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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.

But anyway, today we are in the book of Acts, but there has come along new teaching. And I was asked to speak one year at a Grace Conference in Dallas, Texas. And while there I noticed that there was just a little bit of a change in the gospel ingredients. do you have to know in order to really say I’m preaching the gospel, what are the ingredients in the gospel? So what do people really have to know to be saved?

And so someone came to the conclusion that just believe in Jesus for eternal life. You don’t have to know who He is or what He did or what He said. You just believe in Jesus for eternal life. Because He says no believe in the Lord believe in Jesus. So if you just believe in Jesus, but you didn’t have to really know anything about the death, Berlin resurrection of Christ because he’s that believing in me, had to have a last night.

So you just get into believing that. And very, very asked in you, he that believeth on me, had to have a last night. She’s just believing in him. You have everlasting life. That is true that that’s the only thing you have to do is to believe in the Lord, but is that the only anything you need to know. I mean what if Jesus is, you know, Haysu down here on the street and you know it came across the border and that’s his name.

And there’s a lot of people that are named Jesus. So can you just believe in Jesus and he’ll give eternal life? Well, I think you have to know who he is and you have to know what he did. So to start off with I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians and chapter 15. Now we’ll never cover all the verses that I have down here. But just simply put down the power to raise the dead because Jesus Christ cannot save anybody if he can’t save us and he has to be able to save himself.

He has to come back from the dead. That’s the good news. Not that he just died, he came back from the dead. Because if he can’t come back from the dead and all of us die and we can’t come back from the dead, well what do we have? You have to be able to have the power to come back from the dead. And so this is what he used as a proof. Remember he makes a statement in the book of Matthew chapter 12 because they came to him and says, give us a sign.

Give us a sign. Well, he really gave him one. He says, an evil and a daughter’s generation seeketh after a sign, but there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah for his Jonah was three days and three nights in the will’s belly. Even so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth talking about his resurrection. And then back there in the book of Psalms, the 16th Psalm, David, in writing there says that Dao will not leave his soul in hell or in Hades, which or in sheal at that place, in the grave.

And it will not see corruption. So he was talking about the resurrection of Christ from the dead. So here in the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 15. Notice what the apostle Paul did. He reminds them that when he first came to them, what he preached. So he says, first of all, first, I want you to get this. So look there in verse 1, more over brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, preached as past tense.

He says, which also you have received. Where in you stand? In other words, he knew that these people, this was their standing. Now your state changes from time to time. It means it’s based upon how you’re doing. But your standing in Christ is a position. They had believed the gospel. So they had eternal life. They were saved. They’re going to heaven. Now, he said, now, this is what I preached you when I first came in verse two by which also ye are safe.

So whatever that gospel was, it was sufficient to give them eternal life and change their standing. They were lost going to hell. Now they’re saved going to heaven. But now notice by which also ye are saved if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you. So he’s telling them now this is remember what I preached to you. This is when I came to you the first time, unless you have believed in vain. Uh oh. So can you believe in vain?

Well, you believe in vain if Christ did not come back from the dead. If Christ didn’t come back from the dead, there is no gospel. There’s no good news to tell. And so the only way we know that He really paid for our sins is He came back from the dead. otherwise, how would we know? Now look what He says, you hold your place right there, but just look over there in verse 12. In verse 12, He says, now, if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, so evidently, should we preach that Christ came back from the dead?

So you don’t just say, I’m going to preach the gospel, but you need to include in that message the power of the resurrection. That’s the only way we know He had the power to save anybody. He came back from the dead and to believe Him. He must have power over death. So He says here, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? For if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen?

And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. So when you have to tie this verse in with verse 2, when he talks about unless you have believed in vain, you have believed in vain, your faith is in vain, if Christ did not come back from the dead. But if He did come back from the dead, then your faith is not in vain, our preaching is not in vain. But if Christ didn’t come back from the dead, we’re wasting our time because that was the proof that he was who he came to be.

He says that he will come back from the dead and he preached it over and over and over again. Now look what he says there in chapter 15 and verse 3. Now notice what he says and this is past tense also for I delivered, past it unto you first of all, first of all, taking them all the way back to the beginning. When I came to you, this is what I preached. He says that which I also receive, get to how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.

And then he stopped right there and didn’t preach anymore. That’s all he preached. No. Read the next verse. And that he was buried. And that he rose again, third day according to the what? Scriptures. So is the death, burial, and resurrection part of the gospel message? Wouldn’t you assume that? That’s the book and that’s what it says. Go back there to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and chapter 1. And notice what he says in verse 18 when he talks about in verse 18, for the preaching of the cross, preaching of the cross.

Now how can you preach about the cross without saying what happened to him? He died for our sins. So if there’s a group today that says you don’t have to know this or believe in that, you just trust in Jesus and you have eternal life. That’s the only thing you have to do to go to heaven, but it’s not all you need know why should I trust Him? What did He do for me? What did He say? That’s what’s important.

And so that’s why I always like to include the resurrection of Christ. Everyone I do the wall of the illustration. He paid for our sin and came back from the dead. Do you ever hear me say that and come back from the dead? Came back from the dead and came back from the dead. Why? Because it came back from the dead. And said, all we had to do to go to heaven is believe he did that for us. Now, notice what he says.

In the verse 17, it says in verse 17, for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of what? Now, in fact, so if you’re going to preach the gospel, you’ve got to preach the cross. And if you preach the cross in verse 18, it’s the power of God to save. So you go down through here and you’ll find out that’s what he’s talking about separate.

Now look in chapter two. Look in chapter two, look in verse two. Chapter two, verse two. determine not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him and you are on the line that word crucified. In other words this is what’s important this is what you need to know Christ died for our sins. He starts off in the book with this and he ends up the book with this. It must be important. Now what I want you do is what about the apostles after the time of Christ and he told him he says going to all over and preach the gospel.

Did the gospel that the apostles preach did it include the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead? So take your Bible and look there in the book of Acts chapter 2. Acts and chapter 2. Now this is one of the verses that’s right there in your notes. You’ll see Acts chapter 2. Of course, I’m skipping over some of those that are in John, but there’s a lot of verses. And so I just kind of picked a few that I thought would be very, very good, very clear.

But now look in Acts chapter 2 and verse 24. Now we’ll start in verse 22 because you need to see it in context. In verse 22, Peter is preaching. He’s preaching to those that were there on the day of Pentecost. They heard them speaking the wonderful works of God and so they were speaking in their language, various languages and Jewish men were from different nations at this time. They all came together and you see that in verse 8, 9, 10, and 11, so on of chapter 2.

But he says in verse 22, ye men of Israel. Here these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you as ye yourselves also know. Him, being delivered by the determinant council and the foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and And by wicked hands have crucified and slain. So is part of his message talking about how Jesus was crucified, how he was slain?

Or he didn’t talk about that at all. No, that was the kernel of the truth of the gospel. That was the content. Now I know what he says here in verse 24, whom God and your other line of syndrome have raised up, have been loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that death should hold him. It was not, death could not hold him in the ground. And he raised him up from the dead. So you notice part of the message that he did preach included the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So is it important for us to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ? in that part of the gospel. How do you preach the gospel and the good news and lead all that out? The good news, and I’ve told people this before, and I mentioned that those people over there, the Baptist preacher, you cannot know you’re going to heaven till you know you can’t go to hell. And the only way you can know you can’t go to hell because you don’t have any sins to pay for it.

There is no other way of knowing. So when Christ died on that cross, He paid for our sins and came back from the dead. He must have finished the job. It must have been acceptable. And got raised in from the dead. sins have been paid for.” And that’s what makes it such good news. Now look there in chapter 2 and verse 32, verse 32, where he says, this Jesus hath God to get this raised up where we are all witnesses.

When he talks about he raised the gun. Well, again means that he was alive and then he was dead and now he’s alive again. So every time you see the word raised you just put the word alive. He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive. And God raised him from the dead means he’s living again. He’s not dead anymore. You can go out here and take a dead body out of the cemetery and you can raise them from the dead. You might raise them up there and there’s his bodies right there.

Yeah, but he’s still dead. Jesus was alive and that’s the difference. So does the Bible teach this? Yes, it does. Look in Acts chapter 3 and verse 15. Acts chapter 3 and verse 15. And notice that he doesn’t pull any punches. him know, you have killed the Prince of life. Where does you think in life comes? See, the law of biogenesis stays that life must come from life and exist on previous life. That means that without a source of life, there can be no life.

And that’s why all life has to come from something that is always had life. And that’s the Lord. He is the eternal self-existing one that’s never had a beginning, never has an ending. So it’s normal to understand and to believe that life can come from life. But evolutionists want you to believe that life came from nothing. Life came from non-existent, non-life. Have you ever seen something come from non-life? Have you ever seen something come from nothing? Well, that’s what evolutionists believe.

There was nothing, then there was something. Okay, where’d that something come from? Well, it just happened. Well, How do you know? Are you there? Did you see that happen? I don’t think so. So here in the book of Acts, he’s gone down to here and he said some wonderful things. But notice what he says here in verse 14. But he denied the Holy One and the just. Who do you think he’s talking about? Well, that’s Jesus. And desired a murderer to be granted unto you.

Who was that murderer? What was the name of that murder that was granted? Freedom, who? Barabbas, barabbas. And so, no one said to verse 15, and killed the prince of life. Get this, whom God hath raised from the dead. In other words, made him alive again. Where he says, you are witnesses, you know this is true. He is preaching to them the death, barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So as you go through the book of Acts, did it leave all of that out and just say, just believe in Jesus, believe in Jesus, believe, no, but there’s something you got to believe about Jesus.

He was who he came to be. He was God in the flesh and that he died. He paid for all the sins in the world. He came back from the dead. And that is part of the message that we should preach. And I believe it’s very, very important. Look in Acts chapter four. Acts chapter four, look in verse 10. chapter 4 verse 10, be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ, of Nazareth, whom He crucified whom God, and here it is again, raised from the dead.

So whenever He talked about Jesus Christ, and most of the cases here, He always throws that in there. He raised them from the dead. He was raised from the dead. Does this man stand here before you whole? Now let him know, hey, you killed him on the cross. You nailed him there. By wicked hands, you have taken him in slain and you killed the prince of life, but he’s alive. And that’s why there’s power to heal the lame and to make the blind to see it.

All these things are called there’s power in the resurrection of Christ. And you’ll find out that the power of the resurrection is the same power that lives inside of each one of us. The power that raised of Christ from the dead has the same power that lives in each one of us. So we have power that we don’t tap, that we don’t use. And we don’t really understand the power of God and what it can do for us. But understand that we do have it.

We may not use it. We may not even understand it all, but we have it. This is like coming into this building. We could come in here and all we do is light candles, but we’ve got electricity, but we don’t know how to get it on. We don’t know, there’s little switches back there. You know, you can flip a switch and boom, there’s light. It’s like there’s power here, but we’re all still using candles because we don’t know how to use the lights.

Or I don’t know how it works. I don’t care how it works. I just wanna know, does it work? And I’m gonna use it, put it on the lights. And so it’s one thing we could have The power of cool air. We’ve got an air conditioner. Now we got to do a set that little thing on that wall over there and lo and behold we can make it cool in here, right? Or we could all sit in here and fan ourselves.

What I want to camp for the first time down in Boca Raton, Florida. I’ll never forget. They call it the hot box. It was a room about this side. But it was just filled with kids and in the back they had a little balcony and that’s where me and Hank Linson was set up there and we’d talk and and everything else is going on down here and I’m talking about it was packed with about 350 teenagers in there and There was no air condition in July It was hot.

It was muggy And all these kids said to earth and you know what nobody complained because they didn’t know how to compare with anything up because there wasn’t air condition anywhere else either. You know back in the late 60s, 64 when I went, they didn’t have air condition in there. None of the buildings, they didn’t have no air condition. And so they had this great big old hotel, big hotel. The girls, they got to stay in a motel. The boys, they put them in this old run down hotel and we was on the second floor and it had a great big old fan upstairs like in the attic and that fan was huge I couldn’t reach from one side to the other side it was a great big old fan and they turned that thing on and if you didn’t watch it it pulled you clean out of your bed

slice you up and throw you out to the… you had to hand-cut yourself to the bed, keep them getting pulled out. It was so strong. Well, maybe it was not quite that strong, but I mean it was scary. But they had this great big old fan. They didn’t have air condition and all of us was standing in the room and one time I had, I told Ray about working with the football players and all. So he gave me scholarships to get any football player I could to come to camp.

So I wind up getting 18 of the top football players in the state of Florida. Top football players. I mean quarterbacks, football backs, I mean the top players in the state and he gave me the money scholarships and so I gave them and they all came and most of them was in my room. Biggest mistake I’ve ever made in in my life. They may be good on the football field. But as far as their manners goes, and so forth, they were mean and obnoxious.

And they wanted to throw pillows and have pillow fights all night long and talk. And I had to put my bunk in front of the bed so they could not get out, which means I had to close the door, which means that I didn’t get that breeze that would come through there because of that great big old fan. And we’d swelter. I said, If you guys would be quiet, we can open the door and all that. And they would for about 15 minutes, and then they’d go in again.

And so you paid a price, but no air condition. Isn’t it nice to be able just to turn the switch, set it and you can have it in your home, a comfortable, you’re getting your cars and you can set the temperature? See, it can be there, but if you don’t know about it, you don’t use it. There is power in the Christian life. And it’s far superior to any power in all the world. It’s the power that can raise the dead, make the blindest see, the death they hear, the dumbest speaking, all the way.

And God has given us that same power. The power of the Bible says in the book of Genesis, and the spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the deep. And that Holy Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead, says in 1 Peter chapter three, verse 18, quickened by the Spirit, made alive. Now that Holy Spirit in the book of Romans in chapter 8 talks about the Holy Spirit dwells in us and will quicken our mortal bodies one of these days, the power to change our physical bodies and make it like unto his glorious body is the power that already lives within us.

It’s not going to come from outside, it’s already in us. And so we struggle because we don’t depend upon that power. We don’t trust what God says. We question Him. If you just do what God says do, you’d be surprised how much more you can do and the peace and joy you can have. The last Wednesday night John John spoke and he had a tremendous message. And it was a whole mess of it. Why we shouldn’t worry. Why we shouldn’t worry.

It was awesome. Very good. And he’s just one of our college students. But I sat down here and I listened to that. The guy was good. He had a great message. And so there’s always things that we need to know and to do. But now notice what he says here in chapter four and looking verse 10. be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel and by, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

So we know who he is, not just anybody, it’s not just Jesus. See Jesus Christ is Jehovah, the anointed one, the Messiah. That’s what Christ refers to. In the Old Testament, if you go back in the Old Testament and every time you see the word Jehovah or capital, L, capital, Old, capital, and just put Jesus in there, you’ll understand they understood who he was. That’s why Moses understood that he has themed the reproach of Christ, greater treasures in all the treasures of Egypt.

So they knew about Christ, but it was Jesus Christ. It was Jehovah who was going to become the Messiah. But anyway, whom God raised from the dead by Him, does this man stand here before you hold. So even though Jesus had died, paid for sin, came back from the dead, sinned it into heaven, and He gave them the Holy Spirit. And they had power to do things in their light these apostles they could have done before. To show that because He was alive, look what you can do.

Now, you’ll read in the book of Philippians in chapter 3, after he made the statement, and be found in him not having my own righteousness, which is the law, but that which is through the righteousness of Christ, the righteous which is God by faith. Then the very next verse, verse 10 says, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. In other words, I want to know what it’s like to live with power like that. So that you have power over your sinful nature.

Everybody got a sinful nature? How would you like to live with victory over your sinful nature? You see, the world, they don’t have that power. All they’ve got is the old nature and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. They can’t escape that. That’s why it controls every one of them. But a man who knows the Lord and loves the Lord can have a power, the ability to do things that can keep you from falling in love with the world.

But you’ve got to have a greater love than the love of the world. Or the lust of the flesh. Even though you have the lust of the flesh, you can restrain yourself and love the Lord more and you can control areas of your life that without the Lord you can’t do it. There is power in what God’s Word says. Our problem is that we don’t believe that it will work. This is why we take matters and draw on hands and why we blow up and get mad and angry.

We can be as wicked as the lost man, but we don’t have to be. We can be different. This is your invitation to join us for our third Sunday dinner held in the Florida Bible College of Tampa building on the Calvary Community Church Campus. The dinner is a family-style, covered dish dinner, and a great way to showcase your favorite dish and pick up new recipes. Each month, you have the opportunity to invite your family and friends to join us for our Sunday morning service at 10.30, and then stay for our third Sunday dinner immediately following noon.

Third Sundays at Calvary Community Church, where you’ll be fed spiritually and physically. 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.