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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 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.

Some of y’all know I went to Florida Bible College. 1964, it sure is 50 years ago. One of my teachers was a Dr. Mark Tambrand. And I still have some of his old handouts that he gave me. So I like to, many times I’ll tell you, I got this from Ray Stanford. I got this from Dr. Seymour. I got this from Dr. Curtis Hudson, or I got this from Dr. Mark Cameron. But when I teach it in church, I always go through, edit it, move things around, and put my own flavor to it, but I still think it’s good when you can to say, well, you got something.

I had Dr. Hudson call me one day. He had preached with me down there in South Texas and he was headed to the Sword of the Lord and so was having a Sword of the Lord conference. And while we were doing that I preached the sermon when not on the two natures. Now the two natures helps everybody clear up a message. If they listen to the two natures it clears them up and he liked the message but he didn’t tell me.

He didn’t say anything to me about it. He goes back up there and they had the ladies jubilee and Murphy’s burrow. Take another one coming up, I think, in April. And he called me up and he says, you know, we had about eight to 900 ladies. And he preached a sermon on the two natures. He said, I thought I’d call you up and let you know. I used every one of your illustrations. I lose all your jokes. He says they really went over real good.

So I said, did you tell him where you got it? He says, no. I thought, well, if Dr. Hudson doesn’t have to, I don’t either. But anyway, I want to Sure, through things that I think will help you because it is so important that people understand for knowledge, predestination, and election. There are a lot of theories concerning for knowledge, predestination, and election until the mind of the normal and average Christian is so mixed up and buddy they are that he doesn’t know what to believe.

This stuff is going on all the time. A lot of churches, I’ve had people call me up even this week that says, I don’t know what to do. I’m up here in Tennessee. I had another one call me from up in North Carolina. They’re churches are preaching Calvinism. They know it’s wrong. She says, what do I do? There’s not another church in the area. They all are teaching parts of this Calvinism stuff. And you would think, well, maybe I don’t need to study the Bible and I don’t need to be a preacher because everybody’s, look at all the good churches out there.

Well, there’s not a lot of good churches out there. The good preachers on the clear gospel is very rare. So if we do not get these three doctrines straight, our Christian life will be worked. So winning will become a lost grace and we need to understand these things. So first of all, we’re going to look at the foreknowledge of God. The Bible says for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the first born among many brethren.

Now that’s in Romans chapter 8 verse 29. Now you know verse 28, all things were together for good to them that loved the Lord to those that are called according to His purpose. So God has a purpose and things were together for good to those who loved the Lord. So if you look at things in its context and you find out what he’s taught, he’s already talking to believers. And you’ll notice this verse does not say that anyone was chosen to be saved.

That doesn’t say anything about God choosing to save anybody. This is just a statement about what God says about those who will believe on Christ. If you have trusty Christ’s Savior, there are things that God has predetermined that’s going to be. When Jesus says, He that believeth whom He hath everlasting life, He has predetermined that anyone who believes will have what? All right. Whosoever believe in hath everlasting life. That’s the same thing that this is saying. Now he’s saying those who have trusted Christ’s Savior, they are going to be conformed to the image of his son.

So it tells us what the purpose is of being predestinated. That is for the believer. It’s not the lost man. Forknowledge means to have knowledge of things to be. Forknowledge is an attribute of God. you’ve heard me say this many, many times. And that predestination, election, are acts of God. It’s what God does. And so only God knows the future. He knows what’s coming down the road. And another statement is he wouldn’t be God if he didn’t. But the fact that he knows who is going to be saved and who is isn’t going to be saved does not determine who is going to be saved and who is going to be lost, just because God knows.

God knows who’s going to be saved, he knows who’s not going to be saved. But that doesn’t determine who’s going to be saved and who is not going to be saved. Just because God knows who’s going to be saved and who’s not going to be saved. Boy, that could be on and on and on. So, understand in the logic here. Someone may ask, if God does know who is and who isn’t going to be saved, how then can a sinner get out of it?

I mean, if God’s already predestinated him to be saved. Well, if God had predestinated him, that’s one thing, but God didn’t. God simply has made salvation available to all, but you can listen to the radio and you’ll hear a lot of preachers that will not agree with what I’m telling you tonight. You say, well, they all believe the same. No, we don’t believe the same. And yet they can sound very good. Great swelling words in order to impress people.

I just like to speak plain. Simple, clear where everybody knows what I’m saying. So for knowledge, inscriptive never determines what is to be. For knowledge is only the knowledge of things to be beforehand. He knows about them. He knows what’s going to take place. It is the same with our scientists. They can tell us when there’s going to be an eclipse of the sun or of the moon on a certain day, at a certain hour, minute and second, but the scientists do not bring about the eclipse.

Just because they can tell you what’s going to take place doesn’t mean they made it happen. And just because God knows what’s going to take place in the future doesn’t mean He makes it happen. There’s some things that God can and there’s some things that He doesn’t. God has four knowledge and by this four knowledge knows the future and And that’s where it ends. That’s for knowledge. Knowledge in advance. Of course, God knows everything. He knows the very number of the hairs on your head.

He knows the number of stars and call it them by name. God knows everything, including the future. And not only that, now this is a mind-boggler. But God knows what would have happened if things had happened that didn’t happen. He knows the result of all possibilities. You try to figure out all the possibilities that could possibly be. Well he knows the consequences, the result of all the possibilities. Wouldn’t you like to be able to know all the consequences of all your choices?

That if I do this and if I do this and if I do this or if I do this, have you ever wondered what would have happened if you took the other job Or if you got that house, or if you hadn’t known what you did, or if you’d have done something else that you did, God knows all of those. So it’s a wonderful thing to know that our God is omniscient. That means he’s all knowing. He has all wisdom.

He lacks nothing. Now, when you read, I was going to have you read this, but for the second time, I just mentioned this to you. There’s a place in 1 Samuel where David had a problem there Zigg Lagan. Anyway, some people would come and I took all of his stuff and took some captives and the people that were David, they were ready to stone David. And so David went before the Lord and encouraged himself in the Lord. Sometimes you have to do that because they were ready to stone them so they weren’t encouraging him.

So he had to go to the Lord and get some encouragement. And so he said, Lord, if I go after them, if I pursue. What’ll happen? And God told him, says, if you pursue, you’ll get everything back and you’ll lose nothing. Now, buddy, that’s pretty good. Wouldn’t you like to know the answer to some of those decisions you make? But God doesn’t always see fit to tell us. But then a lot of people never think to ask. David asked God and God answered him.

The same is illustrated when David inquired of the Lord concerning his enemy. If he should go to one place, would the enemy be there? God said they would. So David went in another direction. That’s pretty good. For knowledge. Simply means to possess knowledge of things to be. Do you believe that God has for knowledge? Do you believe that he knows what’s going to take place in the future? See, what we think about is this. If God knows what’s going to happen in the future, he ought to keep me from those bad things.

He ought to keep me from having a car accident. He ought to keep me from getting sick. He ought to keep me from, if God knows all this and he loves me, he ought to keep all of that from happening. And yet God will let you make the decisions and suffer consequences of your bad ones. And he will let you enjoy the benefits of your good ones. And sometimes out of the mercy of God, he prevents some things from happening.

And we’ll see some of those things when we get to heaven, is he just how gracious and how good God has been to us. predestination of God. A little bit different because foreknowledge is an attribute. That’s what it has. This is what it does. And so predestination means fixed beforehand. It means God determines something. Here is why many saints falter in their witnessing. They read about predestination and then they reason. That God predestinate some people to be saved and thus predestinate some people to be lost.

This is not the case. So if God does predestinate some people to be saved, then it’s automatically to be reasoned that there are some people that God did not predetermined to be saved. And so therefore they call those the elect. Out of all the masses of people, God has elected some to go to heaven and some don’t have a chance, because God didn’t choose them. But see, we don’t believe that. we believe that God so loved the whole world.

And so God has predetermined before the foundations of the world, before anybody was born, did any good or bad that God was gonna save a man by faith, by faith alone, any man. And he has to hear the gospel and believe on Christ and trust him and he would have eternal life. So to begin with, predestination is never for the lost man. But rather, predestination is for the saved man. Predestination in reality is the security of the believer. It means that God has predetermined that every believer will have eternal life.

So, when you believe on Christ, what has God already decided to give you? Eternal life. If I was to read John 3 16 and believe it, God cannot decide whether or not, well, I don’t know if I want to save him or not. You know, James has been pretty bad. So I don’t know if I really want to save James or not. I’ll save all the other, but I’m not going to save James. God can’t do that. God is bound by His Word to save every person that what?

That belief. believe. If you believe on Him and you trust Him, God must say, why? Because He determined He can’t break His Word. He can’t go back on Himself. So we have only to read our Bibles, read the content where it’s speaking of predestination to clearly understand that salvation is indeed a personal matter based upon the whosoever wills and the whosoever won’ts. Those that are the whosoever wills, I I guess those are the elect and the whosoever wants those are not the elect.

But I don’t like using that term elect. God has chosen to save all who believe, but God did not choose what particular person to believe or to be saved. So keep that in mind. It does make a difference. Otherwise, you can get to the place where so winning is not really that important because it really doesn’t depend upon me. I mean, if I don’t win them, somebody else will anyway. You know those kids that went out the other night and they had some people trust Christ to save you, would they have been saved anyway?

Okay, win. Win. By who? If they hadn’t done it, who would have done it? So you have no chapter and verse to prove anything other than they did go. Did God know they would go? Did God know the end results? God know all that. But God didn’t make them go and God didn’t make them believe. knowledge. But God has predetermined that If they would believe they would have the free gift of everlasting life and become conformed to the image of his son.

God knows who is going to be saved. Thus he has predestined certain blessings for those who are going to get saved by faith. So God has determined that. And generally we’ve come over to the bay about three or four things that will definitely take place. In other words, God draws a circle, figuratively speaking, and say that whosoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, all right, you’re placed inside of this circle, you’re getting that circle. So the believer upon his faith in Jesus Christ steps into the circle, okay, that’s all the believers.

Then God says, figuratively speaking, whosoever is in that circle by faith, I have predestinated that they shall receive these blessings, and here they are. What if I had said today in church? Every person who comes to church tonight, Peter and model is going to give you a thousand dollars each. I had to figure out who had the money. Peter and model would give you every person a thousand dollars. Y’all came so you get a thousand dollars. Those that didn’t come, don’t get it.

Now we didn’t make anybody come. You chose yourself. But he had already predetermined that whosoever would show up tonight at six o’clock, we get a thousand dollars. So don’t get mad at him because he offered it to anybody. And so those who came get a thousand dollars. God says he offers eternal life to whosoever will let him come. And if you do, you get something. You get the free gift of everlasting life. And some people will, some people won’t.

You cannot make people trust Christ as their Savior. So here’s a few of these. One, the Bible talks about being conformed to the image of his son, to be just like Christ. Now the thing is, whenever you trust Christ as your Savior, yes, the new birth is just like the Lord. It’s perfect. There’s nothing wrong with it, but we’re still dragging around this old dead body. and so we got a problem until we drop this old body here and we will escape it and we’ll be with the Lord.

So we know that one day yes when we get to heaven everything’s gonna be wonderful we’re gonna be in heaven this new body and everything and we’ll be just like the Lord and don’t have to worry about this old sinful nature anymore but also while we’re here God does allow things to happen into your life so that he might conform you to the image of Christ. Now remember that in the book of Romans in chapter 12 this is not talking about waiting till we get to heaven.

This is talking about now here. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto God which is a reasonable service. Does God want us to do that when we get to heaven or do that now? If he wants us to do that now. Then the verse 2, be not conformed to the world, but be transformed. So that means that God wants to transform us now here in this present life, in this present world, and He wants us to become more like Him.

So that’s something that may happen and may not happen. But you and I are to believe that God allows things to happen in our life to conform us to the image of Christ. And He conforms you to Christ and not conforms you to the world. So to be transformed is by the renewing of your mind. So He wants to renew your mind here or there. Now this is talking about now being conformed to the image of His Son. So there’s two things here, the present and the future.

We know one day we will be, but we’re not there yet. But God is still working in us to perform in us. That’s in the book of Philippians in chapter 1 and verse 6. This is one of the blessings of God that predestinated is for the believer. that the believer is going to be fashioned, made, transformed, transfigured into the likeness of the image of Jesus Christ. This is why more and more, as you mature in the Lord, you should be growing in grace.

Growing in your love, growing in your forgiveness, growing in your compassion, growing in your mercy, growing, growing, growing. That’s living by grace. when those qualities of God are manifested in our life. It doesn’t mean you don’t fall, but it means you should fall less. And get up quicker. You should have a quicker response. I’ve been in some cars and you just touch the gas pedal and it wants to jump like a rabbit and jump about two blocks on you.

And then I’ve been in my diesel that I had for years. And you could stomp the floor. And you might, you know, move to 15 feet. And it takes a while. It has a mind of its own. So the response is not there. And everybody wants that quick response. So you got to have more horsepower in there. So the same thing with the Lord. Number two here, the things you might be suffering at this moment are happening to you to make you more like Christ.

You see, we have been blessed that we have been glorified with the Lord. One day we will be actually glorified, we’ll be with the Lord, we’ll have a new body. But God also says He wants us to suffer with Him. In other words, Christ is in this world living in us. And we will suffer while we’re in this world. But one of these days He’s going to take us out of this world and we’ll suffer no more. But until then, we must learn to suffer Him.

We don’t get everything we want. People don’t respond the way we think they should. People will walk on you. They will abuse you. You will be defrauded. All kinds of things will happen to you. And the thing is that you can get mad and fight back and get ugly, or you can have a Christ like spirit and learn how to forgive them and pray for your enemies. Love them and keep going because God in heaven is watching and he’s going to make it worth your while when you get to heaven.

So understand it and believe that at the rapture. whether we be dead or alive, it is coming. We are going to be changed and be holy like unto Christ. But that day hasn’t come yet. The second thing is the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. Now there are several things that you could look at when we talk about adoption. Somebody could be in another family and say you and your wife don’t have a child and so you’d like to adopt the child into your family.

It’s not your real child, but you can adopt the child to your family and you can make it legal, give your name and so forth088 then we can call that an adoption. But it’s a little bit different in Israel and also some of the Greeks and the Romans. They used to have it where if you were adopted then you were their child, but when you reached a certain age, well then you were considered to be a son. You were a child and therefore mom and daddy was responsible for everything that happened to you because you were a child.

But when you hit a certain age and it could be around 13 of age, that’s why daddy’s and mommies had to make sure that the kids knew all the rules and knew the law so that when they became responsible for their actions and their decisions that they would be able to suffer the consequences of them. So now they’re considered a son. And so they only ones in scripture that we’re talking about, the only ones who can be adopted are God’s children.

God’s children are adopted as sons. Now let me show you this. We are told that the Christian is predestined unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. It doesn’t say that the sinner was predestined to become a child of God. So don’t think that all the lost people are predestined to become a child of God. No? God’s talking about children born becoming sons. Now notice it doesn’t say that. No, but rather the saint has been predestined unto the adoption of children and something that’s going to take place.

And it’s found in the book of Romans in chapter 8. You can read it in also in the book of chapter 4, but adoption simply means to declare as a son or son placed. The fourth chapter of Galatians clearly defines the meaning of adoption. Only a child of God can become a son of God. You say, well, I was a son of God when I was born into God’s family. Yes, I know. But there are certain things that God wants us to do.

And I was born into God’s family. Now, as I begin to grow and to mature, I should begin to except spiritual responsibilities. Where there’s a time when you don’t know what Krug, you don’t know what you should do and not do. You’re a child, you need to have somebody bring you along and teach you and help you to tutor you and so forth. But there come the time when God wants you and I to accept the responsibility that is laid upon us and to serve the Lord.

And he says, you are my sons, if? You let the Holy Spirit lead and guide you with Rome in chapter eight. You’re his son, but you’re not maturing in the Lord unless you’re yielding and learning how to walk. We all need instruction. We need help. And this is why it’s one thing to lead somebody to the Lord, but another thing to try to get those people to grow in the Lord. It is the time of point about the Father when his son ceases to be considered a child and becomes a son.

– Now in Jewish language over there in Israel and also we’ve had up to Jewish people. in our church is called a bar mitzvah. It’s when they declare the child to be a son and they had to teach them the law. I’ve been over there in Israel and I’ve been outside the western wall. People call it the whaling wall and I’m talking about there were hundreds and hundreds of people and they were having the bar mitzvah and here’s all these people in the east and into the wall and they’re going like that and there’s these 13 year old boys.

I mean just all over the place and the And the Daddy’s is so proud of them because now they’re becoming a son. Well they’re already their child. So it’s a term that God uses. Now get this, the boy becomes a age after his 13th birthday, on a date selected by the Father. So it is with us. We are children of God, but we’re waiting our bar mitzvah, our adoption. The time when our Heavenly Father would declare us a age and place us as son before the whole universe.

we ourselves grown within ourselves waiting for the adoption to with the redemption of our body. You see one day we are going to lose these bodies and we’re going to be changed in a moment in the twinkle of an eye. This big change I believe is what God is calling our adoption. Now it may not be, it could be a lot more to it, maybe a lot less to it. I believe, as according to this scripture, that takes place when we leave this whole world, and we are.

Yes, I am a child of God. And you will read in the book of 1 John chapter 3 where he talks about, beloved, now are we the sons of God. We are the sons of God. But it not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. So don’t get hung up on it. Just know that that’s something God will take care of and you don’t have to worry about.

You just do all the right you know to do, knowing that God is holding us responsible for the things that we know, the things that we do. What we could have done. Does God know all the potential that you have? Does God know what you could have done with your life? Well, of course. We want to be interesting to see that when we get to heaven what we could have done, and We might be patting ourselves on the back right now thinking, look how great I am.

And God says, look what you could have done if you deserve me with all your heart. That all is scary enough. Have you heard about Bibleline Institute, the online Bible College of Bibleline Ministries? There are 11 different Bible College courses to choose from. And for this month, we’d like to give you a free enrollment to the class, Personal Evangelism, taught by Dr. Arnold. For your gift to Bibleline ministries in any amount, you’ll have full use of the 10-hour course, which you can access whenever you like, as often as you’d like, it’s online.

The classes include video instruction, lecture notes, quizzes, and if you’d like to send a quiz, you can submit it. Again, it’s all online. When you send in your gift, please include your email address and will enroll you in the class, Personal Evangelism. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your email address or contact information. God bless you and thank you again for supporting Bible Mind. Thanks for joining us on Bible Mind.

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. Cut 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.