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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 had been given a heaven tract. I want you to look at this heaven tract. This is a beautiful heaven tract. On the front is my pitcher. See there? That’s when I was 17 and had hair. See there? I drew it anyway. So it is my pitcher. But am I going to heaven?

Isn’t that a wonderful thing to know? You know, of 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 to know who you mama 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 10 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 sinning. Oh, that’s a good one. Do good deeds. Give money to the church. Only if it’s Calvary Community Church. What are baptism? Communion. Oh, 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 going to go to die? He says Tennessee. I said, do you understand my question? He says, yeah, you asked me where I’m going to go and I die.

He said, why? He said, because that’s where my burial plot is. I asked a man one time, I He says, do you know where you’re going to go in your diet? He says, to the grave. I said, and then where are you going to 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, have you ever died before? He says, no. I said, then how do you know that’s as far as you’re going to get?

He said, well, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Water baptismal communion. I don’t believe in hell. Nine, trust in Christ and serve Him. Now that’s got to be it right there. Trust in Christ and servant. 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? Say 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’t if you trusted Christ’s Savior. 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, OK, 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 them. Why? Because same penalty? they 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 sin 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 That’s what the Bible says. Look at number two. Being 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 is just the ones you remember. Is it possible that you’ve done things a 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 can fish, 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. I drive trusty Christ as 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 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 a holy place. 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 old sinful nature. We were born with it and we’ll die with it. Number five and six, look at five and six.

No good deeds or money given to churches can take away sin because see the only thing that takes away sin is understanding believe in Hebrews chapter 1 in verse 3 talking about the Lord and the Lord hath by himself. By himself, by himself, purged our sins by himself. It means Jesus Christ by himself paid for our sins. You didn’t help him. Nobody else has ever done it. Christ died for all the sins of all the world. Like I’ve said before, if Christ died for the sins of the whole world, then why do I have to go to hell and pay for any of them?

Even one. Why should I have to pay for sin if he paid for it? He did it for you. See, the only work God requires of you is will you believe on Jesus Christ, and God says that just believing is not a work. It’s amazing. Not by works of righteousness which we have done. He that believe us on Him, well that works. He that believe it is justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Look at number, I want you to see these scriptures because this is so important. These are two of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. A lot of verses in the Bible, but you’ll notice there in Ephesians 2, 8, 9, 4 by grace are you saved through faith. That not of yourself. Now what part of not of yourself would you not understand? It’s not of yourself. It means God not going to let you go to heaven because of what you have done.

It says, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of what? Not of work, why? Lest any man should boast. In other words, I can’t stand up here and say, I’m going to heaven because I’m better than you are. I’m not better than you. You’re not better than I am. We’re all sinners. We all come short of God’s perfection, and there’s no difference. So when Christ died, he died for everybody in the whole world. so that we could simply just believe and trust Him, except what He did for us.

Pride keeps a man from doing that because we want to do something. We feel like I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to help. And God said, I don’t need your help. It’s not of your works. So He says, not of works, lest any man should boast. Look at number seven. Water baptism or communion cannot pay for sin. Water will not wash the dirt off your neck if you don’t use soap with it, and it doesn’t wash away one sin.

If washing away your sin is done by being baptized in why did Christ die? Just go take a bath. I’ve had many of those, so I’m pretty clean. Cause I’ve been baptized every time I took a bath. That’s not what he’s talking about. Water baptism is a picture of something. You see, whenever you stand in the water, it’s a picture of Christ on the cross. When you go under the water, That’s a picture of your burial. When you come up out of the water, that’s a picture of your resurrection.

So when you believe that he died on that cross, paid for your sins, came back from the dead. When you believe that, then God said, I want you to be baptized in water, and that is a picture of what you inwardly believe. But if you don’t believe that, then you should not be water baptized. That’s why baptism is only for believers. You never find in the Bible where babies and infants are baptized. It’s an ungodly thing. You can’t find one verse in the Bible that says to do that.

That’s because some people believe, well, I think that’s what you ought to do. And so they baptized little babies and little babies grew up and said, well, I’ve been confirmed and I’ve been baptized and I’ve been a member of the church and that ain’t gonna get you anywhere. That ain’t even going to help. All that is is nothing but false bait that you latch on to and you’ll believe that and die that way. And God has all this good news over here.

Hey, look, it’s free. I paid for it. All you have to do is accept it. It’s prepaid. Prepaid. You don’t have to make installments. It’s prepaid. It’s already done. to do is believe that Christ did it on the cross for you. Look at the next verse. In Titus 3.5 look what he says, not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy He saved us. Look at that verse again, not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy He saved us.

Can you understand what he just said? That is so simple, that is so clear. And remember, this message is what God uses to draw a person to trusting Christ. If this doesn’t get you to trust Christ, you have no hope. There is no other way. It’s not like you’ve got options up there. There are no other options. There’s only one thing that you have to do, and that is, will you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior? Look at number eight real quick.

to believe there is a heaven or hell, one must believe there is a God. Because in the Bible, it’s the only place that tells us about heaven and hell. And when Christ was here, He spoke more on hell than He spoke on heaven. And you do not need someone to down the cross and pay for your sins to keep you from going to a place if it don’t exist. So yes, I believe there’s a God. And I believe there’s a heaven, and I believe there’s a hell.

Look at number eight. To believe there is a heaven or hell one must believe that there is a God. I cannot make a person believe that except to say what God says. The fool has said in his heart there is no God. God says a fool says there is no God. And I would rather trust what God says than what people tell me. So if you say there is no God, okay, you’re a fool. Who says God says, God says you’re a fool.

He’s like, I don’t like that. It doesn’t matter what I… It’s between you and God. You know the one that doesn’t exist? Tell Him. But see, I do believe that there is a God and my belief and your unbelief doesn’t produce God. God is. Look at number nine. This is incorrect. And what was number nine, trusting Christ and serve Him? You see, the and serve Him, all of the other. What it means is this, if going to heaven is free, then you can’t earn it.

But if you have to earn it, it can’t be free. So trusting Christ, that’s free. But you got to serve Him, then it’s not free. It’s a contradiction, and it won’t work. You must trust Christ and Him alone. Put no hope, No confidence in your good life. Do not trust in you. The Bible says, cursed is the man who put at his confidence in man. Man cannot save you. I can’t save you. This church can’t save you. Your money can’t save you.

Only Christ can save you. And he is the son of the living God. Look at number nine again. To trust in Christ is to be saved by grace without charge. To include serving him would mean You must add works to something that’s free. That would contradict what the Bible says. And if by grace, then it is no more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it can be no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work.

That’s actually a verse in the Bible that says that. In other words, it’s gotta be by grace or it’s gotta be by works, but it can’t be both. Cause one another is the other. It’s free, of course, by your works. But which way is it? God says, by grace are you saved. So it is by grace. It is the best news in all the world. Look down there, the last chapter on that page here. Number 10, what is the correct answer?

Yes, this is the only way to get to heaven. The only way is the easiest way. All you have to do is believe and that Christ died on that cross, paid for all of your sins and rose again to give to you at the very moment you trust them, the free gift of eternal life. Now, He gives us a verse, the most well-known quoted verse in all the world, John 3, 16. But look at it. He says, For God so loved, and the rest of that says, For God so loved the world.

But what I want you to do is put your name there. Put your name there. I would read that this way. For God so loved Yankee. Me. That He gave His only begotten Son. Now if your name is John, you would put in a, for God so loved John, that he gave his only begotten son. Maybe your name’s Mary, okay? For God so loved Mary that he gave his only begotten son to get to that whosoever. Anybody, it doesn’t matter who it is, whosoever believe it in him should not perish but have what?

Everlasting life. So when you believe it, God gives you everlasting life. And we read that verse while we go there, it says he’ll never cast you out, never cast you out. Verily, verily I say unto you, he that beleverth on me hath right now, present in hath everlasting life. You mean if I accept Christ right now as my Savior, God will give me right now everlasting life. That’s what He said. And that means I’ll go to heaven whenever I die.

That’s true. And if I don’t live right, I’m still going to go to heaven. That’s true. If that’s true, then that means I can go out here and live like the devil and still go to heaven when I die. That’s true too. Well that down sound right, didn’t say it had the sound right. I didn’t design this and I’m not going to lie to a person to try to get them to… and soften it. I can’t change it. You can still go out here today and live like the devil, can’t you?

Most of you in this room probably already do that. Just joking. Don’t you already do whatever you want to do? Most people do. But wouldn’t it be better to know that you have eternal life in going to heaven? heaven. Did you know that the power of this message has the power that when you accept it, it can change your life? There’s power in this message. When I understood that God loved me and died for me and gave me eternal life and I was his child, something happened to me that I’d I’ve never been able to explain.

I have wanted to please the one who died for me. I serve the Lord, yes. I’ve disciplined my life. I try to live the way God wants me to live, but I don’t do it to get to heaven. I’m doing it because I’m going to heaven. I am his child, and I just believe if I’m a child of God, I should live like it, and act like it, and talk like it. But I’m not doing it to be his child.

I was born into his family 50 years ago. I have eternal life and I’m going to heaven whenever I die. If I never darkened the doors to another church, never give a penny, I’m still going to go to heaven. You say, you don’t deserve it. I know. By grace are you saved. Grace. Either it is or it’s not. Either I can know I have eternal life and go to heaven or I can’t. And no reason I won’t be able to know for sure is it depends on me because I won’t know how I’m going to perform down the road.

So God says it’s free so that everybody can have it. Now look down here, what should I do? If all this is true, what should I do? Doesn’t it make sense to trust the only one who came back from the dead as your only hope of going to heaven? Right now tell the Lord that you believe that He paid for your sins, that you trust Him to take you to heaven when you die. When can you do that? You can do it right now.

You mean while I’m talking? Yes while I’m talking. while you’re sitting right there in your own mind. You can say, Lord, I don’t understand at all, but I believe what your word says. I believe you died from me, and I’m gonna trust you to take me to heaven when I die. And God said, if you trust him right now, he saves you right now, gives you eternal life right now. When you get up to leave, you can say, I know I’m going to heaven because today, I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior, as my only hope of going to heaven.

And he said, he’ll never cast you out and never lose you. That’s the best news in all the world. Look at this as we close. Down to the bottom, there’s a verse, 1 John 5, 13. Oh, I love this verse. This is what it says. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know, know, know that you have what? Eternal life. So can you know you have eternal life?

Yes, that’s why it was written so that you can know it. You see, if you’re going to heaven, it depends upon how you live, then you can’t know it until you die. Okay, what are you going to do when you find out, okay, you didn’t make it. Now what are you going to do? Little wait, isn’t it? I would rather live my life knowing that I have eternal life and knowing that I’m going to heaven because it doesn’t matter when I die.

It doesn’t matter how I die. I’m going to heaven. And I’ve known it for 50 years. That’s worth telling people about it. This is good news. This good news is powerful enough to break any man down, any woman down. It helped them to see through the religion in the world. See, there’s thousands of religions, but religion can’t save a man. It was religion that put Christ on the cross. But the common people heard Him every day and accepted. Look on the back page.

Now that I believe, if you believe it, God says He’ll never cast you out and He’ll never lose you. Isn’t that good news? a child of God. It is the will of God that I serve Him. But I don’t serve the Lord to go to heaven. I do it because I want God blessing in my life now. And He said He’ll reward me when I get to heaven. So going to heaven, that’s free. What I have when I get there depends upon what I do for Him.

So God said if I would serve Him, He would honor my life and He’d bless my life. And that He’s done. And that’s the best news that I’ve ever heard in my whole cotton picking life. Now, I gave you one of these, but now you know how to use it. And so I expect, I expect every one of y’all to be carrying tracks from now on. Not any kind of track, by having track. It’s the clearest I have ever seen.

It’s big enough that you can read it and understand it and explain it to people. Look up here, this is you and me. The wallet represents sin. We’ve all got sin on us. God loves us, but He hates our sin. And for us to pay for the sin is eternal separation from God in hell. But God loves us and wants us to go to heaven. But to go to heaven you have to be perfect as righteous as God, nobody’s perfect.

God says you can’t earn it, you can’t work for it, it’s not by your works. You must believe on Him. Well what did He do? What did He say? Well, this hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from Him. So Jesus Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from that, said, if we believe He did it for us, He’d put that payment to our account, we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did.

There’s no tricks to it, there’s no gimmicks. If I offered you this microphone and you accepted to have a microphone, if I offered you my wallet and you accepted to have an empty wallet, if Christ walked in here right now, I offered and you would have eternal life. And if it’s eternal life, it lasts forever. And if it lasts forever, all your sins are paid. Where would you go when you die? To heaven. So can you know you’re going to heaven when you die?

Yeah. Would you trust Christ right now as your only hope of going to heaven? Let’s pray, shall we? Every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around. If you’re here this morning and maybe you’ve never understood it before, maybe you’ve been religious all your life, life, heard all about it, but you never really trusted Christ as your Savior. Would you do that? Would you do it right now? As it says in the word, some believed, some did not believe.

I hope that you’re one that will believe it. You see, you can’t save yourself. That’s why you needed to save your. Christ died for you. Would you trust Him? I’m going to ask you in just a moment for a raise of hands, but raising your hand doesn’t save you. It’s just to let me know that what I said made sense to you. I’m not going to embarrass you. I’m not going to have you forward. But right where you’re sitting, the quietness of this moment, your head’s bow nice and close, is there anyone who says, yes, preach to that made sense to me.

I want to know that I’m going to heaven when I die. And right now, I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. I’m going to trust Him to take me to heaven whenever I die. Would you do that? If you will, would you just slip your hand up very quickly and put a right back down? Just slip it up real quick, put it right back down. Just God bless you, man. God bless you. Anyone else, just real quick, just slip it up, put it right back down.

Other others. It’s the most important thing you will ever do in your whole life. You need to be sure. You’re not trusting me. You’re not trusting the church. I’m not gonna pin you against the wall. Not gonna make you walk the aisle or sign a card. I just want you to trust Christ as your savior. And I wanna know if I can have prayer for you. No one else before we close. Our Father, we thank You so much for all You’ve done for us, for the free gift of eternal life, and I thank You, Lord, for the one that indicated by an uplift at hand that they would trust You as Your Savior.

By doing so, they become Your child. You guarantee them eternal life, and they can know they’re going to heaven when they die. We ask Your blessings upon each person here and each family representing. In Christ and 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.

One, 800-576-3771. That’s one, 800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the radio broadcast link. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at six o’clock on Sunday evening. Live 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.