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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. and 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.

I wanna give you a brief resume from beginning to end of salvation, purpose of life all the way to the end. And we’re going to do it with one book. I just want to show you some things in this book, but turn in your Bible to the book of Romans in chapter 1. Romans chapter 1, believe it or not Romans is laid out in such a way that helps you to understand all you need to know about salvation and the Christian life and predestination and you name it, it’s got it all in there.

But in Romans in chapter 1, I want you to look in verse 16. He says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And there’s a reason why he’s not ashamed. The first several chapters up to chapter three also reveals how everybody is lost. Everybody is a sinner. Doesn’t matter if you’re Jew or a Gentile, everybody is lost.

And the reason he’s not ashamed is because the good news of the gospel is for everybody. You know if it was for everybody but one, I’d be ashamed of that. I would be ashamed that God didn’t do for that one what he did for everybody else. Now see, I’m not a Calvinist, as you can easily tell. I don’t believe that God just has a select few that he wants to go to heaven and the rest of you, you haven’t got a ghost of a chance because I didn’t choose to save you.

I didn’t give you the faith to believe. But the Bible says that I am not ashamed of the gospel. It’s the power of God unto salvation to every one that I believe it. So all they have to know is what do they have to believe? So that’s why he says, going to all the world, preach to gospel to every creature because God so loved the whole world. Verse 17 he tells him that this gospel message reveals some things. For therein in the gospel is the righteousness of God is revealed.

And then down in verse 18 it says the wrath of God is revealed. So that’s why when we give the gospel story there can’t be good news if there is no bad news. The bad news is that you’re lost. The good news is that you can be saved. So simple. God is not complicated. He is not the author of confusion. He lets us know in his word that God loves everybody and God wants everyone to be saved. So he spent some time going through in chapter 1, chapter 2, whether you’re Jew, whether you’re Gentile and proven that everybody’s in the same boat.

There is none righteous No, not one. So look there in Romans in chapter three. In verse four, it makes the statement, God forbid, Yea let God be true, but almost every man a liar. Every man is a liar. Except me. What was that? And I was a liar. God says we are all liars. So, Jew, Genta, and the reason we’re not ashamed of the gospel because it’s good news for everybody. So then he goes down through here and he says there in verse 9, what then are we better than they?

No and no wise. For we have before proved proved Both Jew and Gentile. So you see the first couple chapters is to prove the point. Everybody has sinned against God. So the conclusion of the whole matter is that nobody can save themselves. Everybody is lost. The whole world is condemned. And so he says here in verse 10, as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There’s none that understands it. There is none that seeketh after God.

they are all gone out of the way. They’re together becoming profitable. There’s none that doeth good, no not one. So God can’t choose to save some and not the others. Without making salvation, free to all. The grace of God demands that God must love all or love none. God must be able to forgive all or forgive no one. God must be able to save all or save nobody. Because you see, there’s nothing worthy in any man. So God is not a respecter of person that’s mentioned in chapter two several times.

So we come to the conclusion, they are all guilty before God. I look in verse 19, and verse 19 says, now we know that what things, so ever the law sayeth, it’s safe to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped then all the world may become guilty before God. So he has proven that man, Jew, Gentile, everybody is a sinner. The whole world is guilty. No man can save himself. Therefore you come to the conclusion in verse 23, all have what?

Send and come short of God’s glory, short of God’s perfection. So nobody can save themselves. So he comes to the conclusion there in verse 24, look in verse 24 of Romans chapter 3, where he makes a statement being justified freely by his grace. We have redemption through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ went to the cross, made a payment for the sins of the whole world. So that anybody in the world could be saved. That’s why Paul says, I’m not ashamed of the gospel because it meets the needs of every individual, not just a few chosen few.

It’s for everyone. Now in verse 28, it makes a statement, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. So we’ve proven that no man can save himself. And so if he saves anybody, all people have to be saved the same way. It would have to be by grace because no one can earn it. That means from the beginning to the end of time, no man by his work could ever save himself.

So a man needs to be saved by grace. Therefore no man could be saved by grace if Christ had not gone to the cross and paid the price, the sin debt, for every individual so that we could have eternal life. So he so he says it is without the deeds of the law. So we know that what he did for proving that everybody is a sinner and nobody is righteous, nobody is just and that we’re all liars and we’re guilty, but then he tells us that he can be saved.

Everybody can be saved by grace. That means unmerited favor. nobody would have to merit salvation. Nobody would have to deserve to be saved. Nobody could add any works to this message because nobody has any good works. So God can’t require any works. Isn’t it simple? Can you follow me when I’m saying, as Freddy Colle would say, isn’t this good? That’s good. Now, in chapter four, he makes the statement, This righteousness of God that had been manifested can be given to whosoever, believeth.

Look down in verse 22. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. What was put to his account? Righteousness. God will give to anybody his righteousness. Why? Because no man has any righteousness. There is none righteous, not one. So God says, God will give to every man, his righteousness, and look at the reason. In verse 23, now it was not written for his sake along talking about Abraham, that it was imputed to him, put to his account, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we what?

If we believe. So the only thing any man has to do is believe. This is why Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel. Because nobody, George Gentile, anywhere in the world can earn salvation. Nobody deserves to be saved. And so God says it would all be by grace freely by His grace through the payment that Christ made so that anyone can have eternal life. Now that’s what makes the gospel good news, is that nobody can save themselves, but God can save anybody.

There’s nobody too bad, but there’s nobody so good they can save themselves Everybody needs to save you so in verse 24 Where it says if we believe we can be justified just as though we had never done anything wrong We’re all sinners. We’re all guilty. We’ve all gone our own way Nobody deserves to be saved But God says by grace You can be justified just as if you’d never send Now that’s good news. So in the book of Romans in chapter 5 and verse 1 he says, therefore being justified by faith, look what he says, we have peace with God.

See before everybody was against God. We were enemies of God. That’s what he makes the statement down here in verse 10 in chapter 5, for if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God. Not because we are the one that made peace but because God sent his Son as a payment for our sins and therefore making peace with us. That was paid for and therefore we can be declared righteous. Then this is what God’s done for us. So look there in verse 8.

This is how you know God really loves you because you didn’t deserve anything. I didn’t deserve anything. But God commanded His love toward us in that while we were saints? No. While we were yet sinners and couldn’t save ourselves, lost, condemned, guilty, all that, nobody. God displayed. As He says in the book of Titus in chapter 3, God displayed, manifested His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Isn’t that good? That’s Christ paying for my sins.

If He paid for my sins, it means I don’t have to pay for them. It means I don’t have to go to hell and pay for one of my sins. Now that is grace. Now as you go through here, it teaches you a lot of things, but they all keep expanding upon these simple principles that I’m mentioning. So you get to chapter five and it talks about several things that we mentioned not long ago. If you’ll look down there in verse 15 of chapter 5, but not as the offense, so also the free gift, the free gift and the gift by grace in verse 16.

And not as it was by one that sent, so is the gift. You see, it is not because you earned it or deserved it or worked for it. It was because it is the gift of God. You see, when he says, I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. All of this is information that explains He’s what the gospel is. If we only stop and everybody’s a center, that’s not good news. It is good news that when we believe on Christ, we get a free gift of everlasting life.

He gives us the gift of righteousness and we get to go to heaven when we die. Now that’s good news. And then as you go through here, now that I believe I have eternal life, God begins now to opening up the door of what does He want me to do? I’m His child. I’m going to heaven when I die. So God now wants me to serve Him, to live for Him. So in Romans in chapter six, look what he says there in verse 11.

Verse 11 says, likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed under sin. It means because Christ died, paid for your sins, his death is put to your account as though you died and you paid for your sins. But you really didn’t do it, you were just crucified with Christ. And what he did was put to your account as though you did. So he says, live like it’s true, because in God’s eyes, it is, it is the truth. And he says this, and in the last part of verse 11, but alive under God through Jesus Christ our Lord, then looking verse 12, let not sin that old sinful nature therefore reign in your mortal body.

You and I still live in a mortal body, I used to tell the kids this, when you wake up in the morning, you look in the mirror and you’re ugly. Then you trust Christ as your Savior. Go back and look in the mirror. You still are. You know what I was thinking the other day? When God made Adam a Neve, did you know if they had not sinned, they could have lived forever? What if you had been born ugly and you would be ugly for eternity?

Wouldn’t that be terrible? But if Eve was so beautiful, where did the ugly ones come from? I’ve often wondered about that. Who said somebody said something? Oh, I had them. We ought to have an all-men’s church. Just joking, just joking, just joking. Shouldn’t have gone there. Shouldn’t have gone there. there. But now that you have trusted Christ as Savior, you still live in a mortal body. So now you have to try to figure out how do I serve the Lord in this old physical body that still has my old sinful nature and accomplish and live by a miracle.

So he says, down here in verse 16, he says, no, you not that to whom you yield yourself servant so obey his servants you are to whom you obey, whether sin and the death are of obedience under righteousness. You see, when you were lost, you could only serve sin and the death. But now that you’re saved, you can bring forth righteousness. See, he spent the first three chapters telling them, you can’t do anything good. You’re not righteous. You can’t produce righteousness.

Well, now he’s telling us we can. And the reason is because you have a new birth. A new birth that God gave to you. And then when he gives to you the gift of righteousness, The gift of righteousness is part of the gospel that when we witness to somebody, we can give to them the gift of righteousness and we give to them the gift of eternal life because God gave us that. That’s the fruit of the believer. Something that comes from us, his children, to other people that can receive the gift.

And once they receive the gift, they can give the gift. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. I’ve heard that some plate, but I don’t know when I heard it. The gift that keeps on giving. Where did I hear that from? It has to come from the Bible because that’s the proof in the book. So this is why the fruit of our Christian life is of the believer. So that’s why you see there in verse 23, look in verse 23.

The wages of sin is death. That’s from the first birth. You earn the right to die because we’ve all sinned. You trust in Christ as your Savior, the fruit that comes from that, the gift of eternal life, this is to the Christian about the fruit that comes from the believer. For example, Peter over here, that’s Adam. Adam has a kid because he’s a sinner, the kids are sinner because he’s a sinner, he’ll die. So everyone who came from Peter over here, they all die.

That’s what he says about Adam and the Bible. When Jesus Christ has a child, he gets eternal life. That child gets eternal life. So life reigns forever. It lives forever. The fruit. So that’s why you see that in chapter 5 and verse 21 and in chapter 6 and verse 23. So you have this gift that keeps on giving. That’s why you cannot keep the faith without giving it away. Let me repeat that. You cannot keep the faith without giving it away.

So the Bible tells us to keep the faith. Well, to keep the faith, we have to keep giving it away. We have to keep, see, that’s why I’m not ashamed of the gospel. Look at the message God’s given to us, and it’s for everybody, but not everybody. Here’s the message, understands the gospel, but it is so important. Chapter seven lets us know, yes, if you wanna serve a Lord, there is gonna be a conflict in your life. When you want to yield yourself to the new birth and the will of God, there’s gonna be struggles in your Christian life.

So that’s why he makes the statement, look in verse 18 or chapter seven. When he makes the statements, he says, I know that in me that is in my flesh, go left no good thing, but how to perform, the will is present, in other words, I want to do right, the desire is there, but how to perform, how to perform? He says, I find not. And so it goes on through here and says, every time I want to do something right, the evil is present with me.

And so there’s a battle that goes on in your Christian life. But you see, God has proven that no man can save himself. And then he spends time in letting you know that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, made a payment on the cross in everyone who believes God will give you his righteousness so that now because you have been made righteous, you now can live a righteous life, a godly life, a holy life, but it’s not going to be the easiest thing in the world.

There’s a struggle, a battle that goes on. And he says, if you will serve me, him will my Father honor. So because of the struggle, some people just give up and think it’s not worth it. It will be worth it all. Now, so when you get to chapter eight, see how fast we’re moving through the whole book of Romans, chapter eight is the first chapter that talks about the Holy Spirit. Because to have victory in your life to do this impossibility, you’ll need some impossible strength, super strength.

That’s why the Bible says God gives to you and me the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, that power that raised up Jesus from the dead, from the dead now dwells within us. And this is what he says. Well look down there in verse nine of chapter eight. He said, but you’re not in the flesh, but in the spirit. That is those who have trusted Christ as Savior, God sees you as his spiritual child. Before you trusted Lord, he saw you as a child of the flesh, a lost man.

Now he sees you as a saved man. And all the saved people have the Holy Spirit living within them. and he says they’re in verse nine, but you’re not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is not of his. So the very moment you believed on Christ, having believed you were sealed with that Holy spirit of promise. So he says here in verse 10, and if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.

So what does that mean? Oh, let me just kind of give you a, maybe a little rough illustration. Christ is on the cross. All right, why is he on the cross? Well, he’s gonna die for me. Now, forget the world, he’s just gonna die for me. It’s just me and him. I am a sinner. He would have come into this world just for me. If I was the only person, I believe he would have come just for me. And he died on the cross just for me.

Well, when he died, his death on the cross and his burial and resurrection was all put to my kind as though I did it. He came back from the dead. I came back from the dead. So in God’s eyes, because I was in His Son, what His Son did was for me. So God sees me as someone who has died and paid for all of my sins. I have come back from the dead. Now because I come back from the dead, I’m the living, newness of life.

So I’m supposed to live as though this body with its sinful nature was crucified. It died when Christ died on that cross for me. But when I believed it and he put it to my account. Now the Holy Spirit living inside of my body, I’m supposed to reckon that my body died and when my body died, it got rid of my old sinful nature because it’s in my body. It’s in my members. That’s why he says, no you not that to whom you yield yourself servants to obey.

His servants you are to whom you obey whether sin and the death or obedience on the righteousness. This body is the instrument that God uses. I live inside of this body. But my body died. Now I look at it from a totally different perspective. Here he says in verse 11, But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, well in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead. So also, now get to quicken your not immortal body, quicken your mortal body.

And I don’t believe it’s just at the rapture of the church when my body will put on immortality, that’s when it puts on immortality. But he will make my body alive and I am to live in this body, yes of flesh, but live as though my old flesh, my old flesh nature, the sinful nature wasn’t resurrected. Therefore I can live a Christian life and were not to yield to the flesh. The old sinful nature is just as mean and ugly and powerful and real as it’s always been.

But you and I are supposed to live as though it no longer has any hold on me. I don’t have to fulfill the desires of the flesh. You still have them. But live as though there’s nothing more for you than the will of God for your life. So some interesting things you can go through there and you can read and study it. But in this life as we serve the Lord. wants to lead and to guide us. So you look up there in verse 14, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God, or the growing, maturing sons of God.

So you are a cell of God. You will either be led by the Lord or driven by the devil, or driven by the desires of the flesh. You know, to seek your own will, your own way. So there’s always this battle that goes on in your life. God gave to you and I the Holy Spirit to help us have the strength and the grace that we need to live for Him. And even though you have the desires of the flesh, the love of the Lord has got to be stronger than the strength of the desires of the old nature.

Otherwise you’ll never have victory in your Christian life. Now look what else he said, Because we are God’s children, because we still live in this world, and because we still live in a mortal body, God says this in verse 17, and if children, and we are, then heirs, heirs of God, join heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified together. Now as a child of God, I inherit what my Father has for me.

But there’s other things that the Bible says join heirs with Christ, and there is what we do in serving the Lord. So if I will serve the Lord and what the sun has, the sun can also share with me. We are to serve the Lord with all our hearts. But in serving the Lord in this life, you and I are going to suffer. So that’s why he says there in verse 18, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time, present time, while we’re still here in the mortal body, we’re gonna hurt.

We’re gonna suffer. We are gonna be shamed and defrauded and all kind of wrong things. But you and I know it doesn’t matter what anybody does to us. It doesn’t matter what anybody says. We know that when we get to heaven, God’s going to reward us for whatever we went through. And nobody, nobody can rob you of that. Well, that’s your approval. That’s why you serve the Lord and you put Him first and God has to bless you. He don’t have a choice.

He’s bound by His word. And when you get to heaven, it will be worth it all. Believe Him, serve Him. Now, as you go down through here, there’s some things that God mentions about. Yes, because he loves us. His love is shown to us in many different ways. And I want you to see this. Look there in verse 37. When the Lord makes this statement, they and all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

He loved us. Well, what did he do to prove that he loved us? Because this is the motive that God wants to use to motivate us. We love him because he first loved us. Okay, now how do I know he loved me? Well, in chapter five and verse eight, it tells us that he has manifested his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died. That was to show you God does love you. Okay, now what did he do beyond that?

Because if God is for me, who can be against me? What has God given to me because he has loved me? He saved me. All right, that is my salvation. But now look there in verse 28. He said, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Now not everybody loves God. You are not saved because you love God. You were saved because God loves you. So can you go to heaven and not love God?

Yes. I’m going to heaven because he loved me and died for me, paid for my sins. That’s the proof that he really loves me because I don’t have to love him back. I didn’t have to serve him to get it, I don’t have to serve him to keep it. Otherwise, grace would not be grace. Pastor Yankee here, let me ask you a question. Did you appreciate today’s message? I know, I don’t often have the chance to ask you that question.

But dear friend, the answer to that question is very important. The answer to that question, what kind of impact is this program having on you, is why we bring this program to you every day here on this radio station. We do not hear from many listeners, but today I’m talking to you. If Iberlein has made an impact on your life, would you let me know? Recently the overall response, your letters and emails, as well as your financial support, has been down and we really could use your help today.

If this ministry has been a blessing to you, would you please consider helping us? We greatly appreciate your prayers and financial gifts, especially during this time of year. Contact information is coming up in just a minute, but please consider supporting Bibleline today with your prayers and financial support. Thank you. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. You can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll free, 1-800-576-3771.

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