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

Now get this. This will knock your socks off. If you have socks on. what he says there in verse nine. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning the kingdom to build and to planet. Look in verse 10, you ought to circle that first word there. If you do evil in my sight that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the what? See, you can repent of evil and you can repent of good.

You see, everybody can change their mind about anything. I’m gonna marry this girl. I changed my mind. What did you mean? Because you didn’t marry her. I’m gonna go to church today, but you didn’t come. You repented. You changed your mind. I’m gonna go to the bar today and get drunk. And you repented. You changed your mind, you didn’t. You changed the church today. Glad to have you. So you can change your mind about a lot of different things.

It all depends on what’s the context. What does God want you to change your mind about? And so when the people of Israel would rebel, God would chase in them. You read the book of Judges over and over again, and they did that which was right in their own eyes, and God would have to chase in them. They cried out to the Lord, and God would deliver them and give them another chance. A lot of things you can learn from this.

But notice what he says here in verse 10. If it do evil in my sight that it obey not my voice, You notice the obey in the voice or not obey in. That’s your choice. Then I will repent of the good where with I said, I would benefit. In other words, what happened to you in life sometimes? It’s not the way it could have been or should have been. You could have changed it. You ever hear that song? Whatever will be, will be.

No, it’s not. I don’t believe in Calvinism and fatal predestination. I believe you make a decision. And God can either bless or chasten. I don’t believe that God’s already planned out every little thing is going on. I believe I’m making decisions today that can affect down the road. And there’s a God in heaven that can work and bless my life. I believe the perfect wolf for God for my life is the very next decision I make. You see, if you’re not doing right and you decide to correct it, that’s as close as the next decision you make to getting back into the will of God.

He said, I would have benefited you. I wanted to do good, but you wouldn’t let me because God is a perfect God and see rebellion has to be taken in doubt with. Now nobody can make you obey the Lord, but you can rebel against the Lord. And if you rebel against the Lord, I want you to learn the principle. God laid it down in the old time. He says, search these scriptures. He says that you can be wise concerning the things that God has taught us that we can learn from these things.

good Bible also. And turned to Jeremiah 26. Jeremiah 26. And see the importance of every word in the Scriptures. Now, Josiah was a king, pretty good fella. But notice what he said in verse 2. This is Jeremiah chapter 26. This is on page 799. And in verse 2 he says, Thus saith the Lord, stand in the court of the Lord’s house and speak unto all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lord’s house. All the words that I command thee to speak unto them diminish not a word, every word important.

Then he says in verse 3, If so be they will hearken and turn every man from his evil way. That I may repent me of the evil which I purposed to do unto them. Now look at the last part of it because of the evil of their doing. You see what God was going to do was a result of what they were doing. Now do I want God to bless me? Yes, I do. Then I need to do what will bring it.

And if I decide to go my own way, will God let me go my own way? Will God let me be disobedient? But should I expect? God, to do something about it. Once you understand this, you’d be surprised it’s the good key to restrain yourself, to discipline yourself, to get as close to the Lord as you possibly can. Now, you could do whatever you want to do, go your own way, do your own thing. My life, yeah, your life, you brought yourself into this world, you created that body you have, you did it all, You’re a self-made man, I can see that.

But like Verbal said the other night, he’s talking to a guy that was an atheist. He says, God has your name right here in the Bible. Your name is right here in the Bible. He says it is not, he says it is too. And so he showed him a fool has said in his heart, there is no God. There you are right there. The last part, which I purposed to do, in other words, the purpose of God was to bless you.

The purpose of God is He wants good things for you, but He will not bless disobedience. He will not bless rebellion. He won’t do it for an individual and He doesn’t do it for a nation. This turning from their sin and so forth is not so they can go to heaven, it’s not a heaven and hell is you? It’s to brought the blessings in this life upon this earth while you live. Salvation is the gift of God. It’s not a word.

I’ll look in the book of Jonah, the book of Jonah. Everybody knows about Jonah. God told Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh. He’s, God is mine, I will not. And so he ran from the presence of the Lord. Now tell me how you can run from the presence of the Lord. Where is God? He’s everywhere and you’re gonna run where? From the presence of the Lord. Don’t that sound a little stupid? Where can you run that God isn’t?

If he’s omnipresent, he’s everywhere, right? But anyway, he ran from the Lord and God brought a storm. See, the storm could have taken his life. Even the guys that was on the boat were concerned. They said, why is he God doing all of this? And lo and behold, John the told me says, because of me, I mean, a God in heaven, is that concerned about this one man? Did he bring a whole storm? Well, he did. Did you know that God’s concerned about you?

You’d be surprised all the things that God’ll do just to get your attention. You know, sometimes you have to use a two before to get some people to listen. Now, I don’t know what God’ll have to do to you. Now, have you ever noticed you can have some children and you can just look at them and they’ll straighten up? And the other ones, you gotta try everything in the boat and then you’ll go get the two before. And then sometimes I don’t even work.

You have kill them, but some people are just hard-hearted. It doesn’t matter. And sometimes somebody can be broken hearted. They just read a verse and, oh, there’s a bit to say, I want to get back for the Lord. And then the other people are so defiant, like Gilligan, one time I turned it on and I never watched the full thing of it. I turned it on and it says, you can’t make me, you can’t make me, you can’t make me.

And then he was doing it. So here in the book of Jonah and chapter three on page 944, God had told him, go to the city. He went to the city, tell the people 40 days, they’re gonna be overthrown, which probably meant you’re gonna be overtaken. Some enemy’s gonna come, do you? And 100 years later, it happened. But anyway, right now in verse four, and Jonah began to enter the city a day’s journey and he cried and 40 days the city’s gonna be overthrown.

and verse 5, so the people of Nana believe God, they believe them. They believe that death is going to take place. And you go down through here and even the came said, look, that’s going to happen. Let’s get right. Now, I believe that Jonah might have been a preacher of righteousness. He might have explained to them about where you’re going to go when you die. But see, where they go when they die is one issue and the consequences of their evil doings is another story because God could just kill them all.

Now, get what he says. He arose, he went, so when the king heard it, he said, we’re having a fast. Verse 7, and he calls it to be published, a proclaimed, throughout none of them by the decree of the king and his noble saying, let neither man nor beast, heard nor flock, taste anything, let them not feed nor drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, cry mightily unto God, and ye let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands, In other words, we’re not talking about heaven and hell.

We’re not talking about how to go to heaven. This is because God was going to overthrow the city. This is about then getting things right. You see, God even asked people that are lost certain things that they ought to do. And it’s just like in America. Even though there’s a lot of people that didn’t know the Lord, some of those lost people had higher standards than Christians do today. Put us to a shame. But now it’s like we’ve kind of lost our, you know, the salt’s losses flavor.

So most Christians are good for nothing. Now, he gets what he says. And look what he says in verse nine. Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not? Now, individually you can trust the Lord. Have you turned like a good heavenly dying? But this is more than meets the eye. This is talking about a judgment upon this city. And so he says here in verse 10, and God saw their, you ought to underline this word, circle this word.

It’s a very important word. He saw their works. What was their works? That they turn from their evil way. Now, if turning from your sin is a work, didn’t we tell lost people to turn from their sin in order to be saved, if salvation is by grace. See, salvation is the gift of God, turning from your sins is the work of man. And if a man has to do these works and turning from their sins, then salvation can’t be free.

It would be based upon man’s works. So telling a lost man, he has to turn from his sins in order to be saved is works for salvation. And they were straightening up and trying to fly right and do and right as a nation so that God wouldn’t destroy them as a nation. And also this verse is showing you that when you turn from sins or an evil way, the way that you’re living, don’t you see? That’s works. And as God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he didn’t do it.

He was going to judge them, but look what they did. And because of that, God did not destroy them as a city. This is what made Jonah so mad. Because he wanted God to get him. Jonah was a man without compassion. He wanted to run. He didn’t want these Gentiles. But God spared them. But you can’t take verses and say, well repent means to turn from your sin. Okay, how many times have we read so far that God repented, did God turn from sin?

Then he can’t mean that. See, God says, if you do this, I will do this. Well, if you change it and you correct the problem and God gives you a little mercy, so you’ll correct the problem a little time, think through, think differently, reconsider, then God can do the same thing. But what he was gonna do didn’t mean it was wrong. Changing his mind wasn’t wrong. God never turns from sin, but he can return from the evil he was going to bring upon them and that’s why this is so important.

Turn in your Bible to the book of Zechariah, the book of Zechariah, Zechariah chapter 8, Zechariah chapter 8. And you’ll notice that once again referring back to the times of when they were told about the results of their decisions that they would make. And in God says that He had to take them out of the land. They went into captivity for 70 years. They’d come back from the land. And God says, I want to bless you. I want to bless you.

He wanted that nation to be, you know, a lighthouse to the world. God anticipated that this is this nation of Israel, but He gave him a choice. He’s given you you and I a choice and you’d be surprised probably how many of you in this room that no Christ is your Savior, you are not going to serve the Lord with all your heart. You won’t do it. You’ll know you should, but you still won’t do it. You will not dedicate yourself to them.

You probably, somebody will never win a soul to Christ, though you know that’s what God wants you to do. Some of you probably could go to Bible college, become a missionary, and you’re a evangelist or a preacher, and give your life to that. And you have that desire that you’ll quench it and you’ll never do it. You could have, but you didn’t. Do you think there’s consequences to people’s rebellion to the will of God? I’m not God. I won’t do anything to you.

Aren’t you glad of that? I’m glad of that. I don’t want to play God in people’s life. I’m not the Holy Spirit. All I’m doing is trying to tell you, this is the book, Judge for Yourself. Make whatever decision you want to make. I can’t make anybody know God, love God, serve God. Impossible. But here in the book of Zechariah, chapter eight, look down in verse 13, and it shall come to pass that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, And house of Israel, as you were of what?

A curse. Why were they a curse? Because of their rebellion, right? The promise from the book of Deuteronomy, remember? Then he says, so will I save you and ye shall be a what? Blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong. For thus saith the Lord of hosts. As I thought, see that word thought? You ought to underline the word thought because that doesn’t mean how a person thinks or how God thinks, as I thought to do what? To punish you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath, sayeth the Lord of hosts, and I repented not, I did it.

I did punish you. So again, have I thought, see the word thought, in these days to do well unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah, fear you not. These are the things that ye shall do. Speak every man. Now, get what he’s doing now. See, none of these things that he’s going to list are ways to go to heaven. This is because God said, I wanna bless you and I’m not gonna change my mind. See, there’s a time coming when God’s going to fulfill his promise that he made.

And Israel is gonna be saved as in a day and God’s gonna set up the kingdom upon this earth and God will fulfill that blessing that he promised to Abraham, the blessing of Abraham. Now get this. He says here in verse 15. So again, have I thought in these days to do well unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Fear you not. These are the things that ye shall do.” Get this. Speak every man the truth to his neighbor.

Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates. Now, is this what we have to do to go to heaven? No, that has nothing to do with going to heaven. And he says, and peace in your gate. And then he says in verse 7, and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor and love no false oath. For all these things, I hate. God said, I hate this. Because these are sins. This is going to happen in a day in the book of Jeremiah where God said, I will put a new spirit within you.

You will be my child. I’m going to take away that old sinful heart out and you’re going to have a new heart. But that doesn’t happen Now this is what God is promising is going to happen. I will I will bless you because God given his word He said and I will not repent I will not change my mind about that that day is coming because Israel will be saved as in a day Now I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Revelation See there’s things that God will change his mind about There’s things that God will not change his mind about And when it comes to where you are going to spend eternity, there’s some things that God will not change his mind about and you need to know what it is.

In the book of Revelation in chapter 20, there is a day of no repentance. See right now God says, command every man everywhere to repent. It means you can. You can change your mind. So you might have lived most of your life and you have not trusted Christ as your Savior. You can still change your mind. You can repent, change your mind. Think differently, reconsider this. Think it through. You can’t save yourself. You can’t earn your way to heaven.

You’ll never be good enough. And you’ll always be whole. You’ll really believe Christ out on the cross, paid for my sin, then I’m gonna trust him as my Savior. And if you’ll trust Christ as your Savior, he said he would save you. All you got to do is repent. Change your mind. Believe. See, in the Gospel of John, you don’t find the word repent mentioned. But you do find the word believe, believe, believe, believe, all over the place. See, if you are an unbeliever and you believe, you must have changed your mind.

How can you believe if you were an unbeliever? And then you now you believe. So you had to change your mind. Can you understand that? Can you follow me so far? Now I could repeat my whole sermon all over again. If you’re an unbeliever and you change your mind and believe, you’re repentant. See how simple that is? If you’re trusting in your works, your works can’t save you. So you trust Christ as your Savior, He gives you eternal life.

And He said, He that believeth of me hath eternal life. And He says in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, everybody. Now, who’s so ever? believe it in him, should not perish but have everlasting life. See, God gave his only begotten son so that if you believe it, you will not go to hell, you’ll have everlasting life. You go to heaven on what Christ did for you. You can believe that. And here he makes a statement that God is going to do some judging.

Look there in verse 13, and the sea gave up the dead, which were in it. Death and hell gave up the dead, which were in them. It means people that have already died and never trusted the Lord. They’re going to stand before God. Every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. Look what he says. He says, and they were judged every man according to what? To his words.

You see, now you can change your mind and realize I can’t save myself by my works and trust Christ. And you say, by grace, it’s free. You can be turned to life, free. But if you don’t, that means you’re trying to earn your way to heaven by how good you are. So if you want to prove that you’re good enough to go by your works, then lo and behold, why wouldn’t God judge you for your works to see whether he or not?

Did you qualify? Would you really want to stand before God and try to prove to God you never did anything wrong? And all he asked to do is ask your wife, or ask your kids, or your mother, or your father. Would you want your destiny to depend upon given a good report? He never did anything wrong. Not one time in his whole life. I think you’ll be in trouble. So he’s going to judge every man according to his work.

Because you didn’t want to get saved by grace. You thought you could get saved by your works. Okay, let’s take a look. And God’s gonna show and prove to every man that he is without excuse, that he came up short. So you’d have to live a perfect life from the day you’re born to the time you die. How you doing? So then he says this in verse 14, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death in verse 15.

And whosoever, anybody doesn’t matter who it is, was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. There is no repentance here. You can’t change your mind. It’s too late. If your name is not in the Lamb’s book of life, when you leave this world, you do not get into heaven. See, you are born into this world. Your name is in the book of the living, and you’re gonna die. But when you trust Christ as your Savior, you’re in the book of life, the Lamb’s book of life.

This book, there is no death recorded. This book, according to the book of Genesis in chapter 5, this is the book of the generation of Adam and they all die. In the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, Matthew chapter 1, there is no death recorded. See, once you trust Christ’s Savior, your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life. Now, I was written into the book of the living when I was born into this world and that was 1942.

You didn’t I know I was so old, did you? You thought I was only 50. Well, I didn’t want to deceive you. I’m 60. But I trusted Christ as my Savior, and I was born in the God’s family in 1960. I was 18 years old. So you see, I got my name written in both books, but this old flesh, it’s dead. I’m not worried about it. And God will never cast your name out of the book of life. Moses prayed, he said, what’s my name out of the book of the living?

Different book. This is why this is no repentance. So if you’re going to change your mind and trust Christ as your Savior, when should you do it? Now or wait till then? I didn’t hear you. Now. So if you’re here and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, you’re not going to heaven. But you can. But you’ll have to reconsider. You’re gonna have to think it through and put your faith in what Christ did on the cross for you.

And now is a pretty good time to do it. Now let me show you how you do that. Look up here. This hand represents you and me and the wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us. Now he hates our sin, but he loves us. He loves you. So the Bible says for us to go to heaven, we have to be perfect, but nobody’s perfect. because the wages of sin is death, and we’re all condemned.

So, if you want to go to heaven, you have to be perfect and you can’t have no sin in heaven. Because if we could sin in heaven, then heaven won’t be heaven anymore. It’d be just like we did down here. How have we done down here? Not good. And God says, you ain’t coming up here. So God says, you have to be perfect. Well, nobody’s perfect. God says, you cannot save yourself. So going to church, that’s a nice thing to do, but it’s not going to wash your sins away.

You can do all of the things you want to do. You can try to quit all. You can’t take away your sin. The wages and his debt, you’ve got to die. This hand represents Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. He had no sinful nature, didn’t have to die. So he took all of our sins, paid for the month of crossing, came back from the dead. And he says, the only thing that we have to do is believe he did it for us.

And when you believe it, he gives you eternal life and you get to go to heaven on what Christ did for you. That’s the gift of God, that’s free. Now right now, see, if you have not done this, you can still change your mind. You can still believe it. But once you die, there is no more chance. There is no more day of repentance. You can’t reconsider. It’s over. Opportunities is all gone. It’s appointed unto every man wants to die, and after that, the judgment.

Is it critical? Is it important? I think so. Let’s pray, shall we? Every head, bow, and every eye, close, no one looking around. If you’re here this morning and you never trusted Christ as your Savior, if I had the power to save everybody I would do it but I’d have none, I can only tell you about somebody who can. God loves you, paid for your sins, came back from the dead. AllHouston, all he wanted you to do is believe he did it for you and you can handle Xie because it’s not by your works.

You You can’t earn it. It’s a gift, totally free. I’m going to ask you in just a moment for you to raise your hand, raising your hand doesn’t save you. It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you. I’m not going to have you forward, not going to embarrass you, but I would like to know and I’d like to have prayer for you. Would you let me do that for you? This morning, will you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, as your only hope of going to heaven?

Do it now. I pray that you would. It’s a sign of good judgment. . And if you will trust Christ as your Savior right now, would you just slip your hand it very quickly put her back down just real quick put it up Put her back down I’m not gonna embarrass you. I’m not gonna point you out Then what at all? If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you know someone who hasn’t Talk to them help them to understand the importance of it Although we ask your blessings of one each person here and those that are watching by internet that if they would trust you a savior, they would just let us know by just simply clicking on the computer and saying, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my savior.

We thank you for each person here and all that you’ve done for us, for the clarity you’ve given us in your word, that we don’t have to be afraid of repent and repentance and all that because you’ve explained it to us very well. Thank you for this time together here, Christ and we pray. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr.

Arnold’s book, The Gospel Driven Man. Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones. This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics, and we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy. There’s no obligation, no donation necessary, simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of the Gospel-Driven Mail.

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. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.