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Bibleline, Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, 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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

In verse four, therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. That like his Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. I’ll not look up here. Here I am. Because what Christ did was put to my account. This is though I was here. And the only way you can get the second birth is if you have to have the first one die. You can’t get the second one until this dies.

Well, I don’t want to die, but his death is put to my account. And so I accept his death as my death. And the day that I do that and believe that his death was mine, he did it for me. Then as far as the law is concerned, I fulfilled my death. I paid my debt in full. We sing that song, Christ paid my pardon. This I surely know took my place at Calvary. Now I don’t have to go.

All my life life I give him, he gave his for me. Now, we are his children and we’re going to heaven when we die, and it’s given to us eternal life. So he says, now we should, should, live in newness of life. But I have this problem with this old sinful nature. He keeps resurrecting himself somehow. And we kind of keep him alive. See he didn’t really die. wasn’t really crucified. I’m supposed to reckon it true. You see up there in verse 11 where he says, likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed, under sin, but alive unto God.

You and I are supposed to live the way God sees it. God sees that the old man was crucified and now you are alive Christ therefore walk in newness of life. Walk like you have new life. I believe that it’s the greatest key to enjoying life because you don’t have to fulfill all those old sinful desires that you have and you still have them. They didn’t go away. God just gave you some new ones and you can make better choices now.

Now I I can serve the Lord before I couldn’t serve the Lord.” So he makes this statement here. In verse 5, for if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the lightness of His resurrection. Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed. That henceforth from now on we should not serve sin. So you see even though God saved you by grace, gave you the free gift of eternal life.

Now He’s not front-loading it and He’s not back-loading it. He’s just saying this is the truth and this new standing position in Christ in grace can’t be changed or altered. So there was nothing that you had to do or perform to get this gift and there’s nothing that you have to do to maintain to keep this gift. It’s a free gift that means no strain is attached. It means it’s not given as bribing you that now I’ve got to do this or something else.

No. He said it’s a gift. It’s a free gift. A gift by grace. No strain is attached. You don’t have to earn it or deserve it. But he’s letting you know where you stand in Christ and now because of who you are and what you are in him. He even says I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacri- your bodies. Present your body as a living sacrifice. It’s still alive.

But it’s a living sacrifice. Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service of being not conformed to this world, but be a transform. You see, your life was not transformed when you got saved. Your life becomes transformed when you no longer are conformed to the world. So you transform your life by the renewing of your mind. So that’s a growth process. So now as we study the Word of God, we begin to grow in the Lord and a sign of you growing and maturing in the Lord is that you yield more and more of your life to the the Lord.

You see, when you start growing, you don’t know how to yield every area of your life. So to tell somebody you must make Christ, that He has to be Lord of all or not Lord at all, then where’s growth? You see, you only can yield in areas little by little, you only grow little by little. You don’t do it all at one time. It’s a process. And notice what says. In verse six, knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

For he that is dead is freed from sin. See that’s your position in Christ. This new birth over here is free from the sin for nature. It’s free from death. It’s free from the law. The new birth is not under the law. Your new birth was born of God. It is a perfect birth. You are a child of God. It can never be condemned. It can never be changed altered, annulled. It can’t. Nothing can change that.

So as God sees you, he’s now looking at you through Christ. Christ died. You were with him. Christ was buried. You were with him. Christ came back from the dead. You were with him. Christ ascended into the heavens. You were with him. Seated on the right hand of the Father, you’re in the heavenly seated in Christ. You’re in him. That’s your position and it can never be changed ever again. So he says here in verse 8, Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieeth no more. death hath no more dominion over him. So how many times did Christ have to come into the world one time? How many times did he have to die for the sins of the world? One time? So he only had to be buried and come back from the grave one time. And you are in him and he ever liveth and you’re in him for how long? For ever. That is your new position in Christ that cannot be changed.

Now God wants us to live as the way it’s all true. To believe it and recognize it, live like a child of the King and still like a pauper. Believing the word of God is true, the promises of God is true and we should live like we really believe this. And therefore we should not in this life believe that our old sinful nature has to always get the best of us. Now you’re going to have your old sinful nature.

He lures and he sometimes overwhelms you. But isn’t nice to know that the Bible says, because I’ll never cast you out, I’ll never lose you. He has us in his hands and nobody can never take you out of his hand. But here we’re talking about the position you have in Christ and how it’s supposed to affect our way of life. You see, justification. We were justified in the court of law. A death payment put to our account. We have been set free and God can’t even condemn us anymore.

There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. So that is our new position. We have been made pure and holy, sanctified, set apart. We belong to the Lord. That’s our position. But now in this life, yes, God wants us to have a sanctified life. It’s call it sanctification. One day when we get to heaven, yes, we’ll have total glorification, glorified, totally perfect. But that day’s not here yet. But until then, we’re supposed to live with our confidence in the Lord.

I’m a child of God. This is who I am in Christ. And this is why I do what I do. So he makes the statement here. In verse 9, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, diet, no more. Death hath no more dominion over him. And if it has none over him, you and I are supposed to live like the sinful nature has no dominion over us. We are supposed to live like we’re not afraid of death because we’ve already died.

You see, I died 52 years ago. So I shouldn’t fear death, now should I? I have accepted his death as my death. And so I am alive only by the grace of God. So I don’t have to worry about it. When I’m gonna die, how I’m gonna die, if I will die, he might even come back and it never happened anyway. But that’s our security that we have in Christ. So he says in verse 10, for in that he died, he died on the sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

So we are in him. So this is why we’re supposed to have newness of life and live for the Lord because of where we are. The Lord has taken us from this old man and gave us a new man. This new birth is in Christ. That’s my position. never to be changed or altered or annulled. Now in verse 11, get this. Likewise, now so you see that it’s showing you your position in Christ and how you are seen as having died and now are alive forevermore in Christ.

Likewise, live like it. Act like it. Believe like it. He says, likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, or unto that old sinful nature, that it does not have to rule and have dominion over your life. So God says the key to all of this, and you’ll see this word. You’ll see the word yield. See there? Look there in verse 12, let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body. So we’re talking about this mortal body that I’ve got.

I’ve only got one. I am not to let my old sinful nature have control of my body. Now he’s always there. He’s always Lord, always tempted. You still have the same sinful desires. Now the key is, can you live your life without fulfilling them all? You say, you mean I won’t get angry anymore? You won’t get mad anymore? You won’t be deceived anymore? Oh yes, because you have an old sinful nature. It hasn’t changed. He’s just as mean and orner as ever.

This is why you as a child of God can have a real blessed moment and your husband will think you’re just a little angel. And buddy, it won’t take that much. And if I was to ask him, do you believe in the devil? He says sure do, I married his wife. It wouldn’t take much. Because you still have an old sinful nature. And sometimes you’re back and forth. And that’s what a double-minded man is. A double-minded man is one who minds God, minds to flesh, minds God, minds to flesh, minds to flesh.

And God says, don’t think that man’s going to get anything. He’s not going to get anywhere. He’s not going to grow and mature. And the problems of life are going to overwhelm him because he doesn’t realize that he can go to the Lord and God will give him what he needs. But anyway, look at this. He says in verse 12, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lustre of. Because see, you still have an old sinful nature.

You’re still in a mortal body. And you can yield to the sinful nature. That’s what he’s saying. But you shouldn’t. He doesn’t want you to. And the only reason that you’re gonna have enough power, not to do so is you’re gonna have to love something more. you have to have some desire that’s greater than the sinful desire. Whichever is the greatest is the one that’s going to control you. The greater desire is what’s going to determine why you do what you do.

Do you have the desire, I want to serve the Lord? If that desire is your strongest desire, then you can have victory in your life. But if it’s not, and you desire the things of the world, more than you desire the things of God, you’re going to destroy your life. But in making the choices that you have based upon the desires that you have, there’s a way of strengthening these desires and that’s to feed these desires. When you start satisfying God the desire, see they grow, become stronger.

You start satisfying the desires of the flesh and it gets stronger and you’re going to have a bigger battle on your hands. So God says in verse 12, let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lustor of. Now look at verse 13, neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. Oh, here’s your body. Here’s my body. I am not to let my old sinful nature use this body to bring forth sin.

That’s what he said. But look at the last part of that verse. But yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. So it doesn’t say just not to yield yourself to the flesh, it says yield yourself unto God. means you have to walk in daily dependence upon God. And if you get to where you don’t think you need God and you don’t need the word, you don’t need to pray, you are destined for failure.

You are destined to walk in the flesh. You’re going to ruin your life, destroy your life and ruin your testimony and you’ll wonder why God won’t use you. It’s a choice. a choice and all of us can make the right choice. And so he says, yield yourselves unto God. But see, you’re the one that makes the decision to yield or not to yield. Check your testimony. Is your testimony above reproach? Always watching guard your testimony. I used to teach the kids out in college all the way back in Colorado, didn’t I?

I told them then I still tell you the same thing now. Nothing’s changed. So in verse 14, for sin, that all sinful nature, shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law. See you used to be under the law. That was your position as a lost man. Every lost man’s under the law. He’s condemned. That’s why he says, and the whole world become guilty before God. So Christ died to redeem us from the curse of the law, the curse of the law was not that the law was a curse, it was that we could not fulfill the demands of righteousness under the law because of the weakness of the flesh.

We just couldn’t do it. You may want to live a godly, holy life, but you can’t do it. That’s why you needed a new birth. And so he says, for ye are not under the law but under grace. Grace is a new position. It’s your new standing that you have in the Lord. And that is grace. How did you get there? I got in this new position as a child of God by grace. I didn’t have to do anything on the front to get in and I didn’t have to do anything on the back end to stay there.

It was all by grace. It was the gift by grace. And along with that God gave to me the gift of eternal life because now He can’t give eternal life to the lost man. He can only give it to a justified man. He can only give his righteousness to those who accept that payment Christ made on the cross for them. So he says, in verse 15, what then shall we sin because we’re not under the law, but under grace?

Hey, if I’m not here and I’m here, but I’m still here, why not just do however I want and have a blast because I’m going there and it can’t be changed. Well it sounds like a good idea except now your God’s child and he’s your father and he’ll beat the living daylight out of you and you’ll make you wish that you made a little bit wiser choice. So you become an a child of God is one of the greatest things in the world.

Like I said the other day I have two sons. I had David and I had Eddie. And I also said that if one’s obedient and one’s disobedient, which one is mine and which one’s not mine? The one that’s obedient is mine, the other one is Betty’s. No. They’re both mine. The one that’s obedient is still my son. And the one that’s disobedient is still my son. How they live, their obedient has nothing to do with them being my son.

They’re my son because they’re born into my family. So one that’s obedient will be happier. I’ll be happier. And the one that’s disobedient is going to be miserable because I’m going to see to it. And it’s going to be harder on him. He could get whooped, chastened, disciplined. Not because you hate him but because you love them. So in life you have now the freedom to do something you never had the power to do before. You see we all had the power to serve sin.

We all had the power and ability to yield our instruments, our members, unto the devil to live in sin. But now, God says, I’ve given you something. You have power that you never had before. So he says here in verse 16, no you not, that to whom you yield yourself servants to obey his servants you are to whom you obey, whether you’re sending the death of obedience and the righteousness. So now you have a choice. Don’t you know that to whom you yield yourself servants to obey his servants you are?

So you can be a servant of the flesh, or you can be a servant of the Spirit. You have a choice. And whenever you do, there’s consequences, there’s results to this, but look in verse 17, but God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin. This is what you were, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you and asked the gospel, being then made free from sin. You see, if I’m free from sin, the old sin for nature, I can live forever.

Well, that’s what the Bible says. Look up here. I was a lost man. I was under the sentence of death. So you cry out, how can I be free from this condemnation? Well, if I was to die, I would be free from this. Of course, to the lost man, he goes to a place called hell, but you want to be free, but you don’t want to go to hell. So you’re afraid to really just die. You don’t want to commit suicide.

God made a way where you could die now, have eternal life, and live with Him forever. You may have a few years to live with this so fella hanging on to you, but sooner or later he’s going to die. It’ll be gone. But like he says here, you have been made free from the sin, that whole sinful nature. Get what this says. You became the servants of righteousness. Now you’re the servants of God and look what you can do.

If you don’t, it doesn’t change your standing in Christ. is what so important to know. So he says there in verse 19, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh, for as you have yielded your member servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, unto iniquity, even so now yield. See, there’s nothing in here where it says God makes you serve him. God does not make you trust him. God does not make you serve Him.

It’s the choice that you and I have. We can yield to Him. So He says, yield your members’ servants to righteousness unto holiness. It’s a different way to live. For when you were past tense, the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. You couldn’t serve God. You didn’t have the ability to serve God. You could only serve the flesh. Now that’s changed. So in verse 21, he says, what fruit had you then in those things were of your now ashamed?

For the end of those things is death because the wages of sin is death. But there’s something that God wants us to have. So in verse 22, he says, but now, now, being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit. See, this is the results, the consequences. See, God wants fruit from a person’s life.

And he says, fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. But if I yield myself as a servant to the Lord, I am going to have some fruit from my tree that will last forever. The fruit is the same as you find in John chapter 15 when he talks about to go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain. You see, the fruit that God wants us to bring forth is eternal fruit. Every person you win the Christ will be God’s child forever.

And it’s the fruit that comes by you and I yielding ourselves to the Lord so that God can use us, and fruit is the results of that. Look at that. This hand represents you and me. The wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. In our lost position, we were under the law, the condemnation of the law, the law demanded righteousness and we could not perform. We may have desired to do right, but we just can’t do right.

Our sinful nature deceives us, lies to us, and we produce all these sins, and because we’ve committed the sin, we have to pay for them, so we have a sin debt. We are in debt. We have to make a payment. So the Bible says you cannot earn eternal life. You can’t pay this debt by going to church. You can’t pay this debt by giving money. It’s death. The ways is in death. So you don’t have to turn from sin to be saved.

You have to die for your sins. This sin represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh. Came into the world because He loves us. Hey, it’s our sin because our sin separates us from Him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. So he took all the sin of all the world, paid from the cross. Now, when you and I, when we believe he did that for us, his death on the cross put to our account as though we paid our debt in full.

So that’s why Paul said, I am crucified with Christ, because see, I’ve accepted his payment, his crucifixion as mine, like I was the one that went to the cross, and I’m the one that paid for my sins, and I was buried, and I came back from the dead, Therefore, I should now walk in newness of life, because I paid for all of my sins. I did it in the person of Christ. And therefore, because I’ve come back from the dead, now I should live like I died to the oath’s infill nature and not let it control my life.

Yield to the Lord, and you’d be surprised what God has for you, what God can do for you. Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bowed and every eye closed, no one looking around. Or if you’re watching by internet, I pray that what I’ve said is simple enough that you can understand that above all, God loves you and that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to down that cross to pay for your sins. And that He has a free gift that He wants to give to you.

It’s not front loaded and it’s not back loaded. There’s nothing you have to do to get it and there’s nothing that you have to do to keep it. He meant what He said. So if you’ve never accepted Christ as your Savior, the only thing you have to know is this, you’re a sinner, Christ who was God in the flesh, died and paid for your sins. And if you will trust Him as your Savior, because He came back from the dead, He can put that payment He made to your account, and you get to go to heaven on what Christ did for you.

If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, I pray that you’ll do it right now. We head by nice clothes, anyone in the auditorium, I’m not going I’m going to have you stand up and I’m going to have you forward, but right where you’re sitting, say, pre-do that made sense to me and I will trust Christ as my Savior tonight and I’d like for you to pray for me. We’ll just leave you hand it very quickly, but right back down, January at all.

You know what it all. Our Father, we thank You so much for Your word that You’ve given us, for we can’t claim to understand all of it, but there’s enough there that we can chew on for a while. We ask Your blessings upon each one here. Bless each one. Give them a good week. And we pray that as we live our lives that we will be honoring to you. We know we struggle with the old sinful nature. But Lord, you said in your word, yield yourselves to God, to yield to you.

Because we have desires that are hidden us from both directions and we make choices, we make decisions, help us to be wise and choose the right thing. In Christ and we pray, Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in 10 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 toll-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 broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bible Eye, 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.