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

Matthew chapter 21, look in verse 28. What think ye? See those words? Think ye, you ought to unwind the line that in your Bible, because evidently we’re going to talk about the word repent. They’re thinking something. He said, but what think ye? He wanted them to think. A certain man had two sons. He came to the first and said, son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered in He says, I will not. There’s your typical teenager. I will not.

But afterwards, he repented. What do you think it means. Changed his mind. He changed his mind and what was the result of him changing his mind? He went. In verse 30, he came to the second and said likewise, and he answered and says, I go, sir, and he went not. He didn’t do it. So he says, which of the two did the will of his father? They said unto him, the first, Jesus said unto them, verily I say unto you that the publicans and the harlot’s go into the kingdom of God before you.

For John came unto you in the way of righteousness and ye, and here’s those words, believe him not you did not believe. Now in the book of Acts in chapter 19 when Paul was talking to some disciples that were there at Ephesus he asked them, says on the what were you baptized? They said we don’t know what you talking about. He says, on the John’s baptism, he says, look, he says, John truly baptized with water saying unto the people that they should believe on him that is on Christ, which was to come.

So John the Baptist did not preach works for salvation. John the Baptist did not tell everybody get a turn from your sins in order to be saved. He did not teach that. He told them to trust Christ is their Savior. And so here, what he’s talking about, he says, the publicans and the harlot, this is about as low as you can get, the tax collector and the harlot. That’s why most of us here today still don’t like tax collectors.

Somebody always calls them on the phone and says, this pastor are not on the line. I says, this is the IRS. You say, what do you do that? It would depend on whether I talk to him or not. Anyway, he says, if the harlot’s go into the kingdom of God before you. Now, who is he talking? He’s talking to the religious leaders. You know those people that are supposed to keep the goody-goody two-shears? These are the people that were the leaders, the religious head.

They’re in Jerusalem and he’s telling them this. There’s harlots and they’re going to get to go into the kingdom before you. Why? Look how bad they are. What a terrible little illustration to use that is he telling the truth because they trust in their works and he’s trying to get him to say, look, change your mind. Think differently. You’re not better than they are. Look what he says in verse 32 now. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness and ye, believed him not.

But the publicans and the harlot, what do they do? They believe. So you see, believing and not believing is the key. That’s why he says in the book of John in chapter 3, he that believeth on me is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already? Why? Because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Only two kinds of people in this world. Those that believe and those that don’t believe. Look what else he says here.

In verse 32, for John came unto you in the way of righteousness and you believed him not but the public and the harlot’s believed him. And when He had seen it. Look at the next word, repented not afterwards that you might believe. You see, you have to change your mind and believe. When you study the gospel of John, you do not find the word repent used. But all the way through the gospel of John, you’ll find that by faith you’re saved.

About 98 times, believe, believe, believe, by faith and faith alone. That’s all you have to do. Well, that’s too easy. So you can’t believe in this cheap grace, this easy believerism. So what right does any preacher have to make it hard for people to go to heaven? When the Lord did all the work, it made it easy for us, and all we had to do is accept what he did for us. It’s the gift of God, it’s not of works lest any man should boast.

But get what he says, and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not atwards, and you ought to underline this in your Bible, then, that you might believe him. You see, you change your mind and put your faith in what Christ did for you. Here you’d have to turn from all of your sins before you can believe. Do you have to change and turn from all of your sins in order to believe? Or can you believe? You see, they got it backward because see, when we trust Christ’s Savior, we believe the message and then later on we may change some things in our life.

That’s because you’ve learned to love the Lord. See, the more you love the Lord, the more you want to clean up your life. When you don’t love the Lord, then you don’t care about cleaning up. You don’t care about your testimony. You don’t care what people think. But when you love the Lord, everything matters. But anyway, page two, on the back, Acts chapter 20, turned the Bible to the book of Acts and chapter 20. So in Acts chapter 20, there’s an interesting verse here in verse 21, where he says, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is a change of mind where God wants us to put our faith in what Jesus Christ did for us. If you had to turn from your sins in order to be saved, think about it. How many of your sins would you have to change from? If you do have to turn from your sins, get a hundred preachers, and you can get Baptist preachers. Put them in a room and give them a piece of paper and say, now give me the list and all all of you ought to agree because if you got a turn from your sins, you ought to give me a list of which ones.

Are they all equal or just the major sins and the little sins doesn’t matter? You know, if it’s a black lie, but it’s different than a white lie. Some people are colored blind. Then the part two is how long do I have to stop doing these sins. You see that’s a can of confusion. God is not the author of confusion. That’s what the devil does. The devil always adds to the gospel and then if you trust in Christ’s Savior he’ll mess up your understanding of the Christian life.

Well it’s just so hard to serve the Lord. So hard. Well I’m 75 years old and I don’t think it’s hard serving the Lord. The Bible says it’s hard for the wicked and they have hardened their necks. He says if you do not serve the Lord with joyfulness of heart, He said I will put a yoke of iron upon your neck until it destroys you. Jesus is coming to me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for my yoke is so hard. That ain’t what the Bible says. Somebody lying to you. You go contrary to God and you resist the Lord and see if it ain’t worse than serving God. You rebel against the Lord and see if you don’t lose your love and your joy and your peace and your happiness and your purpose in life. But anyway, he’s talking to believers here and what he did because he’s also letting them know I went from house to house.

I did it publicly. Preaching the gospel so that people could trust Christ as their Savior. And this is why this is so important. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of Luke. Turn to the book of Luke. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The book of Luke, these are the verses that I first heard from evangelists, visiting guest speakers who had come and buddy they knew how to tear it up. And they would teach, turn or burn. Luke chapter 13, because it’s mentioned twice here, except the man repent, he shall all likewise perish.

It’s mentioned there in chapter 13. Look what he says in verse 3, I tell you name, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Verse 5, I tell you name, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Set it twice. And so therefore, unless you repent, now should a man repent, yes he’s got to repent. But now what do you want a person to repent of? Well, in the context, you ought to find out what it’s talking about.

So he makes a statement, looking verse 1. Therefore, or there were present at the season, some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood pilot had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, and here’s two words you ought to underline. Suppose you think what you suppose is a way that you’re thinking? Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the gods. You know where the reason that happened because they were worse than everybody else.

You know when that that tornado came through or that hurricane came through or the floods came through and the fires in California, all that is because those people were worse than the other people. If you think that away it’s not true. that power, it fell on all those people and it killed them because they deserved it. They were worse sinners than everybody else. Well, this is their line of thinking. This is what they were doing. So he says here in verse 2, and Jesus answered and said to them, suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners about all the Galileans and get this, you ought I’m the light of them because they suffered such things.

And in other words, here’s a family in the church. Two families in the church. One family gets in a car wreck and they’re all killed. And as they look at all the other families, see, they must have done something wrong. It was all their fault. But you see, that doesn’t mean just because one person has a problem and maybe can die or somebody in the church, if they get cancer, That’s the sign that you’re not right with the Lord.

There’s preachers who preach that health and wealth philosophy. That if you’re right with God, you’re not gonna get sick and you’re not gonna have cancer and you’re not gonna, well, wait a minute. If that’s the case, none of God’s children will ever get to heaven if they live right. Cause why should they die? We’re all going to die. And it won’t have anything to do with whether or not, well, were you healthy or not? It’s amazing that all the people who eat the fruit nuts and all that stuff.

Some of them don’t live any longer than people who eat all the grease. Now get what he says. That’s why he says in verse three, you think that they are worse than somebody. He says think differently, reconsider. There was no action for them to take. But the thing is, Jesus was there and they should believe on him. And because they did not accept him as the Messiah, Jerusalem did fall. And it was worse on them, get what he says in verse 18.

Or those 18 upon whom the tower in Silom fell, slew them, well men, who’s telling the story? Jesus says, Jesus knew about those 18 that died and it was not because they were worse than somebody else. He says, and slew them, see that word, think ye, think ye, because he’s gonna tell them to repent. Change your mind, think differently, reconsider. What you’re believing is not the truth. Remember, there is a devil and he lies all the time. He deceives you.

Now, get this. Every one of you in this room will serve the Lord, unless you’re fooled by the devil, unless he lies to you. So if you’re not serving God the way you should, who are you following? Is it the Lord that doesn’t want you to serve him? Or is it the devil that don’t want you to serve him? The devil can only use your sinful nature and you have one. It means you were born with a dolcenphon nature and you still have a dolcenphon nature.

Even after you trust Christ’s Savior that dolcenphon nature lives inside of you and you still want to go your own way. That sinful nature is rebellious to the Lord. And you’ve got to fight that rebellion all you like. I don’t worry about fighting the rebellion so much. All I want to do is if I serve the Lord, I’ve taken care of the rebellion part. If I want to do this more than I want to do the other, you see, you’re going to live according to the strongest desires that you have.

If you desire certain in the Lord more than certain in the world, then you’ll do it. You’ll do whatever you want. You are now, right now, you are now living exactly the way you want to live. If you’re miserable in your life, good is your choice. You don’t have to be miserable. You say, if you don’t know what I’m going to do, it has nothing to do with it. world and anything that happens has nothing to do with your peace of mind and your confidence and your trust in the Lord and why you cannot rejoice in the Lord every day regardless of what it might be.

You see you’re the one that determines whether you’re happy or whether you’re sad based upon how you think. So he tells them there in verse 5 I tell you nay except you repent. You shall all likewise, you better think differently because in verse 6 down to verse 9 he explains the story and the reason why? Because troubles coming and trouble did come. You see salvation going to heaven is persuading someone to trust the Lord. We’re trying to get people to change their mind.

If I walked up to you after the service and I said, do you know where you’re going when you die? And you say, no, not really. Then I’m going to try to put it on the other side. then I’m going to try to persuade you to trust the Lord. I’m going to tell you something. I’m going to tell you that I want you toGod loves you and He loved you so much that He wants you to go to heaven to be with Him.

That God loves you and He doesn’t want you to go to hell. But God loves you and He made a payment for all of your sins. He loved you so much that He made it a gift. He totally free. He came back from the dead and the only thing He wants you to do is to believe He did it for you. Would you change your mind and repent? Change your mind and would you trust Christ as your Savior? Now I may never use the word repent.

But if you are an unbeliever and I persuade you because this makes sense to trust Christ as your Savior because there’s no trick to it, there’s no gimmick to it. You don’t have to come to this church, you don’t have to give any money, you don’t have to raise your hand, sign a card, you don’t have to do anything, just believe it. And if you’ll believe it, God said he would give you as a free gift everlasting life. and you go to heaven on what Christ did for you.

So I want to get everybody to repent. I want you to go from a state of unbelief to believe. If I get you to believe and you are an unbeliever, then what must you have done? Repent it, you’ve changed your mind. And so God demands every man everywhere to repent. And some people will, some people will not. You may leave today and you might go your merry way. And yet, whenever life is over, you’re going to die, just a matter of when.

But the key thing is, where are you going when you die? Many of you know some people that have never trust the Lord. Yet you may never try to get them to come. You just take it for granted. A lot of God’s children have no concern, no burden for people they know that if they don’t trust Christ to save you, they’re gonna go to hell. Even a lost man had concern for those that were lost. He didn’t want them to come to that place.

And this is why you and I are supposed to try to persuade people to trust Christ. Why do you think every service? I try to always give that little wallet illustration when I try to make it clear because I don’t want somebody here or there to ever hear me preach and then leave and not know how to get to heaven. Because if we don’t do it, who’s going to do it? I’d venture to say that 97% of all preachers do not make the gospel clear And those who do know how to make it clear won’t do it faithfully.

And there is a difference. Hebrews chapter 6, believers are told not to repent on something. I want you to see that. Hebrews and chapter 6, there were those who had trusted Christ of Savior. They were still children in the Lord. They were supposed to grow and become mature. They haven’t done so. And so the Bible says you don’t have to repent concerning salvation. You don’t have to get saved again. So he says there in verse 1, therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection or maturity, not land again the foundation of repentance from dead works and a faith toward God.

You don’t have to do that again. So salvation is whenever you change your mind that dead works cannot give you eternal life. Life cannot come from that which is dead. Life must come from life and exist on previous life. And so whenever you trusted Christ as your Savior, you did not trust your works. You put your faith in what Jesus Christ did for you. Now for the rest of your life, you never have to do that again. Therefore He says, leave this alone.

When it comes to growing in the Lord, you start looking to what God says about growing in the Lord, studying the Word of God and growing in maturity. And God says, He knows that you ought to be teachers by now. You ought to be further along than what you are. And some people are not. Take your Bible and turn to 2 Peter chapter 3. 2 Peter chapter 3 is a tremendous verse. 2 Peter chapter 3, this on page 1319 in a church Bible and look there in verse 9, verse 9.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness but is long suffering toward us. Now you’re down the line, this part of the verse. Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The reason that all of you in this room, let’s just pretend for a moment that all of you in here are lost as a hound, bow of a knee, and of a soup bone. You have never trusted Christ as a Savior.

We’re pretending. All of you are lost. If all of you are lost, how many of you does God want to save? every last one of you. And the only reason that you’re still here and you’re not dead yet is because of the long suffering of God, because of the mercy of God. Because God’s not willing that any of you should perish. But if you keep hardening your heart, God may harden that heart in reality. and there’s only one step between you and eternity.

And you could trust Christ’s Savior. Right now see, all of you have heard how to go to heaven. You can’t save yourself. The church can’t save you. Your money can’t save you. How your live has nothing to do with it. The only thing he wanted you to do is do you believe that when he died on that cross, he paid for your sins and you’re going to accept that. And when you accept that you have a payment for your sins, the reason I can’t go to hell because I don’t have any sins to pay for it.

He paid for all of my sins. That’s how I know I’m going to heaven. How I live has nothing to do with it. I’m no better than anybody else. All I did is, except Christ is my Savior. And whatever I did, it’s the only way any man can be saved. There is no two ways. He said, well, that’s just your way. No, it isn’t. See the God’s way or you don’t go. It is the gift of God. It’s not of worth.

Look at this verse. In verse nine, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. You’re still alive at this moment. God knows what you’ve heard. You’re gonna accept it or reject it. If you accept it, God gives you what kind of life? You turn a life. When does He give it to you? Right now, when you believe it. He that believe it though me, had everlasting life. If you believe it, you got it.

And if you have everlasting life, how long would it last? Forever. If it lasts forever and all my sins are paid, where would you go when you die? So can I know that I’m going to heaven before I die? Of course, that’s what it’s all about. I know I have eternal life. And that’s the best news I ever heard. That’s why the Bible called it the gospel. It’s good news. So I’ve trusted Christ as my Savior and I hope that you will too.

Down at the bottom, the last line, those who preach that a man must turn from sin or feels sorry for sin in order to be saved or preaching in a cursed message. Now, you may want to turn from sin. There’s nothing wrong with that. And you may feel sorry for all the bad things you’ve done. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you can stop certain sins in your life. And you can be sorry for all the things you’ve done wrong.

But it still won’t save you. It won’t give you to heaven. One thing’s missing. What? Trust in Christ. Aren’t there people who have been drunkards and they’ve stopped drinking? Hadn’t there been people who have been running around with women and they changed their mind and they stopped? And there are people who smoke and they stop smoking. Does that save them? No. No. So why tell a lost man to do it? It doesn’t save anybody.

This man represent you and me. The wall represents sin. We all have sin on us. God loves you. In spite of all the sins that you’ve done, we have all sinned and come short of God’s perfection. See, God is perfect. We’re not. We come short of perfection. We compare ourselves with God. I’m not as bad as he is. Well, I’m a lot better than him. Yeah, but how are you doing between you and God? God’s perfect. Are you? No.

Then you’re lost. And this lost man, he don’t know how to get to heaven. He’s lost. He don’t know how to get there. So he can devise all the means he wants to, but there’s only one way. See, man is always trying to lift himself up to God by his righteousness. And God won’t accept your righteousness. See, he sent his righteousness down, Jesus Christ. He’s the righteousness of God. He came into this world. He never did anything wrong. He was perfect.

And so the Bible says that he loves us. So he took our sin and paid for the mother cross, came back from the dead. So all of my sins are paid. So God can now offer me eternal life. He can forgive me of everything I’ve ever done. He can give me this gift of everlasting life. So when I accept Christ, I receive eternal life. I get the righteousness of God. I get to go to heaven on His righteousness, not mine.

I don’t deserve it. That is the gift of God. And if I was to offer you my Bible and you accept you to have a Bible and if I offered you my wallet and you accept you to have a wallet, and if Christ walked in here and offered you eternal life and you accept you to have eternal life. And if it’s eternal life, it would last forever and ever. That’s how you can know you’re going to heaven. But let me close with this.

If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, on an examined life is not worth living. You examine yourself about the fact that you’re living in a life that you’re living in. word of God. You’re always looking and comparing what does God want? How am I doing? If there’s things in your life that are not right, you need to repent. If you don’t love the Lord like you used to, you need to repent. If you’re living a sinful life, you need to repent.

You need to change your mind and straighten up and fly right and do the thing that God wants you to do. Let everyone that name of the name of Christ depart from iniquity live a godly holy pure life the way you should. It’s the book. Let’s pray, shall we? Every headbound, every eye closed. No one will get around. If you’re here today and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, I hope that I’ve made it simple, clear. I’m not going to have you forward and I’m going to embarrass you.

But with heads bound, nice clothes, I do ask for raise a hand. Raising your hand doesn’t save you. I can’t save you. I have no powers. I just want to know if what I said made sense to you. If you’ve never trusted Lord, would you trust Him right now? I said, preach that that made sense to me and I want to know that I’m going to heaven. I’ve never done it before but I will accept Christ right now as my Savior.

And when if you trust Him right now as your Savior God’s in He will save you right now and give you eternal life. When you get up to leave you, you can say, I know I’m going to heaven because the day I accepted Christ as my only hope of going to heaven. I believe He died from me, paid for my sins. That means I don’t have any sins to pay for it. That made sense to me. There’s no tricks to it, no gimmicks.

So a friend of that did make sense to you. And this morning you say, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior. Would you just slip in it very quickly, put it right back down, real quick, put it right back down. And by that means, yes, I’ll trust the Lord. Yes, God bless you. I appreciate that. That’s a sign of good judgment. No tricks to it, God bless you, you can put it down. Anyone else? Just slip it up real quick.

If you’ve never done it, don’t hope you’re going to heaven. Don’t think you’re going to heaven. Know that you’re going to heaven. And there’s only one way to know it. And that is make sure you’re not dependent upon anything that you have done or will do only by trusting Christ. Anyone else before we close? Anyone else? If you’re watching by internet right on the screen, says, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior. I’d appreciate it. You let us know.

Father, we thank You again for Your blessings for the one who indicated by an uplift at hand that they would trust Your Savior. And followed by the teaching of Your Word, we pray that we have been able to be used to persuade someone to repent, to change their mind, to see that You do know them and You love them and that You paid for their sins. And by faith alone there, except in Jesus Christ as their Savior, we ask Your blessings upon person here.

Christ, you’ve been back. 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, believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.