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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 Bibleignmenistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

One thing I’ve always wanted to know, who is God? Where is God? What did you make me for? Where did that come from? What am I doing here? Where am I going? I used to have a lot of questions. And so today is just to kind of give you a little bit of an idea of who is God. And what’s he up to? This is the story of how the great I am. This was mentioned in the book of Exodus.

And it talks about God who was revealing himself to Moses and a burning bush. It got Moses’s attention. Remember, he was going to do some great things for Egypt. He’s going to take the children of Israel out of there 40 years before, and they wouldn’t have nothing to do with it. Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? So he fled for his life because he had killed an Egyptian, hid him in the sand, and now it was known.

So he went and lived on the backside of a desert for about 40 years. He’s minding his own business just watching sheep. He was next in line to be Pharaoh, but he threw it all away for the cause of Christ. But he felt like a failure. I done tried it. I ain’t doing that again. 40 years later, God had to come to him and says, I want you to do something for me. Sure. What do you want me to do?

I want you to go back to Egypt. No, I ain’t going. He gave God five reasons why he’s not the man for the job. He said, if I go down there and they asked me, who sent you? What am I supposed to say? I don’t even know who you are. He said, I am that I am. You just tell them that I am have sent you. Oh, that really helped a lot. He said, well, how do I know that you’re really God?

So he put on the fuel test. Anyway, God had to work with him and he did and he finally went. But it’s the great I am. You’ll notice that in the Gospel of John it’ll say seven times I am the light, I am the way and I am the truth and I am the bread of heaven. I am. He is all those I ams and he said it one time and everybody fell. Jesus Christ is the revelation of God.

So God said in the Moses I am the that I am and he said, thus shall thou say unto the children of Israel I am half sent me unto you. So God wants his people to know him as bad as people want to know God. And so God simply states in the very first verse in the Bible in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Creating the heavens and the earth is something we can see. And the first thing we want to know of, who made that.

God says, I did. And before we try to prove God didn’t do it, we ought to let God show you how He is the truth and that He’s not lying. We ought to at least listen to somebody who claims to have been there, who was an eyewitness, we ought to give Him that much, before we say there is no God. Now remember, if there is no God, and you say that intelligently, you should be able to prove that there is no God.

See, everybody wants us to prove there’s a God. Prove there is no God. If there is a God, that means if you say there isn’t one, you ought to be able to be everywhere all at the same time because if there’s anywhere you haven’t been could be where God is. True? If you want to prove there is no God, you need to know everything that is knowable because if there’s anything you don’t know could be the knowledge of God.

Therefore you cannot intellectually say there is no God because you don’t know everything and you haven’t been everywhere all at the same time. So if God is a spirit… You couldn’t see him anyway. Now, I believe that there is a God and I have no question, no doubts about that. But who is God? Everybody wants to know who God is. So he says, all things in the book of John, all things were made by him. And without him was not anything made that was made.

You see, God just states that there’s the proof, there’s a God. God. What? Look at the heavens and the earth. Somebody made it. It did not create itself. Have you ever seen something create itself? You ever seen something come from nothing? It’s theological as Spock would say. There is a true and living God. Now I want you to take your Bible and turn to the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John chapter 1. John chapter 1. But people don’t know, well, who is God?

Where’s God? Why doesn’t God talk to us? Well, reached out to heaven and says, here it is. So if you have a Bible, see God’s already text you. If you got a text, wouldn’t you read it? Well, the Bible is God texts us a message. And now he wants us to read it. And if you say, well, it’s not true, prove us not true. He wrote 66 books. Surely you ought to be able to find a mistake in there.

somewhere. You can’t find them in the Bible. They’re not there. I had a man ten more time. That’s a loaded with mistakes and contradictions. That says, okay, find me one. Well, it’s just loaded everywhere. Okay, find me one. He couldn’t find one. He heard what everybody else has said, but the Bible is truly what it claims to be. The Word of God. Now, here in the Gospel of John, look at it in verse 1, and note how it connects the Creator with the creation.

In the beginning was the word, 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. And Him was life as eternal life and the life was the light of men and the light, shallneth and darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. In other words, couldn’t understand it, couldn’t figure it all out. There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light that all men through Him might believe. So God wants Everybody, not just to believe that there is a God, but to believe what that God said and what that God did. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light, talking about John the Baptist. He came and he preached about Jesus Christ, the light that was coming, that all would believe in him. Verse nine, that was the true light which lighteth.

Every man that cometh into the world, he was in the world and the world was made by him. there’s the Creator and He’s talking about a world that He created. And the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. So God wants everybody to come to Him.

But before you can come to him, he came to us. He came in the form of his son who was a splendid image of the Father. You see, you can’t see God cutting the spirit. So he took upon flesh and in notice verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father and full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ was God in the flesh.

So If you want to know anything about God, you have to learn it through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God revealed. That’s why you can have a thought and the word tells you what’s on the mind. Well, he is the word of God. I can’t see God, which is the thought, but I can see the word, which is Christ invisible form. God took up on flesh for the purpose of dying because God can’t die. So he came into this world.

But a lot of people, they don’t really want to study the prophecy or the truth of the word, they hide their, well, their head in the sand. And that’s what some people do. Now you and I are different. We want to know the truth, but prophecy was the eternal Father’s way of introducing the eternal Son into the world. So God used prophecy in the Bible because nobody can accurately predict the future, nobody. But God never misses. And He tells us what will happen in advance before it happens so that you and I would know because God says in the book of Isaiah in chapter 48, He says, you’re hard headed in your stiff neck.

Difra, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen before it takes place so that you’ll know God did this. How to recognize the Messiah. You see, the Messiah was God’s promise to the world. He was coming into this world. He was going to be born into this world. So he tells us in advance how you’ll be able to recognize God’s Son. Now, get this. This is the first promise in the Bible, Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, where it says, and I will put in between the, which is Satan, and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed is Shabruh.

I had to thou shalt bruise his heel. In other words, if there was a snake on the ground here and I was to take my heel and stomp his head, well, I would kill the snake, but I’d bruise my heel. Jesus Christ went to the cross and he was bruised for us, but he crushed the head of the serpent, which is Satan. He defeated Satan and is able to now take off eternal life because he’s Satan God’s man to believe a lie and the whole human race was ruined.

Jesus Christ came and can give eternal life, therefore defeating Satan because no man could earn eternal life. No man could ever get to heaven because he’s not perfect. And nothing that he could say or do could make him perfect. So Jesus Christ came in order to make a man perfect by taking away all of his sins as though he never committed a sin. So the Bible says that he would take all the sins to put it upon his Son, Jesus Christ, and He died for us.

Therefore, our debt is paid.” He says, yet have I set my king upon my holy heel of Zion. I will declare the decree, the Lord have said unto me, Thou art my Son. God talks about Him having a Son in the Old Testament. So this was mentioned in the book of Psalms of a thousand years before Christ came because God used David to write most of the Psalms. So this is a verse about the son of God in advance that God had a son.

Then he makes a statement in the book of Proverbs chapter 30 and verse 4. He says, who hath to send it up to heaven or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fist? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name. And what is his son’s name if thou can’t tell? So God has a name. He is Jehovah. It’s not Allah, it’s Jehovah. He’s the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Israel.

He is the one true and living God. There are no 10 gods and 100 gods or 1000 gods. There’s only one true and living God. And he’s revealed himself. And he came into this world, God, that created the world. He was in the world, the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came as a man. He lived among men. And they did not recognize him. They wished not who it was. Even though he had told in advance how he was going to come.

They should have been able to recognize it clears a bell. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign, Behold a virgin shall conceive and bury son shall call his name Emmanuel. Emmanuel is an untranslated Hebrew word God with us. He is God with us. This one that was going to be born, it’s God. You see Jesus is not just a good man, a good prophet, a good teacher. He’s not a trailblazer like David Crockett or Daniel. Boom, this was the Son of God.

And he says that he’s coming into this world. So the Messiah must be and would be a descendant of Abraham because God and made promises to Abraham. He says, now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, he saith not and to seeds of many, but as of one and through thy seed which is Christ. See God says, when I come into the world, there’s going to be this seed line. He is going to be Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and on down the line.

Until lo and behold, there’s going to be a virgin, a woman down the line because Isaiah 714, the whole, a virgin shall conceive and bury son shall call his name Emmanuel. A woman down the road is going to have a child but she’s not going to have a husband who planted that seed in her. That seed was placed there by the Holy Spirit of God. That’s why it says that, holy thing shall be called the son of the highest, the son of God himself.

Jesus Christ did not have a sinful nature. and I are all born with the sinful nature. This is why God says you must be born again. But if you were born again with a sinful nature, it didn’t help you any. So whenever you trust Christ to save it, you are born again, born into God’s family without a sinful nature because God becomes your Father and your sinful nature does not exist in the Father. So therefore you and I can be born into God’s family.

The second birth has no sinful nature. That’s Why once you’re a child of God, your new birth, you last forever. Your child of God forever. Can never be undone. And the scripture foreseen that God would justify the heathen through faith, priests before the gospel and the Abraham sin, and these shall all families of the earth be blessed. In other words, people can be blessed because one person was coming into the world. One person was going to die. One person was going to take all the sins for everybody and pay for the sins on all the people of all the world, one time.

And then he was able to give his righteousness to everyone in the whole world that would believe that he died for them. So when you believe that he did it for you, then he gives you a free gift everlasting life and you get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for you. Now that’s in good news. The Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah back there in the book of Genesis in chapter 49 when Jacob is lying on his deathbed and he calls on all 12 sons and he gives a prophecy concerning all 12 sons, but when he got to Judah he says, the one who is going to rule, the Messiah is coming through the tribe of Judah.

He said, the supper shall not depart from Judah nor he lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh, the Prince of Peace, comes and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. So this was mentioned a long time ago before Christ ever came. So He tells you exactly the man that’s coming is going to be born of a virgin and he’s going to be of the tribe of Judah. So Jesus Christ, when He came into the world, had to be born of the tribe of Judah, and He was.

In order to claim the throne of Israel, just a coincidence, God says, because your heart had his stiffness, He said, I’m going to tell you all these things in advance so that you’ll know that one ever that happened. I told you so. The scepter of the staff was held in the hand by a ruling monarch as an item of royal sovereignty or their authority and is talking about coming from the tribe of Judah. He would come from the house of David.

In other words, there’s a lot of families in this tribe, but it’s got to come through one family. So God made promises to a young boy named David, he says, and when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up by seed after thee which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.” In other words, somebody on down the line from your loins, one of your children is going to produce the Messiah down the road.

And he’s going to be born of the right lineage. He has to be of the lineage of David, but he tells all this way in advance, thousand years in advance. The Messiah would come from there, and thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee, thy throne shall be established forever. So Jesus Christ came, but he was rejected and crucified. So without the King, there’s no kingdom. But God promises that there is going to be the kingdom upon the earth and that the King is coming back.

So when Christ came, He has two coming. One is a lamb and one is a lion. He came the first time as a lamb led to the slaughter to pay for the sins of the world. But he’s coming back the next time as a lion, as the king, and he’s going to set up his kingdom upon the earth. And what he promised to Israel, it will be Israel and it will be their land and where they are. America is not Israel.

We do not supplant the nation of Israel. And it doesn’t matter how many people you listen to, they don’t know the Bible. Now Messiah will be a prophet like Moses. The Lord thy God shall raise up under thee a prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren liken to me him, you shall hearken unto. Now I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of John chapter 5, John and chapter 5, John chapter 5, because under the law everything had to be established in the mouth of two or more witnesses.

So Christ himself could not testify for himself. He says, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am. Look what He says here in verse 30, I can of my own self do nothing. As I hear, I judge. My judgment is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of Him of the Father which have sent me. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true, because you’ve got to have more than two or more.

Who says, let me give you a couple of other witnesses. You see the verse 32, there is another that bears witness of me. Remember God that created heaven to the earth, coming to the earth. And He looked just like a normal man, but He was a man who had never committed one sin, and He lived among them. And they didn’t know who He was. He says, there’s some who know who I am. He says, this is what they said.

So in verse 32, There is another that bears witness of me and I don’t know that the witness, which he witnesses me is true. He sent unto John and he bears witness unto the truth because in chapter 1, you ask John, who is he? And John says, I’m not that prophet. He said, I’m just a voice to one crying in the wilderness. I’m not Jesus. I’m not the Messiah. But the Messiah comes after me. He says, when Jesus came to him in chapter one and he was going to be baptized with him, he says, the Holy Spirit came upon him like in the form of a dove.

And John says, behold the Lamb of God that take it the way to the sin of the world. John told you who I was. John told you, he told you who I was. I’m the Messiah. Now notice what else he says. In verse 34, but I receive not testimony from man, but these things I say that you might be saved. In other words, you’ve got to believe that Jesus Christ is who He claims to be. If He’s just a man, He can’t save anybody.

Look what He says there in verse 36, but I have another greater witness than that of John resumed. For the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of me and the Father hath sent me. Look at what I’m doing. When’s the last time you saw somebody walking on water? Feeding 5,000, I don’t know healing the sick and making the lame to walk and death to hear and to blind the seed.

When’s the last time you saw somebody doing all of that? He says nobody can do those things. He said but I did it. You ought to believe that I am God in the flesh. Look what I’ve done. Look what I’m doing. No other person can do all these things. And he says I told you I was going to do this before I came here. Look what he says again in verse 37. And the Father, himself, which have sent me, hath more than witness of me, ye have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his shape.

And ye have not his word abided in ye for whom he hath sent him ye believe not. I am here, hello, and they didn’t believe him. Then he says, let me give you another witness. Search the scriptures. them you think you have eternal life, but they are they which testify of me. If you believe the scriptures, then you’ll know who I am. But you don’t believe the scripture because you don’t know who I am and you don’t know my father.

So he says here in verse 40, and you will not come to me. Not that you could not. He says you will not. Everybody can be saved if they’ll come to Christ. If they trust him as their Savior. You’d be surprised how many churches are going to be packed today and next week of people who are trying to earn their way to heaven. Thinking they got to go to church to go to heaven and never trust Christ the Savior.

Thinking they’ve given money. That’s a good thing to do, but it won’t get you to heaven. And it will not pay for one sin. Christ already paid for the sins of the world. Look what else he says. He says here in verse 40, and you will not come to me that you might have life. Eternal life. I receive not honor from men, but I know you that you have not the love of God in you. For I come in my father’s name and you receive me not.

If another shall come in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe? Which receive honor one of another and seek not the honor that coming from God only. In other words, you do what you do because you’re just seeking approval of mother body else. You want other people to glorify you. He’s talking to the leaders of Israel, the religious hypocrites. He says, you’re not trying to please God. What else he says? In verse 45, do not think that I will accuse you to the Father.

There is one that accuses you even Moses in whom you trust. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote about me. He wrote of me. And this is that scripture that’s mentioned back in the book of Exodus. And then book of Deuteronomy, in chapter 18. He wrote about this. He said, for had you believed Moses, you would have believed me. He wrote of me. This is one of the witnesses that God is using. It’s written in the book.

If you believe not his right, how do you believe my words? Because Jesus is the one who gave the word to them back there. It’s the same God. Search the scriptures. For in them you think you have eternal life there, they which testify of me. And you will not come to me that you might have life. In other words, there’s some people say, no, God doesn’t want everybody saved. So he only sent his son to die just for a few people.

And the rest of them can go to hell. They don’t have a chance. And that’s Calvinism. That’s fatalistic predestination. It is not in the Bible. God so loved the world. That’s everybody, not just Eli, that’s the world. He died on the cross for this in the whole world. And everyone who will come to Christ can have eternal life. There’s not a person in this room that God cannot save. He can save everybody if you’ll trust him. And if you’ll believe it, you’ll give eternal life and you can know that you’re going to heaven when you die.

Wouldn’t it be a shame to reject a free gift? As many were astonished that his visage was so marred more than any man in his form more than the sons of man. That’s in the book of Isaiah. That when Jesus came into the world, he was going to be beaten. They put a sack over his head and then take his fist and then beat him in the face of the… who smiteth thee prophesy. Tell us who’s smiting you. And then they put God His beard, the pain what He went through.

And He could have called 10,000 angels. I would have called a couple, had them beat them up. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He had put him to grieve when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. This is mentioned 700 years in advance in the book of Isaiah, where God is going to take the sins of the world and put him upon his son and his son would make this payment. So the Messiah will be a suffering servant.

In other words, a man coming into this world and he’s going to do everything in obedience to the Father. He never displeased the Father. When God looked over the manager of heaven, he said, my son who I am well pleased because he did no wrong. He said nothing wrong, did nothing wrong. He was perfect, the Son of God. Rejoice greatly daughter of Zion, shadow daughter of Jerusalem, behold thy king cometh. Under the heat he is just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass and upon the cult, the fold of an ass.

This is almost 500 years before Christ ever came. Tell you now this is how you’re going to recognize them. If I told you I want you to meet me down in Miami on Main Street and what time? Well you’ll don’t just know it’s me. Okay, how many people are in Miami? You may have a problem recognizing me. But I’ll have on a Navy outfit. Oh, that helps a lot. So a ship comes in and there’s about, you know, 10,000 servicemen in their white uniforms, all just the same.

That didn’t help too much. But if I told you I’ll be riding on a jackass backwards, playing a banjo and singing Yankee Doodle went to town. Wouldn’t you be able to recognize me if I give you enough details? Well, Jesus had enough details. About 300 of them, and there’s no reason why anybody who knows the Bible cannot identify this person, because God says they wished not who he was. They did not know the day of their visitation, the book of Luke in chapter 19.

Jesus Christ came and visited the earth. Hello? And there was no room for him in the end. And now he says, I got room for you. He got us a big old place up there, a big old mansion. But this was prophetic. Behold the Lamb. He was oppressed. He was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter. And as the sheep before her shears is done, so he opened not his mouth.

This is the description of Jesus Christ when he was rejected as a king. And that lamb became a lamb and died on that cross and paid for our sins. Don’t miss out on all the fun! Join Pastor Jesse and Kyla Martinez on Thursday nights from 7-9 p.m. for Tampa Youth Ranch and Calvary Community Church. Tampa Youth Ranch is a great mix of live music, games, Bible study, food and fun, where teens 13-18 get to know God and the Bible with their friends.

Check it out online at tampayouthranched.org and see See the cool pictures from past activities and all the fun you’ve been missing. No right, no problem. Call 813-334-4655 today for information on getting a ride to Tampa Youth Ranch. Thanks for joining us on Bible Eye. 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. 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.