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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 a 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. You’ve ever heard of a verse that says, come to the throne of grace that you may obtain grace to help in time of need. So in this present world, there’s time when you need. So you go to the Lord and His light, go unto the throne of grace. You can get a little bit more desire and a little bit more power to do the will of God for your life.

God’s grace is sufficient for every man. And he also makes a statement in the book of Ephesians in chapter 4, talking about how that God has given us grace according to the measure of grace. He’s given every one of us all the grace we need for the life we need to live. But you don’t have to obey God, yield to God, walk with God, love God, let you should. So should I. So this is what God wants us to do.

But see, grace means that we do it because we want to, because I love Him. Love should respond to love. And this is why the more you study the Word of God, the closer you find out God wants to get to you and you want to get to Him. God doesn’t want anything between you and I or between us and God. So get what He said now. In verse 13, the Bible makes this statement, God’s grace teaches us to look for the blessed hope.

The grace of God teaches us to look for the blessed hope. What’s the blessed hope? It’s that glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. The Bible talks about all those who love his appearing. There’s laid up a crown of righteousness, but not only to me only, but also to them who also love his appearance. You see, you should live every day, every moment. Believe me, the Lord could come back today. But if you don’t, I’ll be looking for Him tomorrow.

And if you don’t come back, I’ll look for Him today. I’ve been looking for the Lord for 53 years. Should I stop now? I don’t think so. And He’s always like keeps you on the edge of your seat. And I think this is what He means. He wants us to be living on the edge of our seats. He wants us to live expectingly, expecting at any time, any moment, all of this life will be over with. We’re no longer be in this present world.

We’ll be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye and caught up to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. So the Bible teaches us that in verse 13, you and I ought to look for the Lord to come back again. This is the living hope. This is that hope that purifies your life, as he says in the book of 1 John in chapter 3, that we haven’t seen him yet.

We don’t know what we shall be like, but we know that we shall be like him, but we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath his hope in him purifyeth himself. Because if I believe Christ could come back tonight, did you know that that belief helped me to purify my life at this moment? It helps me to guard what I think about my attitude, the things that I say, the places that I go. It should affect every area of life.

See, God’s grace teaches us all these wonderful things. It wasn’t just grace to save you and give you eternal life, it’s grace to live by. But see, God wants us to do it because He has done so much for us. I shared this before, but let me just very briefly show that. standing in the flesh. That is our position. That’s a positional truth. I was born into this world under the jurisdiction of the law. And because I had a flash birth, I was born with a sinful nature and therefore I could not obey the righteous law.

Nothing wrong with the law. The law says it’s spiritual, it’s good, it’s holy, it’s righteous, there’s nothing wrong with the law. The only problem with the law was that I have a flash birth and I can’t fulfill the righteous demands of the law. So the law condemns everyone born into the world. That is my position. That’s my standing. Now when I trusted Christ as my Savior, God gave to me a new position. I am now a child of God.

This isn’t this one manipulated in some way. It’s not this one converted. I didn’t take a garage and convert it into the living room. Now the garage is no longer there. That’s what some people teach. That’s not true. God did touch this one. He gave me a new birth. Holy brand new. This one had nothing to do with this one. This one was born of God and if it’s born of God, then God is my father. God is my father, then I am his child.

If I am his child, I have his nature. Gweller with me is a divine nature. This birth, here, see, doesn’t have a sinful nature because my father didn’t have a sinful nature. Therefore, my birth, I don’t have a sinful nature. And if I have no sinful nature, I can’t sin. If I have no sinful nature and I can’t sin, I can’t die. So that’s why once you become a child of God, you have eternal life. And he can never unborn you, never lose you.

You’re his child forever. Over here I have a sinful nature because I sin, I die and everybody dies. This was my position before I trusted the Lord. After I trusted the Lord, God has moved me from this position to this position. Now my new standing is in Christ. And that’s why He says that we stand by grace. This is our standing, the book of Romans in chapter 5 verse 1 and 2. This is our new position, our standing in Christ.

Now this was because of God’s grace. I didn’t get there by cause of any good deeds that I’ve done. I got there only by grace. So God says now because you’re in this position, we’re no longer under the law. We’re under grace. my position, thus my standing in Christ that can never, never be changed. So as a child of God, God says, now as my child, this is what I want you to do with your life. And I want to teach you, it helped you and guide you.

See, the law would never do that for you. The law would not forgive. The The law would not help you. The law would not do anything for you. The law has no mercy. The law had no grace. The law just condemned. The law had no love. Christ has all of that. Now he wants me to live showing those characteristics of my father. mercy, show kindness, show goodness, show grace, give forgiveness, all those things God wants me to do because I’m a child by grace.

That’s who I am. That’s where I am. That’s my position in Christ. And it’s a wonderful thing to know. And so one day when Christ comes back in the air, He’s not taking any of these over here. He’s only taking those that are over here. So once you trust the Christ as your Savior, God sees you differently than you were before. You see, when you do some things that you should not do and you have sin in your life, it doesn’t mean that the new birth doesn’t exist.

It just shows that the old man still exists. And that’s why you still do the things you do, because he still exists. But God sees us, we have two births. born of God, this one isn’t. So one day he’s going to come back and he says for us to look for that blessed hope and that glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. See that’s who he is. This is what he’s done for us. Now in this verse, some other good things, and write this down.

God’s grace will free us up. See there in verse 14, God’s grace will free us up. He said, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity. Now this is not just talking about, I believe, that He paid for, yes, all of my sins, but not only to pay for my sins so that I’m delivered from the penalty of my sins. sin which is death and hell, but from the power of sin in my life.

So I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved. See I was saved from the penalty of my sins because Christ paid that for me. In my life the Holy Spirit that indwells me and indwells you is for the purpose of redeeming us from the power of sin in our life in this present world. Because everyone still has this old sinful nature and he’s trying to get his tentacles into us and ruin our life and trying to get us to fulfill these sinful desires that only would trap this.

That’s why Christ says, if you’ll be my disciples, the truth will make you free. And so as we study the truth of the word of God, and that’s why he prayed that night in chapter 17 of Gospel of John, sanctify them through thy word, thy word is truth. It’s truth that sets us free. It’s lies that enslave us. So now we have the word of God given to us and God wants us to realize the importance that sin will do do to us, but what grace can set us free from its power.

And what you do is everyone that lives according to the most powerful desires they have. Everybody lives according to how they really want to live. And that desire to serve God has to be strengthened. Now you don’t feed a desire, but you do feed a nature, feed a nature. You feed those desires and those desires grow and become strong. So if you’ll feed upon the Word of God and you meet with other Christians and you pray and do all the things you become stronger and stronger and those desires become stronger and those desires is the motivation for you to serve the Lord.

Those strong desires is powerful just like you can have wrong sinful desires. You can have bad habits in your life and they can destroy your life and ruin your testimony. So he says here in verse 4 14, 14, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a special kind of people. The word peculiar people doesn’t mean you’re peculiar. It means that you’re different. You’re set apart. You see, there’s the unholy and there’s the holy.

There’s the ungodly and there’s the godly. Now which one do you think God wants us to be? He left us in this world and the power that God has in us is by our yielding ourselves to Him that we can influence other people’s lives. Some Christians have absolutely no power in anybody’s life and the reason is because they have no power of God in their life. Because see if God can’t change you, God can’t use you to change others.

You have to be an example of whatever it is you want to be. Something that’s greater than building a ministry is building your cells strong in the Lord, upon your most holy faith. And then whatever you are, you reproduce. Everything reproduces after its own kind. Go back to the book of Genesis. It doesn’t matter what it is. Everything reproduced after its own kind. And whatever you are is what you’re going to reproduce. If you’re lazy, good for nothing, that’s what you’ll produce.

But if you’re an excited individual about the Lord, you can challenge, motivate other people about the things of the Lord. An unlit candle can’t light another candle. But a candle that’s lit, you want to light another candle and another candle and another candle. Since you’ve been saved, have there been other people that you have influenced, not only the trust of the Lord, but to serve the Lord. That’s when God has power in your life. Now you heard James talking about certain ones that he’s led to the Lord and they coming on the line and coming to church and so forth like that.

That means God has use of James’ life. That means God can use him in the lives of a lot of people. You understand what I’m saying? Is that true? These that go out on Friday night, so winning, and they have a whole bunch of people trust Christ as Savior. That’s because God is able to work through their lives and they’re making an impact upon people. I was talking to Jim Blevinger and he was telling me about people that he has gone and listened to the YouTubes of some of my messages over there in Lebanon.

Was that Lebanon? So, but that’s God using you. Now, you need to find a way. I want to do something. I want to be used by God. But notice what he says here. Redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people because, see, this is what the Bible will do. God’s grace, the next thing, God’s grace will purify your life. It makes you examine yourself. To see, is there anything in my life that’s not right? This is why David prayed back in the Psalm.

He says, search me, O God, and see if there be any iniquity in my heart. See, unexamined life is not worth living. When we have communion this coming Sunday, part of the thing in there talks about in Corinthians is to examine yourself. Examine, not examine your neighbor, not examine your wife, not examine your husband, no, not examine yourself. And see, is everything all right between you and God? Did you know you have a big enough job just taking care of yourself without sitting in judgment upon everybody else?

Just go ahead and you do right and you’d be surprised how God may use that light of yours to shine upon somebody else. And God will use you in a great way. Now, the last thing I wanted to give to you is in chapter two, in verse 14. And you ought to underline these four words, zealous of good works. the grace of God will fire you up. It calls you to have zeal. The Bible talks about how the zeal of the Lord hath eaten me up.

You see, why did Jesus get so mad when He walked into the temple and everybody was gambling all over the place and money changers and He got a cord that’s beating the people out of there over through the tables? You say, boy, He really lost His cool. He says, the zeal of the Lord hath eaten me up. up. I’m eating up with the zeal of God. In other words, like Jeremiah says, the burning, the fire of God’s Word was in me and I could not stay.

I couldn’t keep quite. I had to say, so I had to do something. You ought to let the zeal of the Lord so get a hold of you, where you’ve got to do something. You know, whenever I’m married, Betty, We lived in five states in a year and a half. Five states in a year and a half. Her dad didn’t want her to marry me in the first place because I was like a gypsy. I was so unsettled. I was the worst thing in the world for any man’s daughter.

It’s like handing a stratovirus over to a gorilla. It was just terrible. But I was so hungry inside. I was searching. I //[ there had to be something more than getting up every mornin’ and going to work and coming home. And going to bed and getting up and going to work and coming home and going to bed and getting up and going to work and coming home and going to bed and getting up and going home and going to work.

Now, day after day, it’s got no real life in this. That the lost man do what the lost man can do, but let me do what only a Christian can do. I don’t want to waste my life. I want to do something. And the zeal of the Lord can get a hold of you. That’s what grace does because you know it’s free. But it wouldn’t motivate me. One I ode to go to all the world and tell everybody to keep the 10 commandments.

Somehow that message just doesn’t do it to me. But there’s a whole world out there that’s just like I was lost. And God loves them, everyone. And He paid for all of their sins, everyone. And all they have to know is that I loved them and I died for them. Yankee, would you go tell them for me? Well, Lord, you know I’d love to do it. But I know I got so many things to do. They’re so important. Would you say that to the God that created the heavens and the earth?

I mean, would you say that to somebody that can take your very breath and you live only by the heartbeat that you have at the moment. David says, there’s only one step between me and death and that God that can let me live, or that God that can let me die. And I would refuse him. So now I got something better. Oh really, you do, huh? Dafu, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Huh? Well, I didn’t really mean it, Lord.

Whatever you want me to do, what will God have to do to get your attention so that you don’t play games? We only get one trip through this life. No reruns, no instruments, we play just one trip through. What did it be need if the grace of God that we say we are so thankful for? We’re so proud of. And here at Calvary Community Church, buddy, we know grace. We know grace. We know and we can spot in that fast any message that comes along at Ad’s works to the Gospel.

Can’t we? Buddy, we know it. And that same grace that we love the Gospel so much also teaches all this other stuff. And does the grace of God, does it change your life? Has it changed your life? Will it change your life? I think it’s the greatest thing in all the world to know that I have God’s desire and God’s power to live for Him. And I don’t want Him to bestow His grace upon me in vain so that I don’t do anything with my life that He wanted.

Because one day when we get to heaven, and one day we will, they’ll stand before the Lord. And God says, you’ve got to give an account of yourself. I gave you 20 years to live. I gave you 30 years to live. Now let’s take a look and see just what did you do for me? Oh, why, there’s a big old bonfire over there. Now where did that come from? And the Bible says that God’s eyes are life-fire. And everything that we’ve done is going to be looked at through the eyes of the Lord.

And some are going to be burned up, and you may have some gold, silver, and precious stones. But whatever it is and whatever happens at that moment, you’ll wish you had done more. You’ll wish you had given him more. That day’s coming. Christ is coming back for us. We are to be looking for that blessed hope, not blessed tribulation, the blessed hope, the appearing of Jesus Christ. You see what’s needs up here is it says in the glorious appearing.

You see, God’s salvation hath appeared. When Christ died on that cross and was buried, He came back from the dead. Coming back from the dead was that last bit of evidence that was needed. This is who I am. this is who I am. And then when he came back from the dead, this salvation is for every individual. Then he says that the love and kindness of God appeared. And then he talks about him coming back and he’s going to appear.

And then he makes a statement that, for we know that all of us, one of these days, we will appear at the judgment seat of Christ, disappear, appear. He’s coming back. He’s going to appear. We’re going to disappear. I would call it disappearing when He says you’ll be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an iron cut up to meet the Lord. That’s pretty fast. Pretty fast. And to think it could happen at any moment, look up here.

This hand represents you and me. While it represents sin, we all have sin on us. God loves us. Now He hates our sin, but He loves us. And you’ll notice every time we give the gospel, I always do it in these seven steps. See, like I’ve said before, there is no magical powers taking a wallet and going to another hand. I can do that all day long, it means absolutely nothing. It’s that when I use it to tell a story.

And I always tell the story with these seven steps in order because it’s the content. And you see, God loves us, hates our sin. We’re all sinners, number one. And the wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God. That’s point number two. You have to be perfect to go to heaven and nobody’s perfect. Nobody. God’s perfect. Heaven’s perfect. We’re not. That’s step number three. Number four is that you can’t save yourself. You can’t earn it your way to heaven.

Number four, you can’t buy your way to heaven. It’s not by your works. Number five, Christ died. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s God in the flesh, came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from Him. So Christ took all the sin of all the world paid for it came back from the dead and said that number six, all we would do or have to do is believe he did it for us.

That when he died, pay for all the sins of the world. I believe he did it for me. That payment put to my account means I don’t have one sin to pay for. No penalty. I cannot go to hell. I cannot pay for one of those sins because he paid for it all. And number seven, go to heaven. These things have I written unto you that believe that you may know that you have eternal life. So can you know you have eternal life?

Yeah. But see, whenever you tell the story and you give the illustration, you have to be able to do it. situation, stay on track for this reason. Some people will take this part and they’ll take this part and then maybe not as clear as it ought to be. You can word it, but the thing is walk a person through it because you’re leading them to Christ and they are, mine can follow a sequence one after the other. Don’t get it all jumbled up in and out of order because it’s been built and proven over the years.

It’s a simple way to stay on track to help you in the minds of the lost person. The gospel is not clear because you understand what you said. The gospel is clear when the lost man understands what we said. Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bowed and every eye closed, no one looking around. I hope that what I’ve said helps you understand. Yes, salvation is bike race. And living for the Lord should be because you love Him because you were saved because He loved you.

If you’re watching by internet tonight, I can’t see you. But I’ve talked to people who have trusted Christ as Savior by watching. And so in the quietness of this moment, right where you are, will you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior? When God said if you trust Him, He would save you, give you eternal life. If you’re here in the auditorium, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your savior, would you trust him right now? I’m not talking about trusting the preacher, trusting the church.

I’m not talking about you becoming a religious hypocrite, claiming to be something that you’re not. Just be honest, Lord, I’m a sinner. I’ve done wrong. I want to go to heaven. And I believe Christ died for me. And friend, if you’ll believe that tonight, God said he would save you tonight, right now. So I’m gonna ask you in just a moment, If you’ll raise your hand, raise in your hand, does not save you. It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you.

And I’d like to have prayer for you. So is the end of the call? So yes, preach to that made sense to me. And tonight I will trust Christ as my Savior. I want to know that I’m going to heaven when I die. And I’d like you to pray for me. We’ll just let you in very quickly, but I’ll wrap it down. Is there any one at all? End of the call. If you’ve already trusted Christ as your Savior, you have eternal life, your God’s child, you’re going to heaven.

But God is concerned about how you live. Study the word of God, get close to the Lord, learn to walk with Him. He should be more real to you than the clothes that you have on your back. Father, we thank you so much for this time together. We pray, Lord, that you’d help us as we study your word and walk with you. And we just want you well to be done in our lives. 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 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 Bible and 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 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.