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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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

book of Romans, I want you to turn there. In Romans chapter 1, verse 16 and verse 17, I doubt that much that I will say today will be new to you, but you probably could preach this sermon yourself. I always try to teach a little bit new and then a little review. Sometimes I think of just the right things to say. And then sometimes I haven’t got a clue. And I just trust the Lord that He’ll walk me through everything.

But I want you to see this verse and really think about what this verse says. Verse 16, Romans chapter 1, verse 16. saying, for I am not ashamed. I’m not ashamed. Just think what those words mean. I’m not ashamed. It already says I am a debtor. I’m a debtor to the Jews and the Gentiles. Then he says, I am ready to preach the gospel. I’m not ashamed. In other words, this message must be a very powerful message. It must be the ultimate message.

It must be a glorious message. It must be one of the greatest things anybody could ever hear in the whole world. If knowing the truth about how to have eternal life and going to heaven is the greatest thing any man can ever know, it must be the greatest thing any man could ever tell. True? There wouldn’t be anything else greater in all your life. So he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God into salvation to everyone that believe it to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, for as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Such a wonderful portion of scripture. It takes the rest of the whole book to explain the power that he’s talking about and what it can do. Because he begins to lay out just how bad people really are. You know, we really try to figure out all the good things that we are. I am so good at this and that and the other.

And I’m not that bad. But you see, God laid it out and he took a picture of us. I’ve got pictures of me when I was young. You wouldn’t believe it’s me. I don’t look like the same person. I look better back then. I got pictures of when I had a big old forehead of black wavy hair. So did some of y’all. But what if God was to come in here and take a picture of the way you really are?

And we’re not talking about your physical appearance. You see, the Bible does give us a picture of ourselves the way God sees us. and I got news for you, it ain’t pretty. You may look in the mirror and think you’re the biggest, bestest hunk that ever came down the pike. And some girls in here you might think, I am God’s gift to them in. Yeah. I remember hearing the statement years ago, years ago on a TV broadcast that was called Moving on Up.

Anybody remember that? Moving on up? And I remember that this woman, she stood there in front of that fellow. I don’t even know his name. A little feller. And she says, I want you to know. I have been blessed by Mother Nature. And he said, but you have been cursed by her. Father time. And then the war began. Some of us are being cursed by Father time. Not sure I believe in Mother Nature anyway. But you see in these verses when he says, I’m not ashamed, not ashamed of what.

And he paints the picture of how bad we really are. And the worst he He can make it, makes the gospel look so much better. You know, Betty God bless her, decided to help me out. She knows that I’m getting a little bit older, my steps are not as stable as they used to be. So at night when I get out of the car and I start walking up toward the steps, it’s dark. And I can’t find the keyhole to put the key in it.

I’m just going to put the thing in there and try to feed and put it. And now I’ll stand there for five minutes trying to get it fixed. And I said, man, I wish I had a light so I could see the little darling went to the store. I never thought about this. Mine of light. I just saw the problem, but I saw no solution because I don’t go to stores. I hardly ever go to stores. They all want money.

So she goes and she buys a little $15 motion detector light and she stuck it up and I got on the car and I walked up to the thing and the light came on and I could see. I said, honey, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. And I was so proud that she was able to figure out how to solve a problem. Now it never entered into my mind, something so simple, because I didn’t know they made them. I didn’t know all of a sudden.

Anyway, the other day we came home and the light didn’t come on. And the reason it didn’t come on, because it wasn’t dark enough, it has to have so much darkness in order for it to come on when there’s motion. Ain’t that something? And it works better. The darker it is, the better it looks. The darker the Lord could paint the picture, the more beautiful and glorious the message is, believe it or not. So you have here in this message.

These two little simple verses of the wall is a wonderful person in the world. You see, it’s talking about the person of Jesus Christ. It’s not what, but it’s who. And think about this. Without Christ, there is no gospel. Well, that’s right. There is no gospel. There’s no good news. There’s no power. There’s no God. There’s no salvation. There’s no righteousness. There’s no faith. There’s no justification. There’s no eternal life. There’s no meaning without Christ. Aren’t you glad you know Christ?

Without Him there is nothing. Without Christ and this hope of eternal life we’re just like a bunch of animals living our lives down here. There’s really no purpose. I shared something yesterday in the funeral service. How that there are those who believe in a false God. A false God is no God. A false God came here. The Bible says in the Old Testament, 115 Psalm. It says that there’s people who make their own gods out of little statues and so on.

And they have eyes but they can’t see. They have ears but they can’t hear. And they got mouth but they can’t speak. They got hands but they can’t do anything. They got feet but they can’t walk. They’re lifeless. So a false god is the most fatalistic viewpoint of all. Whatever will be will be because there is no god to change anything. Were you going to live and just die? and that’s it. But when you know the true and living God because in the gospel of John in chapter 17 it says, home to know the true and living God is life eternal.

Home to know to know God. To know God. That means we have a God that can see and we have a God that can hear. We have a God that can speak, we have a God that can do something. So there’s hope in every situation. That’s why we pray all the time because we know that there is a God that made the ear. Shall he not hear? And there’s a God that sees everything and shall he not see? So yes, we have a hope that the world doesn’t know and a joy that God can give.

And so that’s a wonderful thing to know this true and living God. When we talk about the person of this good news, there is no good news without Christ and you have to talk about what He did and what He said. And then you talk about the power that you find in these simple verses, the power of the gospel. The power of the gospel, it says something that’s really interesting. It says, and I want you to look in verse 16 again, where he makes his statement, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.

It’s the power to save. After he paints this most terrible picture of all of humanity. The gospel, the good news, is the power to save. It means that there isn’t anything else that can save except this message, this wonderful message that God has given to us. So this message is man’s only hope and we are privileged to know it and yet there’s many people that do not know it. Whenever you read this, the purpose of this good news is the power to save.

And think about this, past, present, future. It’s one of the greatest words in the Bible, the power to save. When he talks about the plan, what God did, he has this wonderful message and his plan was, if I do this for all those people, after painting how bad they are and they can’t save themselves. God then gives us this wonderful plan on what this wonderful message that He has done for us, what it’s going to do. It can save you.

But what do I have to do? Whosoever believeth. Regardless of who you are, regardless of how bad you’ve been, or bad you’re going to be, the power to save. Whosoever believe it, that’s good news. But what is the product? What will this good news produce? The gospel will produce a righteous man, not righteous in himself, but righteous before God because the righteousness of God is given to man. So the more wicked we are, the bride of the gospel shines.

And some people are very thankful for what God has done for them. And some of them actually want to tell people about it. It’s like some beggars finding some bread. And what is a soul winner is just one beggar telling another beggar, hey I found some bread. I found some bread to eat and just sharing some bread with someone else. So if the gospel remember can’t save the worst man, it can’t save anybody at all. If the gospel of Christ cannot save the worst man on earth, it can’t save anybody.

Because grace is grace and there cannot be, I guess, a respecter of persons. As though God can save the good one, but he can’t save the bad ones, it’s just the opposite. He says, the righteous in their own eyes don’t need a Savior because they don’t need a doctor. They think they’re well. But there are people who know they’re sick. They know they can’t save themselves. And so they trust Christ as their Savior. But you’d be surprised this morning how many people are going to go to church, establishing their own righteousness as though they don’t need God’s.

Thinking that they’re all right, but they don’t see themselves the way God sees them. So when you read these scriptures, it tells you an awful lot of things, but I want you to look in the book of Luke chapter 2, the book of Luke, Gospel of Luke and chapter 2. Turn that with me real quickly. Luke chapter 2, and look what he says in verse 10. If the gospel is to be good news, it has to be good news to everyone, to all the world.

So look what he says there in verse 10 of chapter 2, and the angels said unto them, fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to most people, all people. not a circle that word all. Regardless of how bad individuals are, it doesn’t matter if they’re Muslim, God loves them. It doesn’t matter if they’re homosexuals, God loves them. And I’ll even tell you something that’s more even a sign. God even loves some religious people.

God even loves some of you that are sitting here today. Now He loves all of you. You see, there’s a thing we need to understand and keep in mind. God so loved the world and it doesn’t matter how bad anyone has ever been. I remember one day when I was talking to this guy, he had been a Navy SEAL. And when I was talking to him, you can know you have eternal life and he just started a crying tears coming down his cheek.

He says, I wish I could believe that. He says, but you don’t know what I’ve done. I said, that doesn’t matter. He says, yes, it does matter. He said, I’ll kill 52 men, 52 people. He says, and I know God is not going to save me, won’t let me go. And he said, and he cried. You know what? I explained the gospel to him and how that God is died on Christ, died on that cross and paid for all of it.

He was such a happy man. He was so thrilled to hear he could still be saved. I’ve had people tell me, he says, I’ve been so bad, I’ve been so bad. is though God can’t save them because they’re so bad. That’s the kind that qualifies that know they’re really bad and that they can’t save themselves. And so the gospel is a wonderful thing, but it says here, which I’ll be to all people. Now if it’s not to all people, if it’s not good news for all people, does that mean that God has only chosen to save just a handful or just a, he says it’s for all people.

Going to all the world and preach the gospel to everybody. That’s why it’s so important. I want you to look there in 1 Timothy 1, 1 Timothy 1, and look what he says in verse 11. Now notice verse 11 follows some, a bad picture. Now everybody knows they like to get a picture taken to themselves. I’ve had people say, well I don’t want nobody taking my picture. Don’t take my, whatever you do, don’t take my picture. And then you show them the group picture and the first one they look for is themselves.

If you’ve been on one of those cruises and they want to get you to take all these pictures and you spend half your time looking at all those pictures of that, oh I look so terrible, oh I look so terrible and that’s the best you’ve looked in years. And you show some picturesCENT people your picture and it’s a good picture of yourself and oh I look so bad, you’re fishing for compliments aren’t you? You want to hear them say oh how young you look.

Boy, you really look great. And I’ll have to admit sometimes and this really gets me. Here’s a casket. The person’s dead. Boy, she looks good. She’s dead. And she really looks good dead. I’ve had people say she looks better than she did when she was alive. You say, yes, they do. I’m a preacher. I’ve been in all of, I’ve heard everything. One Sometimes his preacher was bragging on this person’s up there in the casket. Just really bragging with what a great husband he was, what a great father he was.

The wife’s sitting out there and telling her, let’s go up here and look in that cast and make sure that’s your daddy. But look in verse 9, verse 9, knowing this that the law is not made for a righteous man but for the lawless and the disobedient. For the ungodly, for sinners, for unholy, profane, for murders of mothers and fathers and so forth, and man slayers for a whore-mongers, for them that defiled themselves with mankind, men’s dealers, liars and purgied persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, that’s pretty bad.

And then lo and behold, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust, then he goes on down through here and he makes this statement in verse 15, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. In other words, everybody ought to accept this fact. And he says that Christ Jesus came into the world to save saints. He came to save sinners. He didn’t come to save saints. He came to save sinners.

Are you a sinner? Then you qualify. And since no one’s perfect, everyone’s a sinner, so Christ came to save sinners. And if you’re a sinner, He came to save you. Didn’t say how bad because one sin is bad enough. And then he says here in verse 16, how be it? For this cause I obtain mercy. That in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long suffer for a pattern to them which should hereafter be leave on him to life ever lasting.

You ought to see how bad I was, he says. And that’s why in last part of verse 15, he says, I am chief, came to save sinners of whom I am. Now if he can save the chief, he can save all the Indians, right? And he says, if God can save me, God can save anybody. And if God can save the worst and give him eternal life, then what do you worry about? Do you believe God can save you and give you eternal life?

Then And that means there’s not any person that we don’t have to say, well, I don’t need to witness him because he’s too bad. God can’t save him. I’ve actually talked to women and let him to the Lord. And they’ll say, well, you don’t know my husband. He can’t be saved. He’s too bad. I said, well, let me talk to him. She said, I don’t want you to talk to him. I said, why not? I want him to go to hell.

He said, nobody would say that. Yes, they do. They do. It’s not the prettiest thing in the world, I mean, that’s what you do. But now look in Romans in chapter 4. Romans chapter 4. Notice that the purpose of this good news is that God wants to make you and I righteous. He wants us to be perfect, good to go, to go to heaven. So here in the Romans in chapter 4, it makes this statement in verse 5, but to him that worketh not, worketh not, but believe eth on him that justifyeth the ungolly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

And then he goes all the way back and uses a man by the name of Abraham and explains a few things. He goes all the way back to when God took Abraham out of the early calvies and took him outside one nine says, look at those stars. He says, can you count them all? And he says, so shall thy seed be. And he explained the gospel to him because the Bible says in the book of Galatians in chapter 3 verse 8, and the scripture foreseen that God would justify the heathen to faith 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. Do you think he left him thing out. I think he made it clear and made him understand. And he also believed that the seed that came from him, if he took that kid’s life, he believed that God would resurrect him because he knew he was a type of God the Father given his only begotten Son on the very same Mount Moriah and would raise him again from the dead. So he knew about the death-bherland resurrection of the Messiah.

He knew all of that. And so he says here in verse 2 of chapter form. What is if Abraham were justified by works? Could he be justified by work? Remember, he was justified 430 years before the law was ever given. So he didn’t have to keep the law. It wasn’t even written yet. And here he says, what did he find? He found out that if it was by works, it couldn’tandestine grace. That’s what he says in verse 4. Now to him that work is a reward not of grace.

If you have to work for it, it can’t be grace. It would be debt. So that’s why he says, look what Abraham found out. It’s not by your works. Now look there in chapter three of the book of Romans. And look in verse 20, for 21. Verse 21 says, but now the righteousness which we hear about and find out about through the gospel of Jesus Christ, how yes, we are bad. We’re so bad we can’t save ourselves. But he can save us because he paid for our sins.

and notice what he says in verse 21, but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifest, been witnessed by the law and the prophets. In verse 22, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. There’s no difference. So God says his righteousness is unto all, look up here, man, I want you to see this. God’s righteousness is unto all, but only upon them that believe. So it’s unto all, and I believe all means all, but it’s upon them that believe.

So when you believe that what Christ did was for you, He puts His righteousness to your account and is by faith and faith alone. Now look in verse 28 of Romans chapter 3, verse 28, Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without works. Without these are the laws, without works. Faith alone, faith alone. And you notice there in verse 24 being justified freely by his what? Grace. Grace and works are not the same. So, regardless of how bad a man is, no man can live good enough to save himself.

And so, that’s why God says it’s unto all. He died for all. So, that the payment he made can be put to your account, whosoever believes. So, when you believe it, you have it. And it’s faith alone. Now, look there in chapter 4. And chapter 4. And notice what he says in verse chapter 4 verse 16. Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end, for this purpose. The promise might be sure to all.

You see, if you had to earn your salvation, it couldn’t be sure, because you’d have to earn it and you ought to know, God said, it’s not by your work, so you can’t earn it. So the only way we can be guaranteed to have eternal life and guaranteed that will be saved and guaranteed it has to be free is by grace through faith. So when you read Ephesians 29 for by grace, or you say through faith, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, so men say, by grace and grace alone.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this lesson today from Dr. Arnold and Pray that Bibleline is a blessing in your life. We are so grateful to our listeners and supporters who help us accomplish so many great things for the Lord. During this month, to every person making a financial donation in any amount, we’re going to send to you the DVD teaching series on how to witness to Roman Catholics. Many Catholics love the Lord so much, but sadly they are lost. Although the Roman Catholic Church uses words like grace and mercy, they rely upon works as the cause of salvation.

So many wonderful people are being deceived by the world’s largest religion and this DVD series could help you win them to the truth. Again we’re so grateful to those of you who support this ministry. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634, and don’t forget to include your mailing address as well. God bless you and thank you for supporting Bible Life.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. 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 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, just keep looking up.