This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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.

Here in chapter 7 of Ecclesiastes he says, A good name is better than precious ointment, get the last part of us and the day of death than the day of one’s birth. We generally in our life and our understanding, we celebrate when a baby is born, try when they leave this world. And then to leave this world and to go to heaven, that’s a precious thing in the eyes of the Lord. The death of the saints is precious in the eyes of the Lord.

But the Bible says we all are like sheep and we’ve all gone astray. We don’t think right. We don’t love right. We don’t do right. says, there’s none that doeth good, no not one. Look what he says here in Ecclesiastes chapter 7, and I want you to look there in verse 20, for there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and just sendeth not. Now the Bible tells us that we are supposed to bring forth good works.

He also talks about, let men see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Well, Well, if there’s not a just man up on the earth that do us good, then can we do anything good? When we compare ourselves with each other, we might consider ourselves to be fairly well. And many people do compare themselves. I’m just as good as so and so. I’m better than they are. But when we compare ourselves to the Lord, then of course we’ve all come short of perfection.

Jesus Christ made this statement to a man who asked Him, Sir, what must I do? Good master. To inherit eternal life. He says, why call a style me good? There’s none good but God. One in him to recognize that not only was Jesus able to perform miracles but Jesus Christ was good but also that Jesus Christ was God. Can a man do good? But I think there’s two parts to this verse and I want you to look there again.

For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sin if not. After we trust Christ as our Savior, God says that we’re justified. So there’s a just man upon the earth. And God tells us to bring forth good works and to maintain good works. So evidently, yes, we can do good deeds. We can do good works. But can a just man upon the earth do good and sin not? I don’t believe that there’s any of us that will live our lives without sin.

It would be great if we could but we don’t. So after we trust Christ as our Savior, we still, even though we want to do right, we want to do good, we still fail and make a lot of mistakes. Do a lot of things that we should not do. Look in 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel in chapter 1. The Bible tells us that King of Israel, Saul, and his son, Jonathan, had just been killed. Saul had done his dead-level best to kill David, hunted him down like a dog, and yet David never said or did anything against Saul.

Could have took in his life several times, but he didn’t do it. And then when he died, he made this statement in verse 19, the beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places. How are the mighty fallen? Tell it not in gat, publish it not in the streets of Askelon. Bless the daughters of the Philistines Rejoice. Bless the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. David didn’t want the heathen to rejoice because a giant had failed. And he was the king of Israel and still looked up to and honored and respected.

Look in verse 25. He says, How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle. You and I are supposed to understand that when we dedicate our life to the Lord, not only we saved, we’re in the world, but we’re in the midst of a battle. Many of us are going to go down in this world, and hopefully we’ll go down fighting. But one day all of us are going to die. But while you live, will you fight?

Fight the devil with everything that you have. Fight the sinful nature. Fight the lust of the flesh and the trials and temptation that want to destroy. I believe that it is the will of God for us to fight all the way. How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished? I want you to notice something in verse 27 when David made this statement, How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished. Every person who trusts Christ as Savior is a potential mighty weapon for the Lord.

Now we use weapons, we use the sword of the word, we use the shield of faith, and we prepare ourselves to battle, whether it’s the teenagers or whether it’s adults. Every person we train to serve the Lord is a soldier. They are potential weapons for God to use. So God uses every individual. And in the midst of this war, in this world, in this life, we’re going to get wounded. We’re going to get scars. And we’re going to lose battles in this life.

But one day it will all be over. But in the midst of our battle, whether we’re young, in the middle, or toward the end of our lives, there’s a great battle on a great war. And how are the mighty fallen? And I hope that we fall while we’re fighting, and not to quit, and not to give up, but to keep doing what God wants us to do. I want you take your Bible and turn to Isaiah 61. The other night I was covering a couple of things concerning Christmas and I had them look at Isaiah chapter 61.

But I want you to notice there in this verse. It says Isaiah 61 in verse 1, it’s a quote in the New Testament in the book of Luke where Jesus Christ quotes these verses. And it says in verse one, as Jesus refers to these verses, he says, these scriptures speak about me. So when we read this verse, we know that we’reribune about Jesus Christ. He says, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meag.

He hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted. And when you stop and think the good tidings, this good news of Jesus Christ coming into the world so that we can have as a free gift ever lasting life. And I’ll have to admit when I was 18 years old, I was one of those that was brokenhearted. I remember whenever Betty’s dad sat down and explained the gospel to me that night. All I knew if what he said was true, I was going to hell.

And I remember sobbing like a baby, just broke down in tears. I had never been to church where I saw anybody cry like that. I’d never seen anybody get saved. So I didn’t know what the rules were. I didn’t know what you did. You didn’t do. I’d never heard about being saved before. And I remember that night as clear as a bell, I remember the details. I remember what he said and I remember what I did. And yes, I went.

I cried like a baby. I had a broken heart, but I can tell you this. Trust in Jesus Christ as my Savior healed that broken heart about where I was spent eternity. Since that time, I’ll have to admit, there has been an awful lot of events in my life that you could consider to be good things or bad things, but I’ve had a lot of broken hearts. Whether you consider them with your kids or your grandkids or whether it’s ministries or whether it’s health, whether it’s finances, you name it, you’re going to have broken hearts.

But the same God that can heal the broken heart of being lost is the same God that can also heal you in every other way. I would venture to say that Jeanette at this moment has a broken heart. And I believe that it’s good and proper for God’s people to pray for her. Because it’s going to be very hard, veryÛÛ, when people have been married for so long and been in the ministry for so long, it must be a devastating thing.

But can God still heal even toward the end time of your life? I believe God is sufficient for every person for all time. It doesn’t matter the circumstances. And yet you and I can still sit here and maybe we’re not hurting physically, but you can still have a broken heart over something. But whatever it is, Christ says He came to heal the brokenhearted. I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Hebrews in chapter 10.

Hebrews and chapter 10. The Bible tells us after we trust Jesus Christ as our Savior that we are, yes, saved by faith. Place in our faith in what Jesus Christ did for us. He saves us, gives us eternal life and we become His children. His children for all eternity. He said He never casts us out, He never loses. But we are still in this world. Can a just man do good and send if not? I don’t think that it’s possible for a child of God to live his life without sin and regards to how much we love the Lord and how strong we think we may be.

We’re not above failure. We can sin and fall at any given time to say and do things that we shouldn’t. I know I’ve done that over my life. Nobody lives perfectly all the days of their life. But if a man made 99 decisions, 99 decisions out of a hundred and made one bad decision, it doesn’t annul the 99 good decisions. As you live your life, you have to remember that God forgives you of every sin. And in the forgiveness of your sin, you and I are to forgive ourselves.

many people never forgive themselves for the things they have allowed themselves to do. And so they live under a load of guilt. He says, If thou sureth not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, he said, I will put a yoke of iron upon your neck until it destroys you. But I am so thankful that God in his wisdom saw fit to put the eleventh chapter of Hebrews in the Bible. We often refer to the 11th chapter as the Hall of Faith down here you hear of the Hall of Fame.

Those who have really done outstanding things in various ways and so they get their name and the Hall of Fame. And what’s great to know is that what God does record. but I also want you to be impressed by what God does not record. You see God has an ability to do something you and I can’t do. He can forgive and forget and we can never forget. We don’t forget. We try, we’d love to, but if somebody ever wrongs you, you might forgive but it’s hard for you to forget.

And sometimes as time goes on, it might get a little easier. But somebody can say one thing and all of a sudden it causes flashbacks back to a time or a moment when somebody said or did something that really hurt you. We all go through that. But what I want you to see here in chapter 10. Look there in verse 38. Verse 38 says, Now the just shall live by faith. Is there a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sineth not?

I don’t think so. Is there a just man upon the earth? Yes. The Bible even says that Lot was a just man. men, adjustment, but he vexed his righteous soul from day on the day by the things he saw and heard. And it cost him his wife and it cost him his kids. But in the midst of the battle, he made some wrong decisions. But here it makes the statement, the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him and my soul shall have no pleasure in him could be a reference to the Apostle Paul, whom I believe God used to write the book of Hebrews.

But even if it’s a reference to God Almighty, our heavenly Father, it does say that God has no pleasure. See, God is not pleased with our failures. God’s not pleased with it. He’s not pleased with our turn in our backs upon God and not doing right. God is not pleased when we think wrong and when we do wrong. He’s not pleased when we hurt one another. I don’t think God even likes us to have broken hearts, but we do because we’re people living in this world.

And he makes this statement here. If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But, well, my glad I like it. like that word. But we are not of them who draw back unto predation or destruction. But yes, you can be a saved individual and slide back in your service to God. But it’s never a reference to losing salvation. It means that what we know we don’t do, what we’ve learned we don’t share. It means that we fail God in performing our duties as a good soldier.

So he says here in verse 39, but we’re not of them that draw back unto perdition, and you ought to underline this part of the verse, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul just because the just doesn’t perfectly perform in all of his life and every area of his life doesn’t mean that you’re not a just person doesn’t even mean that you’re not a good person. It means that you are a just person doing good but not what I’ve sinned.

It says in the book of John 1 John, he says, a man that said he hath no sin, he is a liar. It means that you and I, we do have a sinful nature and we still do sin. And we do fail and we do get upset. We do get better. We do say hateful things because we’re still people. We’re human. But the Lord can forgive us, restore, and we can keep walking with the Lord. If not, then no Christian would ever mature if we didn’t have a wonderful, loving, forgiving, heavenly Father.

He says here, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. In other words, we may believe that a person can draw back, but we don’t believe that they can never lose their soul. So then you come to chapter 11 where when he’s talking about the just shall live by faith. And as time goes on, we have broken hearts and God heals them. But there’s something that I want you to notice here. Not what is recorded. I want you to see what is not recorded.

He’s not going to show us what’s not recorded. When you read the Old Testament, you get the full story, the full story. You read the Old Testament and you’ll find out what happened and what God did. Verse 5 of chapter 11, by faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him for before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? But do you believe that in it because he please God never displease God?

Do you believe that because of his testimony that he was such a good, a righteous man that God took him on to heaven and didn’t even let him die? Isn’t that awesome? Does that mean he never failed? Doesn’t mean that. Doesn’t mean he never said it doesn’t mean that. See every one of these people fail, but in chapter 11 you don’t find God recording any of failures of any of his servants. Because you see, God was able to do something.

God says, a man shall live by faith. And what a man does for the Lord God records. And the other that God has forgiven is never brought up again. When you read the whole story in the Old Testament, yeah, you find out where the men did that which was wrong. But when you come to chapter 11, you don’t find any of those things. It’s almost like when we get to heaven, what’s God going to bring out? He doesn’t bring out our sins because they are buried in the depths of the sea.

They’re removed as far as the east is from the west and their sins will remember no more. Aren’t you glad of that? But what you did by faith for the Lord, God said, He’s going to reward you for him. Look there in chapter 10 and notice in verse 32. Verse 32 is he’s talking to these Hebrew Christians he says, but call to remembrance the former days. Can we remember the former days? There’s a lot of things in my life I remember some things I like to forget.

But he says, I want you to remember something. After you were eliminated, after you were saved, when you saw and you heard, you understood, you believed in the Lord. After you were living in Him, He endured a great fight of affliction. You see, God’s saving us and leaving us in this body, in this world, is a battle in itself. He left us in a body that fights against everything God wants us to do. My body don’t want to go sometimes.

You still have and I have the lust of the flesh. We get tired, we get weary, we get worn. But maybe there’s times when you endure the great fight of affliction. You were afflicted, but you fought. Thirty-three, partly, while you were made a gaze in stock both by reproaches and afflictions, partly while you became companions of them that were so used. Sometimes it’s because of literal things that you’ve done. Sometimes it’s because you’re a companion with those that are suffering.

While I was in Colorado, I had a very dear man whom God brought alongside of me to help me in the ministry there. His name was Bob Daly. And as time went on, we led a lot of people to Christ. Christ saw a lot of wonderful things happen. But there also came time when we had persecutions. And that man, he stuck with me and it hurt him. He was greatly hurt, but he stuck with me because he believed that I was right.

The suffering that he went through, he’s still my friend today. And I hurt because of what He had to bear just because He chose to be my friend. And I’ve always respected Him for that, knowing that He didn’t have to. As you read these scriptures and it makes statements about things that you’ve done, look what He says here in verse 34. He says, For ye had compassion of me and my bonds and took joyfully the spooling of your knowing in yourselves one of the reasons that you can fight and go through afflictions and bear through things that maybe you didn’t have to but you chose to because of your faith in the Lord.

It’s never in vain and he makes his statement, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven as a result of the way you are decisions you make, the labor, the fight, deflections. You’re gaining something in heaven. See, going to heaven is free. That’s a gift. That’s because of his love for you. But what you have, when you get there, is going to be in direct ratio to the caliber of your love for him in this world. And so he makes this statement in verse 35, cast not away therefore the confidence which hath great recompense of reward.

The Bible tells us the Apostle Paul in chapter 1 of Galatians made this statement, If I seek to please men, then I cease to please God, because you can’t please both. If you seek to please God in the process of pleasing God, it doesn’t please man. you handle that. Can you live with that? As you and I live our life, we don’t have to spend our lives fighting, but just keep going, just keep doing what’s right. Seek into please God and God will honor you for doing just that.

You ever have a child? Just because you have a child that makes a mistake on something, that Firstly made a mistake on everything, but there’s good people that say bad things, good people that do bad things. And that’s why the Bible says in this world we learn to love each other and to forgive one another. But what’s not mentioned here? Take your Bible and look there. Verse 21, he says, by faith Jacob when he was dying, bless both the sons of Joseph and worship, leaning upon the top of his staff.

You remember that there was a time in Jacob’s life where he stole his brother’s birthright, where he lied to his father, deceived his father, but it’s not recorded here. This is where God says, when we go to heaven and we are standing in the judgment seat of Christ God’s going to be divorced, but what we’ve done. Your suffer loss of what you could have done and didn’t do, but what you did do is recorded. So anything from the beginning of your Christian life to the end of your Christian life, whatever you’ve done for the Lord, God will never forget.

Isn’t that wonderful thing to know? One of these days, you’re going to die. I’m going to die. And when we get to heaven, the times where we failed will never be brought up again. That’s a wonderful thing. You see, the greatest thing you’ll ever have in this life is your faith in God. It doesn’t mean that your faith in God is so great that you never sin. It’s that even when you fail God, you have enough faith in God’s Word that you can confess that to God.

Say, Lord, I sinned, I failed against you and I want you to forgive me and God can forgive and you can keep on serving the Lord. Never let some sin that you’ve ever done today or in the past or tomorrow, whatever, ever keep you down because I got good news for you. We serve a God of second chance, third chance and fourth chance and fifth chance and seventh chance and eight chance. He’s always willing to forgive and he can always use you.

He may not be able to use you to the extent he could have at one time, but he can still use you. Let God use you to the fullest. Wherever you are in this Christian life of yours, God will bless you for it. This hen representing you and me and the wall represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God, He loves us. He loves you. He loves me. He loves everybody in the whole world. It’s the sin that we have a problem with because you see our sins separates us from God.

This sin represents Jesus Christ. God is our sin separates us from Him. That’s why God hates sin because He’s perfect and we’re not. And He can’t fellowship with us. We can’t fellowship with Him. We can’t go to heaven because of the sin. And God says that since we committed it, we have to pay for it, it’s eternal separation from God in hell. But He loves us. He wants us to go to heaven and to go to heaven. We have to be perfect as righteous as God and nobody’s perfect.

Nobody is. We’re all sinners. The Bible says we cannot save ourselves by the good deeds that we do. The only payment for sin that God would accept is a payment of death. This then represents Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came into the world because He does love us, He took the sin, paid for it on the cross. This was His way of showing us that He loves us. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, whosoever in the world made it even, whosoever believe it.

Made it where anybody can have it. It’s not hard, it’s not complicated. a child can understand it. That all they had to do is believe that he did it for them and he would put the payment to their account. They’d go to heaven and what Christ did for them. If I offered you my tie and you accepted you’d have a tie. If Jesus Christ walked in here and offered you eternal life and you accepted, what would you have? Eternal life.

If it’s eternal life and it lasts forever, then where are you going to go and you die? You’d go to heaven. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, The Gospel Driven Man. Every day, we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones.

This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics. And we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy. There’s no obligation, no donation necessary, simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of the Gospel-Driven Man. The mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address, and God bless you, and thank you for listening to Bibleline. 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 in looking up.