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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 You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Turn in your Bible to the Book of Matthew, the Book of Matthew, chapter 12. chapter 12. How many of you have ever heard of the 10 suggestions? Well maybe it wasn’t the 10 suggestions. It was the 10 commandments. Maybe that’s what it was. Anybody here ever heard of the 10 commandments? Let me see your hands. I’m not talking about the movie with Doug Charles and Hessen. I’m not talking about the book. The 10 commandments were given by God two men.

They demanded righteousness, perfection. To break the law was death. So along with the law that he gave him instructions on how to make sacrifices, some innocent little animal had to pay for the sins of what people do. Something had to die in the place. It never took away their sins, it just covered their sins for a while until a payment was to be made.

Now, I want you to know that there is a portion of scripture that causes no small stir. It’s caused a lot of trouble over the years. It’s found right here in the book of Matthew chapter 12. So I want you to look at the scripture and I’ll read it and I want you to kind of follow along with me. In verse 22, there was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb, and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and the dumb, both spake and song, and all the people were amazed.

It says, is not this the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, this fellow, deaf not cast out devils, but by the, by beals above the prince of devils. Jesus knew their thoughts and said unto them every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. And every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How shall then his kingdom stand? And if I, by Beelzebub, cast out devils by whom do your children cast them out, therefore they shall be your judges.

But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods except he first bind the strong man, and then he will spoil his house? He that is not with me is against me. And he that gathereth not with me, scattereth abroad. Therefore, in verse 31, I say unto you, all men are of sin and blaspheme shall be forgiven unto men.

But the blaspheme against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh they were against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whoso speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world neither in the world to come. Pretty strong words. I’ve often had people who will call upon the phone or they’ll read an article by Dr. Hank Lindstrom on the internet, call me up and ask me to explain what Dr.

Hank Lindstrom meant. I’ve had that quite a few times. I told him I said, call Hank. But this is a very interesting portion of scripture. What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Ghost? Because if it’s a sin that cannot be forgiven in this world, nor in the world to come, it must be a pretty serious thing. And I thought when Christ died on the cross, He died and paid for all the sins of the world. So why can’t you get forgiveness for this sin?

So something doesn’t look exactly right. Maybe there’s a hidden meaning in here somewhere. And I have an inquiring mind and I want to know, and there’s a way of knowing what He really meant when He says all of this. Well, I believe there is, and I’m going to try explain it to you. You may not agree with my explanation of this particular passage, but the other parts of what I want to talk to you about is very, very important, and I hope that you heed it.

Number one point that I wanted to bring out was the Ten Commandments were not Ten suggestions. Take your Bible and turn to the Book of Romans in chapter three, Romans and chapter 3. Make sure you look at the Scriptures and follow along with me because you are going to one day be held accountable to God for the Scriptures that we read, what you hear, what you believe. It’s all important. So when you come to the book of Romans in chapter 3, already spent the first two chapters explaining how that all the Gentiles are lost.

And even though he gave them a conscience because of the world in which they can see and make decisions because even a lost man can judge of something being right or wrong. And you You can accuse or excuse what somebody does. It means that you have a conscience of some morality, of a moral law. Whether you knew the law or you didn’t know the pen commandments or the Bible, you have built within you a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong.

Now generally down the road you may educate yourself to be quite smart and intelligent, Or you no longer believe all of those things that you were born with and knew from the beginning. But God says you’re held accountable. We are sinners by nature and we’re sinners by choice. We choose to sin. We choose to be rebellious. We are, in a sense, rebellious toward God. Now here in Romans in chapter 3, if you’ll notice there in verse 10, as it is written, that means end the Old Testament.

There is none righteous, no not one. How do we know that? Because God gave the righteous law and nobody has ever kept it. Nobody has ever fulfilled the law. see the wages of sin is death. If you did not sin, you would not die. Everybody has died, except us in our generation. But all previous, they’re all dead, why? Because they all sinned. So all have sinned and come short of God’s perfection. Then it says here in verse 19, now we know the what thing so ever the law saith, it’s safe to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped all the world may become guilty before God.

So everyone is under the law, everyone is guilty, everyone is condemned. So therefore he says in verse 20, therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified because nobody can keep it. So nobody can earn their righteousness or earn their way to heaven by their good deeds because God says they have no good deeds. Everybody has sinned and comes short of God’s perfection. That’s why in verse 23 all have sinned and comes short of God’s glory, short of God’s perfection, everybody, the whole world.

So we’re all in the same boat. So now nobody can save themselves. Now see, when you mention the law. The first, first four was between the man and God. You know, like the first one, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, body, soul, and strength. So the first four is to buy you and God. Okay, you broke all of those. The last six deals with how you do with other people. Thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, and we did.

We broke all of them. But God says, you can break those laws against me. I can forgive that. broke against yourself and others, God can forgive that. Christ came into the world and died on the cross and paid for all of our sins so that we can get forgiven. But that was the law that condemned us, but there’s something else That’s greater than all the law and something that’s has a worth penalty to it than failing to keep all the law.

And that is not to obey the last law that he gave, the greatest commandment of all. That’s greater than the ten commandments. Even though it talks about God and man, there’s something that’s more important. that because God can forgive you all of that, but there’s something that He will not forgive you of. So what is that? Well, just wait a minute. I’m getting to it. I’m getting to it. I work slow. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Acts in chapter 17.

Acts in chapter 17, the Greeks were known for their full philosophers. A full philosopher is somebody who had a full who has the design on the love of life. What is life all about? And you’ll have some philosophers tell you what life is all about. Now God’s Word tells you what life is all about. It tells us where we came from, tells us what we’re doing, tells us where we’re going. And what He says is the truth. And there’s all kinds of people that don’t believe what God says and they have their own philosophy of what life is about.

And some people believe there is a God and some people believe there is no God. And so whatever you do believe you have a philosophy that governs how you live life based upon what you believe. So you live the way you believe. What is your philosophy of life? What determines why you do what you do? Well here in Athens they had all these gods with something to worship everybody’s belief because they didn’t want to make anybody mad. So worship every god there is.

And then they even had a statue to an unknown god in case they missed somebody. When Paul went there on Mars Hill and he spoke he said, I want to talk to you about this unknown God, the one you don’t know about, the one that made heavens and the earth, the one that made mankind. So he says there in verse 23, for as I pass by and beheld your devotions or your images of worship, is that I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.

Home, therefore ye ignorantly worship Him, declare I unto you. You ignorantly worship. Did you know all the religions in the world is ignorant worship? It’s ignorant worship. And the reason they do it, because they don’t know the truth. If you know the truth, you don’t have to have any little images or any little idols. You don’t have to have none of that. You don’t have to go to mass and have confession and tell the some priest about your problem.

You don’t have to do that. Why? But that’s because people are ignorant of truth, egg-gently worshiping, something they don’t understand. Because when you know the truth, truth sets you free of all the man-made religions there are and the world is full of them. But what is this bad thing? What is this one thing that’s worse than breaking all the laws? Well, if you get down through here, I’ll show you a couple things. But he makes this statement in verse 24, God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelt if not in temples made with hands.

Neither is worshiped with man’s hands as though he needed anything. Seeing He giveth to all life and breath and all things. God’s the one that does the giving. That’s why we don’t try to get people where you give them your heart, your lung, your liver, your life or whatever. No, God wants to give you an eye something. He wants to give us something. He’s the giver of life. And people fail to see. It’s all religions is about people giving something to God.

I’m gonna give him my money. I’m gonna give him my time. I’ll give him my treasure. I’ll give him this. I’ll give him that. I’ll give him my whole life. I’ll sacrifice. I’ll do this to this. No, you don’t get it. That’s religion. It will not save you. It will not help you get your little pinkies one inch closer to the pearly gates. So he says here in verse 26, “…and hath made of one blood all nations of men put a dwell on all the face of the year, and hath determined the time before a pound appointed and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord if happily they may feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.

Talking about finding the true God. Did you know there’s a God in heaven that wants you to know him? But he wants you to know him more than your desire to want to know him. God so loved the world and he’s reached out to us. But people reject him and don’t want him. Won’t listen. He says in verse 28, for in him we live and move and have art be in a certain also of your own poets have said, but we are His offspring.”

That means we’re in His image. Verse 29, for as much then as we are the offspring, the race of man, we are the offspring of God. We ought not to think that the Godhead is like on the gold and silver and stone or graven by art man’s devices. This would eliminate a lot of people’s religion if they only just read the Bible. And verse 30, and the times of this ignorance God winged at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.

You see, he had only his word in the Old Testament, but now we have the evidence that it’s all true. We have arisen Savior. They had the promise of something that was going to take place, but Now he’s here. The resurrection is the evidence. When he makes this statement, commandeth all men everywhere to repent. That means that God has commanded the disciples. They were commanded after the resurrection to go to all the world and preach the gospel. If God has commanded his apostles to preach the gospel, he hath commanded all those who hear the gospel to obey the gospel.

The gospel has to be obeyed. That does not mean works for salvation because you see, he gave all these laws and they failed every one of them. They were disobedient, rebelled, didn’t keep them, failed. So God’s not asking them now to live a certain way because the law didn’t accomplish that goal. He has now commanded his disciples to go to all the world and preach the gospel, the good news of eternal life by faith alone without works. This is something you can do.

You couldn’t do this. you can do this. You see, the command was to preach the gospel. As people heard the gospel, they are commanded to believe the gospel. It’s not like it’s an option. Well, if I don’t do it, no big deal. Now, there’s consequences, grave consequences to a person who does not believe the truth about what Christ did on the cross force. He came into the world to die to pay for our sins because we could not keep the law.

We failed and keep them off. We don’t live the way we should. So God’s not asking us to do that to be saved or to be righteous or to be justified. He’s given to us a message that if we hear it and simply believe it, we can be be justified by faith, for which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. The law could not save you, could not declare you righteous. It was a curse because no man could keep it.

So God has commanded every man to repent. Change your mind. You cannot earn your salvation. Change your mind. And simply believe. It’s by grace. It’s not by your works. So to believe is a command from God. We’re commanded to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you disobeyed that command, I believe there’s bad news for you. There is no forgiveness for rejecting Jesus Christ as your Savior. If you reject Jesus Christ as your Savior, you will not have forgiveness for all eternity.

It can never happen. You’ve only got a few choice moments in life. The other day I mentioned this last weekend, but I was talking to this girl in a parking lot. I says, ma’am, I says, I want to ask you a question. I says, the odds are you don’t know the answer. The odds are you have never heard the truth about how to go to heaven. I says, where are you going to go need to ask? She says, not sure.

Because she hemmed in the heart a little bit. She wouldn’t just come right out and say she didn’t know. I said, how old are you? She said, I’m 24 years old. I says, 24 years old. I says, do you realize, for 24 years that you’ve lived your life, nobody has ever told you the truth about how to go to heaven? Because if you have heard the truth, it makes so much sense. It’s few people that will ever reject it when they really understand it.

What people have rejected is not the truth of the gospel. It’s the lies told about the gospel, things that people add to it. I said, I lived 71 years and I’ve only had one person ever tell me the truth about how to go to heaven. One person in 71 years, you realize the odds against me ever hearing the truth of the gospel, how slim it was. If that one man had missed me at that one time in my life, I’ve never had anybody ever tell me about the truth of the gospel.

You know, these things are not important until you get ready to die. Then it’s very important. We got a call this week from my daughter. And she mentioned some kid’s name. And I almost had forgot about it, but after thinking about it, I remember that when I When I was running ranch, I had my granddaughter and my grandson, they would come to ranch. And they had a friend that theirs, this young boy, he was like brilliant, he was smart.

He was almost so smart he didn’t have any common sense, but he was just smart. And anyway, he had to have somebody give him a ride home that night. And I usually have a lot of things to do and I don’t want to obligate myself because and it keeps me from doing something else. But I said, I’ll take him home. And so when I had taken him home in the car, Betty was with me and we went by his house, big, beautiful home.

And so he’s like a little rich kid, a smart kid. But I talked to him, and I believe he trusted Christ the Savior because he wanted me to find the time when it might come back and talk to his dad. He was concerned about his dad. But anyway, after that, I stopped running the ranch. Somebody else did it. And I never remember seeing the kid again. This week, he called up my grandson. And he says he’s going to do a little hunting, because it’s hunting season almost.

And he just wanted to go out and do some checking some stuff. So he takes some gun with him. And he talked to my grandson and he left, and they didn’t see him for two days. And finally they found his body. Somebody had shot him and took the gun that he had taken, and also a laptop or something. So my granddaughter and my grandson were really torn up because they knew this boy. They knew him well. I mean, it’s never hit so close to home before.

Is none of it ever hits home till it hits home when it’s close to you, when you really think about it. Where are they going to spend eternity? And it was a little comfort to both my grandkids when I shared with them that too Betty, that I had talked to them about the Lord. So sometimes people don’t think that’s that important. Did you realize how important it really is? And the odds are against somebody ever hearing the truth of the gospel.

You that know it, you’re talking to people every day, the odds are against them ever hearing the gospel in their whole life. The truth. I’m not talking about their religious. They go to church, but they don’t know where they go in when they die, then they don’t get it. This is why it’s so important. He made this statement in verse 31, because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, where of he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead.

Our assurance is because Jesus came back from the dead. That means the payment he made is paid for. It was accepted. It means that Jesus was who he claimed to be and did what he said he would do. And God is taking it very seriously. about the responsibility that He’s given to us that preaches the gospel. And if we preach the gospel, it is a command by every individual to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn in your Bible to the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 53.

And notice this is a portion of scripture this written about 700 years before Jesus Christ came. And he says as he writes this report, who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? The arm of the Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s been revealed and who’s going to believe it? For he shall grow before him as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground. He’ll be despised and rejected of men.

And yet it says that he was wounded for our transgressions. Yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God. And all we like sheep have gone astray. Yet he hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. All we like sheep, I’ve gone astray. Everybody has failed to keep the law. We have all sinned. We’re all condemned. We’re under the curse. And so Jesus Christ did something about it. And you can break all of those laws and God will forgive you.

You can even curse God. And God will forgive you. You can curse the Son. I hear people cursing Jesus Christ all the time, using His name in a curse word. God can forgive Him of that. But you see, the sin of unbelief. God won’t forgive. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tappa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast.

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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.