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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.

Every Christian is compelled by the scriptures to discern right and wrong. That means you’re to judge whether is that right or is that wrong? Is that honored to God or is that dishonor to God? So you’re making decisions all day long and the reason for studying the Bible is so that you’ll learn how God sees things. True discernment is from God’s viewpoint so that you have not just a human perspective but a divine perspective. You see things like God sees them in verse 6.

Give not that which is holy onto the dogs so you got to know what’s holy got to know what a dog is. Neither cast your pearls before it swine so you got to know what pearls are and you got to know what a swine is and so you’ve got to be able to make the sermon. You don’t take the pearls and cast them before swine. Take your Bible and turn to the book of 2 Corinthians and chapter 6. There are many many scriptures in the Bible that talks about us making decisions, learning to decide, because you reveal your wisdom by the quality of the decisions that you make.

You make three foolish decisions, you might be considered a foolish man. You make three wise decisions, you might be considered a wise man. But look what it says there in verse 14, written to those who know Christ is Savior, be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. If you know Christ is your Savior, where it says, how can two walk together unless they be agreed? And so when you’re talking about individuals, this is why it’s so difficult for teenagers to understand spiritual things because they’re so caught up in the fleshly thing.

Boy sees girl, girl sees boy, I like you, you like me, let’s get married. They don’t think down the road about kids and what about church and what about this and that and the other. They don’t think about it. They only think about it now. And it’s supposed to be just, you know, happiness from now on. And they wake up and find out that this is the light and diapers and where the honeymoon go. But they’re making decisions but not thinking about consequences on down the road.

So what God is telling us that we got to think things through. He says, looking verse 14, being not unequally yoked together. I was talking to a married couple one time. And I told the couple, I says, do you realize that part of the problem is that opposites attract and then attack? And I says, one of you is like a racehorse and the other one is like a jackass. It wasn’t the best illustration at the moment. And I said if you put a yoke upon a mule or a jackass and the other part of the yoke is a racehorse.

Now what does a racehorse like to do? Go fast. Well what does that jackass want to do? Go slow or not at all. So the racehorse wants to pull along this jackass and the jackass don’t want to go and they’re just struggling against each other. They’re not equally yoked. So here is two people. people are supposed to think the same way. It’s easier when you are living for the same reason. Like here’s the Lord and here’s the man and here’s the woman.

And the closer the man and the woman get to God, the closer they get to each other. And so the closer they get to the Lord, the closer they get to each other, the greater harmony that it’s going to be. But how can two walk together, unless they be agreed? You’ve got to go in the same direction. So the Lord is the one who has designed this thing and He says, do not become an equally yoked together. He says, what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, or what communion hath light with darkness?

Light and darkness won’t keep walk together. And that which is wrong can’t walk together. This is why people to believe the same thing going in the same direction so that you can make greater decision, greater judgment. Looking first John chapter four, first John and chapter four. What is taught at home should be what is taught at church and what is taught at church. Church and home should be taught in the school. The school should never teach anything contrary to what is taught at home and what is taught in church.

Our public school should teach what is taught at home and what is taught in church. It should honor those. If it dishonors the home and dishonor the church, it ought not be taught there. Otherwise the children will not get the quality education that they should have because kids are not to be subjected to learning that which is dishonoring to the Lord. The reason for learning how to read and write is so they can honor God with their life. Today education is designed for people to learn how to make a living and not learn how to live life.

Now look there in verse one. He says, Beloved, believe not every spirit. If it says, believe not means that you’re supposed to be able to discern something that is right, something that is wrong. You cannot discern air unless you know truth. So as you study the Bible, you study truth. And when you study the truth, then the truth is the light that lets you see the dirt in the world or the air. And if you don’t know the truth, you will not know the air.

There are some fundamentals that a person needs to keep in mind. When we talk about making good decisions always try to keep the fundamentals, the basics, the essentials clear in your mind. I have a 1992 Mercury Marquis. I don’t know how many miles on it. It broke a long time ago. But it seems to run fairly good right now. But now this car, it has got a radio in it. But that radio is not essential for this car to run.

I could take that radio out and my car will Let’s go run. My car has an air conditioner in it. And I love my air conditioner. But that air conditioner is not essential for that car to run. I can take it out. I don’t really need that car to run. And as you go through, there’s certain things in the car that, well, I’ve got an ashtray. I don’t need an ashtray. That’s not an essential for this car to run.

It’s got a car, but I don’t need the carpet in there. I got a floor mat. I don’t need that. I got arm rent. I don’t need that. those are not essential. They are a luxury. It’s nice to have, but that’s not necessary for the car to run. But I do have a motor in the car. That’s essential because if you don’t have a motor, it’s not going to go. Tires, that’s essential because if I don’t have tires, it’s not going to go nowhere.

I got to have a battery that’s essential. So you begin to see there’s certain things that were essential. Well, when it comes to the Lord, the Bible has essentials, fundamentals. That’s why I consider myself, I am a fundamentals. Means I have the basic fundamentals, the essential belief that are what I need. Though you may not be able to see my basic fundamental principles that I have, and it may seem to be invisible, it’s the framework that builds my judgment.

I make my decisions based upon this framework, this knowledge that I have, the Bible, God. When it comes to the Bible, there are certain essentials that we need. We need to know and believe that the Bible is the Word of God, that it is divinely inspired. That is a fundamental, that is an essential. That is essential for my Christian life. But if I believe that this book was just written by a man, that I’m not going to read it or study it and look at it as though it came to me from a divine perspective.

This book was given to me by God and He is responsible for every word written in this book. And I believe every word in the Bible. That is essential to my Christianity. And therefore, that framework, that basic belief, that fundamental truth helps me formulate judgment in many other areas. I have already declared in my mind, know the book and all the libraries compared to this book. Man wrote them, God wrote this, this is the Word of God, this means something to me, this is essential to my Christian life.

Now, I believe very strongly that when you take the truth of Jesus Christ coming into the world to make a payment for our sins, the virgin birth is crucial. It is an essential. It’s not something on the side. I don’t have to believe that. I believe that if Jesus Christ was born like everybody else was born, then Jesus Christ is no different than everybody else. He is different because he was born different. He did not have an earthly life.

hunger. Therefore, he did not have a sinful nature. One of the fundamentals that we say of the faith is the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Because I believe that he was virgin born, I look at him differently. I don’t look at him like a regular man, a normal man. I really believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God in the flesh. And because of that basic Bible belief that I have, it forms a set of opinions in my mind that I roll out all other religious leaders.

Nobody is important to me like Jesus Christ. No man is to me what Jesus Christ is to me. So therefore there are many things in the Bible that we may disagree on because they’re not that essential for my Christian life. Their stories that I may not ever hear or tell read study but if I don’t have the basics down of certain things I won’t go to heaven. I won’t live the Christian life but there are certain things that are I believe that we have to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God born of a virgin, went to the cross, died on the cross, and paid for all my sins, all the sins of the world.

To me that is a basic Bible belief that I must believe that Jesus Christ paid for all of my sins, and because I discerned this, and I reasoned this thing through. thing through. That if He paid for all of my sins, then all my sins are paid. That all that I have to do, all that I can do is accept the payment that He made on the cross for me and God gives to me as a free gift everlasting life.

Would you think that is an essential belief? That is crucial. That is a fundamental that we believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross paid for all the sin of all the world you must believe that. There’s a lot of things, I don’t care whether you believe it or not, but these are things you must believe because they are fundamental. This is why I am considered I and I fundamentalists, not funny-menalist, but I’m a fundamentalist. I am a biblicist.

I believe the Bible. I believe in certain things that are fundamental to understanding life, the Christian life, eternal life, and only through these certain basic things that you have to understand and to believe. I believe that you must understand and believe that Jesus Christ not only died on the cross, paid for all the sins of the world, but you must believe it is a fundamental truth. Christ came back from the dead. He rose again. If he did not come back from the dead, he is still dead, and if he’s still dead, he cannot save anybody.

But if he came back from the dead, he had sinned it into heaven, and I believe that. And therefore, because I believe that Jesus Christ did all of this for me. And I believe that he left this world and came up from the grave. I have a great hope and confidence that I’m not going to have to worry about some grave. My body will be there, but I will be absent from the body present with the Lord. I’m going to heaven.

See, that is a fundamental belief. If Jesus Christ did not come back from the dead, He cannot save anybody. Our faith is in vain. Our preaching is in vain. Your belief is in vain. And we are of all men most miserable because there would be no hope for anybody. So that is a fundamental Bible belief that everybody must believe. If we believe that Jesus Christ left this earth, we must believe that He is what? Coming back again. He says every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself.

So if I believe Jesus Christ is coming back again, but I don’t know when, then I want to serve the Lord now with all my heart and the decisions that I make in my life is based upon what I believe. So what I believe is so important. Since I believe Jesus Christ is coming back at any time. I want to be ready. I’m ready to go to heaven, but I don’t want to be ashamed before him at his coming.

I don’t want to be doing something I shouldn’t be doing when the Lord comes. And I don’t want to be saying something that I shouldn’t be saying when the Lord comes. And I don’t want to be someplace I shouldn’t be when the Lord comes. Do you think that knowledge, that set of beliefs helps me in making decisions in my life? Yes. So you see, when you know your gold in life, then you make all of these in relationship to where you going.

What do I want? Prepare to meet thy God. All of life is you and I getting ready to meet God for all eternity. And God’s given us a few years in life to get ready. One day it’s all going to be over. Are you ready? you actually say that your desire, your heart’s desire is Lord, not my will, but your will be done. Did you know if you really believe that it solved all kinds of problems in your life?

Let’s say you have, if I got marital problems, but I want God’s will, not mine, that I might have to forgive. I might have to do a lot of things. I might have to, I’m sorry. But you’re willing to correct whatever you need to because I want God’s will, not mine. If it’s just my will, it’s gonna be my way or my highway, my way, no other way. That’s all there is, nothing else matters. Or you want God’s way and you seek that.

And God will bless you for doing so. The last thing I think is very important is this. Though we believe very strongly in the Bible, then the Divinely Inspire, born of a virgin, Christ died on the cross for all the sins of the world, died on the cross and coming back again from the dead, coming back in the air for us. All of that is to know of Aola if you miss out on the doctrine, the teaching of eternal security.

That means that God who loves the world made a promise to the people in the world that if anybody in the world would trust Christ of their Savior, he would give to them as a free gift what? Eternal life. He that believe us on the half present tense half right now eternal life. If it’s not eternal, you don’t have anything. A man cannot earn his way to heaven. Now while we’re here in 1 John, I look there in 1 John 5, look in verse 13.

So these things have I written unto you that keep the 10 commandments and obey the golden rule. Ah, doesn’t say that, does it? No it says these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God. So this is written to those who believe on the Son of God. That’s Christ that you may know that you have eternal life. So can you know you have eternal life? Yes, you can know that you have eternal life.

Can you know it before you die? Well, of course, that’s why it was written. Look there in your Bible to Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 8 and verse 9. These are two of my favorite verses in the Bible. And they’re verses that every person ought to read. I ought to hear these two verses. I never heard these verses until I was 18 years old. that though you may believe in the virgin birth, the Bible is inspired, Christ came into the world, died on the cross, paid for sins, came back from the dead, coming again, and you still not know where you go on when you die.

It’s called to no avail. He did all that so you’ll believe what he says. And this is what he says, looking verse 8, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God and not of works lest any man should boast.” You know, Dr. Hudson one time told the story about his boy and his boy had found this old dog and brought him home. And when Dr. Hudson came into town and he saw that dog and his boy was hugging all the with this dog.

He says it looked like it had a bath in Greece, so they had sores all over the dog. And covered with flea from one end to the other. And Tony’s just over there just a hugging on this dog. Look at all over the belt. He says, Tony, get away from that dog. It’s got sores, it’s got grease all over it, it’s an ugly mutt, it’s got fleas all over it. And Tony says, but dad, his tail wags. The dog was wagging his tail.

And you know what to a little boy? That’s all that matter. You see, that little boy, he didn’t see. what some people see and whenever you look at people you may not see people the way you ought to see people God sees me and you see me you see all my faults but God does too but God sees something in me that’s lovable I don’t know what but Listen, if you were going to send somebody out to look over the fields, you know the land, the terrain, the surrounding area, what would you send up?

A buzzard? A buzzard will come back and tell you what he saw. He saw a dead cow with maggot sinning. Why? Because That’s what buzzards do. That’s what buzzards see. When you look at me, you might see a lot of stuff that you don’t like, but I might be wondering, I wonder what kind of an eye you look at me with. Or you like the Curtis Hudson that saw the fleas and saw the maggots, or you see the grease, or wagon is tail.

See, some people find something good in everybody. And then there’s some people find something bad with everybody. They’re always complaining about something. They’re never happy in the Lord. Well, the best news in all the world, God says everybody in the world, there’s no difference. We’re all sinners. They mean that we’ve all come short of God’s perfection. But the wonderful thing of it is, is that God sees something in us that He loves. And I don’t know what it is.

Maybe it was because we were made in His image and He gave us life. And He didn’t like losing us. But all we like, she’s have gone astray like a bunch of sheep. We’ve turned everyone to His own way and the Lord has played upon Him the iniquity of the soul. Let me show you an illustration. This represent you and me, this wall represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God says that He loves us but He hates our sin.

We committed the sin, we ought to pay for it. The payment is death and hell. But God says that he doesn’t want us to pay for sin and go to hell. God wants us to go to heaven. Now to go to heaven We have to be perfect as righteous as God. No sin But nobody’s perfect we’ve all got sin on us and God won’t let us into heaven because see heaven is perfect and God is perfect and we have to be perfect to get there So how are we gonna get there God says you can’t go them.

Not unless you’re perfect. Well that eliminates the whole human race. And God says by your good deeds you can’t take away your sin. You can’t get rid of your sin. Because he sins on the inside. It’s our sinful nature. We sin naturally. We may want to do right all of our life, but we can’t do right. You may want to live perfectly, but you can’t. We fail. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord. He’s God and the flesh.

He came into this world because He loves us. He hates our sin because it separates us from Him. So Jesus Christ, who had no sin, didn’t have to die. But when He took our sin, God the Father, had to kill His own Son. He was smitten of God. So Christ died on the cross and paid for all the sins of the world. So all the sins of the world had been paid for 2,000 years to God. Well, what do I have to do to get to heaven?

What does this do for me? All that you have to do, all that you can do, you have to believe that Christ did that for you. So you may have heard that He did it for the world. You can believe that, but you have to believe He did this for me. When you believe that He did it for you, God puts that payment, death payment to your account. All your sins are paid. So if all of your sins are paid, then where would you go when you die?

You go to heaven. God says, for God so loved the world that it gave his only begotten son that who so ever, he leave it in him, should not perish but have everlasting life. If I offered you my wallet and you accepted, what would you have? Empty wallet. If I offered you my Bible and you accepted, what would you have? Well, the Bible. Well, if Jesus Christ walked in here and offered you an eternal life and you accepted, what would you have?

Eternal life. If it’s eternal life, how long would it last forever? Well, if it lasts forever and all you sins are paid, where would you go when you die? It’d go to heaven. So can you know you’re going to heaven before you die? Yes. I’ve known it for 45 years. Best news in all the world. I hope that this helps you a little bit. Don’t be the wrong kind of critic. Learn the word so you can discern. Be thankful to the Lord that He gave you a discerned spiritual eye so you can make wiser decisions.

But there’s a certain basic core that you have to have, just like with my car. There’s some things I have to have that are essential. There’s some things I don’t have to have. The same thing in living life. Many people have waited their lives down with non-essential things, things they don’t really need. And they get in debt over things they really didn’t need. Trying to keep up with the Joneses, you don’t have to keep up with the Joneses, just wait and catch them on their way back.

Figure out what are the essentials of life, the priorities. Put God first in everything that you do. You put everything in God’s hands, it won’t be long before you’ll see God’s hands and everything that you do. The Bible is truly the inspired Word of God. It is perfect. It is true. Let me reach up until you that was written by somebody who is anonymous and yet it’s awesome. The Holy Bible must have been inspired of God and not of men.

I could not, if I would, believe that good men wrote it to deceive. And bad men would not, if they could, proceed to write a book so good. And certainly no crazy man could ericomst see this wondrous plan and pray what other kinds of men. Then do these three groups comprehend? it must be that God inspired the word which souls of prophets fired. That’s awesome. Bad men wouldn’t erote the Bible and good men can’t write the Bible because they said there’s no such thing as good men.

That would have made them liars has to come from God. And I believe that. Let’s pray, shall we? But head by nice clothes and no one looking around. I’m not going to have you forward. Not going to embarrass you. But right where you’re sitting, I want you to just to talk to the Lord and say something simple like this, Lord, I know I’m a sinner and I believe that Jesus Christ died on that cross paid for my sins and I’m going to trust him right now as my Savior.

Trust him to take me to heaven whenever I die and then if you’ll make that decision God said he would save you and give eternal life. You’ve never done it before. Do it right now. If you will make that decision I’m asking you to raise your hand just so that I know I like to have prayer for you in closing. Not to point you out, not to pin you against the wall, not to embarrass you. But is there any one at all before we close?

Yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior tonight. And I want to be certain I have eternal life and know that I’m going to heaven when I die. And I’d like you to pray for me. Which is just to be in it very quickly. I’m going to write that down. There’s any one at all. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message.

If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing 813-884-4328. That’s 813-884-4328. To listen to today’s message again, or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the radio broadcast link. If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634.

Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030, and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. 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 and just keep looking up.