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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 BibleInemistries.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.

your Bible and turn to the book of Romans chapter 5, Romans chapter 5 verse 20. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. You say, well, what does that mean? Well, change the words here just a little bit, where it talks about where sin abounded. Alright, sin at your debt. Grace, well that’s credit. So what God did is, let’s say you had a thousand dollars worth of debt and God is going to apply grace to the debt.

It means that, let’s say he put in enough to cover $995 worth of a thousand dollar debt. You You would still be in debt for how much, by? You’re still in debt, because there wasn’t enough grace to cover the indebtedness. So what God did is He put an unlimited supply of money into the account, and it doesn’t matter what the debt is, there was enough grace to cover the debt. So, regardless of how many sins you commit, there was enough grace put into the escrow account to cover whatever the debt is.

Isn’t that grace? That’s good. In verse 21, that as sin had rained unto death, even so might grace rain through righteousness unto eternal life. The debt created death. the end result because you couldn’t pay it, it produced this. But if God paid for all of it and you’re released from this debt, then you’re free. Free to get further into debt. No, God said, I’ll pay the debt, set you free so that now because you’re free, because of the liberty that you have, because of what Christ did for you, Therefore, don’t let this liberty become a stumbling block to the flesh.

In other words, don’t use your newfound freedom as an opportunity to get further in a debt. Now some Christians live their life this way. What God has done is set you free, but you have voluntarily chosen to be a slave again. And I’m not talking about money wise, I’m talking about because of the sinful nature that we have. Look what it says in verse 1, shall we continue in sin, get further into debt? That grace may abound. Who are so, because God’s going to give me all the grace that I need to pay for it.

Whenever you go shopping, and I did this one time, well several times, Betty said, I think I need to go get some groceries. So I give her $50 bill and she goes and, well, buys groceries. She knows all she has is $50. So sometimes she will write down whatever she’s getting and the price of every item. So that when she gets to the cash register, she doesn’t have to take back three or four items because she knows she’s only got so much money.

She can only spend so much. So that means she can only buy so much. What if I told her one day, honey? I have an unlimited supply. It doesn’t matter. You just go get whatever you want to get. When it comes to serving the Lord, serving God and doing right is unlimited. But when it comes to sin, God doesn’t want you to commit one, not one sin. Understand a little bit about this scenario. Here’s a man who has committed a crime.

He’s been placed into prison. He’s been there for 10 years. 10 years. He’s been in prison. He’s paid his debt to society. So finally he is released and he’s free. And he don’t know what to do with his newfound freedom. He don’t have a job, don’t have any money, don’t have any friends, don’t know where to go. And so he goes. He goes and commits a crime, a minor crime, just so they can send him back to prison. He would rather be in prison than to be free.

So here you are as a Christian. And let’s say you have been in a prison 20 years. You’ve been a slave. Christ has set you free. He signed your pardon. You’re free. You’re free to go. Now, when you trusted Christ as your Savior, that means that you don’t have to go to hell. The penalty has been paid. Your pardon has been signed. And then because you’re now free to go into this area of freedom, this liberty out there, because you don’t know how to handle that freedom and that liberty, some of God’s children, choose willingly to commit the sin, to still live in this prison, to live in a prison.

A freedom, fearful of the responsibility, making the right choices, because sometimes we don’t always make the right one. And some people are so afraid of failure, they do absolutely nothing. They never step out, never find how to walk on water, never venture out, further than the safety of that little security area that they have. This is why every week I get articles about missionaries, missionaries, and I love stories on missionaries, how that they lead the security of home, the United States, and they go across the world and they bury themselves in some little old grass hut just so they can minister to some people that were not God and give up everything because you see they’re free.

They’re free to go. Some Christians have become such a slave to the things of the world they’ve gotten themselves so entangled with the affairs of the life they can’t serve God the way God wants them to because they’re still a slave. See as a Christian has God signed my pardon, said that I was free and then leaves me in this prison house down here where I can’t do anything in Romans 8 when he says there is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus.

I believe it goes twofold. One concerning justification, the other sanctification. that when you trusted Christ as your Savior, God, by judicial decree, has declared you righteous, you’re just because of what Christ has done for you, and that’s put to your cam. That is your position in Christ. You’ve been justified. There is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ. You can never be condemned again. But that’s my position in justification. But in sanctification, this experimental part of my life that I’ve got to experience, God has not condemned me to a life as a slave to my Old Sinful nature.

That would be a terrible thing. As you read in the scripture, it says in the book of Ephesians in chapter 2 that the people that were without God, that had no knowledge. And it says they were without hope in this world, without hope. Would it be a shame to, yes, be free from the penalty of sin and live in this life and be condemned to live as a slave under the power of the sinful nature for the rest of my life?

So God not only set us free from the penalty of sin, but He is in the process of setting us free from the power of sin in our life. But because some people can’t handle freedom, because when it comes responsibility, I must read and study and yield in order to do and to be what God wants me. Now, once you look at Romans in chapter six, Chapter six deals with our sanctification. Chapter five deals with our justification because in chapter five is talking about how that we have been just made just by faith in God justified.

Look in chapter five and verse one. Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God. In sanctification, this is that part of the life that we’ve got to live. You can have the peace of God. See, peace with God is a judicial decree by God who declared you like in a court of law, you are innocent. It’s though you never committed a sin. A payment’s been put. The debt’s been paid. You’re clear. And you can never be condemned again.

That’s a wonderful thing. But what about my life that I’ve got to live? Alright, let’s just kind of go with the flow. as you go from Romans and chapter six and you begin to go through here you find something like in verse 11. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed on the sin live unto God and then in verse 13 he says, neither yield ye your members yield yield yield. So he’s talking about you making deliberate choices about yielding to God.

A little bit less say you do. Let’s say that after you trust the crisis your Savior, you realize that now I’m a child of God. I have not only been set free from the penalty of my sin, I’ve been released from the prison, from the power of the sinful nature who enslaved me and caused me to be a servant to my own nature for the rest of my life. In other words, it means that you don’t have to live the rest of your life under that domination.

Here’s a scripture here in chapter 7 that uses this illustration. Here’s a woman married to a man. And the Bible says that as long as a man lives, he’s in bondage to the man. But if that man’s dead, well, she’s free. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? But even let’s say, okay, he’s dead. She doesn’t have to obey a dead man anymore. She’s free. She can get married again or stay single or something, but she’s free from that dead man.

Whenever you trust a Christ of Savior, you and I are supposed to believe that our old sinful nature, the old man, died. When the feast dead, then why does he still have power over my life? Only because I choose to give him power over my life. Your sinful nature cannot control you without your permission. you and I don’t have to live our life in sin. Well, we don’t. You say, what I still commit sin, I know, but there’s a difference in committing a sin and living there.

Everybody sins and makes mistakes and falls and so forth. But now what’s the end result? I want you to see that. Look in verse 16, know you’re not that the whom ye yields yourselves servants to obey his servants you are to whom you obey whether sin and the death are of obedience and the righteousness. Then in verse 17, but God be thanked that you were the servant of sin or slave of your old sinful man. You had an old nature that ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine that was delivered unto you, being then made free from the sinful nature.

You became the servants of Christ or of righteousness. So you have a choice after you trusted Christ as your Savior. I can serve the Lord or I can serve sin. It’s a choice that I can make. Second Corinthians and chapter three, this is a very important verse. Remember this, you can blame anybody you want for why you are not a godly individual. But for you not to be a godly individual is your choice. You can be godly or sinful.

You can be spiritually minded, currently minded, your choice. If you’re You’re currently minded, you chose to go back to prison. You chose to go back to prison voluntarily. Here in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, look down to verse 16. Nevertheless, when it, the mind shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that spirit, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is what? Liberty, where the spirit is Lord. In other words, I say in your life, if the Holy Spirit is the Lord, the Master of your life and you voluntarily yield yourself as his servant, then you’ll know what freedom’s all about.

When Christ made the statement, if you know the truth, the truth will make you free. So it means if you don’t know the truth, you can’t be free. The reason that I want people to come and study the Bible, whether Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday, is because I want you to live a free life. I want you to be a free person. But it’s truth that sets you free. It lies that enslave. This is why somebody says, well, I can’t do this.

I can’t do this. I can’t do it. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t do it. can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t yes you can it’s you won’t it’s the fear that robs a man or a woman out of the blessings of God because they can’t see they can’t believe because they’ve chosen to make themselves a prisoner of an old sinful nature. Look what he says here now the Lord is that spirit and and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

But we all, I get this, but we all, with open face beholden as in a glass, the glory of the Lord. In other words, it’s like a person looking in a mirror and you see yourself. And what if you can look in the mirror and see yourself transformed? And watch it happening. Wouldn’t that blow your mind? What if a woman, real ugly woman, looked in a mirror and she saw this ugly woman and now all of a sudden she begins to transform and all of a sudden she’s a beautiful woman right in front of your eyes and you saw that happen.

Wouldn’t you like that? Here’s a 98 pound weakling and he looks in the mirror. He don’t like what he sees but all of a sudden he begins to change, transform. All of a sudden he’s got this muscular body, this belt. And all of a sudden, there he is, and he looks like this Charles Atlas before everybody had to look like Charles Atlas. And all of a sudden you begin to change. Wouldn’t you like that? Now God says, look, you’re looking at that mirror.

All you see is flesh. That’s all you’ve seen, all your life. It’s the way you are. It’s the real way you are. It’s the way you thought. The way you lived. The way you made your decisions. the way you responded to pressure, everything about you. Now, the Holy Spirit indwells you, and as you begin to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, and his freedom begins to slowly change you from the glory of the flesh to the glory of the Spirit.

And you can see over the years how God has transformed you. Since you trusted Christ as your Savior, Have you noticed a transformation in your life? He said, I beseech you, therefore, brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as the living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this warba be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or discover what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

In other words, has there been a transformation in you? Not in the physical features, Because in this old body, we’re getting older and, yeah, it’s been transformed, all right. But I’m talking about the real you now. I’m talking about you. The person that lives inside of the body. Are you a free person? Are you free from the power of the sinful nature to control your life? Now, he didn’t say, walk in the spirit and you will not have the lust the flesh.

They didn’t say that. It says walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The longer you serve God, yes, as you serve God, you still have the desire of sin in your body and your mind. But what do you do? Now I’ll go back to Romans. Here you are, your God’s child. I dedicated my life to the Lord. I want to serve God. God bless you a little pea-picking heart. So you begin to yield and you do all the right things.

Your desire is yes I do. Verse 15, for that which I do. I allow not in other words, I didn’t give myself permission to do that. I didn’t want to do that. You are faced with this desire. Put yourself in these verses and say these things about you. Personalize it. For that which I do, I allow not. what I would, that’s the desire, that’s desire, what I would, this is what I would do. I do not. Who else I don’t do what I want, but what I hate, that’s what I wind up doing.

In other words, I don’t want to do like that. I don’t want to be like that. Have you ever said or done something that just makes your stomach turn because you wish you hadn’t said or done that? And you don’t understand why? I don’t know why no one will I did that. You ever feel like such a failure? And yet this is to the person who wants to yield. This is to the person who wants to serve God. This is not the person that doesn’t want to.

a person that does and he’s struggling and he fights a battle that’s going on. Looking for 16. If then I do that which I would not. In other words I wind up doing what I didn’t want to do, I consent unto the law that it is good. Because when there’s something that I don’t want to do because it’s bad, then I have to mentally give consent that there’s a law that says that’s wrong. There’s a law that says that’s wrong.

So I must say that the law is good and the law does work and it works in my conscience because I’m able to judge that something is right or something is wrong because there’s something that I want to do that is right that I have consented into the law that there’s some things that are right and the law that condemns certain things and so therefore when I know that something is wrong then the law works because I know that’s wrong that’s wrong that’s wrong why because the law says.

The word says, God says. And so since I can send it to do that which is right, why am I doing that which is wrong? And this is talking to the person who wants to serve God. Since you trusted Christ as your Savior and you dedicated your life to the Lord, have you ever done anything that you didn’t really want to do? I wish you had to done. Even though you want to do right and yet you fail, call an old sinful nature.

Look in verse 17. Now then, it is no more eye that do it. But that old dead man that I got to drag around with me, you know I was told that if a man killed a man, that what they would do is take the man that killed this man and then handcuffed the dead man to the live man. And that live man couldn’t go anywhere without dragging that dead man with him. Wouldn’t that be a terrible penalty? That you couldn’t get rid of that dead man.

And after four days he stinketh. And you had to carry that dead man and drag him around with you all the time. That’s a terrible punishment. When you eat, slap at dead men’s with you all the time. And many Christians are dragging around a dead man with him. When he makes this statement here in verse 18, he says, for I know that in me, that is in my flesh, of no good thing. For to will is present with me the desire to do what’s right, but how to perform that which is good I find not.

Or here you are. You are in this prison under the power of this warden, the old sinful nature. That’s old man. He’s running this prison and he’s got all these people in Christ’s pager penalty and you can go free out of that prison. Now the penalty is paid but would it be a shame for you to live the rest of your life voluntarily under the power of that old warden and you just decide to stay in prison? See when you live in the flesh, when you decide to commit those sins voluntarily, you said I would rather be under the power of that old warden than the man who paid my sense so I can go free.

You see, it’s like getting a brand new pair of shoes. After a while, when you wear shoes, they kind of shake to your feet. They kind of feel good. And sometimes the older my shoes are the better they feel. And then you get a new pair of shoes. And generally I get a new pair of shoes, hurt somewhere, some hurt somewhere. And I’m tempted to take those things off and put on my my old shoes again. Why? Because I’ve been walking in them so long and it kind of fit and kind of like go together.

Whenever you trust a Christ your Savior, it’s kind of hard walking in new shoes. It’s a Christian life. It’s something that’s a struggle. You haven’t done it before and you’re not sure about what to do and how to live. But God says with this new found freedom if you’ll just just stay at it. Just keep doing what’s right. God will bless you. Those sore spots, they harden up after a while and you get used to it and things break in and you’ll find out that walking with the Lord ain’t so bad.

You’re not used to walking with the Lord. You’re not used to having somebody else tell you what to do and always be right. Now you have people to tell you that but he always is right and God will bless you. When he makes this statement verse Now for the good that I would, I do not. You ever want to do right and you don’t do right. But the evil which I would not, that I do, there’s things that are wrong, I know it’s wrong, and you do it anyway.

How can you get free from all of that? It’s a battle, it’s a struggle. But you have to understand that even to the most godless of individuals and go through this war, because the greatest victory you’ll ever have is not what you accomplish in the world. is the personal bottle you have within yourself. Satan can’t defeat you until he defeats you in your mind. And that’s why he can take you captive. These scriptures, I don’t believe is talking about salvation, how to get to heaven.

I believe these scriptures is talking about your life, how you live, and the bottle that you’re going through. And he makes this statement here in verse 23, in verse 23 he says, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind. In other words, what I want, something is law, war, and against me. In your physical body is your sinful nature. And here you got a mind that you want to do what’s right, but in your desires of the flesh, it wars against what I want to do.

How can I live as a free man because I can assure you whenever you choose to live in sin, you’re choosing to go back into that prison house where that old man rules over you. It’s one thing to commit a sin, to stumble and fall. It’s another thing to lay in the mud and never get up again. It’s one thing to let something happen to you that so places upon your shoulder such a load of guilt that you never want to serve God again because I’ve failed.

I fail. And I don’t want to be a hypocrite and try certain God and then I’ll fail and I’ll mess up so I won’t do anything. Whenever you trust in Christ as your Savior, and He opened the doors wide of opportunities in a new world, a freedom, and you can walk with the Lord, and God will lead you and guide you and take care of you and meet all you need. And whenever you do sin, I’m glad. When that old warden over there wants to pull me back into that little old prison house and under his power.

I have this get out of jail card free. Whenever he wants to put me back under his power, just because I mess up one time or two time or whatever it might be, I’ve got this 1 John 1, 9 that if I confess that sin to God, he cleanses me and that is what keeps me from going back into his captivity. But see, a lot of God’s people, when they fail, they don’t use that get out of jail card free.

They just become captured. And they live a life of a slave to their old sinful nature, thinking they can never be free from it. God did not condemn you to live under the power of that old warden you’ve been set free. 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. Cada can meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.