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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 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.

What are we going to talk about today? Is it today or special day of some kind? Resurrection Sunday. Well, can you make correct decisions with little light and bad decisions with a lot of light? You’ve got to think about it. I mean, are there some people who make right decisions with just a little light? Some people make bad decisions with a lot of light. Yeah, I think so. Well, what is so important about the resurrection? Why is it so important?

All of our hopes, everything that we say, think and do, we’ve changed our whole lives just because we believe in the resurrection. We believe that because we do. It’s got to have a reason, a purpose behind it. What makes it so important? Turning the Bible to the book of Matthew, chapter 12, Matthew and chapter 12, interesting portion of Scripture, we’ve looked at it before. There’s not much in the Bible we can look at for the first time, because if you’ve ever been through it once, you’ve been through it.

It’s just a matter of going back over some of the things that you’ve already known and studied. See what God’s word has to say. Look in verse 38, Matthew chapter 12, chapter 12. There are several things that I want to just read a few scriptures and make a few comments on. Here in verse 38 it makes a statement, then certain of the describes and of the Pharisees answered, say, in Master we would see a sign from the, oh, what kind of a sign do you think they were looking for?

What kind of a sign were they looking for? They wanted a sign. Why did they want a sign? They didn’t believe he was who he claimed to be. They want to see a sign, prove it to us, do a magic trick. The Jews seek a sign to Greek cecapto wisdom, or knowledge I should say, but human wisdom, and Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, to perform all the sign that necessary for man and all the wisdom that’s necessary for man.

But it says in verse 39, but he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the Prophet Jonah. Of course, Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly. So shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the year. Now what kind of a sign was this supposed to be? It’s going to be a sign of what?

What’s it a sign of? He told us a little bit about what the sign of Jonah and the whale was, but what’s it a sign of the three days and three nights of the son of man in the heart of the earth. If he’s down here for three days and three nights, he evidently has to come back, don’t he? Or he’d been down here for four days and four nights. And if he hadn’t come back, he’d been down here five days and five nights.

So he came back and he was only down here for three days and three nights. Now I got to the place where I really don’t care to argue even debate anymore with people about, you know, you know, when he died, I know what I believe and I stayed it, but I don’t care to debate it. Somebody wants to believe something else. Go for it. Believe what do you want. I’m satisfied with my faith. I own my faith. Nobody else owns it.

It’s mine. It’s what I believe. It’s where I’m coming from. So anyway, he makes a statement here Verse 41, The men of none of them shall rise up in judgment with this generation why. Why will this judgment come up against this generation by the men of Nineveh? Why? What is the purpose of him saying such a thing? I believe that there’s a possibility that the people in Jesus’ day had more light than the people had in Nineveh’s day. And yet they repented at the preaching of Jonah economize.

I mean, Jonah was a man. I don’t know if he looked bleached when he came out of the whale. And after all, he might have come running for three whole days. I don’t know how long he ran. But he might have looked like, and there might have been witnesses on the seashore that saw him when he came out of that water. Well, that would have been interesting. And then he’d run for three days, and he preached to them, warned them.

And then what he warned didn’t happen because they believed them to learn. And so there’s a sign here somewhere. And then he says in verse 41, there’s people who have more light than others. I was talking to a guy and I was trying my best to get him to trust the Lord. I went over it and over and over and over. And I know, I know I was a lot clearer with him than my father-in-law was with me. But I can’t swear to it.

Well sometimes it depends upon where you are and what you’re listening for and whether or not you’re being receptive or not or just want to argue. The other day when I was talking to these two ladies behind the counter and there’s just two girls about the same age and one wanted to do nothing but argue with me. I wanted just to reach over the counter, just slap her jaw and tell her, shut up. The other one just stood there and says, you know, that makes sense.

That makes sense. Well, you can’t tell me. And she’s the one I says, do you know where you’re going to die? I’m saved. Well, after I was all over, I’m not sure that she was saved. Because you know there’s a difference in being just saved and then really saved and being gloriously saved. You know, there’s a difference in being dead and really dead and gloriously dead. You’re either saved or you’re lost. You ever hear people say, that’s a born-again Christian?

I didn’t know there was another kind. If you are a Christian, or a Christian, real Christian, it’s because you have been born again. So if you’re born again, you’re a Christian, and if you’re a Christian, you’re supposed to be born again. But who knows where people get their terminology from? But it makes a statement here in verse 41. I want you to look at him. The men of none of us shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it.

Why would they condemn this generation? Why would they condemn that generation? What had this generation done that was so bad they did not believe that Jesus was who He claimed to be? So if that’s true, is there consequences to our decisions that we make? though you may live another 20-30 years before you ever die, before you ever get to this judgment. And then God says that you’re going to have to give an account for the decisions you’re making now because He makes this statement, the men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment and catch shall condemn it.”

Well, what right does the men and men of a have to condemn this generation? What right do they have to condemn it? Or is it because they can give testimony to the fact, listen, we only heard it from this one little old scrawny guy that can run out of a mouth of a fish. And we believed His message, and look who you had. You had the Son of God. You watched Him do all these miracles. You never found any fault in Him.

He walked on water. He forgave sins. He made the blind to see and called the dead to rise and the deaf to hear and the blind to see. And that’s not good enough for you. And they’ll condemn them because they should have and could have believed. I believe that might be part of the reason why Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem when he said Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you together, the hand gathers her check and you would not.

He’d say you could not. He said you would not. They would not come to him. He came unto his own and his own received him not. But also notice in the last part of verse 41, he makes this statement for a greater than Jonah is here. I’m greater than Jonah and they believe Jonah, why won’t you believe me? Isn’t it hard sometimes to get people to believe the simple truth? You know that if man was going to devise salvation and he has, this is where all your religions come from, they always require a man to do something.

One way or another, they require him to do something. Based upon how he lives, it’s works for salvation. You must earn it. And then the Lord comes along and says, it’s free. Oh, you can’t tell me that. I mean, all I got to do is believe. Yeah, that’s all you got to do. Now, I’ll never believe that in a million years. It’s too simple. You got to do something. It’s got to be more than just believe because it’s contrary to man’s nature.

Man has pride. He has to have that little sense of, well, I did something I I helped. There’s nothing for him to do and he can’t stand it. And you just can’t stand the idea of thinking that there’s people who live worse than you do and they don’t deserve to go to heaven and you do because you live better and you’re better. You know I’ve come across a lot of Christians that are Pharisees, a lot of Pharisee circle Christians who think that they are actually better than a lot of other people and they are very judgmental and critical, condemning, condescending Because, you know, I don’t live like them.

They’re not as good as me. I go to church. They don’t go to church. I’m a Christian. You ain’t. And it’s amazing how many people, they don’t come out and say the words. I’m filled with pride, but they act like it, and they live like it. And sometimes talk like it. Look what he says in verse 42, even talks about the Queen of Shiba. The queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with this generation shall condemn it.

Why was they condemn it? For she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold, a greater than Solomon is here, a greater than Solomon. Here’s Jesus telling these people hey you ever heard of Solomon? Well, they’re Solomon’s temple Everybody’s heard of Solomon the wisdom of song. I’m greater than Solomon It’d be like me walking onto the golf course and say you know you ever heard of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer and Gary Stefan I said, they said who I said Gary Stefan and Arnold Palmer and Jack Nick and and I walked back.

I’m better than all of them and they said, sure, right. You take the guy that can hit the ball of the furthest, used to be John Daly, but I think a lot of people can hit it as far as he does now. What if I was a say, no, I can hit that golf ball further than all of them. What would you want me to do? What? Prove it. You’d want me to prove it. A greater than Jonah is here.

Prove it. greater than Solomon is here. Prove it. He’s, I’m going to give you a sign. I’m going to do something that nobody can do. I’m going to come back in three days. Now did Jesus already know from the very beginning of his ministry that he was going to die and come back in three days? You think you already knew that? At the beginning of his ministry, now, pick your Bible and turn over there to the book of John chapter 2.

John chapter 2, now this is at the beginning of his ministry. It’s right after the first miracle that he did in chapter 2, and he come there to chapter 2, and you’ll notice there’s something that happened here. You notice what he says in verse 18, then answered the Jews and said to him, what sign show us thou unto us? Seen that thou doest these things.” In other words, you just got mad, lost your temper, your temperature, and lost your temper, and went in there and kicked all those people out of there and said all these things.

He says, who do you think you are? Give us a sign. So here they’re asking for a sign. Now over there in Matthew chapter 12, he was going to give him the sign of the resurrection. I’m going to take and be like Jonah, three days or three nights. Here he makes a statement in verse 18, of what signs show us thou unto us, sin that thou doest these things. Jesus answered and said unto them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up, then said to Jews, 40 and six years was this temple and build him and we’ll now rear it up in three days.

I mean these were really spiritual giants. These are those that could really understand you know what he was saying. But you and I know they didn’t get it. Was he talking about the temple that was standing there? No, he wasn’t talking about that temple. See the very next verse says, but he spake of the temple of his body. So right there in the beginning, he told them that if you destroy this body, because that’s all they can do, destroy this body.

And then in verse 20, when therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remember that he had said this unto them, and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had said. So here, he was talking about resurrection. You see the resurrection is a great proof. It’s the proof of the person of Christ himself just who he is and then it is as a proof of the promise that he had made. Turn the Bible to the book of John in chapter 11, just turn on over to your right to chapter 11.

So you see he promised some things but you know there’s always people who question and doubt things but Jesus has a reason why he might seem to be late. Have you ever prayed to the Lord and it seemed like God just didn’t come through? He was just late, late. The Lord, if you’d just done this, this wouldn’t have happened. Well, it kind of happened here with Mary and Martha. But look what he says down here in verse 19. And many of the Jews came to comfort Mary and Martha concerning their brother.

Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him. But Mary’s Is that still in the house? Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou have been here, if you’d have been here, my brother had not died. So they were thinking that if you would have been here, this would not have happened. You failed us. You led us down. And I guess the question comes in your mind without saying it is, don’t you love us?

And the Bible says that, yeah, God does love us. But there was a problem here. And sometimes we wonder, well, just why did Jesus weep? Because see there in verse 35, many people believe this is the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus’ web. But in the Greek it’s the one over there in the book of Thessalonians, pray without ceasing. It’s a little bit shorter than this verse. But anyway, he said, then said the Jews, behold how he loved him.

This was some of their people, not all of them. Some says, oh, how he loved them in verse 37. Some of them said, could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died. I mean, if this man can do that, why can’t he have done this? And sometimes you’ll wonder, you know, God did this for me, and God did this for me, why couldn’t God have done this for me.

You find out some things God does and sometimes He doesn’t do it. I used to wonder why I was out here in Colorado working my folks after they have trying to find buses and making bids on buses and finding I got one for $700 and I loaded up with kids into my way to camp down in Florida back. I often wondered how come I couldn’t have got a new bus like Bruce Porter did. He had a guy walk into his church, a multimillionaire, built him a, got him a, bought him a whole new movie theater and gave him money for brand new buses and all that and here I am working, you know, like a dog.

You ever seen a dog work? I always wondered about that. I’m about to change that. Working like an ox. Well anyway, and so it just doesn’t seem like God is fair sometimes. After all, I knew, I knew this. I knew that Bruce did not love God anymore than me. You ever thought about it? No. They don’t love God any more than I do, but why is God being so extra good to them? You know, and I always thought, I really thought, you know, God’s got a lot of kids, but no, I’m his pet child.

In my family, there were six kids. Ned was Daddy’s pet child. It didn’t matter what Ned did, she could never do any wrong. She always got me in trouble, and I had to pay the price. But Ned always got her away with my dad. She could just wrap him around her finger. Have you ever seen somebody like that that can do that? I had no idea how to do that. I was born without tack. I now have lived without tack and I’ll probably die without tack.

At the point. But anyway, when you consider these things that God says in this word about, I am the resurrection. I am the life.” Okay, that’s what you said. No, you want to prove it. I am the resurrection. Yeah, I know in the last day when the resurrection takes place. Okay. And he is going to prove it. So he’s going to do something to prove what he says. So God, see, He makes promises. Jesus made promises. And He stated who He was.

He told him what He could do. And still people just would not believe. And so He asked to give them a little proof. So you look up there in verse 23, Jesus said to her, thy brother shall rise again. Yay! I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. I know that later. What they wanted was something now. He would be alive today if you had been here. But no, you had other things to do. You had other people that you had to heal.

And other people you had to do this for and all that. You had to go take a walk on water and do all these miracles for everybody. But you could have been here. If you’d have been here, he wouldn’t have been dead. How do you think Jesus feels when people think like that about him. So he says in verse 24, Martha said to him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day, you know, the last day, but this is not the last day.

This is now. And Jesus said unto her, I am not going to be, I am the resurrection. Prove it. I am the life. Okay, prove it. He that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and who so ever live Now and believe it in me shall never die believe us thou this She said unto him. Yeah, Lord. I believe that thou art the Christ the Son of God which should come into the world I believe all of that and when she had so said she went her way But nothing really changed Nothing’s changed She still just as sorrowful as ever now.

It’s Mary’s turn and When she had said so said she went her way and call Mary her sister’s secret said the master come in call her for thee As soon as she heard that she arose quickly and Came unto him Now here she was not is she the one that was always sitting at the feet of Jesus Now she’s morning and when Jesus was coming she didn’t get up to go meeting She just sat there. I think there’s somebody who could have an attitude problem.

I think both of them had an attitude problem. They could have them to anybody when things don’t seem like they’re going your way. She went to meet him. And then it says there, verse 31, the Jews then, which were with her in the house and comforted her, when they saw Mary that she rose up hastily and when I followed her saying She’d go unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down in his face and unto him, Lord, if thou hast been here, my brother had not died.

See, both of them said the same thing, if, if, yeah. But sometimes, you know, God has a higher purpose than ours. He doesn’t always do what we think He’s going to do when we think He ought to do it. He’s not somebody that, you know, we put on the string and make him jump to our little tomb. That’s not the way it works. He’s the boss. He’s the Lord. He’s the master. And we’re supposed to just accept His will and knowing that He cannot make mistakes.

But you know, sometimes God takes those questionable things that we have and doubts and so forth, and he wants to solve those thoughts in our minds. Sometimes he would be with a crowd and he could read their minds. He says, why do you think he starts to rise in your heart? Why do you think like this? You believe in God, believe also in me. And fear not over and over again, all these things. And so he makes a statement down here.

Where have you laid him in verse 34? and then down in verse 38, Jesus therefore again groaning in himself. Now what was he groaning? Could it be because of their unbelief, their questions, their doubts, or because he loved Lazarus so much? He said, see how he loved him? He loved him so much that it really broke his heart that he died. Well he could have kept him from dying. So I’m not sure I can go with the idea that that showed how much he loved him.

Well, he also loved him when he wasn’t dead and he loves him while he is dead and he’s gonna still love him when he brings him back to life. So there might be another reason, but of course I’d be conjecture. I’d say this is Jengi’s opinion then. It doesn’t really say, and so I rather not say. So he says here in verse 39, Jesus says, take you away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, said unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he had been dead four days.

Jesus said unto her, said I not unto thee that if thou would have believed thou should have seen the glory of God. So he said something and he’s doing something as a result of what he said. See, his credibility is on the line. You say, I am this, I am not, I can do this now. There’s a lot of things we probably believe that God can do, we just don’t know if he will do them. We know he’s able to do all things, but we don’t know if he’ll do anything in particular.

So that’s why the closer you are to the Lord, the more confidence that you have in Him and the bolder you will be. You start getting further away from the Lord and the questions and doubts that will fill your mind and it will play a little tune in your little head and you’ll get to the place where you’re not sure whether you can trust them or not then you take matters into your own hands. And then you try to make everything happen instead of just trust the Lord, just relax because it takes patience.

I’ll have to be honest with you. I’m not a very patient man. Have y’all noticed that? Y’all haven’t noticed that? I hit it very well, didn’t I? But I’m not that patient of a man. When I wanna do something, when do you think I wanna do it? How did you know that? So there’s some people that have a lot of patience. And sometimes a person who has a lot of patience, I classify them as a lazy person. They really don’t want to do anything anyway.

But that’s not true. So there’s extremes on both sides, but learning how to be patient and waiting upon the Lord, and at the same time where you’re working, occupy, work till He does come. Wait upon the Lord doesn’t mean to sit down and do absolutely nothing. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, the gospel-driven man. Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones.

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

The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound and we will be changed. Caught up can meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.