Bible. When would you have it? When you accepted it?

So this is why salvation is of the Lord. You don’t earn it. You can’t work for it. You cannot buy it. Now, one of the best illustrations, I believe, that’s every use in the scriptures to explain how a man is saved. And remember this, there is no illustration in the Bible, none anywhere in the book. That ever says that God saved a man and then the man got lost and then God saved again. No question the Bible. So once God saves a man, he saved for how long?

However, because God said, I’ll never cast you out. John chapter 6, he said, I’ll never lose you. He says, and I give him the eternal life. No man is able to fuck you out of my father’s hand. What it means is this. Here’s the Lord. Here’s me. When I trust Christ as my savior, he saves me. So that means my going to heaven depends upon him, keeping his word. So if I trust him, he said, he’ll save me. and he said, he’ll never cast me out.

He said, he won’t lose me. He said, no man can pluck him out of my hand, me or anybody. You can’t pluck yourself out of his hand. So this is how I know I’m going to heaven when I die, because my going to heaven depends upon him keeping his word. Now does God lie? No. He says, he that believeth only have everlasting life. Now religions, all religions, can add them into this category is that they believe here’s the Lord whatever they want to call them and here they are.

They believe that if they get a good grip on God I believe on God and I turn from my evil ways confess to all my sins and repented and all the rest of it and now I’m going to walk out straight and narrow away and I’ve done everything but if I start doing anything wrong I can slip away. I’m sliding away. Now I’m lost and I got to get saved again. And then if I don’t do right, I got to pray through, hang on, let go, let God.

And there I am again. See, this isn’t worth the quarter because this means I am saving me. But of course I’m talking about God. I can talk about Jesus Christ and how I’m trusting Christ. I’m trusting Christ to take me to heaven. Am I trusting Christ to take me to heaven? No. My salvation depends on me because this is why people in this world, they believe you can get saved today and go to hell tomorrow. If they can lose their salvation, that’s because it’s in their hands.

It depends on how strong they are. Can they hang on? Can they endure to the end? See, their salvation doesn’t depend upon him, depends upon themselves. That’s not the Bible. That’s man-made religion. So all the religions that teach you have to do something by the way you live, you’ll get to heaven. Or you got to keep that way and all, oh yeah, I’m trusting in Jesus Christ. He’s the only way and all that. I’m trusting him and grace and by no works and so forth.

I know you say all of that, but see, your salvation that depends on Christ, it depends on you because you believe you can lose it. They either believe one or two things. You don’t believe it, Christ, meant what he said or did what he said he did. What did he say? He said, if you trust me, I’ll give you everlasting life and never cast you out. That’s what he said. Do you believe it? The other one was you don’t believe he did what he said he did.

What was that? He paid for all my sins. Well, if all my sins are paid, what sin can condemn me to hell? If all my sins are paid. All of them are paid. I think I said, well, you can commit So it’s like I said, is that a sin? He said, yes, pay. It’s paid. All sense paid. If you believe it or you don’t believe it. I said, you don’t believe the Bible. Jesus Christ tells the story of the man hanging there on the cross right beside of him.

And he said, Lord, remember me when the outcome is into that kingdom. And Jesus says, today, shout out be with me where in paradise. Here’s a man hanging on the cross. Had he done anything wrong? Oh yeah, he was a thief. He was one of those that was hanging there. He was down on the cross. What did he do? Did he have to join the church? No, I joined the church. I was 18 years old. You know what church was the first church I ever joined?

Northside Baptist Church right here. I trusted Christ as my savior right here, 46 years ago down here in part of the apartment. And Betty’s dad got me to come out to church and so I came out here. this is where I joined the church. But you know what I had to do also? Have I ever been baptized? Yes, I was baptized. Where? Right there in this bad history. 46 years ago. So what I’ve been baptized. But you know, it’s joined this church.

This church can’t get me to heaven. Or the church would be my savior. If I, the man that baptized me, his name was Virgil Edwards. He was the pastor here. Well, if I had to be baptized in order to be saved, well. The man that baptized me would be my savior because if I can’t be saved without being water baptized, or the one who baptized me, did they work for me, I owe him my salvation. Is my salvation should be owed to a man?

No. But was I baptized? Yeah, I was baptized. But you see, that doesn’t save you. It doesn’t give you eternal life. It’s a picture. Me and my wife, we ran away and got married. Anderson, South Carolina. There was no photographers there, nobody there taking pictures and so forth. And we signed a little piece. It was the justice of the peace. Found out later it was the Secretary of War. But anyway, we got married, 18 years old. We have had a lot of pictures since then.

But when people get married, it’s because, you know, they take pictures. The picture doesn’t marry you. It’s only a picture of your marriage. When I stand in the water, that’s a picture of Christ on the cross. And when I go under the water, that’s a picture of my burial. When I come up out of the water, that’s a picture of my resurrection. So when I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross, buried, rose again for me, and because I believe that, then every person who believes that is to be water baptized.

I’m placed under the water. I come up out of the water and that’s a picture of my death, better as a resident. But this doesn’t save me. I do this because I am saved. Joining the church. Am I a member of the church? Yes, I joined the church, but I don’t do that to go to heaven. That little deed that I did in a little, little living room, I was born in the God’s family that day, that minute, that very second.

God became my Heavenly Father. I became His child. He said, He’ll never cast me out and never lose me. That was the best news I ever heard in my life. Because see, if you’re going to heaven depends upon anything that you have to do. You don’t never know if it’s enough. You won’t know When you die if you’re really going to go to heaven you’ve got a hope all your life I Have known Beyond they shav it out. I know I have eternal life.

I know I’m going to heaven when I die Best news and all the world That’s what being saved me being saved means you’re saved from something to something. I will save from hell to heaven He that believed on me, you have it. You’ve got it. It’s so simple. It’s free. It’s a gift. 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 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.