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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. Now we had already talked about in chapter 1, in verse 15 through 17, how that Jesus Christ is the supreme, the creator, the architect of all creation. He is the Lord of the world. He made the world. He’s in charge. He has all power. He has the right. He has the authority.

Then it says He is the head of the church. That means that all of us who have trusted Christ as our Savior were born into His family. And because we’re in His family, He is the head, the boss. He tells us what we should and should not do. How we should and should not live. He has earned that right because of what He did. There’s only one person who ever was born into this world who lived a perfect life and has a right to tell everybody else what they ought to do and not do.

Don’t you despise when somebody who lives worse than you do try to point out your sins? But he has the right to because he nobody can point to him and say, hey, you messed up. You shouldn’t have said that. That was wrong. He never sinned. So he has the right, the authority to say something to the rest of us. He earned that right. He lived a perfect life under the same law that we live under, made of a woman, made under the law, and he lived a perfect life.

Now he’s talking about he is the head of our principalities and powers and dominions. In verse 17 of chapter 1 it talks about Jesus Christ, he is the head over everything even in the mysterious angelic world of fallen angels, and there are powers that you and I cannot see nor understand. He is the head of all of that. Every spiritual wickedness in high places that were against Jesus Christ, they thought we finally got this man. We finally got them to mess up.

We got all the people to kill them. Boy, were they victorious. I bet the wicked, mysterious, angelic world were having a heyday. They thought we finally took care of this Jesus. And notice what he says here now in verse 11, in whom talking about Christ also ye are circumcised with the uncircumcision or the circumcision made without hands. Not putting, as he says here, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Circumcision just means to remove the flesh.

You see, I was, let me just use a simple illustration for Quay. Come up here just a minute, Steve. Just stand right there. And I want you to see this because it’s a simple illustration. All right, this is my old sinful nature. You just behaved now for the first time in your life. This is my old sinful nature. You see, I can’t go to heaven because see I have this old sinful nature. Because see, if I go to heaven and he goes with me, well then he’ll make, he’ll cause me to sin when I get to heaven.

What God doesn’t want in his sin in heaven because the first sin then there be sorrow there. And if he goes with me to heaven, then there’ll be death and disease and destruction. He’s everything that’s bad. Well, that’s the ultimate information. It’s everything you don’t want in heaven. He is a bad man, bad man. He leads you astray. He’ll lie to you, deceive you. He’s everything you don’t want to be, but every one of us in this room, we have an old sinful nature.

So God says you need to be circumcised. What do you mean? I have to get rid of my old sinful nature. And it’s called a cutting away of the flesh. So when I trusted Christ as my Savior, God separated me from my old sinful nature. Now He’s over there. much alive. He’s just as bad as he’s always been. But in the eyes of God, God sees me separated from my old sinful nature. I now have a new birth born of God without a sinful nature.

So whenever I die, see, he lives in my body, in my body, the members of my flesh. And that’s That’s why when you trust Christ as Savior, it’s a spiritual birth. You can’t see it. So you think I’m over there. I’m over here. So God sees me separated from the first birth and I’m now in my second birth. This is how God sees me. So when I’m in my body, you might still see my old sinful nature because he’s just as bad as he’s always been.

So what I have to do is try to find a way, how can I have victory in my Christian life with this bad man living inside of me? So that’s why the Holy Spirit lives within you to give you power, not to let him have control of my body. Now he lives in my body, but God doesn’t want him to have control of my body. So therefore, as I grow in the Lord, then I learn how to discipline myself to make right decisions, why is the decision?

Because if I listen to him, he’s always whispering in my ear, telling me to do just the wrong thing, always trying to lead me astray because he wants his own way. You understand what I’m saying? Do you understand what I’m saying? Thank you, buddy. Give him a big hand. So circumcision is the cut in a way and you have been separated from the flesh by circumcision without hands. In other words, it wasn’t done physically to as a little child, a little boy that’s been circumcised on the eighth day.

Now Jesus was circumcised. His circumcision became mine. His baptism became mine. And Christ’s life, His righteous life became mine. When He died on the cross, His death became my death. And when He was buried, that was for me. When He came back from the dead, He did that for me. So his death, burial, and resurrection was for me, because he did it for me. He paid for my sins. So what Christ did was put to my account as though I did it.

I didn’t really do it. He did it for me. And so his victory over sin, over the devil, over the grave, all that victory was put to my account. He was victorious. Well, me, I wasn’t. I failed at the devil got me. I got an old sinful nature. I kept listening to Stephen all the time because he was just a bad man, but he had a great influence on my life. Told me to do things wrong. It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not his fault.

So God says now that you know Christ as your savior. There’s something he wants you to understand. Oh, look what he says there in verse 12, buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead. So when God raised him from the dead and you believe he did it for you, then God, see, takes you and puts you, spiritually speaking, into the body of Christ.

And if you’re in the body of Christ, you’re in Christ. than wherever Christ went. You went with him because you’re in him. So he has risen from the dead and ascended into heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father. And that’s why the Bible talks about it in Ephesians chapter one and verse three. We are seated in the heavenlies in Christ because that’s how God sees you. You’re in him. You’re not going to heaven because of all those good things you’ve done.

We’re going to heaven because of all those good things he did. paid for all of my sins and put his righteousness to my account. And I go to heaven on what he did. I did not earn it. I did not work for it. I do not deserve it. And verse 13 he says, and you being dead in your sins, that needs to be separated from God because you are a sinner. Means you do things wrong. You’re not perfect. You can’t go to heaven because of your sins.

See that? Man that was standing up here, that’s my old son from it because I can’t go to heaven because yeah, I got to get rid of him. If he goes to heaven with me, see then God won’t let me in because I got him. So I got to get rid of my sin. And Christ came into the world and took care of it for me. He took care of all my sins, paid for them in full. and get the last part of verse 13 where he says, have he quickened?

That means made you alive together with him. So when you trusted Christ as your savior, you are joined together with the Lord and you were baptized with him into the grave. You came up out of the grave with the Lord. Now he says, because of what I did for you, walk in newness of life. I’m supposed to live for the Lord for the rest of my life, not to get to heaven, but because I’m going to heaven. And he says this in the last part, and you ought to underline these words, having forgiven you all what?

But trespasses have forgiven you. You mean all those bad things that I’ve done? He hath forgiven you of all of them. When Christ died 2,000 years ago, all of our sins were in the future. So that means He’s already paid for what I’ve already done. But when He died, He also paid for the ones that I haven’t done yet. Has He paid for those two? Of course. See if he didn’t pay for those, I’m in a heap of trouble.

Then I got to pay for them. So when Christ died, he paid for all of my sins once and for all. And I have eternal life. Now look in verse 14, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. You see, God gave his righteous law, the 10 commandments thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy hard mind, body, soul, and strength, and thou shalt not make images and so forth, and thou must love thy mother and father, and thou shalt not do this, and thou shalt not, and thou shalt not, and all.

All of those laws was against me because you see, they were too strict. Thou shalt not commit adultery. And then Christ says later on in the New Testament, if you so much as think it, ooh, thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not hate. Man alive, I ain’t got a ghost of a chance. So the law, that’s perfect, I’m wrong with it, it’s just I can’t keep it, it’s too good, it’s too perfect, I’m not that way. I’m a sinner, I’ve come short of God’s glory, short of God’s perfection.

So therefore I failed. And every time God says, don’t cross this line, I did. So when God says, you transgress, you trespass, He says, Thou shalt not walk on the grass I did. So I transgress, I overstepped the boundary. And because of that, I am a sinner. And so God took all these things that He is keeping a record of, and He’s making a list of all the things that we do that’s wrong. And God took all of these things that we did wrong, and He didn’t write them on a piece of paper and nailed that toReward.

You see, Jesus was the one that was nailed to the cross. But look what he says there in verse 14, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. When he nailed it to his cross, I mean, he nailed Jesus to the cross because all my sins that I’ve done, he took them all and he died in my place. And he was nailed to the cross for me.

and He paid for all of my sins. And in verse 15, when He was nailed to the cross, when He died, there’s no doubt that the angelic underworld was probably in hysterics. We finally nailed this guy. We won. We were victorious. And then all of a sudden there’s this earthquake and Christ comes out of the grave triumphant over the devil, over principalities and powers. You see, that’s why he says in verse 15, having spoiled principalities and powers. And up there in verse 10, where it says that he is the head over everything.

Even the angelic world has no power over God, Jesus Christ. He was over the world, He’s over the church, He’s over the angelic world. There’s nothing that has power outside of Him. Let me ask you this, does this great God have the right, the authority to be Lord over me? Does he have the right to tell me what I can and cannot? Shouldn’t I obey the one that created the heavens and the earth that has all this power? Look who he is.

Why would I want to make God mad with me? Why would I want to defy God? I would lose. And look at the last part of verse 15 where he says, and having spoiled principalities and powers because he stole all their power away from them, they could not win. They could not beat him. Now you know what I liked a lot about camp and so forth. You get a chance to see competition. Competition, somebody’s going to win, somebody’s going to lose, but it’s still a wonderful exciting thing to watch.

But you know there’s always some kids. There’s always even some adults. We’d like to stand on the sideline and just watch and watch these kids being pulled through the mud. I don’t know, I love it when they somebody’s got to go through the mud. I won’t see who goes in the mud. I couldn’t hardly wait to see whether or not are they going to be able to pull Jonathan into the mud. When you love to sing that, Jonathan going through the mud.

But Jonathan says, I’m not going through the mud. And you’d have to have a tank on the other end to pull Jonathan through the mud. But you know, there’s always somebody on the side that says, you know, well, what we’re going to do and he should have done this and they should have done that. And there’s everybody telling them what to do and how to do it and criticizing and you know the world has its critics. The world has its critics.

Even when it comes to church there’s always somebody, well that ain’t the way I would have done it. Did you see that mistake you made? You ever watched these Monday morning quarterbacks? I can’t believe the guy was so stupid. The guy was wide open and he ends on and the quarterback doesn’t even throw the ball to him. Because when He got rid of the football. Five guys slammed him through the ground. I don’t know why nor will he let them do that to him.

I wouldn’t have done that. Let me read this to you. Theodore Roosevelt once said, it not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or the doer of deeds could have done better. the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives violently, who airs and comes up short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spins himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst who fails.

And if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those timid, cold souls who never knew victory or defeat. See, some people will never know what it’s like to be defeated because they never fought, they never tried. They were afraid of being a failure. You’re a failure when you don’t try. Afraid of passing out a track. Afraid to talk to somebody about the Lord and where are you going to go when you die.

So they’re always critical of all those that do it. And they probably didn’t really get saved. I mean, they probably really didn’t get saved. They’re just making up those numbers. and how are you doing? Those that get into the arena, that walk up to somebody and have somebody tell them where to get off and where to go, who mock them and make fun of them, who wad up that track and throw it back at them, those that say something mean and nasty, and unkind to them, at least they’re out there fighting a battle, and maybe they get whooped every once in a while, and maybe they don’t win as many as they’d like to, but they were in the arena and they were fighting.

They were giving it all that they had. But there’s always the critics of the world, even spiritual critics. Well, I wouldn’t do it that way. And how would you do it? Well, I don’t do it like that. How do you do it? And you’d be surprised there’s a lot of people who never do anything, but they sit on the sidelines and they can always see what everybody should have done. Aren’t you glad when he makes a statement there in verse 15?

He made a show of them openly. He came out of the grave and there were witnesses. He walked the streets of Jerusalem. They saw him over 501 times. And look at the last part of that. And you ought to underline this triumphing over them in it. You see, we wanna have triumphant. We want to have the medals, but we don’t want the battles. We want God to deliver us from every trial and tribulation when it won’t work that away.

Sometimes you have to be drugged through the mud. But at least you hang on, you keep trusting God. And like David says, though he slay me, yet will I trust him, triumphing. When it’s all over with, and we’re all out of here, when we’re standing at the judgment the consider Christ. What a wonderful time that will be. And when I stand at the judgment said of Christ and he shows his plan for me, the plan of his life, and he had his way and I see how I checked him here and I checked him there and I would not yield my will.

Well there be grief in my Savior’s eyes, grief though he loves me still. He would have me rich and I stand there poor, stripped of all about his grace while memory runs like a haunted dream down the paths I can not retrace. Lord of the years that are left for me, I give them into thy hand that take me and break me. To mold me and make me into the pattern that thou hast planned. You and I one day will stand at the judgment city of Christ and God’s going to reward you according to the fight you put into the battle, not the results, not the fight.

Paul says, I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith. I finished the race. And as we live our life, there’s a lot that the devil would love to do to have victory in your life and my life. And hardships are going to come, but don’t you ever stop serving God? Don’t you quit and Don’t you give up? You keep trusting the Lord and He’ll walk you through everything that you have to face. Trust Him. Look up here.

This hand represents you and me. This wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. God, He loves us. He loves you. He hates what we do wrong, but He loves us. See, this is that old sinful nature that I have. That’s why I do all those bad things. That’s why you do them, because it’s your nature. We’re rebagious. We want our own way. But God says that He loves us and wants us to go to heaven and go to heaven, we have to be perfect.

We can’t take that old sinful nature with us. If we did, we’d sin in heaven. So God says, no, you can’t go. You’ve got to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect. So how are we going to get to heaven? The wages of sin is death. We’re all guilty and we’re all condemned. God says, you can’t save yourself. You can’t earn eternal life. You can’t work your way to heaven. You’ll never be good enough. Well, how can I get to heaven? Glad you asked.

This hen represents Jesus Christ. God in the flesh, he came into this world because he loves us. Now, he hates what we do wrong, but he loves us. Our sins separates us from the Lord. So the Bible says, Jesus Christ, who had no sin, he didn’t have to die. But because he loved us, he took our sins. He took all of mine, took all of yours, paid for them on the cross 2,000 years ago, came back from the dead.

He said that if you or me, if we would believe that he did it for us, he would put this payment to our account, we get to go to heaven on what he did. You didn’t earn it. You didn’t work for it. It’s the gift of God, not of works, lest any dimension, both. And when you believe it, God says He would give you a free gift everlasting life. And He says, these things have I written unto you. That believe that he did this for you, that you would not perish.

You’d have everlasting life. These things have overridden to you. That believe that you may know that you have eternal life. You can know that you’re going to have him. Now, if you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, you should. You never know when you’re going to leave this world. If you have already trusted Christ as your Savior, you don’t have to do it again. You can only have to believe it one and when Christ gives you he’s a free gift eternal life.

He can’t give it to you again So if you’ve already trusted Christ as your Savior, you’re going to heaven But if you hear and you’ve never done that That’s what you need to do. Let’s pray. Shall we? Whether he had bond every I close no, I’m not gonna have you come forward. I’m not gonna embarrass you I’m not gonna have you stand up or point you out But with head bow nice clothes. I do want to pray for you.

I really do I love you and I care about you. But you may be here tonight and you’re not positive of going to heaven when you die. Would you right now just talk to the Lord? You see, you don’t make a mistake this way. Only the Lord knows your thoughts. So just talk to the Lord. Say, Lord, I don’t understand at all. I know I’ve done things wrong. I know I’m a sinner. And I believe Jesus Christ died on that cross.

I believe He died for me. And I will trust him as my only hope of going to heaven. So you’re not trusting your good works, not trusting the church, not touching the preacher or priest or anybody else. I’m gonna trust Christ in him alone. And friend, if you’ll do that, God said he would save you. He would give eternal life right now. He’d that believeth on me had right now everlasting life. Will you believe it? So it had bow nice clothes.

Is there any word at all? I’ll say, yes, that made sense to me. And preach it, I will trust Christ right now as my Savior, as my only hope of going to heaven. And I’d like for you to pray for me. Would you just slip your hand up very quickly and put a wrap back down? Is there anyone at all? Anyone at all? If you’ve already trusted Christ to say but you don’t have to do it again. But if you’ve never done so, would you do it right now?

I’d like to have prayer for you. If you were to die right now, would you go to heaven? He said, well, I’m not sure. Didn’t trust the Lord. And if you’re going to trust the Lord, I’d like to know it because I care about you. And when before we close, our Father, we thank you so much for all you’ve done for us. We’re thankful for this time together. Bless each one for being here. Thank you, Lord, again, for camp and for all those that worked at camp, labored.

Many are tired. They’re weak and worn. But Father, they’ve been in the battle. and Father, they deserve the right to be tired. You’re also good tired. There’s much that’s been accomplished. We’ve been triumphant because of the strength that you’ve given us. We thank you for it. Let’s each one for being here. Christ 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 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 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 Bibleline Ministries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Our new Our new Friends, 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.