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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.

I do have some things that I wanted to share with you. And because of the time, I probably won’t get everything said, said, but we’re gonna do our dead level best. But you know, you know when you’re getting older and you got kids and grandkids and you love to go out, but you love coming home better and that’s a little bit of man. And when you realize you’re never going to be really good at anything like golf, I’ve finally come to the conclusion I’m never gonna improve.

I’ve been playing the same way for 50 years and I cannot improve. I’ve tried. Also you find out you sleep better on a lounge chair with the TV on than in bed. It’s called pre-sleep. What used to be freckles are now at each spot. You have three sizes of clothes in your closet and two of them don’t fit. But you should never regret growing older because it’s a privilege that’s been denied to a lot of people. So I’m glad to be alive and I hope you are.

I often wondered what’s the greatest thing we could ever know or do. And even though we can honor Father’s own Father’s Day and I think that’s a good thing, a great thing, we should be thankful. But I’m thankful, I preached this one time on my three fathers. There was one move that you have my three sons, I am my three fathers. But the greatest father of all is the one that’s perfect. That’s our Heavenly Father. So I think on Father’s day to day I think I just want to say a few things that might honor our Heavenly Father.

But I want you to know, if you look there in your notes, how God chooses his children. Now see the way that I came into my family is See, my mom and dad, see, they went to this nursery and they had a thousand babies in there, and they looked through all of them and they picked me. Now, you know that I’ve told you before, the truth, that my dad thought I was the ugliest kid he’d ever seen in his life.

He said, I had long, straight black hair all over my body. I had sideburns, hair going down my back, said, I look like a little monkey. He was going to put me in a burlap sack and throw me in a river and drown me. What was rough getting out of that bag? Dr. came to the house says, he looks just like his daddy, don’t he?

That’s when my daddy, that’s how I got my name, my daddy, Kust. They call me a blankin’ blank Yankee. And so my mom called me Yankee, boy, but that’s how I got my name. But first of all, I want you to look at number one, point number one. And because of time, I may just read the note, because I wrote most of the verses down here so that you would have them, because I always know that we take a lot more time on special days, that I might not be able to cover all the verses and I want you to have them.

So we should first establish who is not a child of God. Now I have been told that we’re all the children of God. Well God didn’t say that. He created us. You see in verse 8 of chapter 9 of Romans says, that is they which are the children of the flesh. These are not the children of God. So who is a child of the flesh? The children of the flesh are not the children of God. Now God is your God.

He is a creator. He’s not your father unless you’re born into his family. So we are all the creation of God. And he says, the children, the flesh, these are not his children. And Genesis 1 and verse 27 says, So God created man in his own image. And the image of God created him, male and female and transvest, I know it doesn’t say that, male and female created him. Now there is no other options. You’re either male or female.

There is nothing else. What about all these people? You’re either male or female. You ain’t nothing else. Genesis 1, 28 says, and God blessed them and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply. Now with some people that would be a problem. God says, male, female, multiply. So the Bible says that even though God has given to us the power of procreation, we’re still not born into the family of God. So look at the little statement that I wrote down here.

When man become a living soul, it was a living soul in a body, a soul living in a body. See God formed the body, but that wasn’t the man. God breathed into his nussers the breath of life and man became a living soul. You became a living soul. You see, parents may help create the body, but God creates the soul. You were made by God. You are specially designed by the Lord. Notice the next statement. I put it in bold.

I was there when the body was formed. The Lord fashioned my body around my soul, which is me. And look at the scripture reference that we have here. Now this is David writing in the 139th Psalm, he says, For thou has possessed my reigns, thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I was in my mother’s womb and I was something. I didn’t just become something when I was born, but at the moment of conception I was a soul created by God, and God clothed me with a body and fashioned me.

Think about this. What you see is what you get. It took God six days to create the heavens and the earth. It took him nine months to make me nine months in this creation here. Now how do you feel? I mean you realize that you are specially designed by God. God knows exactly everything about you. Look what He says in His verses. In verse 14, I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, Marvelous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well.

Have you ever looked in the mirror so you tiger you don’t you ever die? You haven’t said that lately. You go home today you look in the mirror you tiger don’t you ever die. See so many people have a bad image of themselves. Well having a bad image of yourself can also reflect back up on the one that made that image. If you’re When you looked into the mirror, would you change something? Well, I think I could have done a better job.

And some people just never satisfied. I saw somebody, they’re painting their toenails. Can you believe that somebody paints their toenails? Painting their toenails. It didn’t bother me until I saw them painting the thing that’s too. No, no, that’s not just joining. No, my wife loves to get her toenails painted. Let me just ask you, you don’t mind me doing this. not proper, but it’s okay. How many of you women here paint your toenails? Look at that. It’s an army.

But at least you got pretty toenails. But you’re more than toenails. You’re more than thingenails. You are a special creation of God. Isn’t it amazing how God has made women so beautiful, men so handsome. And I was with on a plane one day and this is the truth. I wouldn’t lie to you for anything in the world, raise my right hand. I got on this plane and I sat down and this Oriana woman, she came and she sat down right beside me.

I don’t know how old she was because sometimes you can’t tell. And the last thing you want to do is, are you 50? BOW! So I just sat there and so it wasn’t long before I started talking to Jordan and she asked me my name, Yankee. Yankee? I said, Yankee. How’d you get a name like Yankee? Then I had to tell her what my daddy said. And I said, my daddy says I was so ugly and you were sitting on a plane.

She says, ugly, you know ugly, you handsome, use a handsome man. And you know, I didn’t want to argue with her. That wouldn’t have been nice. Then if I’m not, she was blind. No, that’s not. But realize how important you are to God. God created you. And He knew all this about you. Look what He says here in verse 15. My substance was not hit from the when I was made in secret, cursedly rotten, the lowest part of the earth.

Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfibed. And in thy book, all my members were written. He’s even kind of the hairs on your head. He knows exactly how many you had. He knows what you started with, and he knows how many you got now. And he says, which in continuous were fashioned. When as yet there was none of them. God watching that little body and closing your soul and the body growing. And then when we finally get born, we get to grow and more and more and more, you know.

But there’s something that happens. We have all sinned against God. Why? Because Adam did. Adam messed his whole thing up for us. Of course, he blamed it on his wife. I can understand that. But the sin is passed on. David says, in sin did my mother conceive me. Not that what they did, to get the child of the sin, but because you’re born with a sinful nature. We’re all born with a sinful nature and because we all sin, we all die, see there in the bold, we have all sinned, we are all guilty, we all will die, we’re all lost.

And so God says, that is the child of the flesh. These are not the children of God. What I see in front of me is the first birth. I see your flesh birth. That is not a child of God. You are a creation, but you’re not his child. Look at point number two. We should establish who can be a child of God. If nobody is a child of God, then how do you determine who can be a child of God?

Well, is it only a chosen to you? Now some people teach that God through the telescope of time has looked down to that long corridor and he’s picked out the ones he wants to be saved and the rest of you are going to go to hell. You don’t even have a choice. They call that predestination. The teaching of Calvinism. How that God has pre-chosen who’s going to be saved and the rest of you Don’t even have a chance. But the Bible doesn’t teach that.

Notice what he says here. Number one, God so loved only those that he chose. God so loved the what? God so loved the whole world. Every person born to the world. Everyone who is born into this world, that’s a child of the flesh. You’re not a child of God, but God still loves you. Even though you’re not his child, He still loves the whole world and get this verse for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believe it, then Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

So who can be a child of God? Well anybody in the world. Look at number two, this is a verse that’s found in 2 Peter in chapter 3 and verse 9 where it says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness, but his long suffering toward us not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, everybody to believe on the Lord. God wants everybody to. God is not willing that any should perish, so he has to be willing to do what it takes for man to be saved.

So God who’s not willing that any should perish and they can’t be saved unless they can be either sins forgiven, given a chance. So God sent His Son to pay for the sins of the whole world so that everybody in the world could become a child of God. I was 18 years old when I became a. Now you may remember the exact day, sometimes some people don’t remember. You can trust the Lord when you’re very young. And then as you grow up, you can’t remember the exact moment all that.

Oh, you know, I believe it. I believe it. But you’ve got to know there had to be a time when you did believe it. So this should become a child of God. But I know that. Let her see at the bottom of the page here. First Timothy chapter two and verse four. He would have all the time. men to be saved. That’s what he says, who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

So God wants everybody to know the truth. God wants everybody in the whole world to be saved. Now if that’s true and I believe that it is true. So who can become a child of God? If nobody is a child of God, that who can become a chalom God? Anybody? Anybody? Look at the next page. The whole world, 1 John chapter 2 verse 2 says, and He is the propitiation. That means the satisfaction, the payment for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Why pay for the sins of the whole world if there’s no reason for it. The reason is, is God so loved the world, so He paid for all the sins of the world. Now think about this. Why did God pay for all the sins of the world? Because He didn’t want us to pay for them. He paid for them. I said, people have heard this all that. Christ died on the cross, paid for all the sins of the world.

Where are you going to die? I don’t know. Well, think about this. If Jesus died on that cross to pay for all the sins of the world, why? Because He didn’t want me to do it. But why did he do it? Because he loved me. So you can’t say nobody loves me. If there’s anybody who loves you, it’s the Lord. He loves everyone and to prove that he did, he paid for your sin so that you could have the free gift of eternal life and become a child of God.

So Christ comes back from the dead. So the only thing you have to do is the only thing you can do is where you believe that He did that for you. You mean that’s all I have to do? If you believe that He did that for you, now you can believe He did it for the world, won’t get you to heaven. You have to believe He did this for me. He paid for my sins. Why? So that I wouldn’t have to pay for them.

See, the reason I can’t go to hell today, and the reason I can’t go to hell tomorrow is because I don’t have any sins to pay for. How many of my sins did He pay for? All of them. So if I have a payment for all of my sins, there’s no sin to send me to hell. That’s why I can’t go to hell in the future. I don’t have any sins to pay for. He paid for all of them.

And if he didn’t, then I don’t have anything. But this is what he did. Look at number three. You must establish how one is to become a child of God. How do you get to be a child of God? You’ll notice this, why God chose how you must choose. God chose how you must choose. In other words, God determined how you can go to heaven. Now, people got to figure out how can a man get to heaven and so they make up their own way.

And some say you have to go to church. Well, God didn’t say that. You have to keep the 10th commandment. God didn’t say that. You have to give money. Oh, God didn’t say that. But if you’re going to do that, do it here. No. I want you to see these verses because it’s so important. Look into Romans in chapter 9. Romans chapter 9. And notice what it says in verse 8. Verse 8. Romans chapter 9 verse 8 says, that is they which are the children of the flesh.

These are not the children of God. Now look there in verse 11 as he uses an illustration here and he says something very important. In verse 11, for the children being not yet born, neither have done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to election, might stand. In other words, God has determined how He’s going to choose. Before you were born, before you did any good, before you did any bad, God had already determined how He was going to save a person.

And then notice these words, not of what? Not of works. So God, from the very beginning, already determined He’s not going to save anybody by their works. The only thing left if it’s not by your works. Is what? Is grace. Grace means you don’t deserve it. It has nothing to do with whether you did good or bad. God’s not gonna save you that way. Now that’s the way people like to state it. If you’re good, you’ll go to heaven and if you’re bad, you’re gonna go to hell.

But the Bible doesn’t teach that. The Bible teaches there is none good, no not one. There’s none. righteous not one. All have sinned. No difference. Oh boy. And yet most of my life, before I was 18, I was always under the depression that I get, put my good works on this side and all of my bad words on this side. And there’s going to determine which way I go and I’d have to wait till I die to find out because I haven’t finished my life yet.

I might be better later on. We’re always hoping I’ll be better later on. So we saw a while oh so I was young. But God says no that’s not the way he chose. God determined by the election of grace. This is why this verse is so important. Now get this take your Bible and look in Romans in chapter 11, Romans chapter 11. And notice what he says here, in verse 5, in verse 5, he says, even so then at this present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

Though the nation of Israel had rejected the Lord, there was still a remnant of people who believed in the Lord. And they were chosen because they believed in the Lord. God chose to save a person by grace, not by works. So at this present time, that’s still the message we preach. That a man does not go to heaven because of how good he is, and he doesn’t go to hell because how bad he is, you see salvation is the gift of God.

It’s free. Grace means un-marited. The only way you can change grace from being grace means free. Does it add a work to it? The moment you add a work to grace, grace is no longer free. That’s why it can’t be the result of anything that you and I do to earn our way to heaven as though we’re worthy. No person has ever lived good enough to go to heaven, to be saved by how he lived. Never happened. God says all have sin, all are condemned the whole world.

So Christ died for the sins of the whole world to pay for all of our sins so that all we had to do was believe it. That means you’re saved by grace. You didn’t deserve it. And believing on Christ is not a work. As long as you have, you gotta believe that’s a work. No, it’s not. Romans 4, 5 said, but to Him that worketh not, but believeeth on Him, his faith is counted for righteousness. So, believing on Christ is not a work that I have to perform.

form is me trusting what he did for me. So the reason I don’t have to pay for my sins is because Christ paid for my sins. That’s why I don’t have to go to hell. Why? I had someone pay for my way. He paid for everything and I’ve done. I deserve to go to hell. I don’t deserve to go to heaven. So mercy is me not getting what I deserve. Grace is me getting something that I don’t deserve. Mercy is not getting what I do deserve.

I deserve to go to hell, but I’m going to heaven. Why? Because I’m so good. No. Because God is so good. He paid for all of my sins and gives me eternal life. Now look what he says here in verse 5. There is a remnant according to the election of grace. So there’s still individuals who trust Christ as their Savior. God saves him, gives him eternal life, even as it is today. There’s still, because of how wicked the whole world may be, there’s still individuals who trust Christ as Savior, and there’s a remnant, there’s always a remnant of believers.

Now notice what he says in verse 6, as he explains what this means, because it is the way in which God chose to save. And God only gives you a choice. It’s either by grace or by works. There isn’t any other way. And he’s already told you, you can’t be saved by your works. You can only be saved by grace. Now, can you make a wise decision? There’s only one way. Can you make the right choice? There’s only one.

And most people can’t see it. Now look what he says in verse 8. And if by grace, then it is no more of works. Otherwise, grace is not grace. But if it is by works, then it can’t be by grace. Otherwise, work isn’t work. So God said, all the world is guilty. All the world condemned. But He died for all the sins of all the world and said, now you can’t earn it. It’s a gift, it’s free. God chose to save a person by grace.

There is no other way. Now, going back here to your notes, look at the verse. Second the cilonians 2 14 says, where until he called you by our gospel? That’s how God chooses or calls us. So that’s why we give the gospel to people so they can hear the gospel and believe the gospel. This is what has permeated my mind for 56 years after Betty’s dead led me to the Lord. I didn’t know all the stuff was in the Bible.

I didn’t read the Bible. I didn’t study the Bible. I didn’t know the Bible. But when he explained to me that night, I saw. I could say I saw the light. I saw what he was talking about. And so that night, 18 years of age, I trusted Christ as my Savior. And I thought, man, everybody needs to know this. So I think of her the rest of my life. This is all I want to live for. There’s so many people who have never understood this.

And because I do, I want people to know it. I don’t want people to go to hell. My biggest motivator, I just don’t want people to go to hell. I want them to have eternal life. Now look what he says here. In Romans in chapter 11, even so then at this present time, there’s a remnant according to the election of grace. If by grace it’s no more of worship, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be a works, then it’s no more grace.

Otherwise, work is no more grace. Have you ever heard of Ephesians 2, 8, 9? 4 by grace are you saved through faith in that not of yourself. It is the gift of God not of works. So is there a problem understanding what God says? He chose to save by grace, says you’re not saved by your works, And you’d be surprised how many people think you have to earn your way to heaven. Where are you going to die? Well, I hope I’m going to heaven.

Why do you hope? Well, you know, I haven’t finished my life yet. And I don’t know if I’ve been good enough. Has nothing to do with that. And that’s why if you know the truth, you have a treasure in another vessel. Look at the next statement. How do you do this? John 1 12 says, but as many as received him, as many as received him to the Lord. them gave heed the power to become the sons of God or the children of God.

So you can’t become a child of God unless you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. So the moment you trust Christ as your Savior, you become God’s child. That very moment you believe. Don’t miss out on all the fun. Join Pastor Jesse and Kyla Martinez on Thursday nights from 7 to 9 p.m. for Tampa Youth Ranch and Calvary Community Church. Tampa Youth Ranch is a great mix of live music, games, Bible study, food and fun, where teens 13 to 18 get to know God and the Bible with their friends.

Check it out online at tampayouthranch.org and see the cool pictures from past activities and all the fun you’ve been missing. No right, no problem. Call 813-334-4655 today for information on getting a ride to Tampa Youth Ranch. 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 to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep in looking up.