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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. 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 prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us at 813-884-4328, or you can donate on the homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family.

You see salvation is based upon this song principle. God wants you to know how much He loves you. Not how much you love God. You do not go to heaven because you love God. You go to heaven because God loves you. Now as you begin to grow in the Lord, you learn more and more. Your love for the Lord can begin to grow. And next thing you know, you want to serve the Lord because you love Him. Isn’t it better to do it because you want to?

Than to because you have to. Wife, you have to love your husband. Well, don’t you just want to love them because you love them. I love you. Rule number one, number two, number three. Thou shalt wash my dishes, thou shalt make the bed, thou shalt cut the grass, thou shalt all over haul the motor. And lay down all these laws. Now if they do love each other, you don’t have to have all these rules and regulations because you love.

And love has its own set of rules. So if I love my wife, then I want to be faithful to my wife. I want to provide. I want to care. I want to do all the things I’m supposed to do, but because love. Love is a powerful motivation, and it’s more powerful than fear. The Bible says that perfect love casts us out fear, fear torments. And so when you don’t truly trust the Lord, you’re afraid. So people who not really trust in the Lord are afraid of losing their salvation because it depends on them.

And so they have to do something to try to help God save them. No, He is the Savior. There is no other Savior. But He says here, then is the offense of the cross cease. It ceased. If I teach works for salvation, then I won’t be offended. But He did not teach the law to be saved. He taught grace and grace alone. And so therefore He was placed in jail. People wanted to kill Him. Because why wouldn’t the Jews want to kill Paul if Paul was teaching what they are doing?

Well, it wasn’t. But those same teachers who wanted to kill Paul came down here and was teaching the people in Galatia and Antioch, the people he led to the Lord and trying to put them under the law. Paul said, well, if that’s what I was teaching, then why are they trying to kill me? I’ll go back to the book of Philippians 1. chapter one. So Paul in prison has some things to say that really help people to serve the Lord with joyfulness and rejoice always as he says in chapter 4.

But notice what he says in verse 8, for God is by record how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. In other words according to the tender mercies of God. In other words Paul says I love you like the Lord loves you. I want the Lord to love you through me.” And this is what he’s talking about in chapter 2. See, we don’t have to love God and we don’t have to love people. But he says in the book of Christ, Corinthians said in chapter 5 verse 14, for the love of Christ constraineth us or motivates us because we thus judge that if one died for all, then all were dead and that they which live should not, should not, henceforth not one, live unto themselves, unto him who died for them and rose again.

So should I love the Lord? Yes. Do I have to love the Lord? No. Your children, do they have to love you or should they love you? You want them to? You say, you love me or I’ll, you want your children to love you because they love you and you want to love them because what? Because you love them. Because of this, and this and this and this and you love them. You pose a love with an everlasting love, a love that not based upon their how they live.

If the children do wrong, well I don’t love you anymore. No, you pose a love and regardless of how they live, God loves me regardless of whether I serve them or I don’t serve them. And it’s that love for me that causes me when I serve it. Anyway, he says here in verse 9. And this I pray that, and you ought to line these two words, your love. You see in chapter 1 and verse 5, we talk about your fellowship.

Your fellowship in the gospel, because without the fellowship in the gospel, there’s, you don’t know how to love. Did you know so many telling people how to have eternal life, how to go to heaven is the greatest show of compassion and love you can show. Now, people may have a lot of problems in life and you can take them to the hospital, you can pay their bills, you can give them money, as you can do all kind of good deeds.

You can help people a lot of ways. But the greatest show of compassion is that you talked to them about the Lord, how to have eternal life. Because after you do these other things, are they still going to die? when they die, where are they gone? If you haven’t trust the Lord, it still going to help. We don’t want to pave the road for them to go to hell on. They were on their way to hell, but I made it comfortable for them.

I really helped them on the road to hell. No, use their problems to get them to the Lord. It’s not that you don’t try to help people, it’s that you want to help people to the Lord and using people’s problems as opportunities to explain the gospel. Let me share something with you. Like Peter and Joseph, silver and gold have I none but such as I have given the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk power to raise them up but didn’t have any money.

Which one would you do they have? You say I’ll take the money. No they had power that God gave to them but silver and old have I none. And so one thing that we all have is that treasure and earth and vessel, the knowledge of how to go to heaven. That’s the most important thing you can ever know. So it must be the most important thing you can ever share. So whenever you witness to somebody, we’re trying to teach these teenagers and college kids that come to college to go out Friday night so in them.

And the reason is because that’s a way of showing compassion. It’s a way of showing love because they’re doing something for somebody with nothing coming back to them from those individuals. They don’t charge them. So, okay, I’ll let you to Lord, that’s $5. No, you don’t do that. And if you can teach the kids to do that, well, they care about other people’s destiny more than they can themselves, about themselves, then you’d be surprised what kind of individuals that will make down the road when they see the needs of other people.

and the greatest need of yes is no in the Lord. But you also get a chance to help them out of the areas of their life, which is ought to be done. But look what he says. In this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more. In other words, more and more, more in what? Knowledge, get this. And in all judgment. In other words, the more you love people, the more you want what’s best for them.

I want people to go to heaven. But they’re not in heaven yet. Many of Trusset Christ is saving. I want the best Father here. So the best thing that can do to help them while they’re here is to give them more knowledge. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is power. And so you want power? No knowledge. No, the knowledge of the word of God, not just the wisdom of the world, but the wisdom of God. And when you get the wisdom of God, then you can make better decisions.

Your judgment depends upon your knowledge. And if you don’t know a lot, you can’t make wise decisions. So you’ve got to know and discern. So the Bible talks about the word of God that we made discern right from wrong. That’s in the book of Hebrews in chapter 5. So God wants us to be able to decide between right and wrong by the mental actions, decisions that you make. And so your wisdom is revealed by the decisions that you make.

If you’re a smart person, it will be revealed by the decisions you make. What are you living for? How do you live? Not only the money you make, the money you say, the money you spend, the money you keep. All those things reveal something about you. But he says here, in verse 10, this verse you ought to underline it in your Bible. you may approve things. In other words, you grow in the knowledge of the Word of God because you love the Lord and your knowledge will increase, your judgment will increase, you’ll become wiser, you’ll be able to discern between bad better, that’s a good better best, never let it rest, till your good is better and your better is best.

That makes sense don’t it? You got that? Don’t ask me to repeat it. But look at verse 10, that you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ. In other words, one day we’re going to have to stand before the Lord. And the last one you want to offend is God. So you may offend people, but remember how you treat the gospel is how you treat God. Jesus Christ is revealed through the gospel.

And you can’t really love the Lord and love Jesus Christ unless you love that gospel message. Because only through the gospel can you know what love really is all about. God loves me how much? Well, He paid for all of my sins. And so if He paid for all of my sins, all I had to do was believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, give me eternal life and I go to heaven when I die. So you mess up the gospel or don’t share the gospel.

How can you tell people about Jesus Christ? You can’t tell people about what Christ did and what He said without sharing that good news. And that’s why it’s so important. Now look what He says. Verse 11, being filled. That word filled, being controlled by the fruits of righteousness. In other words, as you begin to listen to what God’s word says, you grow in the Lord, your love becomes stronger, become more stabilized, you make better decisions for your life. You’re not just, you know, not just that you want to take and make some good decisions, you want to make excellent decisions, you want to make the one that that pleases God, you want to like that pleases God.

Whenever we leave this whole world and you stand before the Lord, you want the Lord to say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. So he says, being filled with the fruits of righteousness. Now when Christ came into the world, and the Bible says that he looked at every tree, and every tree was supposed to bring forth good fruit. He says, no tree bring forth good fruit. He said, all the trees have bad fruit on them. And because they all got bad fruit, they’re all gonna die.

And so he’s gonna have to cut down every bad tree. Well, what he was talking about, that’s a picture of the world. That’s every individual. Everybody born into this world. We’re born with a sinful nature, a corrupt root, corrupt fruit. And we don’t bring forth the righteousness that God wants. So the Lord says that He’s going to cut down every tree. And that’s everybody that’s born into the world. So the only ones who can get to go to heaven are going to be those that have a new birth, a new root, a new fruit.

You see, when you trusted Christ as your Savior, God says you are now a tender plant. You’ve been born again, born without a sinful nature. Your new birth, whenever you trusted Christ, gave you a new birth without a sinful nature. No sinful nature, cannot sin, cannot sin, cannot die. That’s why once your child of God, you’re his child forever. And so in your new birth, you can bring forth the fruits of righteousness. That’s what he’s talking about here. So as a child of God, do what’s right because you love the Lord.

And the more you read the word of God, the grittier your love is going to grow. And love will cast out fear because in this world, it’s a wicked old world. And there’s a lot of reasons to be afraid. There’s people that are afraid of storms coming. Some people are afraid of growing old. Some people are afraid of, what am I going to do financially? What am I going to do if I lose my health? What am I going to do if they lose this?

And one of the days we’re going to die, and people are scared all the time about every little thing you can think of because we live in us, that kind of a world. But the thing that can help you more than anything else is if you continue to keep believing, God loves me, God loves me. And God not only is in charge, God is in control, and all things work together for good to those who love the Lord, to those who are called according to His purpose.

And because you believe that He really loves you and you can trust Him, you can cast all your cares upon him because he cares for you. And it can give you peace of mind inside while the world is churning outside. Paul was in prison and he’s telling us all these wonderful things about how to have peace of mind. He must have learned something along the way. I think he did. Now look down there in verse 12, but I would, and this is a very important thing, In spite of all the things that happened to the Apostle Paul, now he’s in prison.

He says, because of all of these things, he says, I don’t want you to be ignorant about this. The these things that have happened and to me have happened to the furtherance of the gospel. In other words, there’s a reason. And that if you don’t know the reason, you ought to know why I’m supposed to give the gospel. So wherever you go, I was in the hospital one time. It did not too long ago. And while I’m in the hospital, Betty says, well, I don’t know why you’re here, but evidently there’s somebody to reach.

Here’s some tracks. Go to work. go to work. And so I led about three or four people to the Lord Hospital, gave them a track. And about two days I went on my way home. And what did they find? Nothing. I mean, they examined my head and found nothing. I hear that over here. A couple of ladies over here, a little extra loud on that. And they could not find anything wrong with me. So was there something wrong with me?

I had a pain that kept shooting through my head and I kept, I couldn’t stand it. I grabbed my whole head and so forth. And so they decided I need to go to the hospital. I went to the hospital and they examined me from toenailed all the way to the top of my hair. So you know, I felt about the storm and all the things that it goes on. You know, if God knows every hair on your head, do you think he knows every time a raindrop falls?

Look at me, raindrops have fell recently. It knows every bird that flies in the air, and everything that happens. God knows what’s going on. Can you trust God? And so all of life is a big old test. Every day you’re tested on, do you love me more than the car? Do you love me more than the house? Do you love me more than your health? Do you love me more than? And everything is always about, do you really love the Lord?

If He took away everything that you have, you still got the Lord, right? He said, I’ll never leave you, never forsake you. So if he took away everything else, you still got the most important thing, right? Do you think God teaches us that lesson every once in a while? Just to see how you’re doing. And if you really love the Lord, say you don’t mind losing a little bit and losing a little bit and a little bit and a little bit and a little bit.

So I still got the Lord. And when you came into this world, how much did you come in with? You came in naked as a J-bird. Guess how you’re leaving the same way. You’re not taking anything with you. You’re gonna leave everything you have. You’re gonna leave it right here. And somebody else that didn’t work for it’s gonna get it. Chances are. So we’re in a very interesting life. That verse 12, but I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happen to me have fallen that brethren to, and this part of the verse you need to underline.

Furtherance of the gospel. In other words, what happens to you in life not as important as the opportunity that God’s given to us, that this side of the grave, God allows us to live and gives us the opportunity to witness for Him, to live for Him. And so God does all these wonderful things for us. And He says that in verse 13, so that my bonds in Christ, He was the prisoner, are manifest in all the palace and in all other places.

In other words, because I became a prisoner, because I appealed unto Caesar, he was taken to Rome and not only did he go to Rome, but he got to witness in the palace. This little old Jew gets to go to Rome and look at the opportunities that he had. So what happened to him? Well, after a while they cut off his head, but he did say, I have fought a good fight. I’ve kept the faith. Therefore, there’s laid up for me a kind of righteousness, but not to me only, but to everyone who loves the Lord because if you really love the Lord, you’ll live like you love the Lord.

But if you don’t really love the Lord, it won’t matter. You can go through the motion, play the game. After a while you run out of energy, you run out of steam and that’s why you hear people say, I’m just burn out. I’m just burn out. I’m 75. I’ve been serving Lord for 55, 57 years, I haven’t come close to burnout. Burnout is because you stopped loving the Lord and you kept doing the things same thing. But you do not, then you started doing because you don’t really want to do it.

You don’t love the doing it. You just do not have it. No, don’t let the fire burn out. This is why He says in the book of Revelation, He says you lost your first love. You lost your first love and it looks like time is up. Now let me show you something. Most of you have never seen this before. But watch now very closely. At no time will this hand ever leave my wrist. I want you to watch. Verified.

This is true. This is you and me and let the wallet represent sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us. Now he hates our sin, but he loves us. And the Bible says we have all sinned. You see, well, what is sin? Well, whatever it is, you did it because God says all of us have. But whatever it is, it’s rebellion to God. It’s this obedient, it’s transgressing the law. It’s not fulfilling the law. It’s not being perfect.

So God has His perfect law. You want to live with Him? Just be perfect. Nobody’s perfect. So the law condemns everybody because all have sinned and the wages of sin is death. So we all have to die. So everybody born, everybody dies. You see, Christ didn’t have to die because, you see, He didn’t have a sinful nature. He never did anything wrong. But we’ve all sinned, so we’re all condemned and to be eternally separated from God in a literal fire burning hell.

So you don’t need a Savior to keep you from going to a place if it don’t exist. So God says He loves us, wants us to go to heaven. And to go to heaven, we have to be perfect, no sin. And nobody’s perfect, nobody qualifies. So God says, by your works, you cannot improve your situation. You’re already condemned. So doing good deeds will not take away your bad deeds. This requires death. If there’s only one sin over here, all your good works of all of your life can’t take away that one sin.

You still gotta die, still gotta pay for it. You’re still gonna go to hell. But God loves us and says you cannot pay for your sins by good works. You need a Savior. We can’t save ourselves. And the law puts us in this condition so that we can see that no man is righteous. The law points you to Christ. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord. God in the flesh came into the world. He has no sin. Doesn’t have to die.

But He loves us. Hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him. Jesus Christ who had no sinned and have to die, he took all the sin of all the world, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. And he says, the only thing you and I have to do, believe that he did it for us. Why did he do this? Because he didn’t want you to do this. He did it for you. He paid for your sins because he didn’t want you to pay for your sins.

And the Bible says that Christ died for our sins before we were ever born. He did it 2000 years ago. So if he paid for our sin 2000 years ago, how many of our sins did he pay for it? All of them before we were ever born. So that means past, present, future. He’s already paid for every sin dollar commit in my whole life. And he did the same thing for you, for the whole world. And the only thing he wanted us to do when he came back from the dead is this, will you believe I did that for you?

So when you believe he did it for you, you’re not going to try to earn your way to heaven. Why? know you’re already going. See, people are trying to earn their way to heaven by their good life. It means they’re not trusting in what he did. They’re going to trust in what they do. I know I’m going to heaven because of what he said and because of what he did. What he did was he paid for all my sins and what he said was if I’d believe it, I’d have eternal life.

So when I trusted Christ as my Savior, God gave me as a free gift ever lasting life. If it’s everlasting life, how long it lasts? If it lasts forever, and all my sins are paid, where am I going when I die? Can I know I’m going to heaven before I die? Of course, I know I’m going to heaven. Most people, they don’t know that. They think it’s because of how they live. How you live cannot determine your destination. It’s a shame that people can’t see it.

But it says many are on the road, the broad road that leads to destruction. And the narrow few people see this because they’re still trying to earn their way by how they live and thinking, well, I know she’s not saved because, you know, if she was saved, she wouldn’t do that. No, you don’t get it. A person can trust Christ as Savior and not obey the Lord. Now look up here. When you trust the Christ as your Savior, if you do it today, you become a child of God.

And as a child of God, you got a choice. You can be an obedient child or a disobedient child, but you’re still his child. I’ve got three children, the hard way, one wife. When those kids are born into my family, when they’re good, they’re mine, and when they’re bad, they’re Betty’s. Look, they’re still ours. But they can be obedient or disobedient. God said, if I’m obedient, He’ll bless my life here. And He’ll reward me when I get to heaven.

He’s going to have to chase in me. Maybe Sibert, take me home with, but I’m still his child. So I decided, because I learned a great lesson from my day, he was a bootlegger. He had a nickname, Shine. But he beat the tarot out of me every time I turned around. He’d give me a weapon just for general principle. He knew I needed it, but he didn’t know why, but he knew I needed it for some reason. And he would just tear me up.

I know what it’s like to get a weapon. So in my Christian life, I decided I would rather have God bless my life than to whoop me. So I want to be an obedient child of God. But see, I’m not doing this to be a child of God. I’m not doing this to get to heaven. I’m doing it because I’m going to heaven. I am his child. And I would rather have his blessings than his weapons. Doesn’t that make sense?

But I’m not trying to do it to get to heaven. See, if you’re doing it to try to get to heaven, heaven, you ain’t going. You’re not saved until you trust Christ and Him alone as your only hope of going to heaven. You’re saved by faith not by your worth one work of nullless grace. One work. You depend upon one work that you did heaven of nullless grace because grace is the absence of work. Look, if I offered you this year book and you accepted what would you have?

If I offered you this microphone and you accept it. What would you have? Microphone. I offered you my wallet and you accepted what would you have? Empty wallet. We’re going to take up another collection in a minute. If Christ walked across here and you offered you eternal life and you accepted what would you have? Eternal life and if it’s eternal life and it lasts forever, know you’re sending your pay. Where are you going? Going to heaven. Let’s pray, shall we?

Every head bowed and every eye closed. No one looking around. you are here today and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you put your trust in Him? I hope because of the things that we’ve said, what we’ve shared, you understand you cannot save yourself. The preacher can’t save you, the church can’t save you. All of your good works will not help. Would you put your trust in Christ? He died for you because He loved you, paid for all of your sins so that you wouldn’t have to.

And all He wanted you to do is would you believe he did it for you. And by you believing that, he gives that payment that he made, he gives it to you. You have a payment for your sins, you go to heaven whenever you die. There’s no tricks to it, no gimmicks. Not going to pin you against the wall, but I am going to ask you in just a moment to raise your hand. Raising your hand does not save you.

I’m not going to have you forward. Not going to try to embarrass you. But right where you’re sitting, you say, preacher, that made sense to me. And I will accept Jesus Christ as my Savior right And if you’re making that decision, I’d like to know and I’d like to have prayer for you. And I’m going to ask you if you’re just slipping it up very quickly, put it right back down. So you’ll appreciate that made sense. I will trust Christ as my Savior.

I want to know that I’m going to heaven when I die. Is there anyone at all? Yeah, I want it all. Just slip it up and right back down. If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you have something to share with somebody else. You’ve got some good news, best news in all the world. Father, we thank you again for your blessings. Thank you for those that are watching by Internet. We pray that many will understand and put your trust in you.

We thank you for this time together. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen. Don’t miss out on all the fun. Join Pastor Jesse and Kyla Martinez on Thursday nights from 7 to 9 pm for Tampa Youth Ranch at Calvary Community Church. Tampa Youth Ranch is a great mix of live music, games, Bible study, food and fun where teens 13 to 18 get to know God and the Bible with their friends. Check it out online at tampayouthranch.org and see the cool pictures from past activities and all the fun you’ve been missing.

No ride, 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, 33-6-3STATE. 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.