Bibleline Radio Show – 2020-07-16 – Man\’s Choices Within The Sovereignty Of God Pt.2
Transcription:
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
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.
And so if it wasn’t for God creating the world and he says, this world is the evidence God exists. Because the world is here and I didn’t make it. And neither did you. Either it’s created itself or somebody made it. You only got two options. It did it itself or God made it. Now get this. He says they’re all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, not one. So everyone born into this world, we are all sinners in the eyes of God, we’re all depraved.
And we cannot perform this righteousness that God requires for us to go to heaven. And look what he says in this verse, where he talks about, and all men are condemned. It means they’re judged, found guilty. Before they either accept or reject Christ, God’s already condemned the whole world. Everybody’s lost. Only God is perfect. Everybody else, we’ve missed a boat. Now in Romans chapter three verse 19 where he says, now we know that what things so ever the lost say and it’s safe to them who are under the law that he says, every mouth may be stopped and every, one, all the world guilty before God.
So God says every mouth must be stopped, nobody can justify themselves, and all the world is guilty before a just and holy God. That’s our position. That’s how God sees us. And behav of that, God still says we have a free will. We can make decisions, but God, He wants to give us some evidence to consider. The devil is trying to give you evidence, look this is all there is, and you only got one like to live. Why not accomplish everything that you want to?
Go for all the gold you can. Make all the money you can. Have all the sex you want. Have everything that you want to have. Have all the parts. Do everything you want to do because when you die it’s all over. And so that’s what the devil says, but see the devil is a liar. He didn’t create the world. He didn’t make you. But God will allow him to influence you because God wants you to make the decision. And you can’t make a justifiable decision without having a choice.
You can choose to believe God or not believe God. Now if I was God, I wouldn’t have done that away. I said, believe me buddy and I’m gonna give you an option but that’s not God. God loves us and he chose to love us and he wants us to love him and love him because of what he’s done for us but he has to do something for us. What can this mighty God do for me that would cause me to want to love him?
Well I’m gonna have to be in a pretty bad fix. Well when you stop and think about you are in one. All the world guilty before God. Now I said all men are guilty, yes, because they have not believed. You see it says in John 3 18, he said, he that believeth on him is not condemned. Those who believe on Christ are not condemned. But he says he that believeth not is condemned when? He’s already condemned. because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
So you see, if I would believe on Christ, God promised me eternal life. He promised that I would be His child and I could go to heaven. When I was 18 years old. I’d never heard this before. My mom and dad, I never saw them in a church. I never went, you know, we didn’t read the Bible. We didn’t have prayer in our home. So I didn’t know that you could know you could have eternal life. I had never met anybody that says, I know I’m going to heaven when I die.
I never met anybody again until I was 18. And I took this little girl, Betty, and we run away to Anderson, South Carolina, and we got married. And her dad came looking for me with a gun. He was going to part myself. soul in eternity. Probably should have, but I’m so glad he didn’t. I’d have been in hell. But I’m glad God is so good. And her dad told me the best news I’ve ever heard. He told me how I could have eternal life.
And the only thing I had to do was the only thing I could do was believe that he died and paid for my sins. See, if he died and paid for my sins and I believe it, then I don’t have to pay for him. He paid for my sins because he didn’t want me to do it. Well, that’s a good deal. He gives me his perfection and I give him my sin. That’s a good deal. Bull would turn that down.
I’m not going to be no fool. He says, but he that believe if not is condemned already. Now, there’s a good statement that I want to pass on to you. Man is dead in trespasses and sins. See, Calvin just want to say, well, you’re dead. You can’t do anything. Yeah, you can still make decisions. You can still go to work. You can still choose. Man has overstepped the boundary of God’s law. In other words, there’s a fence right there and God says, don’t go over there.
So here I am over here. There’s a line, do not go over there. No one me, I’m gonna do it. Now I have trespassed. I’ve overstepped the boundary. Not because I did not listen to God, I got to pay God what I owe Him. All right, what do I got to pay? I got to pay by dying? Well, that wasn’t a fair deal. Well, I didn’t understand all of that. Ignorance of the law is what? No excuse. You’re still guilty.
So everybody has overstepped the boundaries. So that means that we are separated from God because of sins. So every man has sinned and because we’ve all sinned, we overstepped the boundary. We did something. God says not. Have you ever walked down the street and says, no trespassing? I wonder what that means. Keep off the grass. I wonder what that means. Thou shalt not lie. I wonder what that means. Thou shalt not stay. I wonder what that means. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
I wonder what that means. Thou shalt not covet. I wonder what that means. And we do whatever we want to do. And nobody’s going to tell me what I can’t. It cannot do. Can you picture two little ants on the train track down to the desert of Arizona? And these two little ants are on this train track, and one ant said to the other ant, he says, I don’t believe in no God. I don’t believe in no train. He ain’t no such thing as a train.
Splat. Train just came back. And one of these days, God’s gonna go, Splat. And it won’t matter what you think. God’s still God. The results are still there. Consequence is gonna be long. hell is hot and it’s for a long time. And you have to be quick and who were dead in trespasses. Even when we were dead and sinned, have quickened us together with Christ by grace. Now the reason is by grace, because man is depraved. Man can’t please God.
Man can’t do what God requires. What does God require? He requires my perfection. See if it was a bad Heaven, I qualify. If it was a good heaven, I don’t make that one. He says there’s nothing good. But he says, heaven is perfect, not one sin can enter. Remember, Adam and Eve only clemited one sin and they were kicked out. God won’t lie one sin in heaven. How you doing? Well, if I’ll never sit in India, but you already have.
Too late, you’re already condemned because you have not believed. That means you’re having a trusted Christ as your savior. That’s the only reason a person goes to hell. He’s not going to hell because of all his sins. Christ paid for those. It’s because you rejected what Christ did for you. For by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves. See, it has to be by grace because it can’t be by yourself. You can’t save it. You can’t improve yourself.
You were born a sinner. You have lived a sinner and that’s how you died. You are and I am a sinner. We sin and you can’t change your nature because you didn’t know you’d be filled up with a boy. I’m glad I’m not as bad as somebody else. That’s a centipripe. Envy, jealousy, all those things, have a ball, not of works because man is depraved. Man cannot improve the situation. That’s why salvation has to be by grace because it can’t be no other way.
All men have the ability to believe in this thing. belief in Christ results in salvation for any man. Everybody’s in the same boat, but God will give us eternal life. There are those without the ability to trust, such as those that are too young or mentally handicapped beyond understanding, because to believe or not to believe must be a certain amount of understanding that can receive knowledge. And there’s some that are not able to do that. David lost his little boy because of the same word Bathsheba.
And David says, my child cannot come to me, but I shall go to be with my child. The child is in heaven. So you can try to use that as an excuse if you want to, Lord, I don’t know anything. God knows what you know. You can’t deceive God. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever does what? They leave it. That’s the only thing you have to do because that’s the only thing you can do.
If it’s not a works, then you don’t have to go to church to go to heaven. You don’t have to give money to go to heaven. You don’t have to change your life to go to heaven. You don’t have to stop being bad and start being good and try to please God and earn your way to heaven by your good deeds. Forget all of that. That’s trash. That’s not what the Bible teaches. God says all have sinned. There’s none right just no not one.
So he says it’s going to be by grace. means that it’s free. You don’t merit it. Grace is unmerited favor. So God wants to bestow that upon every individual. So if you trust Christ as Savior, God gives you eternal life as a free gift. It is God’s will that all go to be with Him in heaven. God so loved the world. And what He did for one person, He did for everybody so that everybody could have this free gift of everlasting life.
Now He makes a statement, who will have all men to be saved. And 1 Timothy 2, 4, God, who will have all men to be saved, doesn’t mean everybody saved, just because God paid for everybody’s sin. God left it up to you, choice. You can choose to accept what He did for you, or you can reject it. But the only reason you’re going to hell is because you rejected what He did for you. And what He did, He didn’t ask you to do anything except believe it.
Whosoever believe it, you can have eternal life. So when I was 18 years old and my father-in-law explained this to me, I realized I’d be a fool to turn this down. There’s no trick to it. There’s no gimmick to this. He doesn’t give it to me in the big print and then yank it away in the little print. God means exactly what He says. So I trusted Christ as my Savior when I was 18 years old. 58 years ago and I know that I’m going to heaven when I die.
Why? Because I’m good? No, because he is. I’m no better than anybody else. I’m a center saved by grace. Anyway, he says, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that kill of the prophets, the stone of them, which are said of thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together? Even as a hen gathered their chickens, he says, and ye would not. In other words, you could have, believe them on the Lord, but to choose not to. He would have all of us to go to heaven but there’s people who reject the fact because God gave you a choice, ability to choose.
But there’s evidence that He gives, there’s things that He tells us and He’s trying to influence your decision. When the preacher preaches, he tells you God said that’s God trying to influence your decision. And if you don’t go to church You don’t read the Bible, you don’t have a clue. But then the world’s trying to influence you. You don’t need all that junk, that old fashioned junk. You don’t need none of that stuff. And yet at the same time, there’s something on the inside of you that’s, I know that I’m a sinner, I know I need to be right, and I know I’m going to be judged.
God has embedded all of that in every individual. Christ really did die for all men and all sin. and the Spirit and the bride say come, let him that here come, and the thirst come, and as He said, whose server will let him take the water of life? Free. I couldn’t believe that we’re actually paying for bottled water. If I had known that years ago, I’d have stored it all up. I went ahead and bought all the water. But God taught me about water of life.
It means theIron life is eternal life where you live for all eternity. And it’s free because he bought it. He paid for it and he wants us to have it. He also says, who gave himself a ransom for all because people, they quish whether a Christ died for everybody. Did he really pay for all sin? He paid for every man and all sin, or he didn’t do us any favors. So he is the propitiation. That means he’s the satisfaction.
God was satisfied with the payment Christ made. You need to be satisfied with it. That’s good enough. See, some people think that God is, well, Christ is necessary, but they don’t know he’s enough. He’s all you need. God doesn’t need you to try to help save yourself. Forget all of that. But he says, but also not just for us who believe, but also for them that have not yet believed, sins of the whole world. And he says, as Christ surely did die, is there anyone God told us not to reach with the gospel?
Think about that question. Is there anybody or any place in the Bible where God says, don’t wait just to that person. He did say going all the way up and preach the gospel to every preacher. Would it be neat if every preacher knew the gospel? Then they could all tell the same thing, but all churches are not telling the same thing. Most preachers are telling people you have to go into the church, you’ve got to be a member of their church, you’ve got to give money to the church in order to go to heaven.
You’ve got to do that in that, go to heaven. Salvation going to heaven, that’s free. Christ paid for that. But he says, but we see Jesus who had made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. He died for every person. And And that’s why it’s important. Every person has a choice. You can choose to accept it or you can reject it. Not a person in this room can make you trust Christ the Savior.
But not a person in this room can keep you from trusting or if you choose to do so. You have been given by God in His sovereignty. God chose to give you a freewill where you can choose. But that decision has been influenced by God, the devil, people, circumstances, you’d be surprised. There’s people who reject God because some parent may be done and wrong. And that’s influenced their decision. Or because one of my closest friends died and not only understand why I saw that influenced your decision.
You can let it influence it, it doesn’t matter. But the end result is, if you make the wrong decision, you go to hell. You go to hell for the wrong decision. I will not reject a free gift. And so it says in the Bible that though God has chosen us from the beginning, He chose to save every individual who would trust Christ. He has also chose to not say those who will not accept Christ. That’s a person’s decision. And as He says, God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.
Your choice, You can believe the truth or you can reject the truth. But if you’ll believe it, you can have the free gift of everlasting life. God gets the lost man or seeks to get the lost man to believe, but will allow them to reject his will. God will allow a person to reject it, but he got the consequences. God will allow a person to accept it, and he can have eternal life. But the choice is yours. Where until he called you by our gospel.
So when we preach the gospel, that’s giving people a choice. The trust Christ, you can reject Christ. But God so loved the world and going to all over and preach the gospel to every person. Because God wants every person to hear, to understand he wants to influence your decision. Where until he called you? He says to the opinion of the glory of this perfection. you need this perfection to go to heaven. Well, if Christ paid for all my sins, then I don’t have any sins to pay for.
I’m good to go. I’m ready to go.” And He did it for me. And that’s why we preach the gospel at Calvary every service because we want people to know that. God allows those who choose to harden themselves to be hardened. You can harden your mind. He said, I don’t believe none of that junk. You can do anyone you want. And nobody can stop you. And the Lord said in the Moses Pharaoh’s heart is hardened. He refuses to let the people go.
He hardened himself and God allowed him to hearten his heart. God will allow you to be as hard-headed and as stubborn as you want to be. God ain’t gonna stop that. And you can believe the truth. And you can reject the truth. Now, grace appeared to all men, for all men, to all men, for all men. For the grace of God that bring them salvation appeared to all men, so God wants to save every person. We’ve already showed you that.
That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Every person that comes into this world, God gives them light by the world they see, by the conscience that they have, that they know there is a God and they know there’s a powerful God and any man who will take any light that’s the evidence that there is a God and that light will lead him straight to God. And you can see and God will give you more light when you accept light but if you reject light then you’ll walk in darkness and many people are in darkness because they don’t want to know So grace is resistible, not all men are saved.
If God wanted everybody to be saved, why isn’t everybody saved? Because God gave him a choice. And since a lot of people have not trusted Christ and never trust the Lord, then it must be that salvation can be resisted. But there are some people who teach it, grace is irresistible, it’s not true. And it says this, I do not frustrate the grace of God for His righteousness by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. And then He also says, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
God wants that. And that’s why God uses us to tell people. And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying my best to influence you. And the reason I don’t want people to go to hell. I want them to go to heaven, but I have to give them the truth of the the gospel so they can know, well, what do I have to do to go to heaven? And so he says, he’s stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears.
You do always resist. As he says, as your fathers did, you do the same thing. And he’s, Stephen’s talking to the children of Israel, the leaders in Israel. As your fathers did, so are you doing the same thing. That’s why they rejected Jesus Christ and crucified Him. Why are people trying to earn their way to heaven when the way has already been paid for. You can’t earn it. The destination of believers is predetermined. God determined all believers to be conformed to the image of His dear Son.
This will take place completely in heaven. Predestination is the security of every believer. Once you trust Christ as Savior, you have eternal life and your God’s child and you get to go to heaven when you die. God before the foundations of the world predetermined everyone who would accept Christ will have eternal life be his child and go to heaven when they die. But God did not determine who’s going to believe. That’s my choice. That’s your choice. And so if you choose to trust Christ, God has blessed us with all kinds of heavenly blessings.
Now it is God’s will that all believers walk worthy and do good works. But people can deny that and resist the of God and you may trust Christ as your Savior and not as a child who got not serve God. See God gives that lost man freedom to choose and God gives his children a choice. You can choose to obey your heavenly Father and God will bless you, reward you when you need to heaven and you can choose to be rebellious and you can be as rebellious as you want to be.
You can commit every sin in the book. Still God’s child, but God says there’s consequences. You can choose whatever sin you want to rebel in, and it’s God who can determine how he’s gonna chase him. And it might even be death. It could be anyway. And maybe nobody else will even know, but you know, and God knows. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God had before ordained that we should walk in them.
it is the will of God that all of his children serve him. Just like it’s the will of God for all lost people to trust him. God will allow the lost man to say no, and God will allow his children to say no, but there’s consequences. For the believer, it’s never hell because they believe Christ paid for their sins and they’ve accepted that. But as a child of God, you can do a lot of damage in your life. God seeks his children to serve him, but will allow them to reject his will.
And that’s where we are. Look up here. Now, notice the gospel message. Notice the choice that you have to make. This hand represents you and me. The wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us. And because of his love for us, he wants us to have eternal life, to live with him. But the Bible says we have all sinned. and the sin. It means that we can’t get in. We have all sinned, so we’re all guilty.
The whole world is guilty before God. So no man can save himself. We have all sinned, and the wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God. We are separated from God for all eternity. But God loves us, wants us to go to heaven, but we have to be perfect, no sin. and there’s the problem. What do we do with this? If we paid for it, death and hell. But believe it or not, God says you cannot earn your way to heaven by your good deeds.
We’re talking about church membership while we go. You don’t have to join the church and go to heaven. We took up an offer and while we go, but you don’t have to give money to go to heaven. The people who are doing this aren’t doing that to get to heaven. They’re doing because they’ve already trusted Christ’s Savior and they like me to give this message so that people can hear it and understand it and trust Christ’s Savior. They don’t see because they want to.
They don’t have to do it at all. Nobody, you don’t have to join this church. You don’t have to give any money. Oh, I’m sure what though. But God says we cannot save ourselves by our good deeds. This hand representing Christ. God in the flesh, He came into this world because He loves us. Hates our sin, why? Because our sin separates us from Him. So what did Christ do? Well, Christ took all the sin of all the world. He took mine, He took yours, took everybody’s sins.
And He paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. So the sins of the world have already been paid. All God wants us to do to go to heaven is believe He did it for us. So when I believed it 58 years ago, God put this payment to my account. See, I don’t have any sins paid for it because see He paid for mine. All of mine, past, present, He paid for it one time. He’s not coming back next year to pay for what I did this year.
He did it once and for all 2,000 years ago. So when I accept that payment, I got a payment for all my sins. I’m going to heaven. You say, you don’t deserve that. That’s what we’re trying to tell you. Grace means it’s unmerited. I don’t deserve it. What do I deserve? I deserve to go to hell. I am a dirty lousy stinking rotten sin and out of us hell wide open. But God loves me. And He went to the cross and He paid for all of my sins.
And he said, if I would believe, he did it for me, he would put this payment to my account, I go to heaven on what he did for me, not what I do for him. And so he says, when you believe it, you can know that you have eternal life. These things have already done to you that believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. So can you know you have eternal life?
Yes, I’ve known it for all these years. I know where I’m going when I die. I’m bold because I got confidence and I know I’m right. That’s why you’ll find out a lot of people, well I don’t know where I’m going, well I hope I’m going to heaven, I’m doing the best I can, I’m trying. Oh, that’s hard slop. That is not the gospel. The gospel is that God so loved the world that he gave his own begotten son, that whosoever believe it should not perish, it won’t go to hell, but have everlasting life.
So if I believe it, what am I supposed to know? I can’t go to hell and that I have everlasting life, I’m going to heaven. So if I believe that 58 years ago, how many times does God have to give me eternal life? Only one time, because it lasts forever. It’s eternal life, not temporary life. So I know that I’m going to heaven when I die. Now if you’re here today and you’re not positive, you’re not sure of going to heaven.
All you’re gonna do is write where you’re sitting. You know, I don’t understand everything that preacher says, but that made sense to me. And I’m gonna trust Christ as my savior. So you’re gonna make a choice. you’re going to decide. No decision is a decision. 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 1030, 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.
