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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.

Remember this. If the pastor can’t count on your faithfulness, neither does God. If I can’t count on your faithfulness, neither does God. Moreover, it is required in the steward that a man be found faithful. If you’re not faithful, you’re not usable. Doesn’t matter about talents and abilities. Nothing matters. If you’re not faithful, you’re not obedient. You’re your disobedient and you can be a maverick. You know what a maverick just steer to wants to go his own way. Doesn’t even want to go with a herd just whenever it gets ready.

According to their own moods, but you can’t count on them. There is a thing about being faithful. And so he says here in verse 10, if, see that word, if, if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. So can a Christian fall in the Christian life? Can you fall? Take your Bible and learn the first Corinthians in chapter 10. First Corinthians chapter 10, first Corinthians chapter 10.

And you’ll notice that there are some verses in the Bible that says, those who have trusted Christ as Savior, you can’t fall. You can’t fall from salvation. You can’t lose your salvation. But a Christian can fall in the Christian life. And that’s something you need to be aware of. You don’t wanna be one of those who fall by the wayside. So we make the statement down here in verse eight. And there’s only one little word I want you to underline in that verse.

Neither let us commit for an occasion as some of them committed, not everybody does the same thing. And see that word fell. fell in one day, 23,000 of the children of Israel. They came out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and lo and behold, a time of testing. Maybe a couple million people and 23,000 died at one time. Why? They fell. They fell. And notice what else he says here. Look there in verse 12. Wherefore, let him that think if he stand to take heed, let’s see what?

So fallen is a possibility. Notice the very next words and the next verse talks about there have no temptation. It means if you don’t stay close to the Lord and you don’t build yourself up strong in your most holy faith, if you don’t want to make a difference, you’re gonna fall in the Christian life. And you’re not going to be as blessed as you could have been, but you’re bringing on yourself. You do it to yourself. I can’t make anybody serve God.

I can’t make it in do right. I don’t punish anybody. I’m doing anything to anybody Because see that’s a personal thing between you and God Therefore I have no temptation taken you but such as common the man, but God is what? God is faithful and If God is faithful, what do you think he wants us to do? They’d be found faithful doing what you can with what you have, where you are for the glory of God. You can do this.

You want to make a difference? You don’t want to just always be somebody else. God got to use somebody else. Why can’t God use me? I want to make a difference. I want to do something. Look there in the Galatians in chapter 5. The book of Galatians in chapter 5 real quick. Galatians chapter 5 And I want you to look there in verse 4. Verse 4, Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the long ye are fallen from grace.

He said, who’s he’s talking to? Well, you see, up here in verse one, he’s telling the Galatians, believers, to stand fast in the liberty where with Christ has made his free and be not entangled with the yoke of bondage. Don’t be entangled with the yoke of bondage. In other words, putting yourself back under the law or trying to put others back under the law. As though you can be saved by the law. He says, if you think you have to be circumcised now to be saved, he says, I got news for you.

In verse 3, he is a debtor to do the whole law. So in chapter 3, in verse 10 of this same book, he says, curses is everyone that continue, if not in all things, which are written in the book of the law to do them. In other words, if you’ve got to keep the law, you’ve got to keep all of the law. If you’ve got to be saved by the law, you’ve got to keep all of it. And if you’re going to be spiritual by the law, you’ve got to keep all of it.

And the law condemns the law’s legalism and it does not work and it will not save. So you can fall underneath the legalism of the law and think that’s going to make your spiritual. Well, I go to church. If you’re doing that thing, that’s what makes your spiritual, it will make your spiritual. Reading your Bible, these are things that can help you all, that’s good. But just because you do those things doesn’t make you right with God. See being right with God is a spiritual thing Not just because you obey certain rules and regulations When you think that they in rules and regulations what makes you saved that’s legalism That’s not true if you think doing those things gonna make you what makes you spiritual That’s not true But if you’re spiritual you can do those things and we’ll do those things that are right

But they won’t make you right with God just because you came to church this morning You got a Bible in your hand you look real sharp and pretty smell good and all that kind of stuff I don’t make you right with God. You can say it here and be just as wicked as anybody. And your thoughts can meander. And you can think of all kinds of things you’re not supposed to think about. True? Am I telling you the truth?

You know I am. This means yes. This means no. No. No. Turning your Bible to the book of Luke, the gospel of Luke in chapter 8. You’ve heard of the parable of the sore, and the parable of the sore, there’s something that you need to see. In chapter 8, it’s on page 10, 83, and a Bible that’s loaned to you. And I want you to look down here in verse 11, because he’s explaining to them the story of the parable.

because they said, what do they mean? So he says in verse 11, now the parable is this, the seed is the Word of God. Those by the wayside of they that here didn’t come up the devil, taken the way the word out of their heart, lest they should believe and be saved. So in other words, being saved is all they have to do is believe. See that’s the same message that Jesus preached and Paul and David Abraham and Moses and John the Baptist, they’ll preach the same gospel.

But he says, lest they should be saved. So they weren’t because they didn’t believe. Verse 13, they on the rocker, which when they heard received the word with joy and these have no root, which for a while believe and in time of temptation fall away. You see the reason you can hear the gospel and believe it and have eternal life and be saved. But because you have no root, you don’t dig into the word and become established because you know what the verses say and you’ve got salvation verses and you believe them and you’ve got some service verses and you believe them and your faith goes down like roots around those rocks and the Word of God and you become stabilized so that every wind of doctrine that comes by doesn’t move you.

But because your roots are not deep, you’re going to fall away. You’re going to fall into the world and not going to be able to be used by God. And you’re not going to make a difference. You’re not going to grow strong, saved but fruitless. And that’s why he talks about they bear in the fruit. See in verse 14, the last thing, bring forth no fruit to maturity. And verse 15, bring forth fruit with patience. So there’s fruit that God wants you to have.

That’s what Jesus said. Now, take your Bible and turn to Romans 14. Romans chapter 14. Romans chapter 14, and you’ll notice in verse 13, there’s an interest in little verse because he just said, you know, we shall all give an account before God. And we’re all going to have to stand at the Judgement City of Christ. And so he makes a statement here in verse 12, so then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God.

Now one day you and I are going to have to give an account to God. And we will probably say, why didn’t I do something? Why didn’t I do something? I could have made a difference. Maybe you could have led your grandfather to the Lord of your grandmother. Maybe you could have led that little girl to the Lord. or maybe some anoruncle, maybe some neighbor, maybe somebody where you work. And all it would have taken is just you to have the courage to have, do you know where you’re gonna go when you die?

Has anybody ever taken the Bible and showed you how to have eternal life? If you could know you could go to heaven, wouldn’t you like to know? Do you mind if I take just a moment and tell you what happened to me? Or I know I have eternal life and I want you to know. You know, no God loves you and so do I. Now let me tell you how you can know that God loves you. You figure out a way to open up a conversation, but you can do it, but people don’t do it.

Because they don’t either offend somebody or be offended, because of fear. Being scared. I understand all of that. I have those same things that hits me. It doesn’t happen to me no more different than it does you. And sometimes I have to make myself do it. The other day I went back there to see those guys that were doing some work. And there was one guy sitting there in the van. I thought he was supposed to be in there and working.

But he was sitting in a van. And I asked him, I said, can I ask you a question? He said, sure. I said, where are you going to go in your day? He said, I’m going to heaven. Well, by the time I got through, he really wasn’t known for sure if he was going to go to heaven because if he did something bad, he wasn’t going to make it. So I explained the gospel to him. Now, really I was tired and I really wanted to go home.

going home. I really didn’t even care about talking to him, but I did because I know I’m supposed to. You ever do something like it? Because you just posed to. You know, if you did it because you know God says to do it, that’s a pretty good reason for doing it. But now I know what he says here in verse 13, let us not therefore judge one another anymore for purposes of condemnation, but judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.

Can you you by your manner of life, your decisions, can you cause somebody else to fall? What does the book say? Let no man put a stumbling block. In other words, just because you can do it, when it didn’t bother me, it doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t bother me. What about the person who’s watching you? What if every Christian lived exactly the way you live? Any problem what kind of testimony do you have? Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ.

Be ye followers of me. Be ye followers of me. Can you look at somebody say, look, follow my example. If they followed your example, how godly would they be? How spiritually minded would they be? Or would you be ashamed if other people actually lived their Christian life the way you lived yours? Now remember now, I’m not opponent at anybody. I’m talking in a generic way, general way. I don’t have somebody in mind. You watch from somebody laser, but then you just tell me if you wanted to tell me like that.

There isn’t anybody in particular. I’m just telling you because this is what the book says. And I want God’s people to obey the Lord. I want the best for you. turning the Bible to 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy and chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3, and I want you to look there in verse 6. For those who would like and desire to be a preacher, a pastor, a bishop, an elder, what he says here. And verse 6th, not a novice, less being looked it up with what?

He fall. Can a person who has a great golden life wanting to be used, can he still be lifted up with pride? And pride coming before what? Before a fall. Can you fall? Every one of us in this room can fall. You can fall to pride, you can fall to temptations, you can fall to a lot of things because your roots are not deep and you’re not strong in the Lord. It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. I just don’t know what happened.

Yes, you do. You weren’t strong in the Lord. It didn’t matter. It does matter. Everything matters. Every decision matters. And so he says in verse 7, Moreover, he must have a good report of them which are without lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. Is there a devil after you? And he doesn’t care how he catches you, how he snares you. Remember there is a devil and he is real. And the devil is alive on planet earth.

and he’s going to do everything he possibly can to destroy your walk with God. And he doesn’t care how he does it. If you fall, it won’t matter. The reason won’t matter why you fell. You fell. Well, that fell because, leave out the because. It’s because you didn’t do what God says to do. It didn’t make a difference. It’s not that important. All of it’s important. Look in 2 Peter chapter 3, 2 Peter and chapter 3. Second Peter chapter 3, there’s a verse here toward the end of the book that says, ye therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware, lest ye also be led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness.

You may be stabilized today. You’re faithful. You’re doing right. Can you fall tomorrow? Being led away. If the people you hang around, if they’re not godly individuals, they ought not be your closest friend. Now you’ve got to have some friends in order to reach people and help them. But if your closest friends are not walking with God, it won’t be long. They will influence you. I don’t have any close friends that are not walking with God. They don’t walk with God.

I don’t walk with them. You say, who do you think you are? Holy, holy, say it in the way you want. But I’ve made my decision and that’s why at 76 I’m still walking with God. I had to make a this choice. After I trusted Christ as my Savior, I had some friends. Yes, I thought they were friends. I never had to give up one of my friends. They gave me up. I decided I’m going to walk with God.

I want to serve God. I want God’s will for my life. They didn’t. You go your way and I’m going mine. And yes, it cost me. That’s okay. God gave me a whole bunch of new ones who love the Lord and wants to go in the same direction. So you don’t want to fall from your own steadfastness. You want to make a difference. I got a little video that I want to show you right quick. And this little video is, well, you watch it.

And I think that you will see and understand the purpose of it. Because today we have communion service. You know why we do communion service? Because you see, you and I were lost. We were going to hell. We had no way of saving ourselves. Somebody did something about it. Somebody did something because he could, because he couldn’t. I want you to watch this. Piddle story. A father, one of his children, to understand the Holocaust and he decided to take them to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

That’s the memorial to the 11 million victims of attempt to eradicate the Jewish people. Though concerned that his 11-year-old daughter was really young to view the horrific scenes depicted in Yad Vashem, he determined that she could always be taken out of the experience if it became too traumatic. Now the little girl viewed the section depicting the Warsaw ghetto. That’s where children as young as four or five were left on the streets to fend for themselves after their parents were were taken on trains to the death camps.

Some of those children died from freezing. Others were shot for sport by the Nazi soldiers. And that’s verified because the Nazis actually took photos of themselves doing it, as if they were proud to engage in such barbaric behavior. The little girl gazed at the photos from the death camps like Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. That was the death camp where 10,000 Jews, including women, children, and infants, were murdered in cold blood every day. And when the crematoriums couldn’t handle the numbers, the Nazis took Jews by the thousands to large pits dug into the ground.

And they shot them in mass, then pushed their bodies into the pit until another group could be shuttled to the site. The little girls stare at the photos of the disgusting destruction of innocent human lives. And so it’s sometimes read the inscriptions below the photos. As she prepared to exit the Yad Vashem exhibit with her father, she paused by the guest book on a podium on the way out. She reached into her father’s pocket, took out his pen, then she began to write in the guest book.

She put her name, address, and then she paused when it asked for comments. The father watched over her shoulder to see if what she wrote might help him to know whether the lesson of the Holocaust cost had registered with his young daughter. As he watched, she wrote words that he’ll never forget. She simply wrote, why didn’t somebody do something? That’s all she wrote. But her words were haunting. Why didn’t somebody do something? It was hard for her to understand how such despicable things could be happening to human beings, And no one would speak up or stand up and try to stop it.

She put the pen back into her father’s pocket and she didn’t speak for several hours. But he never had to ask again if she understood the lesson of the Holocaust. That little girl goes to another podium almost every day these days. It’s one at the White House. That little girl was my daughter Sarah, who is now a wife, a mother, and you know her as press secretary to the president of the United States. We were there in Israel. We actually went and we saw all that.

I could have spent a month in there just watching all that stuff. And as I watched, I kept thinking, why in the in somebody do something. It took time, but we ought to be so thankful that America did do something. It’s not how many they killed, it’s how many more they would have killed if he hadn’t been stopped. You realize it would not have stopped over there. They would have come over here. And do you think they would have let us live or gassed us all saw.

All these things that will happen. But whenever I saw this just the other day, I thought about watching all these pictures that we’ve seen there. They had videos wondering why didn’t somebody do something. And I’ll think about it. Is there anything worse than that. Is there anything worse than that? And I realize this whole thing about you know this Bible, about a heaven and about a hell. We try to convince people to go to heaven by telling how wonderful it is and how horrible hell is so that they don’t want to go there.

But you realize that one of these days when it’s all over there are literally want to be multitude of people that are going to be cast into hell. You think, well, why didn’t somebody do something? Well, for saving their soul, paying for their sins, Christ came because that’s what He wanted to do, something about it. Every time we have the Lord’s Supper, you see, we’re talking about this is somebody who did something about it. This is somebody who did have compassion, somebody who cared, somebody who wanted to make a difference.

And see the closer you get to the Lord, the more you care and the more compassion you have and the more love you have and the more you want to make a difference. This makes sense to me. I don’t want to wait until I get to heaven or stand at the Great White Throne judgment. And the Bible talks about, and whosoever’s name were not written in the Lamb’s book of life will be cast into the lake of fire. And we’re going to be all there and we’re going to say, well, maybe we could have done more.

Did we do all that we could have done? Because we have supported more missionaries. Because we’ve got more kids to ranch, more into a wana. Because we’ve We’ve done more with YouTube and radio and the internet. Is there more we could have done? Could more have come to college? Could more have been trained? Well no one would get to heaven what could have been done. Look up here. This hand represent you and me and the wallet represent sin. We all have sin on us.

God loves us. Now He hates our sin, but He loves us. And for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God in hell. But God loves us and wants us to go to heaven. And to go to heaven you have to be perfect. And we’re not perfect. And we can’t save ourselves. We can’t earn our way to heaven. And if somebody doesn’t do something, no man can get to go to heaven. No man has ever lived good enough to deserve to go to heaven.

So nobody would get to go unless somebody does something. This end represents Jesus Christ, He’s the Lord. God in the flesh came into this world because He loves us. He hates our sin because our sins separates us from the Lord. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. But when He took the sins of all the world upon Himself and He paid for it, He died. And He paid for our sins because He didn’t want us to do it.

He had compassion. He wanted to make a difference. He didn’t waste His time. I’m glad He did it if it was just for me. Aren’t you glad He did it if it was just for you? was just for you. But He did it for the whole world. He came back from the dead and says, the only thing you and I have to do is the only thing we can do. It’s the belief that He did it for us. So when you believe He did this for you, He said, He that believeth of me, hath everlasting life.

God gives you everlasting life. You get to go to heaven on what Christ did for you. You didn’t earn it, you didn’t earn it, work for it, you don’t deserve it is the gift of God, not a works best any man should boast. That’s pretty, shall we? But heads bound, eyes closed, no one looking around. If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, why not trust him right now? There’s no tricks to this. There’s no gimmick. We don’t have something we’re going to have to make you do.

You don’t have to come forward. Don’t have to sign a car. give money because eternal life is the gift of God. It’s free. I can’t give it to you. He can. I can only tell you about Him. So in the quietness of this moment between you and the Lord, would you right now say, Lord, I don’t understand it all, but I believe that when Christ died, I believe He died for me. And I’m gonna trust Him right now as my Savior.

And friend, if you’ll trust Him as your Savior, He said He’d give you right now as a free gift of eternal life. Would you trust Him? would you believe it? If you’re making that decision, I like to know and I like to have prayer for you, but I’m not gonna embarrass you. I’m not gonna have you stand up and come forward. But I’m gonna ask you right where you are if you’ll just let me know by an operation. That means you’re just trusting Christ, you’re saved you, but you want me to know and I like to have prayer for you.

Is there anyone at all before we close? Say, preach to that made sense and I’ll trust Christ as my savior and life you to pray for me. Would you just slip in it very quickly? Anyone at all? They want it all. If you haven’t trusted Christ as Savior, now is a good time to do so. If you’re watching by internet, bottomless screen says, yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior. If you’ve never done so, would you trust Him?

Our Father, we thank You again for Your blessings. Thank for all You’ve done for us, for giving us that free gift of everlasting life. We’re so thankful that You did love us. You had compassion. And You were moved. You came and did what You did. You paid for our sins to make a difference. And Father, I am thankful. It made a difference in my life. And I’m grateful, so thankful. So bless each one here in Christ’s name we pray.

Amen. Are you ready to learn how to live your life as a strong Christian, lead others to Christ, or excel as a church worker or ministry leader? Then look no further, then Florida Bible College of Tampa. With traditional and online classes taught by instructors with years of experience. Florida Bible College of Tampa can help you grow in your Christian life. Whether taking individual classes or working toward a one-year degree, Florida Bible College of Tampa is here for you. To learn more, visit online at floridabiblecollege.us or call the Registrar Bob Gilbert at 850227 5325.

That’s 850227 5325. 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 in looking up.