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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 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.

Anyway, I got a few things I want to talk to you about. During the meeting somebody made a statement about goers and senders, goers and senders. And it kind of stuck in my mind, even though I talked about it and preached on it, but I never used those two words, but I wanted to kind of give you some thoughts about that. So to start off with, I want you to turn in your Bible to the book of Isaiah, the book of Isaiah chapter 59, chapter chapter 59, Isaiah chapter 59, and you’ll notice in verse 1, it says, behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save.

Neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear. Now, I want to make sure you understand. After 73 years of dealing with people, it’s amazing how many people think that they’re really pretty good. I mentioned it to someone just recently and they said that they thought they were pretty good, that they’re going to go to heaven because I’m pretty good.

And I thought they don’t really understand God and they really don’t understand themselves. They just think that God must be pretty good, and pretty good is going to cut it. But God is holy. God is perfect. Heaven is a perfect place. And God cannot allow one sin in the heaven. He kicked Adam and Eve out of a garden. Remember, here’s God made thy heavens and the earth, created a perfect environment. And he made a man and a woman and they put them there and they committed one sin for that.

I’m sorry, you’re out of here, your history. And they were kicked out of the garden. Well, that’s pretty, you know, that’s terrible. One little mistake. One. So God will not allow one sin into heaven, and God is perfect. He says, your sins have separated between you and me. And people,orate believe, understand how terrible they are. Because we compare ourselves among ourselves. I’m just as good as you are. I preached a sermon years ago called, My Stens Better Than Your Sten.

Anybody remember that? My Sten’s not as bad as yours. I may have sinned but I’m not as bad as you are. So therefore, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. God says that we are terrible. We are wretched. We are wicked. That’s what the Bible says. And we are. But we don’t see ourselves that bad. But I want you to notice here, when he makes a statement in verse 3, for your hands are defiled with blood, your fingers have iniquity, your lips have spoken lies, your tongue have murmured perverseness, none call it for justice nor any pleated for truth, they trust in vanity, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.”

Now you think they must be writing exactly about Congress that we have in America. And we say, you know, if that’s the way the people are, these are the people we have in Congress. This is the people we got running for office. That’s the people we got sitting in church. That’s you. That’s me. That’s us. Do you see anything in here that looks beautiful, wonderful, charming? They hatched cockatrice eggs, weaved the spider’s web. He eateth of their eggs, diet, and that which is crushed, breaketh out into a viper, a little snake.

In other words, God says, we’re nothing but little snakes. Remember when Jesus was talking about the pharisea, the vipers, go tell Herod the fox. I mean, Jesus pulled no punches. olated, I know a mild mannered man, but Jesus was a man’s man. Jesus was not a sissy, but he says here, in the last part of this verse six, where he says, their webs have they become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works. In other words, a spider’s web, have you ever seen a spider’s web?

You can see right through it, can’t you? There’s people who are trying to cover themselves with spider webs. In other words, cloaking themselves in their good works and the God is like a spider. I can see through that. People think that because of my good works, look how good I am. Do you know how good I am? And God says, I know how good you are. And he says, there’s none good, no, not one. Now I didn’t write this.

Don’t get mad at me. I’ve had people leave the church because, well, and you’re like what the preacher said, I just told him what God said. And this is what he says. And he makes the statement here in verse 8. He says, the way of peace they know not. There is no judgment in their goings and they have made them crooked paths. Whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. In other words, man is no good. His path is no good.

He can’t cover himself with his good work. God sees through it all. And that’s why in Isaiah he makes the statement in 64. that your righteousness are as filthy rags. That’s how we look in God’s eyes. Some of these same verses are taken over there in the book of Romans in chapter 3 when it describes man. There’s none that seeketh that, the God, no, not one. There’s none righteous. There’s none that doeth good. Pretty bad. And that’s why he says, all the world has become guilty before God.

So in God’s eyes, everybody is guilty. Sin is bad. And it’s worse than we think. We have deceived ourselves in thinking it’s not that bad. The other day I was thinking about this, oh I got burning, oh I got so mad. I kept thinking about here’s people today can take little babies, cut off their heads and they talk about ISIS and what they’re doing, how wicked and wicked and what they’re doing to the children. We’re doing it in and dismembering the body parts, cutting them open.

All the things that you would hate, listen, that baby on the inside of the womb ought to be in the safest place in the world. It’s a terrible place to be today because somebody is coming with a knife, an acid, and whatever it takes to kill that baby. And you think that, well, it’s not that bad because we don’t see it happening. It’s not that bad. People don’t consider living with each other. Well, that’s not bad because everybody does that today.

There’s no shame. It doesn’t matter if girls have babies out of wedlock, it doesn’t matter anymore because it’s not bad. It’s not that sinful. But then when we look at ourselves in God’s eyes, God says sin is a terrible, terrible thing. Look how God punishes sin and you’ll see that. So it goes down there here and he says this is the way people are. In verse 10 we grope for the wall like the blind and we grope as if we had no eyes.

We stumble at noon day as in the night. We are in desolate places as dead men. People who have no discernment, they can’t discern right from wrong, good and bad. And we made things that are good, evil and those things that are evil we made it good. We’ve turned this world upside down. Now in the apostle Paul came on the scene, he says he turned the world upside down. He got straightened up again. But now notice down here in verse 12 he says, for our transgressions are multiplied before us and our sins testify against us for our transgressions are with us and as for our iniquities we know them.

Now look in verse 16. And he saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore, his arm brought salvation unto him and his righteousness is sustained. This arm is the Lord. Look there IZF 53. IZF 53 real quick. You see there in Isaiah 53 in verse 1, who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed. This is talking about Christ. And he finishes that in chapter 53. All this about Jesus Christ coming to the earth because no man could be an intercessor.

No man could be the Redeemer. No man could do anything for anybody else. We’re all guilty. That’s why we all needed to save you. And that’s why the Bible says, is his arm so short that he can’t reach us? He says, your sins have separated you from God. So the Bible tells us, and I want you to turn in your Bible to the Bible. But Romans, in chapter 10, Romans, chapter 10, and Romans, chapter 10, it quotes some of those verses we’ve looked at in the book of Isaiah.

And there’s a verse that I want you to look at because what he describes is the old sinful nature of man. He describes the way we are, God’s eyes. So he says in verse 13, who’s so ever? That means out of all those people he described, who’s so ever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So God is willing to save everyone that will believe on him. and his arm is not too short that it cannot reach you.

God is willing to save whosoever believe it. But now notice some of the questions down through here. When he talks about how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear unless they be sent. So he says here in number four, was it because the message was not preached? They never heard the message. Maybe this is why some people can’t believe on Christ because they’ve never heard. You know, that’s a possibility. Number five, was it because the message was not clear?

Is it possible that the message they heard wasn’t clear? Was it because somebody did not go? It wasn’t because somebody did not send. Was it because they refused to believe the message? So these are questions that the Bible asked. And after I trusted Christ as my Savior, one of my first questions I remember asking my father law who led me to the Lord. I says, what about those people in Africa that’s never heard? I don’t know why they’re always in Africa.

What’s going to happen to those people that’s never heard? And he would say, Yankee, if the Bible is true, then that means that they do not hear they cannot trust the Lord. And if they don’t trust Christ as Savior, they will spend eternity separate from God. Now I thought, if that’s true, that’s true. I felt so uncomfortable. I either had to dismiss it out of my mind. It’s not true. So I can live with myself because if it’s true, somebody ought to tell them.

And how do I prove to myself that it’s not me? How do I prove to myself that God didn’t want me to do it. So now I’ve got to prove to myself God wants somebody else to do it. True? I mean if you think, most people never think either I’ve got to do something about it or somebody ought to do something about it. Well who’s responsible? But did that plague in my mind? I couldn’t find a way to get out of it.

Yesterday I was sitting drinking some coffin, write a few little notes, and I thought to myself, Lord, how did you do it? I’m trying to rehearse in my mind. How did you get me from where I was to where I am? It blows my mind as I look back over the last 55 years. I’ve gotten, how did you do it? How did you get me to think the way that I think? I came to the conclusion, and I, Lord, Did you give me this special little desire that God says, Yankee, I want you to do it?

I said, if you did, something bothers me, Lord. If you did it for me, then why didn’t you do it for everybody? Or is it just certain people you want to serve you? Or do you want everybody to do it? The why is there some of God’s people that have no desire to serve God? God, I cannot explain that in my mind. I can’t justify it. I can’t separate the two. It doesn’t make sense to me. And if it’s not something that you did special for special people, then is it something that I decided?

If you didn’t do it, who did it? Is this a decision I made? I made this decision. It was my choice. What if I made that choice because of something? Every child of God make the same choice. Or with that different. He said, we’re all lost. We’re all deceived. We’re all in the same boat. But then here comes the Lord. He sends this one person Jesus tries to down the cross for the sins of the whole world. It wants everybody to be saved.

Whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Going to all the world and priesthood gospel. Who? Who? He wrote that 2,000 years ago, so evidently it doesn’t mean anything today. Or it doesn’t mean something today. If it means something today, all right, go into all the world. I got a question a lot. Who? Me or someone else? Who? How God did you get me from where I was when I cared not one eye-o to about one person?

I didn’t care if people went to heaven or hell. Of course I was lost too. I wanted to go to heaven. I hope I would, but nobody ever told me. One man in the last 73 years crossed my path and he told me about the Lord. In 55 years since then nobody has ever witnessed to me and I thought, what if he had missed me? And I thought about that. I tried a little bit more. I guess the older I’m getting more sentimental.

I just never get sentimental like that. But now I know how important that decision was. What if I had never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ? That’s been the most exciting, monumental thing that’s ever happened in my life. And at the time that I made that decision, it didn’t seem like that great of a decision. When I decided I’m going to serve the Lord, it didn’t seem like that big of a decision. I thought, Well, everybody ought to do that.

I wasn’t making anything, no big deal. Everybody ought to do that. That’s just something that just makes sense. But I have to admit I didn’t know how. Didn’t know where. Didn’t know why. I didn’t know anything. Because I wasn’t raised in church. But I had just burned in the Zaira-Krat-Trosort. I want to do something for the Lord. Now here in these verses, when he makes this statement here, look in verse 14, how then shall they call on him of whom they have not believed?

How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent? Go send. The first two letters of the word gospel is G-O. Don’t that make sense? How clear? Spell, S-P-E-L. Spell it out, keep it clear, keep it simple. Sounds good to me. Now go up to the top of your page there. And I wrote this little statement down, the gospel is God’s way of stretching forth his hand.

Is God’s hand so short that it cannot save? And he can only be saved person because God’s hand can reach him. The gospel has to reach the person. And God is willing to save who’s so ever and nobody. Look there in 1 Peter chapter two, verse seven right during your notes. Because the Bible talks about obeying the gospel, obey the gospel. Not all have obeyed the gospel. Just look at this right here in your Bible. Romans in chapter 10, look in verse 16 where he says, but they have not all obeyed the gospel.

It’s because God didn’t choose them to obey the gospel, as some Calvinists would say. If God wanted all, then why didn’t God just save all and give all the desire for everybody to be saved, but God has placed eternity in their hearts. There’s people who do want to know the Lord, who didn’t want to know the truth, but not all obey the gospel. In other words, that comes from that scripture we read back there in the book of Isaiah chapter 53 on the whom is the arm of the Lord, then revealed, and who hath believed our report.

Who’s going to believe this? And so people hear the gospel of they, but they count it as nothing. There’s There’s no respect for God. They don’t believe there’s a heaven or a hell. They don’t believe there’s any consequences if they reject the message. They don’t really think it through because the devil in this world have blinded the mind of them which believe not. Less the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them. So here in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 7, unto you therefore which believe he is precious, under them which be disobedient or unbelieving, the stone which the builders disallowed or rejected, the same as made the head of the corner.

See, people want to build something, but the thing they need to build with is the thing they rejected. Israel rejected the king, and he became the head of the church. No. Obae the Gospel means to believe the Gospel. Look at number two, it is rebellion or disobedience to not obey or to believe the Gospel. And this is a very important point to remember. And second the following is one-seven, we’ll just read it right here in the notes. And to you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.

But something else that I wanted you to see here, and that is where in number three, there is severe judgment and punishment to those who do not obey or to believe the gospel. Remember this now? We often hear John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, the whoosh, so ever, believe it in him, should not perish but have everlasting life. Parish there doesn’t mean annihilation. Parish means you’re going to be separated from God for all eternity and eternal punishment.

And he describes it later on more about what he’s talking about. Now let’s just take somebody in your family that you know, somebody that you love, and they have not trusted Christ of their Savior. Okay, they haven’t trusted the Lord’s their Savior. But whatever the reasons, do you really understand It regards how lightly they take a gospel witness. It regards how they feel about it. Do you understand that if they reject Christ as their Savior, do you honestly, truly, believe they’re going to hell?

If you don’t really believe that, I can see why you may not take it seriously and think it’s that important. You don’t really believe it. Are you saved? Why do you need someone to down the cross to pay for sins to keep us from going to a place of it that doesn’t exist? I believe Christ died and paid for my sins to keep me out of hell so that I could go to heaven to be with him. And if he hadn’t had done it, that’s where I would have gone.

I believe I needed a savior. Now, I want you to look at the next point. There is severe judgment and punishment to those who do not obey or to believe the gospel. Don’t obey the gospel means to believe. believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be said, it doesn’t mean you have to live a certain way because the gospel never tells you that you have to change your life to go to heaven. The gospel says that you’re to believe on Christ and trust Him to take you to heaven, not trust your works to take you to heaven.

If you trust your work to take you to heaven, you can’t go. And think of how many people are religious in this world and never have trusted Christ as their Savior because you can talk to them over and over and over again and so many people are trusting in their own righteousness which the Lord describes as a web of a spider in the eyes of God it’s not like it’s even there. God says people trying to cover themselves with their good works God sees through all of that no salvation for that.

But look at the next statement. Second thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 8. So in verse 8 it says, In flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God. See don’t we often ask people, do you know the Lord? Do you know the Lord? Do you know the Lord? You can’t know the Lord except through his son. You have to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior whom to know is life eternal. So you and I are asked do you know the Lord?

I’ve had people that we need to have that question settled. So if you hear this one and if I asked you point blank do you know the Lord? Not to know God. I mean not know about God. Not to believe in God. Do you know God? You can only know God except through his son Jesus Christ. If you have not accepted Christ, you don’t know God. So when Christ comes, He’s going to take vengeance on those who know not God.

You see the worst sin any man can do today, the worst sin is to reject Jesus Christ as Savior. Remember this, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Jesus Christ coming into this world is is the love of God. He has manifested his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, not Saint sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus Christ represents the love of God. This is God’s way of saying this is how much I love you.

So, when you accept Christ as your Savior, you are accepting the love of God. When you reject Christ as your Savior, you are rejecting the love of God. And so, not to trust Christ as your Savior is one of the worst things any man can ever do, because God says he’s going to take vengeance on them that know not God. God, the those who do not believe the gospel, all of us have sinned. And all sin can be forgiven of every man.

But there’s one thing that a man goes to hell because he does not accept the payment Christ made on the cross for him. Now look at this statement. When he says here in verse 8, inflaming fire, taking vengeance on them that no, not God. Is that a little thing? Is that a light thing? is this something serious? Do we really believe that? Listen to what it says and look at the last part of them and that obey not the gospel, not to believe the gospel.

God’s going to take vengeance upon those people. Now this means your grandmother, this is your aunt Susie, this is your sister and You’re in laws and outlaws. This is everyone you hold dear to you. God says they are going to be eternally separated from the presence of God in a literal fire burning hell. Now if this is true, if it’s true, if it’s not true, take the Bible thought in the trash and go do whatever you want to do.

But if we say we believe this and believe the gospel, how important is the gospel to be gotten to the world? Now I got in the last couple of days one that trusted Christ the Savior in Australia, Australia. Another one from Singapore, Singapore. So there’s people, we’re trying to get the gospel out around the world. And we had it response from 137 countries. Why do all of that? Well if this is true, then it’s important. If it’s not important, if it’s not true, then that’s not worry about it.

Let’s just live our lives until we’re out of here. And just as long as I got my little pinkies, you know, I’m safe, insecure, I’m going to make it and that’s all that matters. But do you think God is going to hold his children responsible for not reaching this generation? I’m not responsible for the next one, I’m responsible for the one in which I live. So look at the next statement. Verse 9, who shall be punished at this with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power?

and get this. The next verse, verse 10, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired, get this in all them that believe, because our testimony among you was believed in that day. So God uses his people to take the gospel to people, and they believed it, because our testimony was believed. believed. That’s why they believed because our testimony was believed. 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 Name.

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.

Taught 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.