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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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

You are being given a heaven track. You say, well, I already know I’m going to heaven. You’re going to get one anyway. I want to tell you some things about it. You may never have thought about before. And while they’re doing that, turn in your Bible to the book of John, the Gospel of John, chapter 6. There are some things in the Bible that’s kind of hard to explain. Jesus knew that whenever He said some of these things, that it was going to offend people.

And the thing was, why did He say it if you knew it was going to offend people? Because you see, you always are speaking in most cases to a mixed audience. Those who hang on every word and those that don’t believe a word. So there’s people that will believe what you have to say, and there’s people that don’t believe what you have to say. When Jesus spoke, there were people that believed what He had to say, and there’s others that wanted to kill Him.

wanted to kill him. I’m hoping there’s nobody here that’s wanted to kill me yet. You may not agree with everything that I say but don’t have to get drastic about this thing. But there are times that we say things that are hard to be explained and people don’t always get it. I was with Gary one day and we I mentioned this before but there was something the guy said that I didn’t mentioned to you. Anyway, I told him, I said, this coming Sunday, I’m going to be using on illustration.

And I want you to listen to it and tell me if you can understand it. Because it’s an illustration I want to use this Sunday and I just want to know if I can just kind of practice on you. It don’t take about a minute and a half. And both of the guys said, sure, go ahead. Of course, they didn’t know that I’d do it every week. So I went through a little wall of illustration explained to him and then when the guy he looked at me he says, now make sure you do it real slow and clear so everybody can really understand what you’re saying.

I says, good point, I’ll try to do that. He has no idea how many times I have seen myself do that illustration for over 45 years. I was in a store and I talked to the guy, gave him a heaven track and I didn’t have much time and there was other people standing around and so I just quite quickly just told him and says, you know, you can trust Christ to save you, have eternal life and go to heaven when you die if you believe He did it for you and that you can’t earn, you can’t work for it.

And I’m trying to say all of this here, I’m standing at the counter and I didn’t pay to Him and He’s got my money and gave it, you know, my change back. And so anyway, I walked out and I thought, He probably didn’t get one thing I said. So anyway, I walked out and saw Him another day. He said to me, he said, I told my priest what you said. And he made the statement. He said, I told him, I don’t need the church here no more.

I don’t need you no more. He said, I found out it’s been prepaid. I’ve never had nobody say it quite like that. I found out it was prepaid. And I was thinking he didn’t give what I said. Maybe he did get it. Do you understand that your salvation has been prepaid? You don’t have to pay it. Somebody’s already prepaid it. And all you got to do is accept it. And that sounds like it’s so simple, but believe it or not, that’s a hard, difficult thing for most people to grasp.

They just can’t believe it. That’s too simple. It’s too easy. You’ve got to do something. So look here in the Gospel of John in chapter six. I want you to see this. We’re made to statement in verse 27. He says, labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures under everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you for Him have God the Father sealed. Verse 28, then said, they unto him, what shall we do that we might work the works of God?

Jesus answered and said unto them, this is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Believe on him whom God hath sent. In the words, trust him and him only, him alone. That’s all you have to do. to do. But that’s so simple. It can’t be that easy because people have heard all their life. You have to be good to go to heaven. You have to live right. You’ve got to go to church and pay money and pray and all these things.

And God says, it’s free. Now either it is free or you have to earn it. If you have to earn it, then you have to wait till you die to find out if you earned it or not by your good works. So they’re making installments. They lived today and they made a payment. They lived the next day and they make another payment. So by your good life each day, you’re hoping that you’ll have paid for your salvation by the time you die and you get to go to heaven.

I’ve got news for you. It ain’t going to work. God doesn’t take it on installments. Christ, when He came to this earth, He died on the cross and paid the whole payment at one time. that payment was made in full for everybody in the whole world. So it says there in verse 30, they said therefore unto him, what sign show us thou then that we may see and believe thee? What does thou work? What are you doing that we got to believe?

I mean, if you got to believe on you, what are you going to do for us? Show us a sign, no, do a little miracle and we’ll believe it. And then he talks to him about bread. He says, in the Old Testament, he said, man, I came down from God out of heaven. Bread, and fed to the people. He said, but the people who ate that bread, they’re all dead. He said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

And if any, any, this bread, he’ll never die. Can you believe this? Do you believe what I just said? Can you buy it? Can you trust me? I am the bread of heaven. You eat this bread and you’ll have everlasting life. But you see, Christ wasn’t talking about you really eating the flesh of him and drinking his blood. And that confused a lot of people. You see down there in verse 60, where it made the statement, many therefore of his disciples, because you see, you could be a follower of Christ, disciple of Christ and never be saved.

It means that you can follow His teachings. You can do the things that Jesus asked you to do and still not go to heaven. You can be a learner, a disciple, a follower. But you don’t trust to measure it Savior, He’s not your Savior. You must trust Jesus Christ as your payment for your sins. Trust Him to take you to heaven when you die. So there were people who were following Jesus and mainly because they had seen some of his miracles where he fed the five thousand.

So he says, the only reason you’re following me is because I put food in your tummy. So he says there in the last part of verse 60, this is a hard saying. Who can hear it? Nobody can understand what you’re saying. In the word Jesus, you’re speaking over our head. You’re telling we can’t grasp, we can’t get a hold of it. Well, some people did, some people didn’t. It’s just like whenever we try to explain to people how to have eternal life.

Some people get it, some people don’t get it. Because, see, a lot of people think that you have to earn your right to go to heaven. And they don’t understand that going to heaven is a gift. It’s free. And all that you and I can do is accept the payment He made for us and He would give us eternal life. Look down in verse 44, same chapter. He said, no man can come to me except the Father, which have sent me, draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

He said, nobody can come into me unless the Father draw him. Oh, that’s interesting. A lot of predestination and Calvin is getting ahold of that verse. But hold your place right here in looking chapter 12 of the same book. But in chapter 12 of the Gospel of John, and look in verse 32, and Christ says, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. So the reason Christ says, nobody can come into me unless the Father draws them, but the Father draws them.

And the next one. Because of the cross. You see Christ, you see in verse 33, this he said signified by what death he would die. In other words, he was going to die on the cross. And if I be lifted up and I make a payment for the sins of the whole world, then I want to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every person so that every person can be drawn by the power of the gospel.

I was 18 years old living in Athens, Georgia, and a man told me this story and it drew me to him. He draws. a person through that story. Did you know the other day a couple weeks ago we had about 23 that went fishing. I don’t miss boat and the water was a little bit like this and a few people got a little length this but for the most part everybody had a great time. Did you know out of 23 people there were some old folks on that bus?

I was one of them. There were some young folks on that on that, I say bus on that boat. It was not a bus out there, it was a boat. And there was a young teenage girl that was on that boat and there were peoplealbum all sizes in between and different ages and there was men and there was women and you know what? It didn’t matter. The fish that was down in the water, they were looking And the parents said, hey, that’s a girl.

Don’t bite that one. There’s Yankee, don’t bite that one. You see, the fish don’t care. The fish was after only one thing, the bait. Anybody on the boat out of 23 of us, if we was to take the bait and put it on the hook and put it in the water, the fish does the rest. Of course, we’ve got to draw and pull it in. But every one of us, regardless of our age, regardless of how we looked or didn’t look, tall, skinny, fat, you know matter, whatever you are.

Everybody on the boat caught fish. Did you know that in life, every one of us as God’s children can catch fish? You can catch fish. You see, the power is in the drawing power of that message. It doesn’t matter who puts it out there, that story of the gospel is so powerful. It does the work. It will draw people to Christ. You don’t have to save anybody. I have never saved anybody yet. But I do believe in dangling the bait in front of a person.

And you never know who is going to bite and take the bait. I was told that there’s women in here that win people to Christ. There’s individuals in here, people that win people to Christ. Anybody can do it, but you’ve got to have confidence in the bait that it’ll work. And you’ve got to put it into water. And many people never do. Does that sound so hard? Well, that’s just so hard. we go fishing because it’s supposed to be so much fun, fun catching one.

And I usually never catch fish, but this day I caught some fish. I had to throw some on my back, but I caught some fish. And I just know this. We caught them and they cleaned them. When we catch fish, we just catch them, and God will clean them. I never try to clean the fish. I just let God do the cleaning. But God’s word is so clear, so simple, that some people can’t understand it. Because in their mind, they have been conditioned.

Most of their life, you have to earn your way to heaven by the way that you live. And if you don’t live right, you’re not gonna get to go. And so they think they have to do all these prayers and they’ve gotta do all these penance and they gotta do this and none of that will work. So you look there in the scripture, I want you to look at John chapter six and verse 61 where he says, when Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, does this offend you?

Remember, they had asked a question. What do we have to do? He says, believe on him whom he have sinned. Okay, what do you mean by that? And he says, well, I’m like the bread. And if you eat this bread, you’ll have everlasting life and never hunger again.” He said, I’m like water. When you drink this water that I give unto you, he says it will be like a spring of water, ou springing up into everlasting life. And you’ll never thirst again.

And so he says up here in verse 47, look at verse 47, verily, verily or truthfully, truthfully, I say unto you, heed that, believe it on me, hath everlasting life. Okay. Now that was a good statement. What do you mean by that? They don’t get it. He You accept. See the way to heaven is Christ. Heatever way to heaven is Christ. He’s the only way that you and I will ever get there. He says does this offend you? And evidently it did offend a lot of people.

Now look in verse 63 he explains what he was saying. It is the spirit that quickness or makes alive. The flesh. He says, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. He says, the words that I’m saying, listen to what I’m saying. If you believe on me, trust me as your only hope to get to heaven, I will give you as a free gift everlasting life. He that believeth on me hath present tense everlasting life.

life. If you believe it, you have something. What do you have ever lasting life? Okay, what do you mean by that? Jesus is doing everything possible to make the human mind understand what he’s saying. And did you realize that you can tell a lot of people the gospel story, the good news of how you can know that you have eternal life, know that you’re going to have many nights and they don’t get it. And you wonder what’s wrong up here.

Don’t you understand what he said? I wonder what the phrase, not of works. I wonder what that means. Not of works, to me, means not of works. If it says it is the gift of God, I’m entitled to believe it’s the gift of God. Now I maybe I’m just made different than most people. I just believe that if God said that’s settle it. And that’s all that you have to do. Now, look in verse 31 of chapter 7. And verse 31 said, and many of the people, many of the people, believed on him and said, when Christ coments, will He do more miracles than those which this man hath done?

And then Jesus made a statement to them. He says in verse 34, ye shall seek me and shall not find me. Where I am, there that you cannot come. You’ll seek for me, you won’t find me. Where I am, you can’t go. Those who believe can and those that don’t believe won’t. And whenever he said in the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John, he said, I go to prepare a place for you that where I am, there you may be also.

He said, and the way you know. And Thomas said, We don’t know the way. He says, I am the way. I am the way. Me. It’s not the church. It’s not your good works. It’s not keeping the 10 commandments. Going to heaven is in a person. I must accept that person. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who died on that cross paid for my sin and trust him to take me to heaven whenever I die. And God says, I’ll never cast you out and never lose you.

Look there in verse 37. John chapter 6 verse 37, where it says, and all that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that come up to me, I will in no wise cast out. So through the gospel message that we give to people, the bait we hang out there that says, it’s free. If you’re hanging bait out there that says, you must earn your way to heaven, that is a lie. And people will take that lie and run with that lie.

And they’ll think they have to earn their way to heaven by going to church and trying to earn the right to go to heaven. And God says, that’s the wrong bait. That’s not the good news. That is a lie. God the one that made heaven, God made hell, and he’s the one that says, how you get there? And he says, it’s free. What part of free don’t a person understand? What part of not of works doesn’t a person understand?

And they said, this is so hard to understand. This is a hard saying. If you can’t understand free, yeah, you got a problem. And if you don’t accept Christ, no, you can’t come. You will never go to heaven whenever you die. Now, you had been given a heaven track. I want you to look at this heaven track. This is a beautiful heaven track. On the front is my picture. See there? That’s when I was 17 and had hair. See there?

I drew it anyway. So it is my picture. But am I going to heaven? Isn’t that a wonderful thing to know? You know, if all the things in all the world, that’s the most important thing that you can ever know in your whole life. That’s more important than knowing who your mama and your daddy is. It is. That’s more important, whether that, you know, what’s going to happen tomorrow. I’m going to heaven when I die. Now open it up and look on the left.

Instructions. Now look how hard these instructions are. This is very complicated. Check below what you think is necessary to get to heaven. So a person is supposed to check which one do you think you have to do to get to heaven? Now, Normally I would give a person time, but because of the sake of time, I’m not going to give you time. I’m going to go ahead and explain it to you, because I want everybody in here to pass the test.

If a person checks any of these except number 10, they failed. But look at number one. What’s necessary to get to heaven? Do I have to keep the Ten Commandments? Hmm, that’s a good question. Should I be sorry and confess all my sins to go to heaven? Sincerely do my best. Stop sending. Oh, that’s a good one. Do good deeds. Give money to the church. Only if it’s Calvary Community Church. What are baptism? Come young and all that. Those are good things.

But now is that what you have to do to go to heaven? I don’t believe in heaven or hell. You say, I don’t believe in heaven or hell. Okay, that just did away with that, didn’t it? I mean, I don’t believe in God. So that just did away with God. God doesn’t exist because I said, I don’t believe in Him. I asked a man one time, I said, where are you gonna go to the die? He says, Tennessee. I said, do you understand my question?

He says, yeah, you asked me where I’m gonna go and I die. He says, Tennessee. I said, why? He says, because that’s where my burial plot is. I asked a man one time, I says, do you know where you gonna go to the die? He says, to the grave. I said, and then where are you gonna go? He says, that’s as far as I’m going. I said, you ain’t going any further, no further. That’s as far as I’m going.

I said, if you ever died before, he says, no, I said, then how do you know that’s as far as you can get? He’s well, I don’t know. Water baptismal communion, I don’t believe in hell. Nine, trust in Christ and serve him. Oh, now that’s gotta be it right there. Trust in Christ and serve him. You see, if you trust Christ to take it to heaven, then why do you have to serve him? Can I have one without the other?

So you can serve Christ and never trust him. But can I trust Christ to take me to heaven and then say, along with that and patch onto it, I’ve got to live right too. And if I don’t live right, then I won’t make it. What you do is this, take all of your good work. From this day forward, take all your good works and throw them in the trash can. And all you got left is your bad works, all your sins.

Can you still go to heaven? You can if you trusted Christ to save you. People say, well, you don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve it anyway. I have never deserved to go to heaven. Look down there at answers from the Bible. When Christ says to believe on me, it’s like, okay, he is going to speak. He’s going to say something and I want you to see. Can you believe him? Can you take him at his word? Look at number one, trying to keep the 10 commandments cannot save us.

But they do show that we’re all sinners. He says in James 2, 10, for whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all. Can you believe that? Can you buy that? That if you kept the whole law, but you break one of them, you’re condemned. Your guilt is if you broke all of why? Because same penalty death, you’re going to die. And because of God’s law is perfect. The problem is we’re not.

So no man has ever lived good enough to keep the whole law. No man, no woman. We’ve all sinned and we’ve all come short of God’s perfection. So that’s what God says. Now can you believe that? That’s so simple. That you and I cannot keep the law. We’re guilty. Believe it. Why? Because that’s what the Bible says. Look at number two. Sorry for sins or confessing sins to God does not take away your sin. You see, well, you can be sorry you’ve done all kind of bad things, but now to go to heaven.

Do you have to confess all of your sins? There’s a problem. Think hard. So how do you think hard? Can you remember all of your sins? What if you can’t remember them all so you can’t confess them all? It’s all your sins, it’s just the ones you remember. Is it possible that you’ve done things long time ago and you forgot all about it? But what if you don’t confess those sins? And you’ve been thinking all along, I’m going to heaven because I confess all my sins.

Could you have forgotten some? So, you see, that’s not true. You see, to go to heaven, you confess you are a sinner. That’s what I am. When you talk about, okay, I am an apple tree. An apple tree has apples on the tree. I don’t have to confess all the apples on the tree. I just have to confess I’m an apple tree. At Drive Trustee Christ is my Savior. And I know I have eternal life and I’m going to heaven and I die.

God says, as those apples grow on my tree, I’m supposed to pick those apples off that tree. But it doesn’t change that old tree. It’s because once you trust Christ to save you, you become God’s child and you have eternal life and you go into heaven today. You still have your old sinful nature that still produces the apples on the tree. And God says, if we as a child of God will confess our sins to God, He is faithful and just to forgive us.

That’s to the Christian, not to the lost man. So we want a lost man to admit I am a sinner and cannot save myself. So simple. But look what he says here. For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The payment for sin is death. And that’s why everybody dies because everybody earned the right to die. Wages in his death. We’ve all sinned so we’ve earned the right to die.

Now what man has earned the right to go to heaven? There is no such person. So nobody deserves to go to heaven. We all deserve to go to hell. But none of us deserve to go to heaven. So when Christ died for us and doesn’t let us go to hell, that’s mercy. I don’t get what I deserve. That’s what I deserve, but I didn’t get it. I got mercy. You see, getting to go to heaven, oh, that’s grace. It means that I don’t deserve that, but I get it.

That’s grace. Look at number three and four. Doing your best or trying to stop sinning would be great if it were possible. Since heaven is perfect, we must also be perfect to go there. Revelation 21, 27 says, and there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever, worketh abomination or makeeth the lie. No sin can enter into that holy city because it’s perfect place. It’s a holy place. That’s why you and I, we cannot save ourselves.

You’ll never be good enough. And that’s why trying to turn from your sins is not going to work. Trying to do your best, not going to work. All of it is good intentions. It would be nice if we could, but we can’t. Even today, there’s things that you know that is right to do, but you’d be surprised how many will do things in spite of it. You’ll do it wrong anyway. You know you’re not supposed to do certain things and you’ll do it.

It’s called our whole sinful nature. We were born with it and we’ll die with it. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Watch Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll-free, 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 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 believe in that the lord is coming soon and just keep looking up