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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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

Now, I put there in bold, so I want you to look at that yielding reveals it is the clay that makes the choice. So how does God work? Now he goes to and explains the problem because every one of us wants to know how do I perform. So I’m glad you asked that question. Look in verse 18 of Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7 verse 18 says, for I know that in, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.

For to will is present with me.” In other words, man has a will. You see that’s mentioned in verse 15, 16 and 17, where he says, for that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that’s his choice. It’s a that do I not? But what I hate, you have the will, the hate, but not do. See, it’s your will. God did not destroy the will of the clay, which many people teach that man has no will, and God imputes his will upon a person against their will.

And it doesn’t matter, but notice. In verse 17, Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, for I know that in me that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, for the will is present with me. I have the will, I want to fulfill the will of the potter. I want the potter to use me, to shape me, to mold me, to make me into the pattern that thou hast planned.

Remember years ago I read a little poem to y’all or I quoted or something. When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ and He shows His plan for me, the plan of my life had He had His way and I see. How I checked Him here and I checked Him there and I would not yield my will, though He would have me rich and I stand there poor. Poor of all but His grace. While memory runs like a haunted dream down the past, I cannot retrace.

of the years that are left for me, I give them into thy hand to take me, mow me, make me into the pattern that thou hast planned. So there is the will of man that you can choose. Yes, I want the will of God for my life. And by doing so, you can be some clay that God can shape and mold. And if you harden your heart against the will of God, then you’ll be a piece of clay that God will set aside and not be able to use.

Because you see, he can’t shape or form you against your will. So does man have a will? As you read here, you’ll find out, yes, man has a will. Does God have a will? Yes, God has a will. So how is God going to do all of this. How can man find fault with God for doing what God wants to do? God says, I did it this way, because I’m not going to take and go against a person’s will.

You can yield or not yield. But why tell us to yield if it’s really I don’t have a choice one way or the other? Evidently we do have choices. We can choose one way or the other. So he says in the last part of verse 18, very important. He says, for to will is present with me, but, and see those words, how to perform. How do I perform as a piece of clay? The will of God. So God has the power.

The shape, the clay, so the clay can perform the will of God. This is why he says, study to show thyself approved unto God a workman Cunning that need not to be shamed so that he can perform the will of God. All scriptures given by inspiration of God that the man of God can be thoroughly furnished unto every good work so that he can perform. Do the work God wants him to do. But that’s why God gave us his word.

And this is why you’ll find out God uses some people. and not other people, because some people will yield and some people will not yield. It’s the person’s choice. Now look at number three there in your notes. The Potter presents his perfect plan to the clay. Go to chapter 9 of the book of Romans. Chapter 9 is the past of Israel, chapter 10, the present time of Israel. and chapter 11 is about Israel’s future. But under chapter 9 we have God chooses the clay.

God chooses the clay. So God reached down upon this world and he chose a hunk of clay and he’s going to make something out of this clay. And the clay says all that he asked us to do we will do. So the will of the clay was yes Yes. And so that’s why, as a nation they promised God they would do the will of the Father. And so He gave them the Word, took them into the land and He promised blessings and then they rebelled against God.

They wouldn’t listen to what God’s Word had to say, what the prophets had to say. They didn’t listen to the warnings that Moses had given them in chapter 18 of the book of Deuteronomy and so forth. And they rebelled against the Lord, they hardened themselves. And so God took them out of the land. So there was a time when Israel was young and he could shape them a little bit and mold them a little bit, put them into the land like he had promised, and then Israel hardened himself.

And so God set them aside. And that’s why you find that the Lord says, looking verse 6 of chapter 9, though not as though the word of God have taken none effect as though the word of God has no effect. No, there are some people, individuals that did believe, but as a nation, the clay hardened itself. And so because it hardened itself, God set them aside. So when you get to chapter 10, in this present time in which we live, Israel did not submit themselves onto the righteousness that God sent.

You see, that’s why he made this statement in verse 4. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeeth. But Israel wouldn’t believe that. And that’s why he makes the statement in verse 3, look in verse 3. For they be an ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness. See those words have not submitted. When you will not submit your will to God and will not believe the gospel that God gave that a man can be saved by grace and grace alone, you harden yourself against that truth.

But then you’re gonna have to find a substitute, something else to believe beside the truth. Does God tell us that salvation, good to heaven is by grace alone? That’s the best news that anybody’s ever heard in their whole life. But if you don’t believe that, you’re going to have to believe then you’re saved by your works. It’s either grace or it’s works. It’s either free or you got to earn it. And if it’s grace, well that makes you happy.

How many of you know you’re going to heaven when you die? Let me see you hand. Oh here, put it down. I mean, no, you’re going to hell. No, that’ll make you happy. See, aren’t you happy you’re going to heaven because you know you’re going to heaven because you know it doesn’t depend on you because grace does that. But if you’re saved by your works, well, you’ll have to wait till you die to find out if you’re good enough.

So God says it’s not by your works. But people are going to do that anyway. So there’s a lot of people who have hardened themselves against the truth of God. Israel had done just that. They went about establishing their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves into the righteousness of God. So as a nation God took that hardened clay and set them aside. Now is God wrong for doing this? No. It’s because there will, clashed with the will of God.

You see, God has already decided to work with any clay that will yield to Him. But He will not do it against Your will. So as you yield to the Lord, God is able to shape your life and He’ll work in your life. And you’ll see the hand of God in your life. And you’ll love what you see and how God can move. Harden yourself against the will of God. God. And you’ll see your heavenly Father, He’s going to chase in you.

And you’re not going to like the result. But remember this, that’s because the clay rebelled against the will of the potter. It’s not the potter’s fault. It’s not God’s fault. God is the God of all the earth and shall not the God of all the earth do right. Who can find anything wrong with the way God does things? So as a child of God, you can either yield to the will of God and God will bless you and reward you when you get to heaven and use you in a great way or God may have to chasing you, set you aside and you’ll waste your life.

Now don’t blame that on God. God will use every piece of clay that wants to be used and God will take you and make something out of you and do what you cannot do yourself. Now in chapter 11 we have to clay one of these days is going to be softened. And Jesus Christ is going to come back in power in great glory and they will see the Savior. And each one of the nation of Israel they will be born as in a day and they’re going to trust the Lord and they will be grafted back into the original root which was Christ Himself.

So you see Israel, Oh yes, God put that piece of clay. And then they hardened themselves and God set it aside. The church is not Israel. That’s a different piece of clay. And so one day God’s going to come back. And you’re going to take that little hungry play of Israel and go and make them into the greatest nation the world has ever seen. Now look at number four. Number four. Number four, the brethren presents the imperfect clay to the potter.

You see, you and I are incomplete at this point. We’re complete in Christ, but in this world, there’s things that God wants us to know. There’s some more work God wants to do in our life. And what he has begun, he wants to complete. He wants to finish. There’s a work to be done. So God has to bring us from childhood to adulthood. And the only thing that lies between a child of God and a man of God is the word of God that lies in between.

So by rejecting the word of God, you’re not going to be flexible clay. You reject the leading of the Holy Spirit and the conviction of the Holy Spirit in your life, and you’ll grieve the Holy Spirit and you will not be flexible clay. He can’t shape you, mold you into what he wants. Yes, you’re still God’s child, and you’ll be surprised that yes, God, because of his long, suffering, his mercy, he’s good, he’ll still, Yes, you only can enjoy some things in life, but it’ll never be what you could have been.

And you won’t know that till you get to heaven you’ll find out how you hardened yourself against God. Don’t do that. Stay teachable in God’s hands. Stay pliable. Let God work in your life. Don’t get hardened and bitter toward God because you didn’t get what you wanted the way you wanted it. God knows what he’s trying to make out of our lives. That’s what he says here, and I want you to take your Bible-looking Romans in chapter 12. You see, we could go from chapter 8 and go straight into chapter 12 and forget about chapter 9, 10 and 11.

But 9, 10 and 11 is letting us know how God works as the potter would declare. Because as you come through the book of Romans and you get to chapter 6, because you’ve been justified in chapter 5, because you understand the righteousness of chapter 4, you find out that yes, as a child of God, God has a perfect will for my life. And so God is able to shape us in Demodus into the kind of a person that God wants us to be.

Now, when you get to chapter 12, and it makes a statement in verse 1, I beseech you, therefore, therefore means look at what went before this. you understand how God works, then he says there in verse 1, I beseech you therefore brethren, believers, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies. These bodies of ours is a hunk of clay. This hunk of clay, this body. I am supposed to present this clay to the potter as a living sacrifice.

Means it’s a sacrifice that’s teachable, that’s usable, that’s pliable, that God can bend it and shape it any way He wants. I’m presenting my body to the Lord. And as he says here, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable servant. It’s only reasonable for you and I as a child of God to present as clay to the potter. And then notice what he says in verse two. Be not conformed to this world. Because that means you can be conformed to the world.

See, God did not take away your will. If it was the will of God, for all of God’s children to be totally transformed by the power of God, then why didn’t it all happen? Because God does not go against your will. You can choose whether or not to be conformed to the world. So some of God’s children let the world mow them. And that’s because of the pressure from without. And so there’s shape like the world. They look like the world, act like the world, talk like the world, and they fall in love with the world.

So there’ll be just like the world. Those are vessels that God cannot use for His honor and glory, but He can use them to bestow His chastening hand upon. So you can rebel against the Lord, and God can still use you, but that’s not the way you want to be used. That God does not tolerate disobedience from His children. God can chasten and God can discipline. But then he also makes the statement, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

This is why it makes the statement in chapter eight, the Holy Spirit indwells us. The Holy Spirit is to lead us. And he also makes the statement, look at it very quick. I want you to see this in chapter eight of Romans. In chapter eight, He also makes the statement in verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. It means the hardness, the problems with the clay. God can take these lumps of clay and we all have problems.

It’s like having gravy with lumps in it. You ever have lumps in the gravy or lumps in the grits? It needs a little bit more stirring, maybe a little bit more heat. But God knows everything that’s weak. We have infirmities. We’re not always the way we ought to be. So the Holy Spirit living within us, applying the Word of God to us, as God spins us around on the table and he shapes and molds us by the hand of God into the vessel that God wants us to be.

And if we yield, you’d be surprised what God can do for your life. Now, when he makes a statement there in verse 2, look in verse 2, Romans in chapter 12, he says, but be it not conformed to this world, but be it transformed by the renewing of your what? So that’s the choice you make. Present your body. That’s the choice you make. See, God’s already chosen every piece of clay that will yield himself to the power of the potter.

God is gonna work in their life. And God can make something wonderful out of you. And God has a particular purpose for your life. But isn’t it a shame when so many people harden themselves against the will of God, and they become more like the world, and they do the things of the world, and not the things of God. You only get one trip through life. No reruns, no instant replays, just one trip through life. Wouldn’t it be a shame to mess it all up because of a hard heart, a rebellious spirit.

And God says, and suddenly they’re broken off and that without remedy. In other words, some people will not yield to the Lord. Whatever God wants me to do, I just wanna do it. I don’t even want to argue with God. Just tell me what to do and if it’s right, that’s what I’ll do. And don’t spend all your life arguing. It’s like two people when they get married and half of their life is spent trying to find out who’s in charge and just fight all the time.

Instead of just realizing there’s only one I’m supposed to be the boss. It’s the one she says. No. We’ll move right along. We can get bogged down here very, very easy. But look at verse two again. By the renewing of your mind, get this, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of the potter. There is the will of the potter. And he’s already explained that in chapter 9, I will, I will, I will, I will.

God has a will. And he wants to clay to yield to his will. But he doesn’t do it against your will. If you want to rebel against God, you can. But just because God has a will doesn’t mean that the clay doesn’t have a choice to make. You see, God did not make us trust Christ as Savior. And God will not make you serve Him. But I found out from study in the Bible, it’s a lot better if we do.

If you want to enjoy life better, I mean really enjoy life better. And that whenever you’ve lived for the Lord, there’s not going to be years of regret. But you rebel against God and you’re going to have a hardened heart and you’re not going to enjoy life the way you should. And God will not be as precious to you. And then everything that happens to you, you question the wisdom of that. And then you get mad and upset with God.

But if you’re in the hands of God and you’re just the clay in the potter’s hand, you don’t care which way he turns you. You don’t care how much water he has to apply. You just want to yield to the God. But if you don’t yield to the Lord, remember you on the inside of you. You have an old sinful nature and you also have the Holy Spirit. Which one do you yield to? The old sinful nature or the Holy Spirit?

The world also wants to conform us. So he says be not conformed to this world means you got a choice you can be you can be just like the lost people Live just like the lost you can live like an atheist if you want to are you still God’s child? Yes, because once you trust Christ to save you you become a child of God and God isn’t finished with you yet remember. There’s a song that came out years ago God isn’t finished with me yet.

I don’t think I had goes he’s still working on me He’s still working on you to make you what you ought to do or something like that. But it’s a cute little thing, but he hasn’t finished with us yet. And God hasn’t finished with you yet. There’s so much more that he wants to do. Look down at the bottom of your page.

This is how the potter molds the clay. In order for the Lord to conform us to the image of his son, he must transform us by the renewing of our minds. So you’re the one, and I’m the one decide well now will I read the Bible? Well I studied the Bible. Well I go to Sunday School and Church where I can hear more of the Bible and then when I hear it well I apply it to my life. See it’s the applying of the scriptures that shapes your life.

In one ear not the other ear and sometime it never gets lodged in there. It never makes a difference. Do you have the idea whatever Whatever the word of God says, whatever the will of God is, I’m willing to do. That’s when you yield your bodies as a living sacrifice, as this piece of clay that God can take me and my will and everything about me and shape me into whatever God wants me to be. That’s the best news in all the world.

Now look down at the bottom of the page, right down at the bottom. To perform, you must be conformed by the potter’s hands. The Holy Spirit is the power from within and the world is the power from without. Now you’re either going to be conformed to the world because the pressure of the world, or you can let the Holy Spirit that lives within you be the power that shapes you and know what God wants you to be. And God can use anything that comes in life as long as it’s in His hands.

And you’re in His hands? Don’t worry about it. Nothing else will matter because you’ve yielded yourself to the Lord and you’re in God’s hands. And you are willing to take whatever God wants to put in, or whatever He wants to take out and enjoy the ride. You’re only going to live one time. with all the gusto you can. Be excited about being alive knowing you’re a child of God and God has a purpose for my being here. Now if you’re here today and or watching by internet and you’re not sure where you’re going when you die.

This is also some truth that a person can either accept or reject God will not override you will. God doesn’t force anybody to go to heaven. It’s the choice. This hand represents you and me. The wallet represents all the bad things that we’ve done. We call it mistakes and God calls it sin. We have all sinned. And because we’ve all sinned, we’re all condemned because the wages of sin is death. So we are all to be eternally separated from God forever in our literal fire burning hell.

But God loves us and wants us to go to heaven and to go to heaven we have to be perfect as perfect and righteous as God. And none of us So that’s why God says you cannot earn eternal life. You can’t work your way to heaven because you’re already condemned. You’re already condemned. So nothing after that you can do, can change that. You can’t get un-condemmed. You’ve got to pay a debt. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh.

He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because our sin separates us from the Lord. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. So He came into the world because He loves us, hated our sins, took our sin, paid for them on the came back from the dead and said that whosoever would believe that he did it for them. God said he would save them and put this payment to their account and they get to go to heaven on what he did for them.

See you don’t earn it, you don’t earn it, but God doesn’t work against your will. God’s will is that every man be saved, all would believe. So he made the salvation for everybody, paid for all the sense of anybody who’s so ever. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Whosoever believe it than Him should not perish but have everlasting it. See that’s your choice. His choice was that He came into the world and His choice was to pay for our sins and His choice was to offer us eternal life.

It’s your choice whether to accept it or to reject it. Doesn’t that make sense? Is Is God wrong for doing it like this? Because if he didn’t do it this way, see nobody can go to heaven because nobody can earn it because he can’t let sin into heaven Because God’s a just God and a holy God So he made it in such a way that he might can have it. He offers it freely Let’s pray shall we with his bow nice clothes and no one looking around?

If you hear this morning and have never trusted Christ as your Savior Believe this that God loves you and so do I he wants you to go to heaven So do I. I want you to know that you’re going to have an end. The only way, there’s only one way, is did you or did you not trust Jesus Christ as your Savior? Do you believe that when He died, He died for you. If you will believe that, then He puts that payment to your account and you get to go to heaven on what Christ did.

See, the reason you can’t go to hell is because you have a payment for your sins. He paid for all of them. There’s no sin for you to pay for. Would you believe He did it for you? If you will, I’d like to have prayer for you. And if you will trust Christ as your Savior this morning, if you’ve never done it before, just between you and the Lord, I’m not going to have you forward, I’m not going to embarrass you.

But I just want you to just very quickly, quick as you can, just to slip it up and put it right back down. I appreciate that. It made sense to me and I’ll trust Christ as my Savior. Would you just slip it up very quickly, put a right back down, you want it all. If you have trusted Christ as Savior, remember you’re his child and his child forever. And as a child of God, it is God’s will that you let God mold you into the kind of a person God wants you to be.

Father, we thank you again for this time together. We ask Father, your blessings upon those that are here. And Father, now as we look to the communion table And because it’s to remember, it means that it’s still for the purpose of molding us into the image of your son in Christ and we pray. 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. And 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.