This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the 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.

The world that is here is the evidence that every person knows there is a God. God, for God had showed it unto them. What? The world. God made the world. It’s the evidence that there is a true and living God. Now through the scriptures, we can get to know God, to know who He is, and to know what His name is or know what He did. How much are you loving? What’s He going to do next? So God has already laid it out and we know what’s coming down the road because of the truth of the world of God.

Now look what he says in verse 20, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, been understood by the things that are made, his eternal power, and Godhead so that they are without what? It means they’ve been given enough evidence to know that God is true, that God is real. And every person, no, there’s a higher, they just don’t know everywhere on the face of the earth, somebody worship God in some way.

And if they can’t find God, they just make themselves God. I’m God. I worship me. And that’s called humanism. And it’s secular humanism being taught in our public schools. When you teach the there is no God, then that makes you God. You’re the one who controls. It’s your life. Do whatever you want by any means. And it’s permeating our society. So he says they are without excuse. Now, why are they without excuse? Look what he says, because when they knew God, they knew God.

They don’t actually know him as their Savior, but they know that there is a God because he’s talking about people here that doing everything in the book, a bunch of sodomites and everything else. It doesn’t matter whether the Gentiles or whether in chapter 3 it’s the Jews. Everybody has sinned against God and because when you know that there’s a God you turn against that because you’re going to believe your theology is going to agree with your morality. How you want to live whatever morality you want to have you want to develop a religion that frees you up to live according to your sins you want to pick and choose and so A lot of people don’t want to believe in God because they want to live in sin.

And believing in God makes you feel guilty. And I don’t want to feel guilty so I have to deny my desire for sin or I’ve got to deny the reality of God. Well, is he just deny the reality of God and have fun? But lo and behold, there’s a judgment coming that God talks about. So he says in verse 21, because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, were thankful, became vain in their imagination. Their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise.

They became what? So atheism is foolish. A man has said in his heart there is no God. Who said that? A fool have said there is no God. So when you hear people say that there is no God, there beloved is a fool. Doesn’t matter how many degrees after their name or how much they get paid in the universe and there is no God, you’re a fool. You say, you are not saying it so strong. Yes, I will. I don’t want people to misunderstand that I don’t think, well, it’s not that serious.

Yes, it is. It’s the issue of heaven and hell and they affect other people because everybody is trying to persuade somebody of their belief, whatever you believe. Well, I don’t believe anybody ought to have any belief. You really believe that? You can’t be sure of anything. Are you sure of that? So the Bible is clear. There is a God. Now, look on the back part of your page, top of the page. And Romans 1, 20, I put it in bold, something that I want to bring out to your attention for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world of clearness and being understood by the things that are made.

So this is the light. And John chapter one, God created the world. It’s light that we need. And then he says they are without excuse because what he has given is a strong evidence. And then when Christ come back from the dead, that’s even stronger evidence. Because when’s the last time you saw somebody come back from the dead? Listen, I’ve been doing funerals for 50 years. So far, so far. I’ve never said rise. They did it. It killed me.

I don’t go around trying to raise the dead. You got a lot of these here, tell evangelists and Benny Hinn and all some of these other ones going around here and these faith healers and all that. They healed nobody. They’re just stealing your money. Don’t you give one dime to those people? Don’t give me a side track. Look at the next statement. Because when they knew God, so that there was a God, they glorified Him not as God. And this is what people do.

So they rebel against the evidence. Now take your Bible and turn to the Gospel of John. The book of John, chapter one. John chapter one, and look there in chapter one in verse one. And verse one says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. Wouldn’t that include every man?

Everybody? Everybody. And Him was life. And the life was the light of men. The light, shallneth, and darkness. And the darkness comprehended it not. Did not understand. You see, whenever a man, because of his sinful nature, he may know there is a God, but he cannot know God because of the world. You can only know that there is a God. That reveals to him, but God says seek God. And if you will, he’s not far from every one of us.

Because the truth of it is just will you or will you not believe it? See, I’ve never seen God. I’ve never seen Jesus Christ. I’ve never seen heaven. I’ve never seen hell. But I believe it. Well, all my heart that all of us true. And one of the reasons because of there’s evidence. And I believe in God because I realized the world’s here and I didn’t make it. And I’m convinced you didn’t either. So who did? Have you ever seen, and it’s amazing to me, we have right out here in this little well house, there’s a duck, sitting on a bunch of eggs.

Now you try to tell me how that other little duckling that’s gonna come out of that, how did he get in there? I think that a miracle. And whenever they get hatched, that mama gonna jump down and the other one gonna jump down and they’ll follow it and they’ll go in here and they’re getting that water. And every time I come in here, there’s about, you know, eight, 10 of them and they just all, and they all follow me.

You go make one. You go make a little duck. Give it life and then have the power to reproduce and have another one. You do it. And to believe that it just happened. You’re seeing a little baby. a man in a woman can get together, have their fun and lo and behold, to become one. And look at that little baby. Isn’t that a miracle? All right, you just go into your house, go into your kitchen, get everything you got.

Make it baby, put it right there. Just you, just you, just put it there. There was a couple of these archaeologists, they said, well, that’s no miracle, making a man from the dust of the earth. We can do that too. So they had a contest with God. And so God just, all of a sudden he made a man from the rest of the earth. So they got together and they got them some day. He said, no, no, no, no, no, no, get your own dirt.

Go get your own dirt. You see, everything that was made, God made. And so he says here in the word, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came to bear witness of the light. This was not the light, but he was bear witness of the light and get what he says here in verse seven.

Looking verse seven, the same came for a witness to bear witness of the light which refers to Jesus Christ. That all men, do you think all men would refer to everybody? I believe it refers to everybody. All men through him might do what? Might believe. Well, you know, this is not really your choice. It’s that God has determined who gets to believe by picking certain ones. I believe that the Word of God says God so loved the world. When Christ died on the cross, the book of 1 John chapter 2, that He is the propitiation for our sins, but not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

And there’s people, well, it can’t mean that. People have the same problem when God says for by grace or you saved through faith. Well, He couldn’t have meant that. You can’t tell me that’s all you gotta do is just trust Christ to save and you get to go to heaven to die. Because they believe you have to earn it. You gotta deserve it. And you know that a person who lives like the devil doesn’t deserve to go to heaven.

True? Anybody who lives like the devil doesn’t deserve. Well every person who tries to live like a saint doesn’t deserve it either. You don’t go to heaven because you deserve it. Nobody deserves it. Christ died to pay for all the sins of all the world because all have sinned and come short of God’s perfection. And so because God so loved the whole world, he told his disciples, go into all the world and preach to God’s blood on every creature.

Why preach to God’s blood, everybody, if they even have a possibility of them believing. God says, this is what you do. Now look what he says there in verse nine. That was the true light which light of every man that cometh into the world. Wouldn’t every man that cometh into the world refer to every man that cometh into the world? You got a problem with that? Wouldn’t you think every man that comes into the world? Well, that doesn’t really mean that.

Let me just delay. What did he say that? And verse 10, he was in the world, the world was made by him and the world knew him not. You think I would refer to everybody? When Christ came into this world, remember, he came into the world to down the cross so that everybody could have the free gift of everlasting life. Now, take your Bible and turn with me to the book of John, chapter 20. John, chapter 20. And there’s verse 24 I want us to start reading because Christ has died and come back from the dead and they were scared to death.

I didn’t end up a room. Doors are locked. Just like our church. We’ve locked all the doors in the body. 24, but Thomas, one of the 12 called Dendomus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, we have seen the Lord, but he said unto them, except I shall see in his hands. The print of the nails, put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side. What does he say?

Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. If God gave you the faith to believe, well then you’re going to have to automatically believe. If God says, I’m going to give you the faith to believe, then you got to believe. But He said, I will not. Does that look like it’s a choice? That’s a choice. A free will. After eight days, again, His disciples were within and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the door had been shut, stood in the mist and says, peace be unto you.

Then said he did Thomas. Remember, he hadn’t been there. He wasn’t there that day when he was there. And he said, well, there when he said those things, well, I don’t know how in the world Jesus knew it. What he said, I have a clue how he knew it. He says, rich, hiddl thy finger and behold my hands. Rich, hiddl thy hand and thrust it into my side. Be not, you ought to underline this in your Bible. Faithless. Well, if God gave you the faith, You wouldn’t be faithful, would you?

In other words, believing something or not believing something must be our decision. And he wanted some evidence. And when he saw the evidence, he says, my Lord and my God, that was his evidence. Not everybody don’t get that much evidence, but he happened to have been there at the right time. He got some evidence. But give what he says. Be not faithless, but believing. Christ wanted him to believe. But you see, you’re the one that determines whether or not will I or will I not believe.

And then he says this in verse 29, Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Because you saw me. Well, wait a minute. Why don’t you just believe it because I gave you the faith to believe and you’re the faith to believe and you’re the faith to believe so you got to believe because I gave you the faith to believe. It ought to be automatic. But it’s not automatic. And if God gave you the faith to believe, he must have gave everybody faith to believe because everybody believes.

Something. And can you believe? You can put your faith in Buddha, Mohammed, and Confucius. You can put it in that pew to hold you up. All of y’all, how many of y’all like Peter of God? Let me see hands. All right. Why don’t you just trust him to take you to heaven? Because he don’t have the ability to take you to heaven. It won’t matter how much he wants you to go to heaven, he can’t do it. If Christ walked in this room right now and he says, I pay for all of your sins.

I love all of you. And I want all of you to go to heaven. But it’s your choice. He has already chosen to save everybody. God has already chosen to save everybody, but not against your will. He will only save you if you choose to be saved. That doesn’t stop Him from loving everyone, paying for everyone’s sin, and offering salvation to everyone, but it’s your choice. Now look what he says in verse 29, blessed are they that have not seen yet have believed.

So there’s some people who saw him and believed. Thomas, you saw, you believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, the word some had more evidence than others. Some of these people that were there, they saw all of the miracles. Guess what? I didn’t see a one. So therefore, I could sit in judgment on God. God says, you had enough evidence. God knows what you know. Did you realize some people can come to church day after day and they hear for years and years and never trust the Lord?

They have all the evidence they need. They’ve heard it. They’ve been to the Bible. They’ve heard it preached and still will not trust Christ as Savior. When my father-in-law sat down with me on that one night, he explained to gospel me that night. It’s all the evidence I needed. I was lost. He loved me. He paid for my sins and if I believe it, I’d have eternal life. That’s all the evidence I had. Who are all these people think they deserve more?

If God does, praise the Lord. But if He doesn’t, you still have enough evidence to convict you, to condemn you. And that’s why it’s so important for every person to believe. Look what He said in verse 30. You see the Bible gives us the reason for the writing of the book of John. It was written so that people could believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that by believing you may have life through his name.

That was the reason for this book. This is God’s heaven track. It’s the evangelistic cool. It’s the gospel. Look in verse 30. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you might what? Well why does he have to have this in order for somebody to believe if he gave you the faith to believe? Why don’t he just give you the faith to believe?

That’s what Calvinists would teach. And everything is based upon that and it’s not true. You’ll hear them on radio. R.C. Sproul. Anybody ever heard of his name? John MacArthur ever heard of him? on radio all the time. They do not preach the clarity of the gospel. They teach lordship salvation. It means that if you really believe it, your only choice is that you have to believe God gave me the faith to believe. Therefore I believe it. But now how do you know God really gave you this faith?

Well, if because your life has to show it. So then it causes this person to look at what God said or how they’re living. They judge whether they’re saved or not because of their works. Well, I go to church and I live a good life and I sing and acquire and I do all these good things. That’s how I know I’m going to heaven. If that’s what you’re trusting in, got bad news for you. You’re trusting the wrong thing.

You’re not trusting Christ because what happens when you don’t go to church and you don’t want to serve the Lord and you don’t want to read the Bible and you do things that you shouldn’t do and you think things that are ungodly. Well, I guess I must not be saved. So the teaching of turn from your sin, turn from your sin, stop being bad, commit your life to Christ, start being good. Those things on both sides causes a person that truly believes in Christ when they hear that message to doubt their salvation because how many sins do I have to turn from?

Well, I don’t know. How good do I have to be? Well, I don’t know. So that teaching keeps a lost man from getting saved. and messes up a saved man from being stabilized in his faith, because it teaches them to doubt their salvation, or to trust in their works, and then he puts them under a law, and then they hate the legalism. I hope my views are coming out. Little by little. Look down to bottom of the page. Right before number five, there’s a verse.

But these are written that you might believe. Now listen, if this is written that you might believe, Here we are 2,000 years later, and we are reading what was written. Why is this written? Because God wants you to know how to have eternal life. Why did Christ come so that you could have eternal life? A verse that was read earlier by Jay in the scripture in 2 Corinthians in chapter five talked about this, mortal must put on life, mortal must become immortality So that we can come from being mortal subject to death, though we can have immortality and live with God for all eternity.

So he says here, these things are written. Look at the last verse, 1 John 5, 13, these things have I written unto you that believe. On the name of the Son of God that you may what? Know that you have what? Eternal life. Now if God just gave it to you without the word of God, what do you got? How do you know you got faith? How do you know you really believe? How do you know you really saved?

It’s gotta be based upon what did the word of God say? Now look at the little statement that I have here in the box. God has chosen to save the whole world, but not against their will. God in his sovereignty has chosen to give each man a free will. Each man is free to examine whatever the evidence may be that is sufficient for him in order that he might make to trust Christ as a Savior. It is our responsibility to give the lost the necessary evidence that is contained in the gospel that He might believe.

So, man can have certain amount of evidence. But the evidence He needs to be saved has to come from the written scriptures. This is the only evidence that that man can use to understand the truth of the gospel. That God loves Him and God will save Him and give Him the free gift of everlasting life. Look up here. This is why I do this all the time because this is the gospel. This is the light that helps a blind man to see.

I’m telling you something that’s out of all this in this book, in this whole book. What’s the most important little nugget that can pull out of this thing? I mean the greatest truth of all that can pull out of the Bible. Going to all the realm praise the gospel. So that’s gospel must be the most important thing in this whole big old thick book. And you’re boiling all down to this one little illustration. Now watch, this is not magic.

This is not a magic wallet. This is not a trick. It illustrates a truth. It illustrates the greatest truth of the greatest evidence any man needs. This hand represent you and me. When I say you and me, do you think I mean just half of you are all of you? All of you. And this wall of represents sin. We all have sin. Some of us are all of us. All of us represents all of us. And we all have sinned.

But now the Bible says the wages of sin is depth. So how many of these all are going to die? All. So we’re all in the same boat because we’re all guilty. We’re all going to die. And because we are sinners, we’re separated from God. We’re spiritually dead. And so the Bible says to go to heaven, I have got to be perfect as righteous as God. And nobody is perfect. No one’s righteous. God says you cannot save yourself. So Jesus Christ, God’s Son, came into the world because He loved some of us, all of us.

And so because He loved all of us, He was going to die for some of us. He was going to die for all of us. So He took all the sin, some of it are all of it. He took all of it, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. So the payment for the sins of the world has already been made. God says that all He wants us to do is believe that He did it for us.

That’s an individual choice. This is your free will. God has already chosen to save every person in the world. He already chose to die for every person in the world. He came back from the dead and He chose to send a gospel to every person in the world because He’s not willing that any should perish. And so it’s your individual choice. Will you believe this or not? I don’t know what evidence you need, but I know some people that have waited and waited in more evidence and more evidence and more evidence and they’ve died looking for evidence.

You don’t have a guarantee of how long you’re gonna live. Evidently you already have enough evidence to trust Christ as your savior. It will be hard-headed, stiff-necked that cause you to have a hard heart, you will not believe it. That’s your choice. But you can never blame God. We’re guilty. Without a cause. He came back from the dead and says, well, you believe I did this for you. 57 years ago, I believe he did it for me. And he gave to me as a free gift ever lasting life.

And if it’s everlasting life, how long would it last? If it lasts forever, and all my sins are paid, where am I going when I die? So can I know I’m going to heaven before I die? Of course, it wants to wait till you die to find out you’re not making, you didn’t make it. You see, if you have to earn your way to heaven, you have to wait till you die. That’s why you can’t know now. Because you can’t know you’re going to heaven till you know you can’t go to hell.

I know I can’t go to hell. Why? I don’t have any sins to pay for it. Why? Because Christ paid for all my sins. Well, who do you think? You are a sinner, almost sinner. And I deserve to go to hell, but I’m gonna go to heaven because he loved me. He paid for my sins. That’s, I’m just living a dream. Let’s pray, shall we? Every head bowed and every eye closed. No one looking around. If you are here this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you trust him right now?

You see, this is a choice you get to make. You’re free to choose. You can accept it or reject it. But he loves you. He wants you to be saved, but He will not make you. He chose to save you. Will you choose to be saved? That’s your choice. And if you will, trust Christ as your savior right now. I’m gonna ask you in just a moment to raise your hand. Raising your hand doesn’t save you. It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you and say, preacher, that made sense to me.

And I will trust Christ as my savior this morning. And friend, if you’ll do that, would you just let me know by an uplifting hand? Just slip it real quick, put it right back down. I’m not gonna embarrass you. I’m not gonna have you forward. I’m not gonna do anything to you. Is there anyone at all? So yes, that made sense to me. I want to be certain I’m going to heaven when I die. If you’re watching my internet, right on the screen says, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my savior.

If you will trust Christ as your savior, we’d love to know that. Our Father, we thank you again for your blessings. Thank you for all that you do for us. And we thank You Father for the opportunity we have to come to teach Your Word. Thank You, each person here. We ask Your blessings upon the food, the follow and the gymnasium. And thank You Lord for those who are going to help us to have scholarships for kids to go to camp.

Bless Christ and we pray. Amen. 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 to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon. just keep in looking up.