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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. He just told 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.

Take your Bible, turn to the book of Acts 17. Acts 17. This is an awesome verse. You need to know it’s in the Bible. The Apostle Paul, and talking to the people and Athens, he says, you have an unknown God, an idol to an unknown God. He said, I want to talk to you about that one that you don’t know. So look at verse 24. Verse 24 says, God that made the world and all things therein, seen that he is Lord of heaven and earth to all of not in temples overwhelms with hands.

Neither is worshipped with men’s hands as though he needed anything. Can you think anything God needs? He says this, seeing He, God, give it to all life. So He gave us life and breath and all things. He’s the one who gave us. Then He makes a statement, and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. Regardless of whether men is black, red, yellow, pink, white, chartreuse, pinstripe, it doesn’t matter.

Wherever He is in the world, you can always do blood transfer because we’re all one blood. And He says this, and hath determined the times before a point the bounds of their habitation. See the only way we can live on the moon is if we take some of the atmosphere from here and take it up there and have some oxygen live. It’s amazing how they’re always looking for a place where when they destroy this earth we can go there.

There’s always trying to find another place out there where it’s possible for life. Well I got news for you. There is a place out there that will sustain life and then the people you ought to see them. They supernatural people, they live forever. Total happiness, they don’t have any sinful, there’s no killing there, there’s no murder going on, there’s nothing, there’s nothing, no dying. You say, where’s that it? Call heaven? It’s already there. So we don’t have to look for that utopia because regardless of where it might be, you only got a few years to live.

You’re not gonna live forever, not in this world. Now look in verse 27, God that made the heavens and the earth in verse 27, that they should seek the Lord. One of the things God wants his people, the world people that created seek the Lord and get this. If happy they might feel after him and see those next two words, find him. In other words, the Lord is not lost. I know we often say I found the Lord. Like the Lord was lost and I found him.

found him. No, you’re the one that’s lost. But the Bible says that God created this heavens and the earth so that every one and the Bible says he created the heavens so that you would know there’s evidence there’s a God and that you might take the evidence and use it to come to the conclusion there is a God and every man has this light that light of the world when a man comes into the world there’s a world that is the evidence that there is a God.

And God’s going to hold every man responsible for that light that he has. So, look at the next verse. And though he be not far from every one of us, you see, God doesn’t live on some other planet far away. God is right here. And he says, how close? Faith. You read that in the book of Romans in chapter 10. It is neither even in thy mouth, faith. Look in verse 28, for in him we live and move and have our being as certain also of our own points have said for, we are also his offspring.

We are made in the image of God. And because we are in the image of God, God wants us to know Him. And God has given us enough evidence. And if you’ll take the evidence, you’ll believe that there’s a God, unless you harden yourself and deny that there is a God. You deny the evidence. And whenever you doubt how God put us here by creation, you got to go into a different religion, there is no God, there is no Creator, so we must not have been created, we had to evolve.

So every person who believes in evolution is a nutcase, totally absent of facts. There are no facts for evolution, not one. Now, but there is the evidence the world is here and I got news for you. I didn’t make it. Did you do? With an Evelyn somebody did. A lot bigger and powerful than us. And so God said he will not let in man be excused. The evidence is here. What’s the consequences if I don’t believe God? What difference does it make?

We are all going to live and we’re going to die and that’s all there is to it. I got some news for you but it’s bittersweet. You see as you read the Bible you find out that God in his sovereignty chose to give man a free will so that you can choose to believe it, the evidence or not. You don’t have to believe there’s a God. You don’t have to believe in creation. You don’t even have to believe you’re a sinner.

You don’t even have to believe you’re going to die. There’s a lot of people to believe that. They call them Christian science. It’s like great nuts, flates, not grapes, not nuts. Christian science is not Christians, not science. Just nuts. When you take the word of God and you read it and study it, God says, I got something for you. Now I want you to see this also. In the book of Acts chapter 17, Luke what he says in verse 30, and the times of this ignorance, God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.

That means to believe the message. Believe that there is a God and the evidence because now he says you saw the world but now there’s more evidence the evidence of the resurrection which is mentioned in verse 30 would be because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge, he will judge the world in what? Righteousness. This is the rightest judge. God does not make mistakes. He knows the truth about your life. He knows what you know and he knows what you don’t know but he also knows what you could have known if you would only avail yourself and seek the truth.

He knows whether you’re hard-hearted or not. God knows that. You will not be able to say when you are cast into the depths of hell, I don’t deserve to be here. God has the evidence. You can deny those evidence. You can deny there’s a God. You can deny there’s a heaven and deny there’s a hell. Deny all you want. But the righteous judge says, I got news for you. It’s appointed under every man wants to die. And after this, the judgment, a judgment.

And if you are found trusting in your works and your righteousness, God says you had, bud, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith. If God gave me his righteousness, then I get to go to heaven on His righteousness. And that’s why that is so important. Now, I want you to look back here to notes. In the statement right in the middle, you will notice from the following simple salvation verses, the relationship between the various forms of believing and having eternal life.

Now, this is the sweet part, because see, it’s all what God’s gonna give, it’s what God’s going to do. And all you have to do is just believe it. Now, there are some bitterness to the consequences. If you reject it, nobody can make you believe this, but I’ll tell you that this is what God said. And these are the verses that where God said it, where he says in John 3, 15, look right there in your notes, who so ever believeth?

Who so ever believeth? Well have what? Ever lasting life. Who said that? Jesus Christ. Well who is he? God. God that made this heavens and the earth and given us all the evidence that we need that there’s a God. And He expects you and I to take this evidence and seek God. Without the evidence, no man seeks God. Romans in chapter 3, no man seeks after God for all have sinned. And sometimes we deny the evidence that there. Once I came to realize I wondered who God was, I wondered what he was like.

See, I wasn’t raised in a church. I never saw my mom and dad in a church. I never heard him talk about the Lord. I heard him use a little profanity along the way and that’s the one time I ever heard Jesus, I thought it was a swear word. That’s all I did and that’s the truth. And I never saw them read a Bible, we didn’t have a Bible. And I never saw them have prayer. I did not know God.

But there was a burning desire that I wanted to know God. And I could look and see, and I knew there was a God. And I would even talk to God, and I’d pray to God. My wife can verify this before I ever trust the Lord. Because I would always talk to the Lord. Because I had a great hunger, I wanted to know. And lo and behold, when her dad began to talk to me about the Lord. Finally that one night, when I finally saw it, I trusted Christ as my Savior.

And I knew I had eternal life. The Lord is more real to me than the clothes I have on my back. He’s more real to me than you are. And yet I can’t even see Him. But there’s such evidence. This whole Bible is evidence, revealed evidence. Look at the next one, John 3 16, for God so loved the world that He gave has only begotten Son that whosoever, they leave it in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Now if it’s everlasting life, how long would it last? It lasts forever. So can I know I have eternal life? Whosoever believe, if you’ll believe you can have eternal life. He that believeth, hat, present tense, hat, what, everlasting life. You see, that statement I wrote up there, grace to the believer is equal to the sacrifice of Christ. You see, if the payment he made wasn’t sufficient to pay for all of my sins, I could not have received grace. I could not have received grace if Christ only paid for 99% of my sins.

I couldn’t have received it. You see, he had to pay for all of my sins in order to extend to me salvation as a gift. Because I’d still be in debt for one of my sins that he hadn’t paid for. This is why some people believe they can lose their salvation because they believe there’s a sin that Christ didn’t pay for it, but He paid for all the sins of the world. And this is why this is so important.

Look down at the next one, John 3.36, he that believeth, hath everlasting life, but the other part of that verse, he that believeth not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him. Now let’s just take a moment and look at this. If a man rebails against it, hard-hearted, will not believe and trust Christ as a savior. If a man goes to hell, the punishment in hell, look at the first line up here I wrote. Hell is the punishment that is equal to the unbeliever’s crime, the sin of unbelief.

You see, Christ is paid for sin, but for our individual not to believe it. Something so simple. Look at the consequences. How important is this decision? It’s the greatest decision a man can ever make. Think about this. In the garden, when he says you can have everything, you can’t eat the fruit off that one tree. One sin. One little old sin. How bad was it? Oh, there was a little old fruit. Look at all the sin in all the world.

Look at all the people that have been killed. Look at all the murder, all the rape, all the crimes, all the family breakups, all the kids on drugs, all the things, all the wickedness in the world. All came because of that one sin. That’s how bad that was. And look at the wars, it’s all over the world. Now we’re sitting on a powder cave where man can destroy man from the face of the earth. All of that, because Adam disobeyed God.

One little bitty sin in the garden and God kicked him out of there. So that one little sin. Did he have any consequences to it? I don’t think he ever looked down the road and thought about all the consequences. There’s people today who believe that this trusting Christ thing. Big deal. What if I don’t? And who believes in a real literal fire burning hell? The majority of preachers, I’ve seen 99% of all preachers across the world don’t preach. There’s a hell.

Because that’s offensive to people. That hurt people’s feelings. That leaves a bitter taste in people’s mouth. Just give me the sweet stuff. Leave out that bitterness. Just give me the sweet stuff. Tell me how wonderful I am. Well that’s enough of me talking about me. Now you talk about me how wonderful I am. I want you to look down at the bottom of the page where I have you are responsible to God as to why you chose to not believe the truth about trust in Jesus Christ as you’re saved.

Do you realize you’re gonna have to give an account the God on why you did not trust Christ as your Savior, why you did not believe the evidence that He gave. See, God knows what evidence you know. God knows what evidence He gave and He says it’s sufficient and that no man is well excused. No man. You don’t have an excuse that God’s going to overlook. Look at the next statement. If you choose to not believe, don’t blame God.

You will not be able to point your finger at God and say, God, you really messed up. You know how righteous I was and how good he good he was. And God says, yet you are a sinner. And I had somebody witness to you. And here’s three people that gave you tracks and here’s two people that I know you heard the gospel and the radio they were sitting in the car when Bible on came on. Had to be Babylon.

Matthew chapter 25, won’t you look at this verse in your Bible? Matthew chapter 25. Matthew chapter 25. And you’ll notice that Jesus is the one who is speaking. This is what he said. And if Jesus is God and this is what God said, the consequences of our sin must be great. Think about this. In order for you and I to go to heaven, look at what payment it took for Christ to pay his life. That’s how bad our sins are to God.

Because God is holy and no sin can exist in his presence, not even one sin. And God says if you accept the payment Christ made for you, He makes you as righteous, as God, as holy, as God Himself. That’s the only reason we can go to heaven because heaven is a perfect place. Here in Matthew, in chapter 25, won’t you look there in verse 41. Verse 41 says, then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, depart from Me ye cursed and do everlasting fire, prepare for the devil and his angel.

So it’s not the devil that we’re talking about. It’s not the angels that we’re talking about. We’re talking about somebody else going to wear the devil and the angels are going to be. He’s talking about those people that reject Jesus Christ as their Savior. Look what He says down in verse 46. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment. But the righteous in the life eternal, look at the contrary, look at the difference. Now if we’re going to have eternal life in heaven they are going to have everlasting destruction, everlasting punishment.

If whatever they do in God is just and righteous then whatever the punishment is the punishment must fit the crime. If the punishment is that Let’s just take, for example, you. You died today and you lift up your eyes in a lake of fire. Eternally separated from everyone and there’s no light there. The Bible says there are light wandering stars in the blackness of darkness forever. Forever dying and never die. eternity and that person is you and think about eternity that never ends, never ends.

No ending to it. Now here in life we get a chance to have a little reprieve once in a while. We get sick, but then we get better. We have a toothache and then we get better. You have a headache and then you get better. But this is not getting better. For ever getting worse, forever dying and then never die. You see, this isn’t worth it. The punishment must fit the crime. That means for all eternity, this decision, not to trust Christ as Savior.

That’s how bad it was. Rejecting Christ as your Savior, that’s how bad it is to do that. That’s not a lightly thing, or I should say to take lightly. That means this. If the Bible is true, it means that if you have a teenager and your teenage daughter or son have not trusted Christ as their Savior and they don’t trust Christ even, this is their punishment for eternity. Then when you cut it, your mother, regardless of how much you love your mother, or your grandmother, if they have not yet trusted Christ of their Savior, do you understand how long this is going to be?

Do you realize the punishment in a literal lake of fire for all eternity? That’s why the Bible is bittersweet. But when you trust Christ as your Savior, realize the Bible talks about it, we will enter into the joys of eternal pleasure forevermore. No more sorrow, sickness, and pain. We don’t deserve that. But because of what Christ did for us, we can have that and we don’t have to deserve it. Man has a choice. Believe or not believe. But this is what God says is important because this is heaven and hell issue.

I don’t want people to go to hell. This is why we want people to go to camp. This is why we want to have a one. This is why we want to have something. This is why we want to do whatever they need. This is why we want the internet. This is why we want, you know, radio. I even thought about it. I thought I had a couple of good years left, even TV. I’ve had people tell me, says, you got the face is perfect for radio.

But is this what I’m telling you? Is this the truth or not? Is it in the Bible or not? Am I I’m being honest with you. Now you that know Christ is your Savior, did you realize? And you won’t get the full impact of it, that as a child of God you have a choice. If you serve the Lord, God’s gonna reward you when you get to heaven. You haven’t seen him yet. But don’t you know it’s gonna be worth it.

And if you disobey the Lord as his child, God’s gonna chase and you’re in discipline, you may be take you home before your time. You’re still his child, but you’re rebellious. Do you realize what is gonna cost you in rewards when you get to heaven? You’re gonna have a lot of regret. It doesn’t have to be that way. All boils down to is can you believe God? Can you believe God that it is better for you? Husbands, listen to me.

Be faithful to your wife, wives. Be faithful to your husbands. Did I say husbands? husband. One, love your children. Children obey your parents. Do the right thing because these little decisions have great consequences that you may not be able to see it all now but it will be worth it. You take God at His word by faith and as you read the scriptures, Yes, the Bible talks about the pain we go through, the tribulation, the heartache, all those things.

There’s going to be bitterness in this life. But there’s also a lot of joy in this life. These verses in this book are so sweet because you stop and think, here I am as a lost man and I ought to go to hell. And if I was to go What the hell I would deserve because God is the right to judge. I’d be eternally separated from in a literal fire burning hell. But because one man years ago explained the gospel to me, I trusted Christ as my Savior and God gave me as a free gift everlasting life.

Look up here. This hand represents you and me and this wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. God, He loves us. loves you. But he hates what we do wrong. This is our sins. But God, see, he loves us. He hates the sin. But we have all sin. And so we have to pay for that. And the wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God. So that’s why we all die. Everybody dies. But God says to go to heaven to live forever.

I have to be perfect as righteous as God, and I’m not perfect. And so God says you cannot save yourself. You cannot earn your way to heaven. This hand represents you. Jesus Christ, He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us. Now He hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. So He took all the sin of all the world, paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead.

And He said, if we would believe He did it for us, He put this payment that He made to our account. So Jesus Christ is my payment. He is my living proof of payment. When he came back from the dead, the scars in his hand, that’s the proof of payment. He paid it and he’s the proof. And I always have that receipt and he said he’ll never leave me and never forsake me. I know I have eternal life and I know that I’m going to heaven when I die.

Not because of any good deed I’ve done, but because of what he did for me. All he wanted me to do was believe it. So this whole thing is boiled down. It can either be bitter or it can be sweet. You see, if you trust Christ as your Savior, look what what you get. But if you don’t trust Christ as Savior, look what you get. Choose a sure choice. Let’s pray, shall we? With heads bowed nice and closed and no one looking around.

If you hear this morning and never have trusted Christ as your Savior, would you trust Him right now? And even if you’re watching by internet, right where you are, you don’t have to walk denial. You don’t even have to raise your hand. You don’t have to sign a card. But you do need to trust Christ as Savior. And God’s the one that knows your heart. If you’ll believe that what He did, He did it for you. And if you will trust Him, He said He would save you and give eternal life.

Would you do that? You that are in the auditorium, I’m going to ask you in just a moment to raise your hand. Raising your hand doesn’t save you. I could just have you look at me and I could just ask you the question and you could answer back and say, yes, or I could do it with your heads about and raising your hand is just saying, yes, I trust the Christ is my savior this morning. If you’ve already done it, you don’t have to do it again.

But you said, preach that that made sense to me. And this morning, I trust the Christ is my savior. And I want you to know. And I want you to pray for him. Would you just slip you hand it very quickly, but rub back down the chain with it all. If you’ve already trusted Christ to save, remember, you’re God’s child. You’re God’s child forever. But you’ve got choices. Now you can make as a child of God. Your life could be wonderful.

That doesn’t mean it eliminates all the things that happens in life, but you can have a sweet spirit or you can have a bitter spirit. A lot of Christians I know are very bitter, bitter about life. Instead of being thankful they even have the choice to have life. Father, I thank you so much for this time together. Thank you for this church. That’s good people, people that know you and love you, and they want to see things happen. They supported the college.

They supported the internet. They support the radio broadcast, Ranch. And Father, we thank you so much for them. They’ve given so generously. And follow we just want to be serving you and honoring you in all things. So bless the service, each person here, and 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. 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 it that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.