Bibleline Radio Show – 2017-03-16 – Works Makes Faith Visible Pt.2
Transcription:
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. We just 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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.
So he says here in verse 18, while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen or eternal. So I can’t see the things are eternal except by faith, believing what God’s word says. And therefore because of that we believe that. Now remember when we talk about salvation is not by works, therefore there’s no works to prove or show to anybody because we’re trusting in the work Christ did, Not the work I did or do or will do.
Salvation is not by works. Not by works of righteousness which we have done. So nobody saves themselves by their works. You’re saved only because you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and He gives you as a free gift ever lasting life. Now if service is by works there are many things to show. There’s many things that we can do. Salvation, nothing you can do except trust the Lord. But as a child of God, there’s many opportunities that God gives to us in life to prove that we love God and that we love one another.
So God is going to give you all kinds of opportunities in life. He’s going to send by some people that are very lovable and he’s going to send by some people that are very unlovable and he’s going to give you all trying to trials and tests and so on. Those are opportunities and these things will either be a stumbling block or a stepping stone based on your attitude, how you see things. And that’s why he says, faint nut, when thou art rebuked of him.
When God tells you no and won’t let you have what you want and do what you want and be what you want, what’s your reaction. You get mad at people, God says, you do, you’re getting mad at Him. You’re not mad at somebody. You’re a matic God. And you get bitter toward God. And so you lose your sight and you don’t think the way you ought to think. Now, let me mention this to you. In the book of Hebrews, in chapter 11, where we were just a moment ago, there are several people that I want you to think about.
One is a man named Moses because we need to have a vision like Moses. Now remember Moses was mine in his own business on the backside of a desert for 40 years, 40 years. Now he was 80 years old at this time. Now you know he’s an old man. He’s over the hill. He can’t accomplish anything. You know, when you get 80 years old, you can’t do anything. Well, well, I think about that and that’s the end. That’s only six years away.
So you have a man like Moses and he’s just watching cheap. And lo and behold, the Lord talks to him from a burning bush and told Moses what he wanted him to do. What did God tell Moses to? I want you to go down into Egypt and tell Pharaoh, let my people go. Now can you see a guy that already didn’t run away from there because Pharaoh that was there was going to kill him? He’s undied and would you have the courage if God had not told him to do this?
Would you go down here and walk up there to see Pharaoh and says, let my people go? And he says, who said I do? And what was Moses going to be able to do about it? Nothing. Because you see, Moses had no power. Who was Moses? But God told him to do it. Now he can go down there with all the authority in the world. God told him to go. So he goes down here and he tells him what to do and he says, I will not.
And they went through this 10 times. And God used Moses. And how would you like to be the one that stands there? You know like Charleston Heston on the banks of the river? the salvation of the Lord. Can’t you see him doing that? Powerful. I think even God’s like that, don’t you think? And stand there. Now would you do that if you didn’t know that the thing was going to open up? Stand still. Nothing yet. I said, no, but God told him what to do.
And because he did what God says to do, the opening up reveal the work of God and the work of God being done in a Christian’s life reveals the faith you have in the Lord. And the reason some people never see God do anything in their life is because they don’t have any faith to do the work that God wants done. Can you believe him? You’d be surprised how many of you said in this room probably could have been a preacher, a evangelist, a missionary.
You could have done something for God in another area, you never did because you were afraid. Afraid the step by because you don’t believe that God’s, well, you know, God, you know, he can make the heavens and the earth. He can send his son into this rolling paper all my sins. But I don’t know if he can supply me with a hamburger from day to day. You know, God’s, you know, he’s kind of poor. You know, God doesn’t have the miracles that he used to have.
And God can’t do it. And God can’t work. that negativism, you have to battle those things. And you battle it by your faith in God. So when you’ve studied the Bible, your faith increases. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So if you’ll feed your faith, your doubts will starve to death. But if you feed your doubts, your faith will starve to death. So how are you doing? Well, which one are you feeding? Is your confidence strong in the Lord?
Remember, you will read to the scriptures, fret not, fear not. Do you know how those words are in the Bible? That is a sign of no faith. That is a worry. The reason you fret, the reason you fear, is to be afraid, the reason you are afraid. about something. Don’t be afraid. Stop worrying. I wonder how many of you are worrying even this morning about something. You’ve got problems and God is so small he can’t solve them. Or maybe God won’t solve them.
In my mind, I get problems all the time. I don’t care if God solves them or not. I’m just to be found faithful. And don’t figure that God loves me if he solves the problem and he doesn’t love me if he doesn’t. God’s characteristic won’t change. God is love. God loves me. And just because I don’t accurately, you know, have the perception and discernment about everything that goes on in life doesn’t mean that God isn’t doing me right. I believe that if I serve the Lord, God has to bless me.
And sometimes He blesses me with all kind of problems because God says we’re problem solvers. We’ve got to solve some problems. So you have a man like Moses. God had to give him a vision. You see, he wasn’t going back down there. He tried that 40 years before when he thought they were going to follow him and he said, who in the world made you a judge that and rule over us. You’re gonna kill us like you did that Egyptian and hide him in the sand?
He didn’t know nobody knew about that. And he ran. So I’m not going back down here. Lord, if I go down here, they ask me, who sent me? What am I supposed to say? Lord says, I am that I am. He is the eternal, present God. He has no past, present, future. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever. God is God. So in the study and the vision that Moses had, and to think would you like to take two million people into a desert and feed them with what?
You imagine what a food bill like that would cost three times a day. What about all the water they got a drink? Remember they’re in the desert now in the non-pom springs. They’re in a desert. You’re talking about how God is going to Moses had a vision and he just did what God told him to do and God let him. God let him. But you see if Moses hadn’t done what he did, look what he’d have missed out on.
He would have never got to see those things. He’d have never got to experience that. And so for 40 years in the wilderness, God led him. And then took him up on a Mount Nebo and says, there’s the promised land. He’d never got to go into it. Because of his anger, he got mad and bitter. Did something he should have done. But God gave him in a vision. God told him, this is what I want you to do. What he did was not what Moses wanted.
That’s what God wanted. But he did it and look at the result. There is a nation called Israel today in the promised land that Moses did 3000 some years ago. So them being there, the land there, all of that that God promised made faith become reality. You could see the evidence of an invisible faith faith is invisible unless works reveal it You can say I love God But if you don’t prove that by your works nobody should believe you love God Do you trust God?
Yes, I trust God and then you worry yourself sick Are you trusting God? You’re a worry and says you’re not trusting God. You’re fretting the fear. It says you’re not trusting him So you got a choice You ever think about a guy like David now David was a man after God’s own heart David loved the Lord David is known as the sweet Psalmist of Israel And I guess it says there and sing to the sheep. I guess that the sheep like it must be alright and And he would sing.
Many of the songs are songs. That is some. But one day God says, I, you’re going to be the next king. God gave David a vision. You should want God to give you a vision. Lord, what do you want me to do? How do you want me to live? Because if you can’t see it, you won’t do it. But if you can just see it, or just satisfied with the way things are in your life? Are you walking with God?
Is it being demonstrated in your life? Does it show that you really have faith in what God’s Word says? Now David, he wanted to do something wonderful for the Lord. So you take the guy like Moses, he wanted to build this tabernacle in the Old Testament that God has shown them a pattern of in heaven. But it was a temporary one. It was a movable one. They can move it from place to place. But when they got into the land, and David says, Lord, I live in a house of cedar.
I live in a palace. He says, and you’ve got that tabernacle, that tent. Lord, I want to build you a house. And the Lord says, you’ve got blood on your hands. You just get the stuff together or let your kid build it. My name is Solomon. You ever you’ve ever heard of Solomon’s temple. So God took that vision that he had, and whether he got it from God, or it was just David himself. He wanted something more to show his, this is God of Israel.
I’m living in this mansion, and there’s this tent for God. So God allowed him and blessed him, and he had the vision to prepare all the things that would be needed for the temple. Solomon comes along and God blessed him and he put it together. And now it’s called Solomon’s Temple. You see, somebody along the way had to have a vision. Somebody has to prepare, make it possible. Years ago, when I was 18 years old and I would begin to struggle in my Christian life, I didn’t know that God had a purpose for me.
I just wanted to find something that I could do for God. I didn’t know God wanted to use me. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know the Bible. All I knew was I’m saved. I’m going to heaven when I die. New few little things here and there. But men just think it burning inside of me. And I had this vision. Sitting there in a Bible bookstore in Athens, Georgia, Buell Cummings was running it. And I would go down there and I’d get to missionary books, and I would sit and I’d read them.
And I’d sit there and I’d cry. I had tears in my eyes. And Buell comes with half to say, Yankee, you’ve got to leave in order to get back to work in time. I’ll always tell him, remind me, remind me. And he would. And I’d put this book back up, and I’d go back, and I’d start running that laminating machine and things like that that I had to do. and a folding machine. And sometimes that thing would just get into a rhythm and it would make noise and it was in a rhythm.
Well, there’s certain songs that you can sing in, you know, to a rhythm. And I got to sing them with that thing and I was singing. I was, because it was so loud, nobody could hear me. I didn’t think. And I was singing, boy, I could sing. I let the volume roll. And all of a sudden it would jam. Well, I didn’t always stop singing exactly on key. And everybody in there, I try to look at everybody, I try to look at me.
I found out later that they were here and every word I said all the time, I just didn’t know that. But there was a burden that I had it. And sometimes I would sing and I would get tears in my eyes and then I couldn’t see the paper. I was supposed to be watching the difference lined up and all I said, that’s not folding the right. And then I couldn’t see. And I’d have to wipe my eyes. But I believe God was working on me back then.
I believe God was burdening me and causing me to see a little bit different. Something beyond this life, something worth living for. I didn’t want to spend my life just doing this all my life. I thought, anybody can do this. What I’m doing, anybody can do. Why should I do what everybody else can do? There’s got to be something more. Now, I don’t know what it is in your life, but maybe I guess you could say, been unsettled. sure, not happy.
Maybe it’s God’s way of saying, you know, maybe there’s something better. Maybe you’re not doing exactly what I want you to do. Because there should be a peace that you have between you and the Lord. Nobody can take it away and a joy that nobody can give to you and they can’t take that away. So I think that when you think about these things, we need one more guy in in this picture. And there’s a guy named Nehemiah. Nehemiah, he went all the way back to Israel from over there in Babylon because the walls had been destroyed, the temple destroyed, Jerusalem was burnt.
He goes back and he seized with the hopathetic. It just broke his heart. And so he goes back next thing you know, he got a few people to come back and they wind up going to rebuild. And so in order to rebuild, they had to have a sword in one hand and lay and brick with the other one or having it close by so that they knew there was somebody who wanted to battle to keep them from building. They had to build the wall for their own protection and to build the temple, rebuild Jerusalem.
For a while they wanted to build their houses Lord said, hey, wait a minute. You put me first, Malachi. So you’d be surprised how much could be done if people just had more confidence and faith in the Lord. Now, I made a little list on this. We have right now, and I’m so thankful, but there’s a while there, I was so concerned that can I take my vision and get other people to see what I’m talking about? I wanted us to have a church with a heart.
I wanted us to have a church that loved the Lord and we would sacrifice to do whatever necessary to support missions. Have you noticed how much has been coming in for missions lately? Anybody looking at the bulletin? Y’all noticed how much comes in from missions lately? Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that wonderful? But you see, because by the doing of it, Our support is what makes our faith visible. Otherwise, why should anybody think we care about missions if we do nothing for missions?
Our work, our giving is our way of saying this is what we believe, but just because you believe it, but if you don’t do something and you don’t give, there’s none to give. So our work is what makes our faith visible. Jesse was talking about ranch just a minute ago. You remember, not long ago, there were 10, 15, 10, five, 10, 15, rocked along like that for a while. Then he got up to 20, then 15, 20, once in a while, maybe 25.
Now they’re running in the 40s. Ranch, the kids, is the evidence Of somebody’s faith. There’s people who work in ranch and they’re making it possible. Somebody has to drive the bus. Somebody has to pay the insurance. Somebody has to put gas in the bus. Somebody has to do all of these things. Somebody has to speak. Somebody has to organize it. Somebody has to sacrifice the time. But ranch today were so thankful that somebody had a vision. I was just talking to Peter about it one day and Peter decided, I want to start ranch.
Peter’s the one who got ranch going. Then he trained Jesse. But aren’t we glad that somebody somewhere along the line has a vision and they’re willing to step out and do the work to make it happen. You see, as you read Hebrews chapter 11, by faith they did this. By faith they did this. By faith they did this and God said, look what they did because they believed and you have to have people that will believe it. We have a radio ministry.
That is the evidence made possible by somebody’s faith and all the people that make it possible so that we can stay on the air and read people all over. Now the YouTube ministry, the internet ministry that we have, a couple of weeks ago we’ve We found out it was about 137 countries where we’ve had people watching our videos, 137 countries. How long and how much would it take for Pastor Arnold to get on the plane and go to all of those countries?
How much would it cost? And yet for a little bit, we’re able to accomplish so much more. It’s been multiplied. I got a thing on the website this morning. They come to me. We had somebody this morning that trusts the Lord in Hawaii. day it was somebody in Ontario, Canada and another one in another country. I can’t remember where it was at. That’s people trusting the Lord. But that’s because somebody had faith to believe. And so Jesse came to me and says, pastor, this is what we ought to do.
I said, how do we do that? He didn’t have a clue how to do it, but he learned. He sat down and he learned what to do and how to get it done. When you saw him up here this morning, choked up because somebody that came to ranch, they taken out Friday night saw a wedding, and they’ll have between 20, 30, 40 people, trust the Lord every Friday night, you see, that’s the evidence of somebody’s faith. Somebody made it work, and there’s results.
that works, produces something and you want to have something produced in your life because when you get to heaven, we all get to heaven, God is going to reward us, every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor and your labor, your work is because you had faith, you believed it. And when you get to heaven, God’s going to bless you because of that. So yes, we started Florida Bible College. Florida Bible College. Just a dream.
Just a dream. Just an idea. Well, see, there’s other people that believe in that dream too. There’s two of them sitting right here. There’s another two right there that came down to help. And there’s some students right there. Three students right here, you’re sitting right there. Y’all sitting together, four of you. Those are the evidence of somebody’s work because somebody believed. Is it worth it? Isn’t it wonderful that somebody believes in living by faith, taking God at His work and watching and seeing what God can do?
Have you ever wondered, I wonder what we could do? If everyone that ever came through those doors would stay and help build, wouldn’t be awesome, but we’re going to have to do some battling at the same time, battling the things that wants to destroy somebody who has faith. That’s why he says over and over again, faint not, faint not. Don’t lose hope. Don’t lose confidence. That’s why in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 35, cast not away therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward.
Confidence is your faith in God. And I pray that as you read and study the Word of God, your faith will grow and grow and grow. grow because we’re only going to live one time. Wouldn’t you like to see how much could be done with God’s people that really believed it? And see great things happen. Don’t you want to see something happen wonderful in your life? I do. And if I’m 99 years old, I was thinking about retiring when I get 99.
And then I’m going to go on the road. Look up here. This hand represents you and me. You’ve got to have a vision. This hand represents you and me. This wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. God says that He loves us. He loves us. He loves you. Now, He don’t like what you do wrong, but He loves you. And He loves me. I hate what I do wrong. And the Bible says to pay for that sin is eternal separation from God in hell.
But God says that He loves us, wants us to go to heaven. But you have to go there without sin and nobody’s perfect. So that’s why nobody can earn a way to heaven. You have to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect. So God says you cannot live good enough to go to heaven. Your works will not help. This hand represents Jesus Christ, He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us. our sin because our sin separates us from the Lord.
So the Lord says that if I would believe that He took my sins, died on that cross and paid for them and was buried, came back from the dead. He did that for me. If I would believe He did it for me, He would save me. If you will believe He did it for you, He’ll save you. He’ll save whosoever believe it for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Now, whosoever, believe it in Him, should not perish.
He won’t go to hell, but have everlasting life. Can you know you have everlasting life? Can you know that you’re going to heaven when you die? Yes. I trust He Christ as my Savior 55 years ago, and I can’t get any more saved than what I was then. Now, I can grow in the Lord. I can become a stronger Christian. I can mature in the Lord, but I can’t get any more saved than what I was because that was just based upon the work He did for me.
Growing in the Lord is based upon the work that I do with Him and God will work in your life. Let’s pray, shall we? Every head bow and every eye closed. If you hear this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, God loves you, and so do I. He wants you to go to heaven. So do I. He says it’s free. That means you don’t have to work for it. It’s the gift of God. Would you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior?
If you’ll trust Him, He would give you eternal life as a free gift and you can know that you’re going to heaven. You’re going to heaven on His Word, not yours. What He did, not what you do. So in the quietness at this moment, no one looking around. I’m not going to have you forward, not getting in, bearish you. But would you trust Christ as your Savior right where you are? If you’re making that decision, I’d like to pray for you.
Would you just whip you in a very quickly and put it right back down and say, yes, pray for me. I will trust Christ as my Savior this morning. Is there anyone at all? If you’re watching by internet, right where you are, right there on the screen, all you need to do is just say, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior and let us know by clicking it on. Our Father, we ask your blessings upon those that are here and those that listen by internet.
Help us to be a blessing to each one. We ask now your blessings upon our fellowship. Thank you for all you do for us for each person here. In Christ and every prayer. 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 Bible line 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 4081 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.
