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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.

Not a few interesting things I wanted to share with you. This morning I want to talk to you just a little bit on the two covenants that you’ll find in the Bible. And it’s not that one replaces the other. I don’t believe in replacement theology. I believe that there’s something that God revealed in progressive revelation whereby He takes a lost man and and convince him that he is a sinner. Nobody likes to be convinced of that. I don’t know why.

You like somebody proven that you’re wrong. This is what God does. God is proving that he’s right and we’re wrong. That’s what makes us feel so guilty. And we don’t like to feel guilty. So instead of us correcting the problem, we just change the law, change the rules. So it doesn’t seem so bad. Oh, I feel so much better now. So I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Exodus and chapter 19, the book of Exodus and chapter 19.

As you know, God in Moses was getting along pretty good. And I go see him every once in a while and they’d have a talk. Wouldn’t that have been wonderful to be able to have a talk with the Lord? God come down, ring your bell, Talk to you. Say, hey, you’re standing on the holy ground. Take off them shoes. Yes, sir. But here in the book of Exodus in chapter 19, look there in verse three, the Lord says, Moses went up unto God and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shall thou say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel, ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bear you on eagle’s wings and brought you unto myself.”

That’s a good statement. There’s a sermon in there some ways. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed. Now see that word, if that means it’s conditional upon somebody else’s participation. So it’s not just a one-sided, it’s, they’re agreeing to this. So it says, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant then ye shall be able to cure your peace treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priest and of a holy nation.

These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” Moses came and called for the elders of the people, lay before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. In verse 8, and all the people answered together and said, all that the Lord has spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord. All that the Lord has spoken we will do. And then in chapter 20 he gives them the 10 commandments.

Well, as you know, for about 1500 years before Christ came, how did they do? Did they keep their word? No, they didn’t keep their word. They did not fulfill these commands. One of the best ways to understand, you know, the law and grace, the covenants and all these things. Picture, here’s a lost man’s sin right here. The lost man has a sinful nature because he has a sinful nature. Then God has put the lost man under the law so that he knows what is required of him.

He is to live a perfect righteous holy life. And if he broke any of those laws, then he had these sacrificial laws to make up for the law that he broke so that, you know, something innocent has to die to pay for what he did just so he can live. So the lost man is under the law. And so for 1500 years, a man never kept the law. And as you look at this little diagram I have here, the old covenant, the new covenant.

Now, we know that this was at Mount Sinai. Well, there’s another one. And so over here is the new birth, the person that’s born of God, the child of God. See the child of God is born of God. It doesn’t have to be under the law because you see it has no sinful nature so it doesn’t do anything wrong. And since it doesn’t do anything wrong because it’s perfect in Christ, the new birth is under grace and the man that’s Its loss, see, in the flesh is under the law.

And so this he has to perform, over here he doesn’t have to worry about performing. And see, this is natural, this is the way it’s supposed to be. And so you have these two individuals. So there’s lessons in the Old Testament where God gives us stories that illustrate these New Testament doctrines. It’s not that they’re totally different. It’s that they explain things. And so God has laid it out in such a way that we have illustrations that helps us to see vividly what God is talking about.

So take your Bible and look there in the book of Hebrews in chapter 8. Hebrews and chapter 8. Hebrews and chapter 8. This is an interesting portion of scripture because it’s very simply laid out here. And if you’ll look there in verse 6, and verse 6, and it refers to these two covenants, but see there in verse 6, but now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry by how much Also, he is the mediator of a better covenant. So God didn’t say that the lost man could be saved by his works, but using the law to show that a man can’t save himself by his works.

So the law, according to Galatians chapter three, was given to show a man that he cannot save himself by his works. And so the law leads a man to Christ to something better. You see, most people will never look for something better if they think they’re good enough. And if it’s sufficient, well then you don’t need anything better than that. So this is why we have the opportunity of preaching the gospel because the gospel lets people see there’s something better.

And your works are not good enough. So you’ll notice there in verse 6, he is the mediator of a, and you ought to underline those towards better covenant, which was established upon what? Better promises. You see, under the law it was, do and you shall live. But under grace is you are alive, therefore live. This is done and it’s based upon what Christ did and the law is based upon what you do. And so since nobody has fulfilled the law, the law condemns everybody.

So there has to be something better. It would have been a shame if God had told everybody in the whole world, you have to save yourself by your own good works. There is no better way. There is no other way. You know there’s a lot of churches today that preach. There is no better way than you’re trying to earn it. And so they believe you’ve got to go to church, you’ve got to live a good life. in the back of a lot of people’s mind, trying to be sincere.

They believe that good people ought to go to heaven and bad people ought to go to hell. They just simply believe that. For example, this drunk, he got on the bus, staggered down the aisle and said right beside this little old lady. She looked at him, stirred him up down. He says, you’re going straight to hell. He says, oh my stars, I’m on the wrong bus. But there’s always somebody who can see whatever everybody else is doing in a judging by how they live.

You’re not living good enough. By the way, I have to think Len for that choice a little morsel he gave me the day. Thank you Len. I love it when people help my ministry. You know, they’re always trying to… I used to hate it whenever at Christmas time the teenagers, you know what they do? They’d get me a little joke book. And so I needed it. I thought the jokes that I told were good enough. And they’d always tell me, say, yeah, you need to get some new jokes.

I said, no, I just need new kids. So much easier, you know. But, Louis says in verse seven, he says, for if that first covenant had been faultless, well, what was wrong with the first one? The weakness of man. See, there’s nothing wrong with the law. perfect, righteous, just, the only fault in the law is the man can’t keep it. So therefore he says, and that word, faultless. It’d be faultless, then should no place have been sought for a second, if a man could have saved himself by his work, then it ought to be that away.

But no man can. So that’s why you had to have something that’s better than that. So the law was used to point people to Christ. And look what he says in verse eight, for finding fault with them, he says, Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant.

Didn’t they say they would? All that he promised we will. And then he gave it to them in chapter 20 and they didn’t. So for 1500 years they never kept the law. No man, never been saved that way. You see, was that how they were saved in the Old Testament? No, God never saved one person that way because nobody earned it. Nobody was worthy. So if a man had to be saved by keeping the law, nobody was saved in the Old Testament.

Think about it. If you had to keep the law to be saved, and nobody did, then nobody was saved in the Old Testament. So evidently, if anybody was saved in the Old Testament, they had to be saved by grace. Are there Old Testament people that were saved in the Old Testament? Yeah. So then they they had to be saved by grace because nobody saved themselves. Because if one man could have, all men would be required to. But anyway, so he makes a statement here.

I want you to look there in verse 11, called the days will come, the days will come. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying, know the Lord, because it’s not what we don’t do you know the Lord, do you know the Lord, Do you know the Lord? What we mean, do you know the Lord? Do you have eternal life? Have you accepted Christ as your Savior? We want everybody to know the Lord because not everybody knows the Lord.

I was 18 before I knew the Lord. Well, he says, is a time coming when you don’t have to say that, a time coming when you don’t have to witness. But he says, know the Lord for all shall know me from the least to the greatest. And in verse 12, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their inigities. Well, I and your other underline this. Remember no more. Remember no more. It’s not that he forgets me, he forgets my sin.

Remember there’s some who knocks at the door. Lord, Lord, have we not? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He says, depart from me. I never knew you. Now he’ll forget my sins. I don’t mind that. But I’m glad to know he’ll never forget me. We have this seal, the Father know of them that are his. And so in verse 13 says, in that he said a new covenant, he had made the first ole, now that which decayed and waxed as old is ready to vanish away.

So as you go through the book of Hebrews, which I will do eventually in one of these days, because there’s so much good stuff in the book of Hebrews that explains the gospel and salvation by grace and how that no man was ever saved by his works. So anyway, I want you to notice that on both sides there’s like there’s Moses and there’s Jesus Christ. And Moses, according to Hebrews chapter 3, it’s not in your notes there, but talks about the house that is built upon the sands of what Moses gave in the Torah.

But now you’re talking about what Christ said. Christ says that a man is saved, and then he gives us an illustration. So take your Bible and look at the book of Galatians. The book of Galatians real quick. Galatians chapter 4. Galatians chapter 4, look in verse 22. In verse 22 it says, 4, it is written, Abraham had two sons, one by bond made, although by free woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise.

So you have two women. Here’s the law. There’s Hagar and there’s Ishmael. Law, flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh. So whenever you talk about the new birth, Isaac was born as a miracle child because it took God to do this one by faith. And Abraham’s stagger not at the promises of God through unbelief, but was strong and believing. So Isaac was born as a result of faith, faith alone. So you have a child by faith and you have one by law.

This one, God says, ishmael is not the heir and will not live forever. See, this is flesh, flesh, flesh, and the law condemns flesh. When you trust Christ as your Savior, you’re born of God, and this is based upon something totally different. This, if a man had to save himself by his works, then he has to fulfill the law so the law will not condemn him to die. But if it’s by grace, then it’s free and given to you.

Here you had Mount Sinai, And I’m here you have Jerusalem. Here you have flesh, here you have spirit. It is your spiritual birth that’s born of God. And because of that, God gives us an illustration of two people that lived and what happened to them and bought their moms. See, it’s not just people that lived and died. Their whole life tell a story. of stories from the Old Testament that taught doctrinal truths. So you’ll notice what he says there in verse 24.

He said, but which are an allegory, or just characters that are taught the types. And for these are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, which gender to bondage, which is Hagar. And this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answer to Jerusalem, which now is in bondage with their children. So today, which one represents the law and the flesh?

And that is the line of Ishmael. And so today you have the Arabs and that’s what it represents. It’s a type. Doesn’t mean that individual Arabs can’t be saved because they can. And doesn’t mean that all the Jews have trusted the Lord because they haven’t. because even though they’re called the children of God, but the seed shall be called those that are in faith that believe on the Messiah, trusted Christ as Savior, that have the new birth and are considered to seed, the real seed of Abraham.

A lot more involved than what I can get into at this point. But notice up there in verse 26, but Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice thou barren that beareth not, break forth and cry, thou that travaileth not, for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath a husband. Look at it today. Are there many more of Ishmael than there is of Isaac?

Just look in the world, man. She has a lot more children. And you’ll find out that there’s, in the book of Matthew chapter seven, There’s many more on the road to destruction, because they are trying to save them. And you take people today, look how many churches there are, but majority of churches are not teaching that you’re saved by grace and grace alone. They’re teaching that you’re saved by your works, the way you live. And so your righteousness will not work.

So see there in verse 28. He says, now we brethren, as Isaac was, the children of promise. In words you believe the promise. That God had preached the gospel before unto Abraham, saying, in these shall all families of the earth be blessed. And when he also makes a statement that he had preached the gospel, you know, a for time. And talking about the heathen shall be justified by faith. In the Galatians chapter 3 and verse 6, Abraham believed God and it was counted him for righteousness.

So the promises believing what God said. And so whenever you and I simply believe the promise that He will give to me eternal life, if I simply believe, then see we are the children of promise. Because it’s based upon His word, and under the law it was based upon their word. They had to do and perform, nobody ever did. So a man cannot save himself and it is the epitome of arrogance for an individual to think for a moment that he can save himself by his works.

To think that he is living so good and so holy as to be without sin and he’s going to go to heaven because of how righteously he lived. Somebody need to slap their jaws. But anyway, makes a statement here in verse 29. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit. Isn’t it true that today is that the nation of Israel that is persecuting the Arab countries or is it the Arab countries that are trying to persecute Israel?

Yeah. You You see, the type is still as real as you can see. I mean, it’s evident. But whenever you trusted Christ as your savior and received a new birth, does the new birth persecute the flesh or does the flesh persecute the spirit? It’s the flesh that persecutes the spirit. So inside of you, and I hate to put it this way, you have like a little Arab fighting against little Jew and it fights all the time. And it’s a battle that goes on.

And it is a type of the flesh. This is why God says in the book of Malachi and also in the Old Testament, it talks about God says that I loved Israel or Jacob and hated Esau because Jacob represents the second birth and Esau represents the first birth, the flesh. God hates the flesh, but he loves the spirit, the new And so when that was mentioned in the book of Malachi, see, they’d already been dead for a thousand years.

So you don’t have to worry about, you know, the individuals themselves. God says in His Word, the flesh cannot save itself. The first birth can’t deliver Himself. Look at number 11. 11 on the left, God says, if He will, that’s the law. On the right, God says, I will. This is grace. You see, it’s based upon what Christ did. Under the law, it’s based upon what you can do. And every man ought to understand that He cannot save Him sof.

It is totally impossible. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Hebrews in chapter 9, Hebrews and chapter 9. Hebrews chapter 9, there’s other verses in here that y’all can look at later, but I want you to see these. Chapter 9 verse 28, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that look for him shall he appear. The second time without sin unto salvation. Christ is coming again. If he’s coming again, that means that he had to come back from the dead and he had to ascend into heavens in order to come again.

But he is coming. But the next time he is not coming to make a payment for sin. Why? Because the payment He made 2,000 years ago had to have paid for all the sins that were in the future. You see, if Christ has not already paid for the ones that I haven’t done, then pray tell how will they get paid for? If I have to pay for them, even one of them, then he really didn’t do me any favors.

If he only paid for my past sins, he hasn’t helped me at all. Because it’s totally impossible for me to live without sin. And God says to him that said, he hath no sin, he is a liar. And I don’t want to be a liar. I still have a sinful nature, and I would venture to say, so do you. But aren’t you glad that when Christ died, He paid for all the sins of all the world, even the ones you have not done yet?

You know what’s hard for some people to get? They said, well, you mean I can go out here and commit this sin and that sin and that sin and still go to heaven when I die? Like that would be totally impossible. But if I wait until the end and trust the Lord, okay, now He can save me. He can then, but He can’t do it now. If I’m still going to do those bad things, but if I wait until I, you know, right before I die, oh, He can save me now.

And I still did all those same bad things. I’m so glad to know that when Christ died, 2000 years ago when he was on the cross. You know that song that says when he was on the cross, I was on his mind. I love that song. I love that song. Have we ever had anybody sing that here? Anybody ever sung that song there? Who did? You sung that song? Sing it again. I love that song. It’s like, you know, there’s the whole world out there, but they don’t count.

He said, I was on his mind. He was thinking about me. Don’t you feel like he was thinking about you? And he died for you to pay for all of your sins. And the only thing you have to do is believe that he did it for you and God will save you and give you as a free gift everlasting life. Anyway, if you have trusted Christ as your Savior, it’s because you could not save yourself by the law. You saw that you could not earn it by your good deeds, because there weren’t good enough so you trusted Christ as you saved, you were saved by grace.

As a child of God, you are to talk to your heavenly Father, to examine yourself, and see whether or not as a child of God have you been walking in the flesh and bringing forth the works of the flesh. And God says we need to confess that to him. You see, He forgave you as God the judge of the world, but as your heavenly Father, you send against Him. So I can send against Peter and he can forgive me.

I can send against James Eismurd. He can forgive me. But see, now, He’s not just God in heaven. He’s my Father. And so you want to keep things clean and right between you and your heavenly Father. All right? Let’s pray, Shaolin. Our Father, we thank you so much for all you’ve done for us. thankful for the body of Christ. You said in your word, a body has not prepared me. And we know why because you will not bear the sins of the world upon yourself.

And as you made that payment, that payment in full, in back from the dead, we thank you for it in Christ’s name, 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 were 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 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.