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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 message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Look there at your notes. I know y’all know all the answers, but I’ve got to go through the motions anyway. They’re just liable to be somebody watching by internet. They don’t have the opportunity to attend Calvary Community Church like you do. And so hopefully some of these things will kind of help you with having an answer to some of the questions. Now some of them seem like a little trick question, but some are not as easy as they look.

And some could go either the way I understand that. So don’t fret. Don’t worry about it. I mean, nobody’s going to care if you get a few things wrong because all you got to do is correct it. See there? How easy that was? Look at number 62, top of the page, you must make Christ’s Lord of your life to be saved. Now don’t talk out, you raise your hand. How many of you know the answered of that question. How many of you are not sure?

Tom, you’re not sure. Listen to the question again, Tom. You must make Christ’s Lord of your life to be saved. Do you have to? That’s correct. He was raising his hand to answer the question. Very good. You had me worried here for a minute, Tom. Yeah, I was really worried here for a minute. But you do not have to make Christ the Lord and the master of your life to be saved. There are a lot of people that believe that Christ is the Savior, Christ is the Lord, and you cannot separate the two.

And so when you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, and that is also you accept in His rule over your life, and you cannot have one without the other. Well, I beg the differ. I believe you can trust Christ as your Savior, and I believe that there’s Christians who haven’t still made Christ the Lord and the Master of their life. They should, but they don’t all do it. So what you should do and what you have to do is not always the same thing.

We all should serve God, but you may not serve God. And if you’re not serving God, that means he’s not ruling your life. not directing you. Means you’re not following him as you should. But does that mean you’re not saved? No, that means you’re saved. It means you’re a disobedient child of God and God’s going to chase in you. See, if we automatically serve the Lord, then there would be no reason for God ever to have to chase in His children because they wouldn’t be disobedient.

But does God ever chasing his children? Yeah. Was David having Christ the Lord and the Master of his life when he was committing adultery and had a man? No. The Lord was not at that moment in his life was not the Master of his life and Christ was not Lord over his life. Now he’s the Lord, that’s who he is and so keep those things It’s clear, salvation, service, always keep them separate. Number 63, give the verse that shows grace and works cannot be both necessary for salvation.

If you’re saved by grace, it cannot be by works. But if you’re saved by works, it cannot be by grace. They cannot be the same thing. So which one of these verses show you that grace and works cannot be necessary, both necessary for salvation? Which one would you use? Raise your hand if you know the answer. our Dara. Which one? A, you know how to quote Romans 11, 6. And you quote Romans 11, 6. And if by grace there is no more works otherwise.

Grace is no more grace otherwise if it’s by works it cannot be by grace otherwise work is no more works. It’s either one way or the other it cannot be both ways. So that is a great verse to use you ought to mark that verse in your Bible. Remember, some of this is so that you have answers to questions that people ask. And I guarantee you, if you talk to people, they will ask some of these questions. And you will need to know not only the answer, but where it’s found in the Bible.

There is power in God’s Word to show them the verses themselves. Look at 64, which verse tells us how to know God’s perfect will, that you can know God’s perfect will. Do you believe God has a perfect will for your life? Something that He wants you to do with your life. How would you find it? Which one of these verses do you believe has the answer? Anybody got it all nailed down? Anybody got You got it nailed down there?

Romans chapter 12 and verse 1. So you go in your Bible and you write down that verse and underline it and then you know that there is a verse in there when he says, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. And then verse 2, be not conformed to this world. But be it transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or discover what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

So you can know the perfect will of God for your life, but you have to renew your mind. You can’t go into life with the mind that you already have. See, this is what happens to a lot of people. They trust Christ Savior, they have the free gift of eternal life, but they never get a new mind. So they go ahead and live their Christian life according to their own wisdom, according to what they think is right, but they never check with God.

And so they’re using the old man mind instead of getting a new mind, letting God teach you God’s Word, and you’d be surprised the difference He said…?, it’ll make Shanahan. So number 65, now you got to be careful a little bit here. A Christian needs to do good works to show God he has faith. Yes sir. That’s false. But do you believe that if God’s going to reward you when you get to heaven, God also doesn’t want to just see your faith.

He wants to see what? Your work. See God’s not going to reward you just because you had faith that If you did it, you could have got it. If I witnessed I can win people the Lord. God said I’m going to reward you for your faith. No, every man shall receive his own reward, according to his faith, his labor. So you see, God can see your faith, man can’t. So you have to, and the next one is, you have to show your neighbor, your friends, other believers, your faith by your works.

So God does want His children to produce good works. But that’s not to be saved. It’s not even to prove you’re saved. It’s just that that’s what people see is how you live. For example, if I told you I love the Lord, but whether or not what I said is true or not is going to be revealed by how I live my life. So you will judge whether I’m telling the truth or I’m lying based upon my life, the things I say and I do, my actions, because man sees your works.

Therefore, we are to show people our faith by our works. That’s why he says, show me your faith without works and I’ll show you my faith by my works in James chapter 2. Very important. Number 67, Abraham was justified by God long before he offered a bi-ze. What do you think? What do you think? Is that true, Larry? That’s true. And where does it say that? Where does it say that? Anybody have a clue where that might be said?

Now, if you want to look in your Bible, it’s perfectly all right. That’s why it’s a Bible study. You can open up your Bible and look at the verse you think it is and see if that’s really the one or not. And then you underline that verse if it’s the right one that answers this particular question. But remember this in number 69 which verse tells us how Abraham was saved. Which verses, I mean, 67. Abraham was justified by faith long before he offered up Isaac.

That is true. And this was about 15, 13 to 15 years before Isaac was offered up as a sacrifice. So you’ll notice they’re now in number 68. This is a little tricky. You may have a little question with it. Your testimony is not quite as important as your presentation of the gospel. Remember, God is going to honor His Word even if an atheist gives it out. His Word will not return void. So you can be living the most sinful wickedness of life, but you can still explain the gospel to somebody and people trust Christ if they’re Savior.

But isn’t it better if you serve a Lord and have a good clean testimony? You see, they may not know about your testimony, but if they know about your testimony, they may not want to hear what you have to say. So your testimony is very, very important, but you can live a good testimony and not give the gospel, and you can give the gospel and not live a good testimony. So which one would you rather hear? I would rather hear the gospel than to see a good life, because I can see a good life and still not know how to go to heaven.

So I would rather a person have both live a good life, have a good testimony so that when you give the gospel, there’s nothing in your life they would use to discredit the message. God uses the man the message, and we have to have a good motive and the means to do so, the method. How do we do what we do and why do we do what we do and what is the message that we have and what is the man like?

So God uses the man and the man should be right with the Lord. uses his message. You see, there’s responsibility. God gave us the message that will work and put it into an earthen vessel, you and I. And God says that he wants us to do it because we love him, so there’s your motive. And you have to have a way to get it done, and so we often use the Wall of Illustration or the John 3 16 illustration.

But whatever it is, ought to be a way to get the thing done. The method. What is the method that you use to end souls? You’ll always have somebody tell you that the way you do it isn’t good. So a good question to ask is, how do you do it? Well, and most of them don’t have a way to do it. They just always put down somebody else’s way of doing it or that you’re doing it. You’re doing it in the energy of the flesh.

Okay? How are you doing in the energy of the spirit. So God can honor his word, always know that and believe that. Number 69, what verse tells us how Abraham was saved. Which one of these verses tells us how Abraham was saved? Is there a Jew in the house? All right Jonah. Genesis chapter 15 and verse 6. Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” Now believe it or not, that verse is also found referred to in the New Testament, the book of Galatians chapter 3 verse what?

8, very good. So as the Scripture says, Abraham believed God and it was kind of him for righteousness, that God had made a promise and God preached before the gospel and the Abraham sin in these shall all families of the earth be blessed. So God preached the gospel to Abraham. I guess you could say he was the first one to preach the gospel. I don’t know, but he preached the gospel to Abraham and Abraham, hurt, sought, understood, believed and that message is just like whenever the Apostle Paul says, the gospel that I preached, I did not receive it from man by man through man, I got it straight from the revelation of Jesus Christ himself.

And that’s what Abraham could say, Hey, I got this straight, straight from the Lord. The Lord told me this. The Lord preached the gospel in the Old Testament and the Lord preached the gospel in the New Testament. I bet you it was the same gospel. Wouldn’t it have to be? If he says you can’t be saved in the Old by the law, by your works, because remember, the law had not yet been given. And Abraham was saved for the law was ever given.

Sorry Abraham couldn’t have been saved by the law. The law was only given to show why we need to be saved by grace. So it’s good. Good to know. Look at the next statement. Number 70. Which verse tells us that those who do nothing but believe or say, well there’s no verse in the Bible that says that right? Is there a verse in the Bible that says that believing? is not a work. Is that what we’re talking about? What is it?

Romans 4-5. Anybody can quote that verse? Go ahead and fight over it. I want you to fight. Then we’ll talk about the love of God. All right, Herman, his faith is kind of for righteousness. That’s a good verse. You ought to have that verse marked in your Bible. That will help you to answer a lot of questions when you talk to people. Listen, the reason some people don’t talk to people because they’re afraid somebody’s going to ask him a question, they don’t have the answer for it.

And that’s why if you prepare yourself, did you know that God will send more people to you? If you will be faithful to give the God, God will send more people to you. Do it. Now, can I go to 71? 71. Here we go. In the original language of the New Testament Greek, the word baptized means well or cleansed. Is that true or false? Nobody knows. That is true. That is true. And that’s why whenever you see the word baptize, it does not always mean in water.

There’s different kinds of baptism. There’s a baptism of fire. You can have it if you want. I don’t recommend it, but you’ll hear some people talk about you got to get the baptism of power. Yeah. You talk about a feeling you’re going to get one. That’s in hell. When you read Matthew chapter three where it talks about John the Baptist preaching that sermon and he told those religious hypocrites, he says, the root of the axis laid to the root of the tree God’s going to cut down every tree that doesn’t bring forth good fruit and not one tree of a brain fourth good fruit because you see Matthew 7, you have a good tree can’t bring forth a bad fruit and a bad tree can’t bring forth a good fruit, impossible.

Two different trees referring to two different births. And that’s why everyone born into the world is going to be cut down and then he talks about the baptism of the Holy Ghost and the baptism of fire. Now the Holy Ghost, I can live without one. That takes place the moment you trust the Lord. Baptism of fire, not good, not good. And if they believe the preaching of John the Baptist, concerning Jesus Christ coming, because it says they had to believe on Jesus Christ, whom he preached, this is in the book of Acts in chapter 19, where Paul says he did preach the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people to believe on him who was to come on Jesus Christ.

And so John the Baptist told them to believe on Christ and that he, he cried, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. He said, I baptize you with water. So they were baptized in water if they believed the message that he preached and if they believed the message that he preached, they were baptized in water. And that was a picture of the Holy Spirit baptism they were going to receive. But you and I were on this side of the cross.

We’re now baptized in water, not to be saved, but because we have been baptized by the Holy Spirit into Christ and to his body when we trust the Christ as our Savior. So that’s why that is so important. So whenever you read the book of Acts in chapter 2 verse 38, you can also just put the word cleanse in there if you believe in cleansed. Look at number 72, water baptism is necessary for salvation. That’s true, right? That’s True.

You got don’t you have to be water baptized? Don’t you have to be baptized in water and wash all your sins away? Remember water will not wash the dirt off your neck if you don’t use soap with it. It’s a sense it’s not going to wash away your sins. Is it God’s will for His people to be baptized in water? Yes, so there, see there, you’ve got to be baptized. Take your Bible and look at this verse with me.

First Corinthians in chapter 1. First Corinthians chapter 1. First Corinthians in chapter 1. There were some people that were being divisive in the church. And so Paul referred to several names as an illustration because he explains that in chapter 4, that this is what he did. But in writing 2, he said, them so that some people don’t say, well, I am a apostle Paul and I am a Peter, I am of this guy, that guy, and so forth. He says, that’s not to be.

He said, we’re all just servants of the Lord. And every man God has got different talents and abilities, but God uses all of them. We’re not the product of just one person mainly. We have a lot of people that come into our lives and teach. So, look here in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and you’ll see there in verse 13, He said, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? He said, I thank God that I baptized none of you.

Now, if you have to be baptized in water to be saved, that would be a terrible thing for him. I’m so glad I didn’t save none of y’all. Whoever, if you have to be water baptized to be saved then whoever baptizes you in water is your savior. If you have to be water baptized, then whoever baptizes you is your savior. but you don’t have to be water baptized. So nobody is my savior, except the one who baptizes me with the Holy Spirit.

And it happened to be Christ. Christ is my savior. Now look what he says. He says in verse 14, “‘I thank God that I baptized none of you “‘but Christmas is gay as well.’ “‘Lest any should say that I had baptized my own name.’ “‘He’s not putting down baptism. “‘He just don’t want people to trust in their baptism “‘or think that their baptism is more important “‘because of who baptized them.’ That becomes divisive. So for the sake of the gospel, he would preach the gospel when people to the Lord and let somebody else baptize them.

And then he makes a statement in verse 16, and I baptized also the household of Staphonos. Besides, I know not whether I baptized in the other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, to preach the gospel. So being water baptized and the gospel are not the same thing. If you have to be water baptized, to be saved, well then you can’t be saved without water baptism. So if you’re going to preach the gospel, you have to preach water baptism at the same time in order for the water baptism to save you.

But it’s not. You can do one without the other. So a person can be saved and not be water baptized. So he says here in verse 17, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none of that. I don’t want people trusting in water baptism as though that’s what’s saving them. And so the preaching of the gospel is what God wants us to do, when people to Christ. After people have trusted Christ and say, there’s nothing wrong with trying to get people baptized as soon as possible, but don’t make it a part of the gospel.

As though this is what you have to do in order to be saved because that is not true. Look at the next statement. Some type, number 73, some type of baptism is necessary for salvation. Is that true or false? That is true. Okay, now the question comes down, which one, which baptism is necessary for salvation? Anybody got a clue? Yes, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So once you trust Christ as your Savior, you are baptized, placed into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit.

You didn’t earn it, you didn’t work for it, and you don’t have to make it happen. All you do is trust the Lord. It’s an automatic. It’s automatic. You know, it’s like bill pay. You just hit that little button. It’s automatic. It pays bill. And the money comes out of somebody else’s account. Isn’t that wonderful? Don’t you wish? My kids used to think, hey, my my dad, they got money because they’ve got checks left. Oh, you got to do it.

Just write a check. Just write a check. As long as you got checked, you can just get all the money you want. They didn’t know there had to be money in the account to write this check. But look at number 74, number 74 real quick. In the seven chapter of John the kind of water Christ is talking about is living water, a type of the holy spirit is that true or false? That is true. Remember there in chapter seven of the book of John?

And he makes his statement on that great day of the face, Jesus stood in Christ and if any man thirst led him coming to me in drink, and as the scripture have set out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, this spake he of the spirit which they that believe on him should receive. But so far he had not yet been crucified and glorified. So therefore the Holy Spirit had not yet been given, but it was coming for everyone that believed would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

That is a problem. Number 75, which verse says, then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Which one of these verses says that? And you’ll be surprised. You’ll talk to some people and they’ll quote part of this verse to you and you say, well, where’s that found? Well, that’s in there somewhere. And if you tell them where their verses are found, that makes them feel a little uncomfortable that you know where the verse and they don’t.

And I’ve had people say, well, yeah, but don’t you know about James? I say, you mean chapter 2 in verse 14? Right away, so you kind of puts him on the defense. But here you’re talking about Acts chapter 2 and verse 38. Remember that sermon I preached and I used an illustration about the woman, this guy come breaking into her house and then next thing you know, she came home and she caught the man stealing some stuff and she got up behind him and she’d just come home from prayer meeting.

And she looks at him and his back is turning, she says, Acts 238. And he just froze. And she got on the phone, called the police, the man never moved, called the police, the police came there and says, why did this little old woman keep you cornered in like that? He said, look, she told me she had an accent, 238s. So you can use the scriptures and it can really, really help you. But look there at that verse, if you say, then Peter said unto them, Repent, change your mind because they didn’t believe that Jesus was who he claimed to be.

Change your mind and be cleansed every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin. And ye shall receive the gift of the Holy, see you have no problem with that. But if you try to make that, you know, you’ve got to put something else in there, it’s water, no, later on they were baptized, but that’s after they believed.

Don’t make things complicated when it’s not. Look at number 76, the Bible and evolution are compatible when you look at God as the evolutionary force. In other words, God created by the process of evolution. Therefore, theistic evolution is true because God created by the process of evolution. Don’t that sound intelligent? It don’t. It’s false because that is not the truth. Number 77, the creation days of Genesis are really long periods of geological ice ages. No, they’re not. false. The creation of Genesis 1 is literal and rapid in every detail that is true and the design demands a designer and that is true.

So if there is a creation there had to be a creator. If there’s laws there had to be a law giver. If there’s design there had to be a designer. There has to be an architect and there was and it’s the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s pray. Father we We thank you so much for this time together. Other study, if you were, bless each one. Christ, may we pray. You’ve been listening to another great message from Pastor Arnold and we at Bibleline, thank you for tuning in.

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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. And now, a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will shout. 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.