This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage.

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. your Bible and turn to the book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians, the book of Ephesians, there’s a portion of the scripture I want you to see because when you take the book of Ephesians in the New Testament, there’s a lot of similarities between the book of Joshua in the Old Testament. See, in the Old Testament, it was a story about victory, fighting the battle, winning the territory, conquering the land, God years in Joshua.

And there it talks about the angel of the Lord appeared with a sword in his hand. Well, when you come to book of Ephesians, this is where the Christian learns to fight a spiritual warfare. So these two books, one of the Old Testament, one of the New Testament, kind of help you to understand each other because the one is physical, this one is spiritual, but you learn how to fight the spiritual battles that were in, how to serve a Lord.

You may not know this, but one of the greatest things that will help you in serving the Lord is understanding the Lord’s supper, why we do it, and how that if you will faithfully do what the Lord asked us to do concerning the Lord’s Supper, did you know that you will stay a strong Christian? You’ll keep strong in your Christian life. If you’ll always think about what it means and why we should do it, examining yourself and applying it and how to look back and forward and inward and upward and so forth, it will help you in your Christian walk.

Now here in the book of Ephesians in chapter 6, look in verse 10. Here he talks about the the warfare that we are going to have and that which we need. In verse 10, finally my brethren, be weak in the Lord. No, no, be strong. Did you know being strong in the Lord is your choice? You can be strong or you can be weak. Remember at the Lord’s Supper, when he talks about because of their disobedient, he says many are sick and weak.

So being strong or being weak is a choice for the believer. And if you’ll do the things that will make you strong, you’ll be strong. If you do that, which makes you weak, you will be weak. So he makes a statement here in verse 10, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Strong in the Lord. You and I know, and we covered this last week, God is invisible. Right? God is invisible. Now, let’s just pretend.

Peter, do me a favor. Go over to that wall and just stand there for a second. Now, I want you to know that Peter Amato, he is now, he’s the Lord. Okay? But he is invisible. He’s invisible. You can’t see him. Okay, and because you can’t see Him, you don’t know where He is. But see, I can see Him. I got special glasses. I can see Him. I know where He is. So therefore, He’s not invisible to me. You can’t see Him.

You don’t know where He is. He could be here. He could be 10,000 miles away. Or maybe He’s light years away. I mean where is heaven anyway? But he’s invisible and we can’t see him. So how close am I to the Lord? Well, it depends on where is he at? Remember, I can’t get any closer to the Lord depending on if he’s on earth or he’s up there. Because I’m here and I can’t leave earth yet. Peter, come over here halfway.

Lo and behold, I am getting closer to the presence of the Lord. He’s right there. You see, sometimes in our Christian life, we think that God, because He’s invisible, He’s way out there somewhere floating in the cosmos, sitting on a throne up there on the other side of the galaxy, you know, light years away. Well, if that’s true, there’s a problem. And I’ll show you in just a second. Come up here and stand right here. Because he’s invisible, the Lord could be this close to me.

Couldn’t he? He could be this close to me. And I wouldn’t know it because I can’t see him. You and I are supposed to live our lives as though the Lord is right there with you. and he said, I’ll never leave you and never forsake you. Say that. See there? I told you, say that. So if you’ll never leave me and never forsake me, wherever I go, I can’t see him. He’s there. So I don’t know about you, but I like living in the presence of the Lord, believing that he is right there beside me.

All right, thank you. God is invisible. Now, if He’s invisible, think for a moment, there would be no advantage, no purpose in saying that God is invisible if He is a thousand light years away. Why? I couldn’t see Him anyway. If He wasn’t invisible, I wouldn’t be able to see. Because Now see, I can’t see that far. I can barely see to the back of the room. So telling us that he is invisible must be because he is close enough to be seen.

He’s close enough to be seen if he allowed you to see him. I believe the Lord is close by. I believe also that the armies of the Lord are all around us. I believe also that there are angels in this room. Why? Because God’s Word says so. I like that myself. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Acts, Acts in chapter 7. Acts in chapter 7, somebody had just finished preaching a tremendous message, tremendous sermon. And because he preached such a great sermon, they were going to kill him.

That’s That’s why I do everything I can, not to preach a real super sermon. I just want to be mediocre, lest somebody get carried away. In verse 54 it says, when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth, but he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And verse 56, and said, Behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

Now, wherever God was, wherever heaven is, is it on the other side of the world in which we live? Or is it really in this world where we are? See, that’s interesting. Yeah, I know it’ll blow your mind. When every says, and I saw heaven open and I saw the Lord, did he see him with the natural eye? Did you realize that if he saw him with the natural eye, but that’s better than the Hubble telescope been inside of your eyes?

Not only could he see wherever God is, if it’s past he saw wherever heaven was. But since this other world is like an invisible world, we can’t see it. What if it’s closer than you think? We had been translated from the darkness, the kingdom of darkness, according to Colossians chapter 1, and translated into the kingdom of his dear son, the kingdom of light. Well, when did that happen? When I trusted Christ as my Savior. But I never left here, but I’ve been translated into another kingdom.

You see, I’m part of two kingdoms. One, the kingdom of darkness, my old flesh birth, but God gave me a new birth born of God. Now, I am living in this world, but God is invisible, the spirit world invisible. We can’t see. When Christ was here, did Christ cast out demons? When others could not see or hear, he did. But where were they? Right here. And there’s things that happened that Jesus could see in here and know and understand that you and I would have a big problem with.

So I look at this and I think in verse 15, they stone Stephen’s calling upon God saying, Lord Jesus received my Spirit, knowing that He could see Him and God can hear Him was because His eyesight improved or God wasn’t far away at all and He just simply opened up the windows of heaven and He could see. You know what I thought about one time? Let me just throw this out to you. It’ll knock your socks off. We talk about the Holy City, the Holy City, 1500 mile high wind long.

Big city. May God have solid gold. Oils of Jasper, streets of Pearl and all that said, gates of Pearl. What if it’s just right up there? What if it’s just right up there? But you can’t see it because it’s invisible. What we do in our mind is because we can’t see any of these things, it’s in another who world someplace, but God has the ability to open up the windows of heaven. How far? Where was it?

See, I look at some of these things and I think there’s more than meets the eye. So I want you to take your Bible and look in 2 Kings, turning the Bible to 2 Kings. In the Old Testament, 2 Kings in chapter 6. There’s a little story here that the king of Syria, in verse 8, ward against Israel. But every time he would cancel his service about what he was going to do, the children of Israel would respond in advance.

So he called him and said, hey, look, we got a problem. There’s somebody here’s a spy, somebody’s telling them what we’re going to do and where we’re going to be. So he says in verse 11, therefore the heart of the king of Syria was in short trouble for this thing. He called a servant instead of them, will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel? Hey, somebody’s for the wrong king. Somebody’s on the wrong side.

Well, what was wrong? Because the man of God, Elisha, knew what was going to happen before it took place. He knew where he was going to be, and he would warn them in Israel and lo and behold, it’s just blowing this guy’s mind. He thinks he’s got a spy on looking for 12. And one of his servants said, none my Lord O King, but Elisha, the prophet. That is in Israel. He telleth the king of Israel, the words that thou speaketh and thy bedchamber.

In other words, here is a man of God, Elisha. He’s telling them what you’re thinking in your bedchamber. So they So they said, well, let’s go get Elisha. So the army gets together and they’re going to see Elisha. Look in verse 13. And he said, go and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, said, hey, he’s in a place called Dotham. Verse 14, therefore it sent he thither, horses and chariots and a great host, and they came by night.

Encompest the city about. When the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth behold and host, compass the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas my master, how shall we do? Mine would be what shall we do? Or this is along the line of how then shall we live? Hey, we got a problem here. We’re surrounded by the army. of Syria and they got horses and chariots and were surrounded, what are we going to do?

The man of God saw something that his servant did not see. And look what he says. In verse 16, and he answered fear not for, and you get the they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and cherries of fire round the body of Elisha.

There was another army there. There was another army there. An invisible army. them very same mountains, horses, chariots, an army. They were already there, but the servant of Elijah didn’t see them. Now Elijah could see. So this protection that God has for us, is it that they were in another world somewhere? They were right here in this world on the very same mountains where they were. And God simply made him visible to the man’s eyes. It would probably scare you to death if God revealed, cause you to see a lot of things that’s going on in this room right now in the spiritual realm.

God says that the prince of the power of the air who is the devil, rule of spiritual wickedness. He has a hierarchy or a chain of command. And so there’s battles going on. You read the book of Daniel and you’ll find out that there were times when Daniel would pray and he would take sometimes three weeks for his answer to his prayer, there, because there was a spiritual war going on behind the scenes. But it wasn’t happening up there somewhere, way off.

It’s right here. Did you realize that in the book of Isaiah when it says in chapter 6, verse 1, in the day that King Yuziah died, I saw the Lord. And I I wonder now did God just give him the vision to see something that was right there with these these horses and these cherries They were there they were right there. It’s just they can’t see them and Can those that were visible? Just ride right through those that were invisible You remember when Christ was here did not he after his resurrection Go right through walls.

He went right to a wall appear and disappear at will. When that scares your death. Did you know that man can’t think of anything greater than what’s already revealed in the Word of God? This stuff is potent. Open your eyes. Now we are supposed to do it by faith, believing what God says. See, I believe that the Holy Spirit indwells me. Not because I feel the spirit, but because the Word of God tells me so.

When I believe that he’ll never leave me and never forsake me, I believe it because that’s faith. I take God in his Word. God’s Word says so. When I hear that, you know, we’re supposed to be in the presence of the Lord. And when we have the Lord’s Supper, is the Lord supposed to be present? There’s something else going on that we don’t see and understand. You can’t see everything that happens. So being invisible has no meaning if it’s a person is light years away because I wouldn’t be able to see him anyway.

Why tell me if they’re invisible? If Peter was 10 miles away from here, I still wouldn’t be able to see him. But to say he’s invisible is for a reason because he must be close by. And he’s invisible so that we can’t see. There’s things that God doesn’t want us to see, but he wants us to believe and take him by faith. So whenever I talk to the Lord, I used to think my prayers had this zillion-mile marks that they had to go on.

You know, something. Wherever he got in on the other side of all the light years, you know, my prayers don’t have to make a trip because the one I’m talking to lives within me. He lives within me. He knows my thoughts. I can talk to the Lord. And since that you’re in the presence of the Lord. When you leave and you kind of look up into the sky a little bit, Just picture for a moment, pretend that right up there, out of your eyesight, says a throne, and there’s a God, and he’s watching.

And whenever Stephen was stoned, he looked up and he was able to see, and Jesus is standing up. Do you believe that everything that happens might have only fathers watching? Did you know that it might help you to think more carefully about the things you say and do when you know that well he’s right there, he’s right there watching me? Sometimes we think out of sight, out of mine. Do you believe the Lord is close to you walking with you?

And we’re supposed to live like we’re in the presence of the Lord. I think so. Go back to the book of Ephesians, the book of Ephesians. And look there in chapter 6. And look what he says in verse 11. Now you’ll also find part of this battle that went on in chapter 2 of the book of Ephesians. We’re time passed, you walked according to the course of this world. And by nature did those things that are rebellious. Abbot God, who was rich in mercy, saved us by grace, and delivered us from the kingdom of darkness and planted us into the kingdom of his dear son.

So he makes a statement here in verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. That means the devil is real, the battle it is real. And I just want to show you this before I forget, it’s a wonderful portion of scripture. Look there in chapter 10 of 2 Corinthians. Hold your place there in Ephesians, but look there quickly. 2 Corinthians in chapter 10. And notice the battle that Christians are in.

See, we do not battle with battle with hand grenades and, you know, vazookas and tanks and, you know, ours is a different kind of a battle. You see there in verse 3, for though we walk in the flesh in a body, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity, get this every thought to the obedience of Christ.

We want to fight a battle for the minds of man. We have to win him here. We don’t win him here. We can’t win him. All of your success and all your failures are begins in the mind. Your actions are a byproduct of the way that you think. You want to raise the level of your life than raise the caliber of your thoughts because it’ll be in direct ratio. So the more you learn about the things of God your life will take care of itself.

But our battle is a mental battle. It’s a spiritual battle. That’s why God wants us to learn spiritual truth, the word of God, that helps you and I to know how to think because if the devil can defeat you, he’s going to defeat you and how you think. And that’s why the Bible says our battle in verse 4, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of stronghold. The devil wants to get a stronghold on a piece of territory that’s in your mind.

And that’s why you want to take and have every thought brought into the captivity of Christ where you learn to think the way God wants you to think. The devil is after us. You don’t see the devil. You don’t see his little demons So that means they’re not real. Because they’re invisible, they must be in another world somewhere. Or maybe they’re right here. Maybe they’ll even follow you home today from church. You and your husband just came in the church.

You’re all happy about the things of the Lord. Did you know you could be in a knockdown drag out before you get to the house? Or you got up this morning and says, honey, we’re going to church today. And you know that you have all these good intentions and you could have started a war before you ever left out of the house. But when you walk in those doors, you say that can’t happen. Yes, it can. And you don’t think, and you think it’s just your husband.

You think it’s just your wife. You think it’s just those kids. There’s something else behind the scenes that you and I are supposed to know. There is another enemy. And he wars against us and tries to turn us against each other. The devil is alive and well on planet Earth. And he makes the statement going down through here in the book of Ephesians in chapter 6. There’s things to take that you might be able to stay, but I just want to see this one verse.

Verse 12, will you wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities? This is in chapter 6 verse 12, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. There’s There’s another world been lived, and it’s a wicked world. It’s a spiritual world. Spiritual battles going on, and they’re right here, and we’re in the crossfire. You see, there’s the armies of the Lord, and there’s the armies of the devil. And I believe that if I can see and understand this, it’ll make me more aware not to prejudge people too quickly.

But to understand there might be a devil involved here. There might be some demonic work going on a little bit. There could be spiritual battles going on in people’s minds. And sometimes it seems like everything is fine. All of a sudden, just great depression just comes upon you. And you just feel so oppressed and you can’t explain it. You don’t know what to put it on there. And so you start looking for a reason. It could be a spiritual warfare going on.

And I believe it’s important. your Bible and I turn to the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 11. 1 Corinthians in chapter 11. And you’ll notice, see there in verse 30, a 1 Corinthians chapter 11, for this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep. Or, that’s because they were disobedient, but what if you did obey? What if you do what God wants you to do? And you do take the Lord’s Supper and you examine your life and you confess things between you and God that ought to be taken care of.

And let’s say you do the things that are right. And for this cause many will be strong and spiritually healthy and very vibrant and alive for the Lord. When you start getting down in the things of God and you just think quick, quick, there’s only one that wants you to quick serve God. And you don’t want to do You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 toll free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33-6-3-4.

Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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, Believe in that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for a Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the 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. Everything God promised God fulfilled. And yet, look how many years down the road it took. A long time. And now it’s happening just like God says. And also you find in the book of Luke in chapter 19, where he talks about that God says, because of your rebellion, because you did not believe that Jesus Christ was God, who came to visit the house of Israel.

He says, the country of Jerusalem, the temple, the wall is all going to be destroyed. And it happened just like he said it would. Just a coincidence knowing this is God. Because everybody wants to know if there is a real true and living God, why don’t God reveal Himself? He did. He told you how he would do it in advance. Wouldn’t that be the best way to do it? If he just showed up right now and he’s, hey I’m God.

I told you I was. Would you believe that? Why? I mean, don’t I like God? Don’t incorporate in it all. But with the Lord, see, He was told exactly He had to be of the line of David, of the tribe of Judah, born in Bethlehem. All these are prophecies in advance. And He says, before He came on the scene, John the Baptist would come on the scene and be the voice crying in the wilderness and talking about the salvation of the Lord from Isaiah chapter 40.

Coincidence? Not a coincidence. It’s also found in the book of Malachi. But notice, he makes a statement down here in verse 74 that he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. and that thou child shall be called the prophet of the highest. For thou shall go before the face of the ill or the the Lord.”

See the scriptures keep talking about Jesus Christ being God. You cannot deny that. And when it says in the Old Testament in the book of Isaiah and chapter 9 and verse 6, and the government shall be up on his shoulder and he shall be called counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the Prince of Peace, Jesus is God, the everlasting father. How can you have an everlasting father if you don’t have an everlasting son? So if you’re gonna be an everlasting father you had to have an everlasting son.

Jesus Christ existed before this world came into being. It says all things were made by Him and without Him was not even made that was made. So that means nobody made him. He’s always existed. You see, it’s hard for people to understand how God could have always been, but can you fathom the idea that you will always be? Just think from this point on, you can’t explain before, but you will always be, and you’re going to be somewhere. That’s why I’m so glad that I know I’m going to be with the Lord.

I’m going to have eternal life and I have it. But notice these three things here. There’s about three things mentioned here real quick. I just want to show you this. The verse 77. He’s going to take and say to give knowledge of salvation down in verse 79 to give light and also the last part of 79 to guide our feet. To give knowledge of salvation. See people need to understand that when he’s talking about this one that comes after me, he is our salvation.

He is our righteousness. He is our wisdom. He is our sanctification. Whatever we need, He is it. Have you ever seen in the back of cars, you always say, Jesus is the answer. Jesus is the answer. You think, well, what was the question? But Jesus is the answer, but you’ve got to know what the question is. You see, to go to heaven, He is the way. When it comes to what is truth, he is the truth. What about eternal life?

He is eternal life. That’s who he is. He is the answer to everything. He is the solution to all the problems in this world. Did you know that all the problems we’re having in America? He is the answer. And if there’s anything the world today doesn’t want, and majority of the people in America don’t want, it’s Christ. And yet he’s the solution. Because what if there’s a problem? everybody in America would just trust Christ as their Savior and really understand it, really believe it and started loving each other the way we should and treating each other the way we should.

Daddies would love their moms, the wives, and the wives, they would invite love their kids and nobody rebigures and stop all of this divorces and all this shackin’ up and everything else is goin’ on. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of our politicians were honest? I know, that’s asking too much. This is why Jesus Christ could not come today and to be born in Washington DC because they would have trouble finding three wise men. And we’ll move right along.

I could go further than happen on them. But in verse 79 to give light to them that said in darkness, you see, there’s those that are in the nation of Israel, see there in verse 77 unto his people. Then in verse 79 to those that were in darkness and don’t have the truth. See Israel had an advantage because they had the word of God. They had the prophets. But there’s others that don’t have a clue. And sometimes I love taking the gospel to those that have never heard it before.

And when they hear it and they understand how they can have eternal life and know they’re going to heaven when they die, man, they just kind of light light up because they see the light and it makes so much sense to them. To hear it, to see it, believe it. And the last part of verse 79 says, and to guide our feet. See, after you know the Lord, did you know that if you would let the Lord guide to your steps, did you know it leads to peace and joy and happiness?

In this life, so many people are in such great turmoil and such despair, if they only knew the Lord and loved the Lord and walked with the Lord, You’d be surprised what God can do. And guess what he says in verse 80 now. And the child grew, talking about John DeBantis, whack strong in spirit was in the desert till the day of his showing under Israel. Now this is what John DeBantis was to do. Now take your Bible and look in the Gospel of John, the Gospel of John, chapter one.

Gospel of John in chapter one. He is from verse 6 to verse 15, talking about Christ, the light of the world. He is the light of the world. Verse 29 and 30, He is the Lamb of God. Who said so? Well, that John fella. Now the one that wrote this is not the same John. This is John the Apostle John the Beloved. This is John who lived a long time and wrote also the book of 1st and 2nd, 3rd John in Revelation.

And so that’s a different John. He was a young man that leaned on Christ. This John the Baptist. John the Baptist. See there in verse 5, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. Now the ministry begins. What was the purpose of John’s ministry? it was talking about the Lord. You see, what I’m talking to you about right now, this is really the Christmas story. The Christmas story isn’t just about his birth. The Christmas story is about his death, more than his birth.

Believe it or not. Because see, if he was just born, that’s not the end of it. All you know is a baby was born. But by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, Now you and I know. Otherwise he would have been Justin if he never came out of that grave. It’s the death, barrel and resurrection of Christ. That’s what we depend upon to get us to have him. I’m not trusting a baby that was born in a crib, but I know it was Jesus and I believe that with all my heart.

But if he had not done anything else, it wouldn’t have saved his soul. You see, he has to live and go under all the testings of the law and earned the right to be our near kinsmen so that he could redeem us. But look what he says. In verse 6, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness. To bear witness of the light. He was the forerunner of Jesus Christ. And he says, to bear witness of the light that get this, and you are on the line.

Why did John do what he did? And what message did he have? What was the purpose of his life? Get this. All men through him Christ might be leave. That was John the Baptist’s message. So he preached to get everybody to believe on Jesus Christ. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing today? See, the message hasn’t changed. It’s still the same. And the reason we preach that people can see the light is so that they might believe that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And that by believing you may have life through his name. That was the purpose of the whole book of John. Now look what else he says in verse 8. He was not that light. So you and I are not the light. He is the light. And while he was here, he said, I am the light of the world, but whenever he left, he says, now, ye are the lights of the world. And you and I are the salt of the earth and the light.

So we’re supposed to let people see the Lord through the gospel message. You see, the gospel message itself is a portrait of God. You cannot see God, but the only way you can see God is through his son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has revealed him, has manifested him. And so whenever we give the gospel, we’re giving you a portrait of the face of the son of God. So that you by hearing the gospel will know what God is like.

Without the gospel, you can’t see God. Because the gospel lets us see a lot of things, not only about ourselves, but about Him. You see, whenever you tell somebody the gospel story and simply put, it goes like this. There’s four points of that refers to the man, to us, and there’s three that refers to the Lord. And this helps us to see what we’re like and what God is like, because unless you understand yourself, you don’t understand God. Because you see, you have to see how bad you are to see how good he is.

This hand represents you and me. And the wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. But we don’t see how bad that is. It’s not that bad. Of course, when everybody’s doing it, we’re not that bad. So God gave the law so that we can kind of compare. Oh, God is righteous and He showed me the law and the law says thou shalt not thou shalt not thou shalt not and we did. So we see how bad we are because of the law of God and God says the wages of sin breaking his law of perfection and his righteousness we of all sin and come short of the glory of God.

So the pay for that is eternal separation from God in hell. And the Bible says you and I cannot earn eternal life, we cannot work our way to heaven, we cannot save ourselves. All of that is bad news. I’m a sinner, that’s bad, gotta go to hell, that’s bad, gotta be perfectly go to heaven, that’s bad, can’t earn my weight, that’s bad, boy, there’s a lot of bad news. But when I understood that Jesus tries who is God in the flesh, who had no sinful nature, couldn’t sin, would live a perfect law under the same law, but he never broke a law.

No one could find any fault in him. He was that holy thing that was born into the world. And so Jesus Christ had no sin, and he lived for 30 years without any sin. He said, who convinces me of sin no one could. Only witnesses against him were false witnesses. So Jesus Christ had no sin, therefore he didn’t have to die. But because he loves us, he took all the sin of all the world, and he paid for it on the cross.

Came back from the dead and said that if you were life, we would believe he did it for us. He would put this payment to our account, and we go to heaven on what he did. See Christ coming into the world and dying for the sins of the world, that’s good news. Coming back from the dead, that’s good news. If we simply believe he did it for us, I believe alone, that’s good news. And I can know I have eternal life and know I’m going to heaven, that’s good news.

That’s why the gospel is good news and that’s why we want to give it. But you’ll notice when he says in verse eight, he was not that light but was sent to bear witness of the light. That was the true light which light of every man that cometh into the world and he was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not. Then he says in verse 11, he came unto his own and his own received him not.

But as many as, what he says, as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Give what he says. Anyone who will simply believe it and trust him can have eternal life, can be born into his family. Because look at the next verse. In verse 13 says, which were born, get this, not a blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man.

You see, your new birth, you have to be born again, to be born into God’s family. You can’t wish it to be done. You can’t will it to be done. You can’t work it to be done. It’s only by God. The new birth isn’t something of the old birth, making it happen. What that means is you don’t get the new birth and get to become a child of God and go to heaven when you die because of something you can do.

It’s nothing you can do is an ongoing thing for the rest of your life. If I’m good enough and if I work hard, if I try my best, no. I was talking to a lady last night and I asked her, I said, man, where are you going to go in your dying? She said, oh, I’m going to heaven. I said, are you sure? I am positive 100% sure I know that I’m going to heaven when I die. Now you would think that she probably knows the Lord, right?

I says, is there anything you could do that could keep you from going to heaven? Lots of things. I says, is it possible you could do those things? Well, of course it’s possible. I said, how can you sit here and tell me, you know, positive, again, a shout out, you’re going to go to heaven when you die. And yet there’s a possibility you could do all these bad things and still go to hell. Can you see my reasoning? But you know, there’s some people that are blind, they cannot.

See, if I’m really trusting Christ as my Savior, He can give me eternal life today and keep me saved. If He can forgive me of everything I’ve already done, why can’t He already forgive me for the one I’m going to do? He did it for that way, why can’t He do it that way? I mean, if it’s free, it’s still free. Have you ever heard somebody on the TV and they’re advertising on them? Absolutely free! Absolutely free! Oh, you got to do is buy these two tires and these two tires are absolutely free.

Try going in there and getting those those two tires. Try it. Well, they are free if you’ll buy… No, no, no, no, no. You said they’re absolutely free. I think some people think that’s the way God is with the gospel. When God says free, I think He means free. Nothing. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t deserve it because grace is just the opposite of deserving it. Some people can’t believe that, you mean all you got to do is trust Christ as your Savior and you’ll give eternal life and you can know that you’re going to heaven and your dying.

Well yes, you can’t tell me you can just trust Christ as your Savior and go out here and be bad and do all these sins and still go to heaven when you die. Why can’t I tell you that? It’s the truth. I don’t have a right to change what God says just because I don’t want people to live in sin. I believe that and I try to live as God as I know how. I believe that when you trust Christ as you’re saving, you become a child of God.

I just also believe that if you’re a child of God, you ought to live like it, but not to get to heaven, but because you’re going to heaven. I’ve got three children, the hard way, one wife. My three children born into my family. They’re always my kids. When they do something wrong, I don’t say, get out of here and go to hell. I’m through it. No, no, no. I say, come on in. Come on in. And then I show them how much I I love them.

But I love them anymore. I’ll kill them. When you trust Christ as your Savior, you become a child of God. And when God becomes your Father and you become His child, He won’t ever cast you out, never lose you for no reason. But because He’s your Father, He will chase and discipline you. He will correct you. But He can’t send you to hell. I couldn’t go to hell if I tried. I haven’t tried. But I can’t go there. to heaven is the best news in the world.

But look what he says in verse 14. And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And this is the word that’s mentioned all the way back in the book of Isaiah in chapter 40. Because He says, all we are like grass of the field and we’re all going to die and fade away. But the word is coming and He lives forever.

And whenever you read in the book of Peter and talks about it in chapter 1 and verse 22 and 23, It makes a statement that the Word of God, we are born by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Verse 15 says, John bear witness of him, cried saying that this was he of whom I speak. He that cometh after me is preferred before me. And get this and you ought to on the line these words, for he was before me.

a man, John, testify in that this man that he’s prophesying that’s coming right after him was referred before him because he was before me. That’s why they had a problem with when Jesus says, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. And he said, what do you mean? You’re not even 50 years old. How can you say that Abraham rejoiced to see your day when you’re not even 50 years old. Before Abraham was, I am. Jesus Christ, he is the Lord.

He is God. So when you reject Christ, you’re rejecting God to create the heavens and the earth. Because remember, he made the world. See there in verse one, just look at it real quickly. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God and all things were made by him or without him was not anything made that was Well anyway, look there in chapter 1 and verse 18, no man have seen God at any time.

The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Jesus Christ reveals God. I used to make the state be known. People know, prove to me there’s a God. What am I supposed to do? Get up there and get a holy God and pull him down and say, there he is. I have come to the conclusion that every time I do this, I am reaching up there and bringing God down for people to see Him.

And whenever you see that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and you see that He died on the cross and paid for all of your sins. And when you see that He came back again from the dead, and when you see how good He is to give you as a free gift everlasting life. When you see all of that, you’ve seen God. Because you see, it’s the story that lets you see, I’m a sinner, I’m wicked, I’m undone, I can’t save myself, I’m condemned, I’m hopelessly lost.

And look what Christ has done for me. He shows me mercy, I don’t get to go to hell. He shows me grace, I get to go to heaven. He shows me forgiveness. I don’t pay for any of my sins. You see, I wouldn’t know any of that if it wasn’t for the gospel story. So you’re seeing what God thinks about sin. You’re seeing what God thinks about you. He loves you so much that he was willing to do all of this for us.

And then you get to see how perfect he is and right to see is and how holy he is. The love of God. The power of God. You see, whenever you hear the story, you’re getting a picture of God. And what messes up the picture is when you try to add human works to the message. When you try to add to what God does, it’s like taking a rim, Brant, and you want to add some finishing touches on it.

I think it will look better for a little bit of this. And you say, well, I think, oh, yeah, all you got to do is trust Christ to Savior, but you also got to go to church. you got to get some money, 20% inflation. And you got to do all these good deeds. See, when you start adding on like that, you’re ruining the image of God because you distort the gospel. The gospel in its purity gives you the clearest picture you’ll ever see of God Almighty.

And then whenever it comes over here in John chapter 1, look at verse 29, The next day John seeeth Jesus coming unto him, and he says, Behold the Lamb of God, which Take of the way the sin of the world. In verse 30, this is He. Of whom I said, after me, come with a man which is befurred before me, for and he says it again, he was before me. So here’s John the Baptist down at the river, he’s baptizing and Jesus Christ shows up.

And so he says to the crowd, Behold the Lamb of God, which take of the way the sin of the world. Do you think John the Baptist understood what he was saying? This was the Lamb of God, that God sent into the world to be the sacrifice of the sins of the whole world. That’s the only way our sins can be taken away. He did it for us. Best news in all the world. Look at me just one more time.

You and me, sin. We’ve all sinned. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection, but he loves us. He loves you. And he sent his son Jesus Christ, God’s son, end to the world because he loves us. He hates our sin because it separates us from him. So Jesus Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. He said, if you will believe it, that I did that for you, I will put this payment to your account.

And you get to go to heaven on what he did. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. The whosoever, believe it than him, should not perish but have everlasting life. Will you believe he did it for you? Let’s pray, shall we? If you’re here this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you just talk to the Lord right now and say something simple like this? Nobody can hear your thoughts. You can’t make a mistake.

Only the true and living God can hear you. He knows your mind. Why don’t you say something like this, Lord? I don’t understand it all. I got questioned. I even got some doubts. I know I’m not perfect. And I heard that Jesus died and paid for my sins. And the best I know how, right now, I will accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. I believe He died for me. And friend, if you will believe that, And you will trust him.

God says he would give you right now as a free gift ever lasting life Would you trust him? I’m gonna ask in just a moment for a raise of hand raising your hand doesn’t save you It just lets me know that you understood what I said And you’re saying yes preacher that made sense to me and this morning I’m trusting Christ to take me to heaven whenever I die and Friend I’d like to know it and I like to have prayer for you But this is what I preach for I want to be a help.

I want to be a blessing. And if you will trust Christ as your Savior this morning, and you wouldn’t mind letting me know, so I can have prayer for you. Would you just slip your hand very quickly and put a right back down? Anyone at all? Just slip it up real quick. Yes, God bless you, sir. God bless you, man. Anyone else? Just you can put it down. If you trust Christ right now as your Savior, God saves you right now and gives you eternal life.

Father, we thank you so much for those that indicated by an uplifted hand that they would trust Jesus Christ as their Savior. And by doing so they become your child. You’ll never cast them out, never lose them. That when they leave they can say, I know I’m going to heaven because this morning I trusted Christ as my only hope of going to heaven. Well we just ask your blessings upon each one here because we want more people to trust your Savior and we want to be used.

And we want to do it through music and through the message. In Christ and we pray, Amen. You have been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 toll-free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771.

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 are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33-6-3-4. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

The Book of Isaiah, chapter 40, Isaiah chapter 40, the story of John the Baptist, which is part of the Christmas story. So when you look here in the book of Isaiah in chapter 40, you’ll find that there’s an interesting statement made here in verse 3. Verse 3 says, The voice of him that cryeth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the highway or the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted in every mountain and hill shall be made low, the crooked shall be made straight in the rough places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”

Now this is a reference to John the Baptist. You see he was was the forerunner of Jesus Christ. He was about six months before Christ and they were cousins. And so John the Badgers had a very unique ministry. He was just the voice of one crying in the wilderness. And he was sent to bear witness of the light that Jesus was the true light that light of every man that cometh into the world. So he had an awesome ministry.

Jesus says there’s never been a man born a woman like John the Baptist. Anyway, notice in verse 6, look what he says about the voice. The voice said cry and he said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all the goodness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass with with the flower faded because the spirit of the Lord brought upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower faded, but the word of our God shall stand forever.

Jesus Christ is the word and the word was made flesh. The word was going to be revealed. The glory of the Lord has come to visit mankind. And the Bible says that John says all flesh is as grass and all of us are the same. We all live and we all die, but there’s one that’s going to be born. He is the Word and He will live forever. And then He says in verse 9, Oh Zion, that bringeth good tidings.

Get the up into the high mountains, oh Jerusalem, that bringeth good tidings. You see, when John the Baptist showed up, he was preaching some good titans and good things. Lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid, say unto the cities of Judah, and you ought to underline these three words. What was John the Baptist going to say about Jesus Christ when he was born into this world? He says, I’m just the voice of one crying in the wilderness, behold your God.

You see, Jesus Christ was God manifested in the flesh. And scriptures tell us that there’s nobody like Him. There’s no birth quite like this one. Jesus Christ was who He claimed to be. Now, since He is different, very unique, special, I wanted to just this morning, share with you some thoughts about this John the Baptist and something that was going to take place. But take your Bible now and look in the book with Jeremiah. go to your right to Jeremiah and chapter 31.

Jeremiah chapter 31. And just look there in verse 15. Verse 15. Because you see, when Jesus Christ was born. The angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph and says, take the child down into Egypt. When you take him down into Egypt, I’ll let you know when to bring him back. I’ll bring your word. But Herod came in and killed all the children that were two years old and under. And there was a lot of weeping and wailing. And this is why this verse 15 is referenced to in the book of Matthew, talking about that moment.

In verse 15, thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Rehma. Lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel weeping for her children. He refused to be comforted for her children because they were not. All these children that were killed, because he Herod was trying to kill one little baby boy and think about it. What difference can one little baby make? I mean, what difference can one little baby been born in the world? What can it do?

Well, this was no usual baby. This was an unusual baby. This was the Son of God. And for a woman to have a child without a man, that would take America. Well, it did. Look down there in verse 22. Verse 22, How long will thou go about? O thou backsliding daughter? For the Lord hath created a new thing. Now if it’s just a woman having a baby, it’s nothing new. But for a woman to have a baby without a man, as it says, created a new thing in the earth, a woman shall compass a man.

This was an unusual man that was born. John had a very unusual ministry. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Luke in chapter one, the gospel of Luke and chapter 1. Luke chapter 1. And look there in verse 5. Verse 5 says, there was in the days of Herod the king of Judea a certain priest named Zachariah of the course of Abya and his wife was the daughter of Aaron and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the law, O Lord, blameless, and they had no child because that Elizabeth was barren, and they both were now well-stricken in years.

So here’s these older folks, well-stricken in years, and God is going to do another miracle. You see, God is going to allow these old folks to have a young man. I don’t know if I would want another young man, but they’re gonna have a young man. And this is going to be an unusual child too. In verse 11, I want you to look in verse 11, is it? And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

When Zachariah saw him, he was troubled and fear fell upon him and the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zachariah, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear a son. And Zachariah said, I prayed that prayer 40 years ago. I don’t believe in his age he was probably asking the Lord for a child. But the Lord heard the prayer, and Elizabeth had been praying for a child, because she was excited that the Lord had taken away her approach from among men.

See down there in verse 25, the Lord has taken away my memory approach among men. This old couple, they might have been wanting the child, but I think they probably prayed when they were younger. But you know, you never know when God’s going to answer that prayer of yours, that you prayed four years ago and God will wind up coming, it comes around. You see, God doesn’t forget your prayers. That’s what’s interesting. But I’m glad I have had some of my prayers not entered yet.

But look what he says He says in verse 13, the angel said unto him, fear not zechariah, for thy prayer is heard, thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. So the Lord’s even telling them what to call him, that you’re gonna have a son, a child is gonna be born. In verse 14, and thou shalt have joy and gladness. Many shall rejoice at his birth, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord.

shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He shall be filled with the holy goes, even from his mother’s womb. Many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God, and he shall go before him in the spirit and the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. Get this, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. In other words, this child has a great ministry.

God said, I want to use this child as the forerunner of my son. And he has got a ministry of turning the hearts of the fathers to their children. And to proclaim, yes, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you’ll see that in chapter two of Luke, but it also makes this statement. It says, He shall turn the hearts of the children of Israel unto the Lord their God, not just the fathers to the children, but the children of Israel to God.

And He says to prepare people for the Lord. God is sending His Son into the world and He wants Him to be the megaphone, the voice that runs ahead of them and tell them, hey, He’s coming, He’s coming, He’s coming. So we had a tremendous ministry, a very unique ministry. Nobody had ever had this ministry before to tell people about the Lord coming on the scene. Look what he says in verse 18. Now Zechariah is hearing what the angel of the Lord has said.

But now remember whenever it was told to Joseph, Joseph believed what God said. And he told Mary, Mary believed what God said. But the old codger has a problem. He said, no, wait, wait a minute. So he says in verse 18, And Zacharias said unto the angel whereby shall I know the, how do I know this is true? Did he have any questions or doubts? He said, I’m an old man. My wife is well stricken in years. How are we going to have a young man?

Well lo and behold. The angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel that standeth in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee and to show thee these glad titans. This is good news, good news. And behold, in verse 20, thou shalt be dumb and not able to speak until the day that these things shall be performed because, because thou believe us not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season. God see has his own timetable.

You see this couple they had prayed for a child years before I believe because now he’s questioned whether he can even happen now. And because he was wondering how can this happen? How can this be? How do you think Mary felt whenever God told us that you’re going to have a child without a man? Oh really? What would you have thought? And so in verse 21 the people waited for Zachariah because, see, he was taking too long in the temple.

You don’t take that long to do his service in this course that he had. And he says, and he carried so long in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak unto them. And they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple before he beckoned unto them and remained speechless. Came to pass that as soon as the days of its ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house. those days his wife Elizabeth conceived and hid herself five months saying, thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me to take away my reproach among men.

We talked in Sunday school about how Mary, a young woman that’s never had a relationship with a man could have a child and how would you like to behave with the explain that’s sticking out in your tummy out there and you’re not married. And explaining it to mom and dad or to your neighbors. You know, God sometimes puts us in very strange predicaments. He produces a lot of problems in our lives. It was so bad that even Joseph had to go into Egypt a fear of his life.

Who produced that problem? Oh, God did. See, God doesn’t mind producing problems in your life because he knows how to solve the problems in your life. That’s easy when you understand that. This one you don’t think he does or he will. So Elizabeth is going to have a young man. She’s going to have a young man. Now as you go down through this, I want you to look there in verse 57. Verse 57, the birth of John the Baptist.

John the Baptist. Now Elizabeth, full time, came that she should be delivered. She brought forth the Son. And her neighbors and her cousins heard how the Lord had showed great mercy upon her, and they rejoiced with her. Isn’t that wonderful that Lisa was standing by her? They believed her story. This is Elizabeth. How does an old woman explain to somebody, I got a child, you mean from that old man?

You realize just all the problems that can be created by the Lord doing these miraculous things? Anyway, he says here in verse 58, and her neighbors and her cousins heard how the Lord had showed great mercy upon her, and they rejoiced with her, and it came to pass that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they shall call him Zechariah after the name of his father. And his mother answered and said, not so. He shall be called John.

Nobody in the family was called John. Daddy was Zechariah. My name is Jakey. I haven’t figured out what my kids never called their kids janky. I Was with a guy yesterday, and I says I’m glad to meet you. My name is Jakey Just looked at me. I said well you’ve heard of Yankee Doodle. Oh, yeah. I said that was my dad He did what y’all did. He just laughed it How did I ever get stuck with that? I’ll never know when I get to heaven.

I’m gonna say Lord why But in verse 61 and they said unto her there is none of thy kindred that is called by this name They made signs to his father how he would have him called and he asked for a writing table and he wrote saying his name is John and they marveled all and his mouth was opened immediately. Remember he’s been his mouth been shut for nine months. There was a little piece of quite a run house.

At least he didn’t have to do much explaining because he couldn’t talk. Verse 65, fear came on all that dwelt round about them and all these sayings were and noise abroad throughout all the healed country of Judea, and all they that heard them lay them up in their hearts, saying, what manner of child shall this be? What kind of a child is Zachariah gonna have here? What kind of a child is this gonna be? You could say the same thing about Jesus, what kind of a child is this going to be?

And so it says in verse 67, his father, Zachariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. That means he was controlled by the Holy Spirit. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he had visited and redeemed his people. Remember now, he had promised this over and over again in the Old Testament. What is happening right now is simply the fulfillment of many scriptures. Why is it always fulfilled and fulfilled? And it is written, because we are hard headed and stiff night.

We wanna know how do I know this is true? because they had the Old Testament Scriptures. The last book in the Old Testament was written over 400 years before this happened. 400 years of silence. So all those Old Testament books go way back. And there it is. It’s written in those scriptures. And they still have those scriptures today. When Jesus came, he quoted many of those Old Testament scriptures. How did they do that in advance? Because God told them, This is what will happen.

This is what will happen. This is what will happen. And they wrote it. They could not make it happen. And the one that wrote it couldn’t fulfill what they had wrote. It was always far enough out of their reach that they couldn’t manipulate things. Isn’t God wonderful? But God is patient and He allowed in His perfect timing. For this whole couple, I have this miraculous child. And this child was going to be different from a lot of other children too.

He only lives for one reason. He’s just to be a voice of one crying in the wilderness. As a forerunner of Jesus Christ, to get people ready, the Lord is coming behind me. And so He would baptize in water if they believed the preaching that He gave. That is that they should believe on Him from God have sent. They weren’t to believe on Him. He wasn’t anything great. In other words, he says, I must decrease and he must increase.

Look what he has here. He now goes into the Old Testament and he shows things that you and I, if we read them, we may not see it. But remember, even when Simeon had seen him, he says, behold the salvation of the Lord. Talking about a person, he is the salvation of the Lord. The redeemer of the Lord. here is your notice in verse 69 and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.

Because he says in verse 17, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the old which is swear to our Father Abraham, no, with everything God promised God fulfills. And yet look how many years down the road it took. A long time.

And now it’s happening just like God says. And also you find in the book of Luke in chapter 19 where he talks about that God says because of your rebellion, because you did not believe that Jesus Christ was God who came to visit the house of Israel. He says the country of Jerusalem the temple the wall is all going to be destroyed And it happened just like he said it would Just a coincidence. No, this is God. Everybody wants to know if there is a real true and living God Why don’t God reveal himself?

He did He told you how he would do it in advance Wouldn’t that be the best way to do it? If he just showed up right now and you say I’m God God? What if I told you I was? Would you believe that? Why? I mean, don’t I lie, God? You aren’t incorporating it all. But with the Lord, see, He was told exactly He had to be of the line of David, of the tribe of Judah, born in Bethlehem.

All these are prophecies in advance. And He says, before He came on the scene, John the Baptist would come on the scene and be the voice crying in the wilderness and talking about the salvation of the Lord from Isaiah chapter 40. Coincidence? Not a coincidence. It’s also found in the book of Malachi. But notice, he makes a statement down here in verse 74 that he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life and that thou child shall be called the prophet of the highest.

For thou shalt go before the face of the ill or the the Lord. See the scriptures keep talking about Jesus Christ being God. You cannot deny that. And when it says in the Old Testament in the book of Isaiah and chapter nine and verse six and the government shall be upon his shoulder and he shall be called counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace. Jesus is called God, the everlasting father. How can you have an everlasting father if you don’t have an everlasting son?

So if you’re going to be an everlasting father, you had to have an everlasting son. Jesus Christ existed before this world came into being. It says, all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. So that means nobody made him. He’s always existed. You see, it’s hard for people to understand how God could have always been. But can you fathom the idea that you will always be? Just think from this point on, you can’t explain before, but you will always be.

And you’re going to be somewhere. That’s why I’m so glad that I know I’m going to be with the Lord. I’m going to have eternal life and I’m happy. But notice these three things here. There’s about three things mentioned here real quick. I just want to show you this. The verse 77, he’s going to take and say, to give knowledge of salvation, down in verse 79, to give light, and also the last part of 79, to guide our feet, to give knowledge of salvation.

See, people need to understand that when he’s talking about this one that comes after me, he is our salvation. He is our righteousness. He is our wisdom. He is our sanctification. Whatever we need, He is it. Have you ever seen in the back of cars, I always say, Jesus is the answer, Jesus is the answer, and you think, well, what was the question? But Jesus is the answer, but you gotta know what the question is. You see, to go to heaven, He is the way.

When it comes to what is truth, He is the truth. What about eternal life? He is the eternal life. That’s who He is. He is the answer to everything. He is the solution to all the problems in this world. Did you know that all the problems we’re having in America, he is the answer. And if there’s anything the world today doesn’t want, and majority of the people in America don’t want, it’s Christ. And yet he’s the solution. Because what if everybody in America would just trust Christ as their Savior and really understand it, really believe it, and started loving each other, the way we should and treating each other the way we should?

Daddy’s would love their moms, the wives. And the wives, they might love their kids. And nobody rebag us. And stop all this divorce and all this shacking up and everything else is going on. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of our politicians were honest? I know, that’s asking too much. This is why Jesus Christ could not come today and to be born in Washington, D.C. because they would have trouble finding three wise men. And we’ll move right along. I could go further than happen on the internet.

But in verse 79, to give light to them that said in darkness. You see, there’s those that are in the nation of Israel, see there in verse 77, unto his people. Then in verse 79, to those that were in darkness and don’t have the truth. You see, Israel had an advantage because they had the word of God. They had the prophets. But there’s others that don’t have a clue. And sometimes I love taking the gospel to those that have never heard it before.

And when they hear it and they understand how they can have eternal life and know they’re going to heaven when they die, man, they just kind of light light up because they see the light. And it makes so much sense to them to hear it, to see it, believe it. And the last part of verse 79 says, says, and to guide our feeds, see, after you know the Lord. Did you know that if you would let the Lord guide your steps, did you know it leads to peace and joy and happiness?

In this life, so many people are in such great turmoil and such despair. If they only knew the Lord and loved the Lord and walk with the Lord, You’d be surprised what God can do. And guess what he says in verse 80 now. And the child grew, talking about John DeBantis, whack strong in spirit was in the desert till the day of his showing under Israel. Now this is what John DeBantis was to do. Now take your Bible and look in the gospel of John.

The gospel of John chapter one. Gospel of John in chapter one. He is from verse 6 to verse 15 talking about Christ the light of the world. He is the light of the world. Verse 29 and 30, he is the Lamb of God. Who said so? Well, that John fella. Now, the one that wrote this is not the same John. This is John the Apostle John the Beloved. This is John who lived a long time and wrote also the book of 1st and 2nd, 3rd John in Revelation.

And so that’s a different John. He was a young man that leaned on Christ. This John the Baptist. John the Baptist. See there in verse 5, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. Now the ministry begins. What was the purpose of John’s ministry? Well, it was talking about the Lord. You see, what I’m talking to you about right now, this is really the Christmas story. The Christmas story isn’t just about his birth. The Christmas story is about his death more than his birth.

Believe it or not. 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. Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. 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 toll-free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the radio broadcast link.

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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for a Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the 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. she shall bring forth a son and get this, shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” So right from the very beginning, Joseph was even told what his name would be and the purpose of him being born. So Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, Jehovah, Yasha, he is the one who saves, keeps and protects and defends.

This is why in the Old Testament, God over about 2,000 years gave prophecies, telling in advance what was going to happen. And where was he supposed to be born? In Bethlehem, Ephrata. As it says in the book of Micah chapter 5 and verse 2, about Bethlehem, Ephrata, though there will be little among the thousands of Judea. Yet out of these shall he come forth that is to be ruler in Israel who’s going forth have been from old everlasting. The one that’s going to be born never had to begin and never has an ending.

That’s why John the Baptist said afterward he says, he that comeeth after me was before me. Good stuff. But anyway, look what he says here. And he makes a statement in verse 23, behold, they quote the scriptures that we just read just a moment ago. Behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son. I shall call his name Emmanuel which being interpreted is God with us. But when he says up there behold a virgin shall be with child after she was impregnated by the Holy Spirit she was still a virgin.

A virgin shall be with child. She was a virgin before and she still is. Joseph had never touched her. Here’s a young woman gonna have a young man. And verse 24, then Joseph been raised from sleep dead as the angel of the Lord had been him and took unto him his wife and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son and called his name Jesus. So this is how the story begins. But there’s a little bit more to the story.

Take your Bible, and I turn over there to the book of Luke, to the book of Luke, and chapter 1. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and I want you to look there in verse 26, chapter 1 of Luke and verse 26. Now this was an expected baby. This was a prepared baby. This was a prophesied baby. This was a perfect baby. my parents thought I was the perfect child, not really. Did you know that my dad really wanted to put me in a burlap sack and throw me in a river and drown me?

That is the truth. My mom would just wouldn’t let him. He would have done so. Anyway, as we’ll move in right along. Here in Luke chapter 1, look down in verse 26, and in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee named Nazareth. Now they were from Bethlehem, see, but they came up there to the Nazareth and they lived in Nazareth but they had to go to Bethlehem toward the taxes. But anyway, verse 27, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David because he had to be on the line of David to claim the throne of David.

So after all these years, you know, there’s King David and he had some sons and Nathan and Solomon and the line goes on down and lo and behold, down in the future, you know, a thousand years later, there has to be a man born of the right line and there has to be a woman born of the right line, of the right family. And they had to live in a right place because the son has to be born in a certain city that’s mentioned over 700 years in advance.

Coincidence? Not by the hair of my chin, chin, chin. This is the Word of God and it’s truth. And look what he says here. He makes a statement in verse 28. And the angel came in unto her and said, Hey Ola, thou that are highly favored, the Lord is with thee, blessed are thou among women. I don’t believe she was the blessed above women, but among women. But she was blessed because many of the women wanted to be the one that would bring the Messiah into the world and she has this honor.

And verse 29, and when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and cast in her mind what manner salutation this should be. I mean, when’s the last time you saw an angel? It’s so all it’s my husband. Then he, you married him, then he turned into the little devil, right? We would just let that alone and just stay with this here. Let me let it. So it says here in verse 30, “‘And the angel said unto her, “‘Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God.'”

That means favor to have a child. In verse 31, “‘And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb “‘and bring forth a son, shall call his name Jesus. “‘He shall be great.'” Now look what it says about this child she’s going to have. Now she didn’t make this happen. Joseph didn’t make this happen. But this is what happened. He shall be great, shall be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.

He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom, there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, how shall this be? See, and I know not a man. And the angel answered and said unto her, The holy go shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow them. Therefore also that,” and you ought to underline these two words, holy thing shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she has also conceived a son in her old age. And this is a six month with her. And when they got together and one heard it and the babe leaped in the womb talking about John the baddest before he was born because he they were cousins, Mary and Elizabeth. And so she’d gone to see her and don’t you think those two ladies really had some things to talk about?

I mean one, a miracle because she was a virgin and the other one, she was an old woman. But it doesn’t say she was an old woman. It says that Zachariah was an old man and his wife. This is This is what he said to Yannan. And my wife is well-stricken in years. I’m an old man. Why didn’t he just say, I’m an old man. She’s an old woman. Because even back then they knew psychology a little bit. And knew I better not say it like that.

She’s just stricken in age. But anyway, she says all kind of good stuff found in the Word of God. Take your Bible and just turn over there to another good scripture. Let me just read this down here for you. It says in verse 39, And Mary arose in those days and went into the healed country with hasten to a city of Judah, entered into the house of Zachariah and saluted Elizabeth, came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb.

And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost because she was gonna have a baby too. I mean a miracle of all miracles. I’m gonna preach that sermon a little bit later. Verse 40, and she spoke out with a loud voice and said, blessed are thou among women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Wouldn’t it be great if all women believed that today, the fruit of the womb? And do you believe that it would have been okay for Mary to have an abortion?

No. What about Elizabeth? Should she have had an abortion? No. I don’t believe that that is the wise thing to do. But look what he says here in verse 45, and blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. God is going to perform all that he said he’s going to do. You see he hadn’t told many things and that’s the last part of the chapter here in chapter 2.

And as Zechariah is rehearsing the things about his own son and he’s talking about all the promises that God had made and the covenant that he had made and the Jacob his father and all these things, it just over weapons thing. This is it. It’s happening in their day. And they knew the visitation of the Lord. You know, when the Bible says in Luke chapter 19, when God was going to destroy the nation of Israel, it was because they knew not the day of his visitation.

when God Came to earth. It’s like, you know, a visitor coming to your house, or somebody coming to church. The Lord says in the Old Testament, I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming, here I come. And He told them where He would come, the year He would come, and how He would come, and lo and behold, He shows up. And the Bible says He was in the world and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not.

They didn’t know him. And so because of hardheadedness, people we fused to believe, and yet he gave them all this revelation, the prophecies, and lo and behold, here he is. And they would not believe the truth. So I want you to look there in verse 46. And look what Mary said. Now this is the mom. And Mary says, my soul does magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my what? Now you ought to underline those last two are my savior.

You do not need a savior if you have no sins to be saved from. You don’t need a savior if there’s no hell to be saved from. So the Bible says that Mary said, in so many words indirectly, I am a sinner. I am a sinner. And she also says, I’m going to a place I need to be saved from. Means that Mary could go to hell. It means that when she understood, she says, this is my Savior. The woman is going to have a child that’s going to save her.

Why? Because This was the be the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. What an awesome story. You know, a man couldn’t make up a story like this. And then how do you tell the next guy 200 years later to add a little bit more to it? And then how do you tell the next guy down the road add a little bit more information so that after a couple thousand years, somebody is born that fulfills all those things to the T and does it miss a lick.

Can it just happen? Is it just a coincidence? They were just lucky guesses, or could itStage be possible that there really is a God in heaven that knows what’s going to take place before it ever happens? Because see, if you can believe this story, you can believe anything. I don’t have a trouble even with the book of Genesis because it says in the very first verse, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And because I believe in God, I can believe that God can create the heavens and the earth.

I don’t need any proof. I don’t need any facts. Because inwardly I know the world is here and I didn’t do it. And neither did you. And I don’t believe that something can come from nothing. When’s the last time you ever seen something created by nothing? And yet the world is here. So how did it happen? I believe the Bible. And that is my foundation to bone everything else that comes from it. But look what he says here. In verse 48, for he hath regarded and you ought to underline these two little words, low estate.

You see, Joseph and Mary, they weren’t rich folks living high on the hog. They were not somebody that was, you know, like today, maybe run around with all these things all over them. And like the pope does today, no. Jesus Christ was born in a stable or in a little cave a manger with the animals. Mary wasn’t rich. They couldn’t even afford to stay in an end. If they did have it, they couldn’t pay the price or they said there was no room in the Lumia.

And whenever Jesus was to be circumcised, it says they offered two small pigeons. That’s the sacrifice for the circumcision of poor folks. The rich folks would offer a bull or you know on up catam. But look what he says. In verse 49, for he that is mighty have done me great things and holy is his name. And this is how she began to understand some of the things. Did you know that Mary did not understand everything was going on?

Because it says that she would She died in verse 56 and Mary abode with her about three months in return to her own house, but it says that she had some things that she would try to ponder these things in her heart because she did not fully get all of the things that was going on. And the Lord tells us in chapter 2, not chapter 2, look in verse 1. Down through here is a brief little story of more background, but just give what it says here.

In verse 1, and it came to pass in those days that there went out of decree from Caesar Augusta that all the world should be taxed. And this taxon was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria, and all went to be taxed everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth unto Judea and unto the city of David, David, which is called Bethlehem. Now Bethlehem is a place called the House of Bread.

This is where he was going to be born. This is the prophecy that’s written over in the book of Micah in chapter 5 verse 2. But it says here, they went there because they had to pay taxes. So then God used government decrees and all of us this goes on to accomplish his will. And it amazing. And yet how did she get there? Well, she just jumped on the train and they, you know, or maybe she took a plane, you’re talking about almost 100 mile trip.

I mean, it’s a long way. And so they had to come all the way down there. And so she’s pregnant, probably riding on a donkey all that way. And how would you feel when all this is going on if this was happening to you in your life? It seemed like this happens wrong and that happens wrong. Now we’ve got to go do this. We’ve got to do that. And don’t we complain a lot? Just read about the first family here.

I mean, this is the ideal family, two godly individuals that love the Lord, want no problems and look what’s happening there. Like you think about talking about being shook up. Oh, it was all shook up. Anyway, the child was to be born in verse six. And so it was that after they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. She brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swelling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the end.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. At low the angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were so afraid. The angel said unto them, fear not, for behold I bring you good titans of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior, not a trailblazer, Not a Daniel Boomer or a Davy Crockett, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

It shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the Baberact and Swatling clothes, land in a manger. Suddenly there was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward Ben. And it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them in the heaven. The shepherd said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing, which has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known to us.

And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the say, and which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But look at verse 19, but Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told unto them.

What a wonderful, wonderful story. And the Bible tells us that in all of these things, God even told Mary some other things. In spite of all the other things that were happening in their life, there was an old man that wanted to see the salvation of God. He wanted to see the Redeemer before he died. And so he patiently waited, but he believed that it was near. And when he saw the child, the Bible says, this is the one.

Now I can rest in peace. And it’s a wonderful thing. Look what he says here in verse 30 of chapter 2, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people. See, this was all prepared in advance. This is not accidents happening. God can use the wickedness, the deceitfulness, the evilness of man to accomplish his purpose. God can use evil governments to accomplish his purpose. God knows what he’s doing. And then he says in verse 32, this child, this child, I’ll just mention in the book of Isaiah, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.

So you got the Gentiles and Israel told about this child. Before he was even born. And yet when they saw this child, they knew because the prophecy is written in advance and it was to fulfill the promise that God had made. See, God made a promise to Abraham. Saying, and they shall all families of the earth be blessed. And as it says in the book of Galatians in chapter 3 and verse 8, and the scripture for seeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, priests before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thee, Tommy Christ, shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

through faith, preached before the gospel under Abraham saying, in thee, Tommy Christ, shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So, justification of the heathen, God made a promise that everyone would be justified by faith and faith alone because of the payment this child will become. We talk about will you accept the payment Christ made for you. Jesus was the payment. Jesus coming back from the dead. That is the proof of payment. He is our living receipt and he is alive forever more.

He’ll never come again, never make another payment. But when he came the first time, he lived a sinless, a perfect life and was able to voluntarily choose to die for the sins of the whole world. And all He wants us to do is to believe He did it for us. How simple can you get? Aren’t you glad it’s not hard and complicated? You don’t have to join the church to go to heaven. You don’t have to give any money to go to heaven.

You don’t have to change your life to go to heaven. All you have to do is believe that that one that was born of a virgin died and paid for all of my sins and was buried and came back again from the dead and I believe that he did it for me. And God says, when you believe it, you have eternal life. But as he talks here, Simeon, I want you to notice something that he says. He says in verse 30, Joseph and his mother marvel at those things which were spoken of him.

Simeon blessed them and said unto Mary, his mother, behold this child, this child is set for the fall and the rise and again of many in Israel. People are going to accept Him or reject Him. And people are going to believe Him or not believe Him. And in makes a statement also there in verse 35, Yay, a sword shall even pierce through thy soul also. How do you think Mary felt on the day when she saw her son pierced with a spear in the side?

And this is still Mom. Oh, that’s her son, but she’s still mom. And to watch what happens to her son and knowing he had done nothing wrong. Even if he’s to be the payment for the sins of the world, you know, there’s a bond between a mom and the son. And notice what he says here, Yay, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. Did you know that when you listen and you hear about what Jesus Christ did on the cross for the sins of the world, do you realize how just the teaching of this causes a man to search his own soul?

And that’s why a person comes to the conclusion, you know, I need, I need Jesus Christ. I need to believe on him that he died and paid for my sins. It causes a person to have that discernment through the gospel that I have sinned against God and I’m condemned. I’m not perfect. I’m not righteous. I’m not good enough to go to heaven. I need a Savior and Christ is the only Savior. And when we trust Him as our Savior, He gives us as a free gift ever lasting life.

But God used this woman to bring this child into the world and in the name verse 40, I want to close with this verse. And the child grew and wacked strong in spirit, feel with wisdom and in the grace of God was upon him. And this is a, a wonderful story that also goes down to verse 52 and we’ll cover that at a different time. Alrighty, that’s enough of the story of Mary. Anyway, look up here. This hand represents you and me.

The wallet represents sin. while we all have sin on us. God loves us, but He hates our sin. For us to pay for the sin is eternal separation from God. And since we’ve all sinned, we’re all condensed. We’re all in the same boat. Nobody’s any better than anybody else. To go to heaven, you have to be perfect. As righteous as God. But nobody’s perfect. Nobody’s righteous. Because of sin, we can’t get in. So how am I going to get there?

A body has not prepared me. Jesus Christ came into the world with born of a woman. As the Bible says in due time… Christ was born right on schedule and he lived for 33 and a half years without sin. And he chose to die for our sin because he loved us. Pated on the cross came back from the dead. One payment forever. Never have to be done again. And he did it 2,000 years ago. When he was on the cross, you were on his mind and he paid for your sins.

Now he says, will you believe he did it for you? If you believe he did it for you, he would give you as a freak gift everlasting like you get to go to heaven Oh what he did if you have never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior if you never believed it that he did it for you You’re not saved You’re not a Christian. You will not go to heaven. It’s that simple That’s why it’s so important for you Will you trust Jesus Christ in him alone as your only hope of one to heaven and once you trust him you are saved and you never have to do it again.

If you trusted Christ, you’re Savior six months ago, you don’t have to do it again. If you trusted Him 20 years ago, you never have to do it again. If you trusted Him as your Savior last week, you don’t have to do it again. You can only get saved one time. He can only give you turn like once. He can only save you from hell once because He paid for all of your sins when he came the first time.

Let’s pray, shall we? If you’re here this morning, and perhaps you never trust the Lord, why not just talk to the Lord and say something simple like this? For I know I’m a sinner and I realize I cannot save myself. I want to go to heaven, and I believe you died on that cross and pay for my sins. And this morning, right now, I believe you did it for me and I’m trusting you as my Savior. And friend, God said, if you would believe just that much, He would give you as a free gift everlasting life and you get to go to heaven on what Christ did for you.

I’m going to ask in just a moment to raise your hand, raise your hand as not Savior. It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you. And you say, I’m preaching that made sense to me and I will trust Christ right now and I’d like you to pray for me. We’ll just live in it very quickly and put our right back down. Let’s go, bless you, man. Don’t you trust Christ as Savior? It’s eternal life and He’ll never cast you out.

Anyone else before we close? Our Father, we do thank You so much for all You’ve done for us. We’re thankful for this time of year when people’s hearts and their minds are toward perhaps more spiritual things, hopefully, because of Christ. Though they celebrate His birth, we pray that they’ll understand why He came. realize the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. And so we thank you so much for all you’ve done for us, for the one that indicated that they would trust to Savior this morning.

And followed by doing so, you’d guarantee eternal life that you’ll never cast them out and have a bosom. Bless each one here. In Christ name we pray, Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 toll-free 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the radio broadcast link. 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friends, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

We’re going to talk about something that all of you know about a little bit anyway, and that is the story of Christmas. But a little bit different perhaps, because everybody wants to know, well, what is truth? What is truth? What does Christmas mean to you? Well, I want you to go ahead and take your Bible and turn to the book of Isaiah chapter seven and verse 14. And while you’re doing that, I want to share with you a little bit about in very short period of time.

I did not have any clue what Christmas was about except Santa Claus. I’ll have to be honest with you. My mother and dad, I never saw them in a church. I never saw them read a Bible. And I never heard them have prayer in our home. So I I wasn’t raised in a Christian environment. And so I didn’t know anything about Jesus Christ. I’d heard the words, but it was always when my dad was drunk and he would swear and think like that.

And that’s the truth. Cause I didn’t go to church, I didn’t hear stuff about the Bible. But I did hear about Santa Claus. Isn’t that amazing? Every little boy and girl all I hear about Santa Claus. And I hope I’m not gonna ruin anybody’s Christmas here this morning. I hope not. Anyway, we used to take and go out into the field and we would chop down a little old pine tree and me and my sister, we weren’t that old.

So we just did the best we could and took two boards and put a nail through the bottom of it and stood up in the corner. But we always wonder how come some of the rich folks, and we didn’t live around rich folks, we lived around poor folks. But you’d go to school and you’d always hear about what other kids had gotten, and we didn’t get much of anything. And so we wanted us a good Christmas. So we had a meeting with my dad and told him that what we wanted.

And we laid it all out. We didn’t want a lot just to know something. Anyway, my dad guaranteed us that this Christmas was going to be different. We were going to have the most of any kid in the whole world. He said he was just going to wait until Santa Claus came up. He’s going to shoot Santa Claus. Gonna kill him and get all of the presents and bring them home. And we was going to have the best Christmas anybody has ever had.

Now we didn’t care about the next year and Santa Claus being dead and things like that. We didn’t care. I want to know this Christmas I’m going to get something. And so we got some of my dad’s old Prince Albert tobacco cans that he had laying all over the yard. You know when we cut up the little linings out of them and got you made some silver strips and put them on there. And they got some popcorn and run it through the popcorn and put it on the tree.

And they got some pine cones. See, back in those days, you had to do all of this on yourself. You know, you didn’t go out and store and buy these things. You just did it. But anyway, Christmas morning, we could wait. We ran in there and there wasn’t nothing under the tree. But nothing. Zero. And you’re talking about three heartbroken kids. We were. And we cried, oh we cried. And I was only 15, maybe I was 16.

All right, I was only maybe five or six. I mean, if the truth be told. Anyway, we finally got my dad, you know, because he finally come back home, he was drunk. Oh, he was drunk. And he was staggering all over the place. He went out in the front yards and he was sitting beside this tree. And he still had a drink. He was just drinking. So we went out there to him and we were still crying. We were very upset.

And my dad, he promised us, he swore. He says, kids, I’m telling you, I’m telling you the truth. I saw him coming over and I shot at him, but I missed him. And there were three little dumb kids. We bought that. It wasn’t my dad’s fault. He couldn’t help. He couldn’t, you know, Santa could have been way up to high in the sky. But I never did really have a good feeling about, you know, Christmas. And lo and behold, one day I finally found out the truth.

One that somebody wasn’t real and I never heard about Jesus until I got a little bit up in age and I began to understand a little bit more. Started coming to me slowly. But I had so many questions and I had doubts and I want to know if there is a true and living God why don’t he reveal himself? You know why don’t he show himself? Say hey there’s God. little that I know, he did. He had already done it 2,000 years ago.

You see, Jesus Christ coming into the world is God’s way of revealing Himself. Jesus was not the normal man. Jesus had a miraculous birth. And so as you go through and you read and you study and you find out like in Isaiah 7, in looking verse 14. Look what he says there in verse 14. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Be holy virgin shall conceive and bury son shall call his name Immanuel. Now Immanuel is an untranslated Hebrew word which means God with us.

God that made the heavens and the earth is going to do something like what? into the world and take upon a flesh body like ours. You see, the thing that was going to make him so different from everybody else is that he would live a perfect life. He would have no sinful nature. He wouldn’t do anything wrong. One thing you can say about all the people born into the world, we have all sinned. We all are in the same boat.

And we all think wrong, say wrong, do wrong, we make mistakes, we have faults and flaws, we worry, we fret, we’re in despair, and that’s because we’re human. And lo and behold, a child was going to be born. But what I want you to do is I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Matthew, in the book of Matthew. Now in this Christmas story, I want to talk to you about several things. One in Sunday school we will talk about Mary, her part in the Christmas story.

And during the church service this morning I’m going to talk about the Christmas story but it’ll be about John and his part in the Christmas story. And tonight I’m going to talk about Joseph and his part in the Christmas story. So in the book of Matthew and chapter Matthew chapter one. And notice in chapter one, you will see something a little bit different in the book of Luke. But chapter one says, and so and so, see that in chapter one?

Look in verse two. Abraham begat Isaac. Isaac begat Jacob. And Jacob begat and begat begat and forgot. All the way through these, it’s always they begat begat begat. But whenever you read over there in the book of Luke, when it talks about another genealogy, it says the son of the son of the son of. Here they are born because the Father, Father doesn’t. But over in the other one, it’s used a different phrase. It uses the son of the son of.

And because there’s a line over there that’s a little bit different, but if we have time, we’ll take a look at it. But right now, I want you to look there in Matthew chapter 1 verse 18. And verse 18, it says, if there is any truth in the Bible, if it is the Word of God, if you read it and you can kind of get a grasp of it, it lets you know the truth. In verse 18, now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise.

when as his mother Mary was a spouse to Joseph. Now, you’ll notice, says his mother, but it doesn’t say his father. Doesn’t say he, his father was Joseph. And that’s very important because Jesus did not have an earthly father that fathered him. Now, that’s why when it comes down through here and it says his mother Mary, but then say, but he didn’t think about his father. She was engaged to be married to Joseph, this young woman, and the Bible said 700 years in advance that a virgin was going to have a child.

Now it’s worded in the book of Jeremiah chapter 31 that who had seen such a strange thing as this that a woman shall encompass a man. But what’s neat is is without having a man, father the child. So it says here, she was going to have a child and she was already engaged. Now, generally when they were, they committed themselves to an engagement period, it could last a year. And he was supposed to get everything ready and prepared and so forth.

But they were looked upon as a husband and a wife, though they haven’t come together. They had not touched each other. And so he says here, Mary was espoused Joseph before, yet at before they came together. She was found with child of the Holy Ghost. In other words, the child that was in her was not because of a human man, it was because of the Holy Spirit. And that is explained a lot clearly in the book of Luke where the Holy Spirit shall overshadow thee.

And so the Holy Spirit placed the seed within the woman and Jesus Christ was to be born. So anyway, look at this in verse 19. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. Now let’s just suppose for a moment. Have you ever considered all the problems that God causes?

And here you are, a sweet little say, 17 year old little Jewish girl. You know the Lord, you love the Lord, and you just want to serve the Lord and be whatever God wants you to be. Isn’t that wonderful? And now the Holy Spirit comes and lo and behold, hey, I got some news for you. You’re going to have a baby. And she said, how can I have a baby saying, I know not a man. I mean, she understood that, hey, takes two to tango.

Something’s wrong with this picture. And lo and behold, she’s now going to have a child. How would you, and just picture for a moment, and for you men, it’ll be a little bit more difficult. Pretend that you’re pregnant. You’re going to have a baby. And you’re in love with this man, and you’re going to get married to this man. And lo and behold, he finds out, hey, I didn’t do that. Who did this? Do you realize the shame, the disgust, the fear, all these things that goes into the mind of an individual?

And how would you like to explain it to your mom and dad? A mom, I got a problem. I need to talk to you about. Sooner or later, somewhere along the line, there’s explanations that you have to be given because it’s not normal for a woman to have a child unless she’s married to a man or somebody taking advantage of her. So, how would you like to be in this? Now who created this problem? Who created the problem? God, God created this problem.

And look what she had to go through and live with, And here’s Joseph, the man she’s married to were going to be married and they were under their engagement, his fossil period. And he’s willing to put her aside, not to make her a public example. I guess because he really loved her. So evidently he did not know and understand how this could be. So what happens, and verse 20, But what he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared into him in a dream.

Saint Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take into thee, Mary, thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. Now he has to believe this story, this dream. He’s got to believe this. Would you have believed it? Do you think for a moment that people back in these days weren’t skeptical about what was said and done? I mean, how would you like to be Mary? And look what the Lord said. But there’s a difference between Mary and John the Baptist and his folks.

I’ll show you that in a little bit. Yeah, we have time. But it says that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. It’s of God. God did this. And now here’s a woman that’s pregnant. And the man, how would you like to be Joseph at this time? I mean, you would, how much would it take for you to really believe her story? And he said, God had to intervene because the normal thing is to question and to doubt.

Because you see, what just happened to her doesn’t happen to everybody. This has never happened before. This will never happen again. This is only one time in the world. This will ever happen. And it happened to them. And so he says in verse 21, And she shall brainforth a little girl. No, she shall brainforth a son, and get this, shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. So right from the very beginning, Joseph was even told what his name would be and the purpose of him being born.

So Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, Jehovah, Yasha, he is the one who saves, he keeps, and protects, and defends. This is why in the Old Testament, God over about 2,000 years gave prophecies, telling in advance what was going to happen and where was he supposed to be born in Bethlehem, Afrata. As it says in the book of Micah chapter 5 and verse 2, about Bethlehem, Afrata, though, though, there’ll be little among the thousands of Judea. Yet out of these shall he come forth, that is to be ruler in Israel, who’s going forth of been from old to everlasting.

The one that’s going to be born never had a beginning, never has an ending. That’s why John the Baptist said afterward, he says, He that cometh after me was before me. Good stuff. But anyway, look what he says here. And he makes a statement in verse 23, Behold, they quote the scriptures that we just read just a moment ago, Behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, thou shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us.

But when it says up there, Behold, a virgin shall be with child. After she was impregnated by the Holy Spirit, she was still a virgin. A virgin shall be with child. She was a virgin before and she still is. Joseph had never touched her. Here’s a young woman gonna have a young man. And verse 24, then Joseph been raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had been him and took unto him his wife and knew her not, till she had brought forth her firstborn son and called his name Jesus.

So this is how the story begins. But there’s a little bit more to the story. Take your Bible and I’ll turn over there to the book of Luke, to the book of Luke, and chapter one, Matthew, Mark, Luke. And I want you to look there in verse 26, Chapter one of Luke and verse 26. Now this was an expected baby. This was a prepared baby. This was a prophesied baby. This was a perfect baby. My parents thought I was the perfect child.

Not really. Did you know that my dad really wanted to put me in a burlap sack and throw me in a river and drown me? That is the truth. My mom would just wouldn’t let him. He would have done so. Anyway, as we’ll move in right along. Here in Luke chapter 1, look down in verse 26. And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee named Nazareth. Now, they were from Bethlehem, see, but they came up there to the Nazareth and they lived in Nazareth, but they had to go to Bethlehem toward the taxes.

But anyway, verse 27, to a virgin espouse to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. Because you see he had to be on the line of David to claim the throne of David. So after all these years, you know, there’s King David and he had some sons and Nathan and Solomon and the line goes on down and lo and behold, a down in the future, you know, a thousand years later. There has to be a man born of the right line, and there has to be a woman born of the right line of the right family.

And they had to live in a right place because the sun has to be born in a certain city that’s mentioned over 700 years in advance. Coincidence? Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin. This is the word of God. And it’s truth. And look what he says here. It makes the statement in verse 28. And the angel came in unto her and said, Hey Ola, thou that are highly favored. The Lord is with thee, blessed are thou among women.

I don’t believe she was the blessed above women, but among women, but she was blessed because many of the women wanted to be the one that would bring the Messiah into the world. And she has this honor. And verse 29, and when she saw him, she was troubled at his sayin’ and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. I mean, when’s the last time you saw an angel? It’s so all it’s my husband. Then you married and then he turned into the little devil, right?

We would just let that alone and just stay with this here. Let me look at that. So it says here in verse 30, And the angel said unto her, fear not merry, for thou has found favor with God. favor with God. That means favor to have a child. In verse 31, and behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great. Now look what it says about this child she’s going to have.

Now she didn’t make this happen. Joseph didn’t make this happen. But this is what happened. He shall be great, shall be called the Son of the highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his Father David. He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be? See, I know not a man. And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that,” And you ought to underline these two words, holy thing shall be born of thee shall be called the son of God.

And behold, by cousin Elizabeth she has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is a six month with her, and when they got together and they one heard it and the The babe leaped in the womb talking about John the baddest before he was born because he, they were cousins, Mary and Elizabeth. And so she had gone to see her. And don’t you think those two ladies really had some things to talk about? I mean, one, a miracle because she was a virgin and the other one, she was an old woman.

But it doesn’t say she was an old woman. It says that Zachariah was an old man and his wife. what he said to Yana. And my wife is well stricken in years. I’m an old man. Why didn’t he just say, I’m an old man. She’s an old woman. Because even back then they knew psychology a little bit. And knew I better not say it like that. She’s just stricken in age. But anyway, she’s all kind of good stuff found in the Word of God.

Take your Bible and just turn over there to another good scripture. Let me just read this down here for you. It says in verse 39, and Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with hasten to a city of Judah, entered into the house of Zachariah and saluted Elizabeth, came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost because she was going to have a baby too.

I mean a miracle of all miracles. I’m going to preach that sermon a little bit later. Verse 40, and she spoke out with a loud voice and said, blessed are thou among women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Wouldn’t it be great if all women believed that today? The fruit of the womb. And do you believe that it would have been okay for Mary to have an abortion? No. What about Elizabeth? Should she have had an abortion? No.

I don’t believe that that is a wise thing to do. But look what he says here in verse 45. And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. God is going to perform all that he said he’s going to do. You see, He hadn’t told many things in that, then last part of the chapter here in chapter 2. And as Zechariah is rehearsing the things about his own son, and he’s talking about all the promises that God had made and the covenant that he had made and the, the Jacob, his father and all these things, it just overwhelms things.

BIST! Is it? It’s happening in their day. And they knew the visitation of the Lord. You know when the Bible says in Luke chapter 19, when God was going to destroy the nation of Israel, it was because they knew not the day of his visitation. When God came to earth. It’s like, you know, a visitor coming to your house or somebody coming to church. The Lord says in the Old Testament, I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming, here I come.

And He told them where He would come, the year He would come and how He would come. And lo and behold, He shows up and the Bible says He was in the world and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not. They didn’t know Him. And so because of hardheadedness, people we fused to believe. And yet he gave them all this revelation, the prophecies, and lo and behold, here he is. And they would not believe the truth.

So I want you to look there in verse 46. And look what Mary said. Now this is the mom. Mary says, my soul does magnify the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my what? Now you ought to underline those last two are my Savior. You do not need a Savior if you have no sins to be saved from. You don’t need a Savior if there’s no hell to be saved from. So the Bible says that Mary said, in so many words, indirectly, I am a sinner.

And she also says, I’m going to a place I need to be saved from. It means that Mary could go to hell. It means that when she understood, she says, this is my Savior. The woman is going to have a child that’s going to save her. Why? Because this was the be the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

What an awesome story. You know, a man couldn’t make up a story like this. And then how do you tell the next guy 200 years later to add a little bit more to it? And then how do you tell the next guy down the road, add a little bit more information so that after a couple thousand years somebody is born that fulfills all those things to the T and does Does it miss a lick? Can it just happen? Is it just a coincidence?

They were just lucky guesses? Or could it be possible that there really is a God in heaven that knows what’s going to take place before it ever happens? 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. Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. 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 toll-free 1-800-576-3771 That’s 1-800-576-3771 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 are 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 10-30 and at six o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleline Ministries dot O-R-G homepage.

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. In the book of John chapter 3, Jesus Christ is speaking. He says some things that are very, very potent. If you want to know if there is a division among people, you can see it very clearly here. As some people call it, there’s the saints and the aunts. There’s the believers and the unbelievers, the saved, the lost.

those that are going to heaven and those that are not going to heaven. The God that made the heavens and the year speaks of his great wonderful love that he has for the human race. When he says in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. The whosoever believe it in him should not perish but have everlasting life. You can’t get a greater love than that. And at the same time that you have him speaking about is great love that he has for people.

Why does he have to talk about his wrath? Why is he going to talk about his hatred of sin? Well, because see, that’s how God showed how much he loved by letting you know his thoughts on sin, which you and I have committed, and his hatred toward the sin but is love toward us and yet to provide a payment for the sin and then only to have people rebel or reject Him and not accept Him. See to reject Christ is to reject the love of God.

So if you reject Christ you are rejecting a payment for your sins and if you don’t have this payment and accept this payment for your sins, then you will have the wrath of Almighty God upon you.” Look there in verse 36. In verse 36, he that believeth on the son hath everlasting life. He that believeth. He anybody. Believeth the only thing that’s required. Nothing else required, but believe. Means you must believe that when Christ died and He paid for your sins that you trust Him to take you to heaven when you die.

If you believe that, God said that He gives you as a free gift everlasting life and you can claim it now and you can say I have everlasting life because He says He that believe it hath everlasting life. Now the other side of the coin, the other side, what about What the person who doesn’t believe it is God going to give them a second chance after death? No, there’s no second chances. Well, didn’t God love them? Yes, God loved them.

But God is a just God. And he says they’re in the last part of verse 36. And he that believe it, not the Son. That means you do not trust him. Shall not see life. That’s eternal life. You will not see eternal life. It doesn’t mean you won’t exist forever because you will exist forever, but you won’t have eternal life. It means you don’t have the eternal life, the quality of life, God’s life living within you in the place where God dwells in a place of paradise for all eternity.

But you will always exist, but it’s forever dying and never dying. We will be forever living eternal. And he makes the last statement here in the last part of the verse, but the wrath of God abided upon him. You cannot deny if you believe John 3 16 for God so loved the world, then you also must believe that there is the wrath of God upon every unbeliever. Every unbeliever, God’s wrath, is kind of like this. If this is you and me and we have sin on us, you and I committed the sin and we live under the wrath of God.

And one day when we die, God’s wrath is going to fall upon us. Now, the only way you can eliminate the wrath of God upon you as an individual is to believe that when Christ came, this hand-ripping in Christ, He took your sins. When Christ took the sins of the world, God let His wrath fall upon His Son, and His Son took the wrath of God for my sins and for your sins. But if you reject the payment that he made, then God’s wrath is upon you.

Look there in verse 18 of the same chapter, but verse 18, very important. He that believeth on him is not condemned. That means if you believe it, you trust Christ as your Savior, you are not condemned. God’s wrath does not come upon you, you’re not condemned because he was condemned in your place. but not get the last part of verse 18. But he that believeth not is condemned when. Already, see, you’re not waiting until someday in the future to be condemned.

You are already condemned. You are now condemned. And that’s why you need a savior now. If you do not accept his salvation before you die, there is no more opportunities. You are then under the wrath of God for all eternity. That’s awesome when you think about that. And I know that there’s many people that do not even believe that there is a God. But that doesn’t do away with the fact that God still exists, His Word is still true.

If somebody can disprove it to me, I wish they would try. I’d love to see some of these mistakes and contradictions and all that stuff in the Bible. I’ve been studying it for almost 40 years and I haven’t found any of them that everybody tells me about. I found the Bible to be a trustworthy book, very reliable. If it speaks on science, it’s true. Speaks on history, it’s true. Whatever it speaks on, it’s true. And I have tried the principles that are laid down in the book.

I found out they are true too. When the Bible says in the book of Genesis in chapter 1, where it says, in the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters because the earth was without form and it was void. And he says he moved over the darkness and God created light. I believe that. I believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I don’t believe that it was evolved and that God created by the process of evolution.

See if you believe that means you don’t understand either one. The Bible does not teach on evolution. God condemns anyone or anything that takes away from the truth of His Word and those who trust in rocks or stalks or anything by which they think they came from that. God says that’s false. God’s Word says evolution is not true. God’s Word says that. And I believe the Bible. The wrath of God that is upon every individual has also been seen upon the nations of the world.

Every great kingdom that has come upon the scene and passed off the scene is only a remembrance of the wrath of God upon their wickedness. America is under, I believe, the wrath of God, and it’s going to fall, the wrath of God on America will fall. You say, how do you know that? Because the Bible teaches that. The Bible says that all nations in the end time will gather themselves against a little nation of Israel, and all nations will gather themselves unto the Valley of Jehoshaphat and the plains of Jezreel at the place called McGetto.

And the Bible says that God is going to come down after He pulls all these nations into this great big valley. And he’s going to look at these people as though they were grapes and the Bible says he’s going to take his feet and stomp the grapes until the blood runs to the height of the horses bridle for 200 miles. That’s what God says he’s going to do to all the nations that fought against Israel. And then the Bible says that Israel will become the greatest nation in the world.

And all nations will know that there only one true and living God, and they will come to Jerusalem to not only worship God in Jerusalem, but to see God in Jerusalem. He’s coming. That day is ahead of us. You see, I don’t have to see all of this with my naked eye. I can see it with my eye of faith because I believe the Bible. If anybody can believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, you can believe that this book is true.

And you’ll see things other people can do. don’t see, but they’ll be truth. You see, this is where the real world is. I’ve had people tell me one time, says, Yankie, what are you going to do when you get out in that real world out there? It isn’t real out there. It’s real where I am and what I believe and what I see and what I understand, that’s real and that’s truth. And I’ll stand there and I’ll die there and it’s been good enough for me for almost 58 years.

I think the Lord’s been pretty good to me and I’m thankful for that. But I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Romans in chapter 5. Romans and chapter 5. The Bible says that every individual is an enemy of God. You may not know that. You may not have thought you were. But if you have not accepted Christ as your Savior, you are His enemy. You’re against Him. He’s against you. But He loves you.

He wants to make peace between you and Him. But you didn’t have what it took to make peace. You said, what did it take? Perfection. You didn’t qualify. So God is against your sin, even though you try to hide it or deny it or run from it. God sees sin. And the Bible says, God despises and hate sin because God is a righteous and a holy God. And God says that you are His enemy, and He has wrath towards you.

And if you do not accept the peace offering that He made towards you, then you are going to get His wrath. And every person that is permitted to live every day has an opportunity to accept this peace offering. That peace offering was his son. His son was offered to make peace between God and man. The man Christ Jesus, the mediator. There is no other. So he says here in verse 9 of chapter 5 of Romans, much more than being now justified by his blood.

We shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were sinners before you did that, you were his enemy. We were enemies against God and God has wrath toward us. But when you accepted that peace offering that he put towards you and And you accepted it, then the Bible says we have peace with God. Look in verse one of chapter five. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God. I’m not God’s enemy. I’ve made peace with God.

Have you ever heard about people before they die? Look, have you made peace with God? That is so important because you’re going to die. The Bible says after this, the judgment. this a judgment. But have you made peace with God all of life, whether you lived twenty years, thirty years, fifty years, a hundred years, all of life is preparation for you to meet God. Think about it. All you’re doing and every decision you make, whatever you’re doing and wherever you’re going through, it’s preparation for you to meet God.

Because God is going to hold you accountable for every thought, word, and deed. You’re going to face Him. The Bible says in the Old Testament, prepare to meet thy God. Prepare to meet thy God. We have people today that deny that there is a God. They don’t believe in a God. But that’s all right. God still exists and they’re still going to meet Him. And God says, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father.

In other words, it means that there is a day coming which every person who has ever lived will confess that Jesus Christ, he was God. And God the Father will see the glory because the people will finally have to admit it. But with many people, it’ll be too late. Forever, too late. Jesus Christ is God and we were enemies. And you’re his enemy until you trust Christ as your Savior. But if you do not trust the Lord, the wrath of God still abides upon you.

And you never know when the wrath of God will fall. Take your Bible, look there in Romans in chapter two. You’ll notice there in verse two of chapter two, but we are sure that the judgment of God, and you’re on the line this phrase, according to truth. It’s according to truth. against them which commit such things. So there is a God who is going to judge people who commit certain acts of wickedness. They’re mentioned there in Romans chapter 1.

People don’t have to believe there’s a God. That doesn’t do away with God. This one atheist was talking to a little girl. Says, do you believe the Bible? She said, yes sir, I believe the Bible. Bible. He said, you believe in the story of John and the whale? Yes, yes I do. And when I get to heaven, I’m going to talk to him about it. He said, well what if he’s not there when you get there? Well then you ask him.

Yes, I believe that there is a God. And just because somebody else doesn’t believe it doesn’t shake my faith. It doesn’t make me weak doesn’t make me question, doesn’t make me doubt. I just wonder why they’re so stupid. So naive to think that everything created itself by the process of evolution, which there is no evidence, no truth of. You came from a one-celled amoeba? Oh come on. We still got one-celled amoebas? We got anything coming from them? No. We came from some common ancestor down the road.

We got him you around? No. Well we came from half monkeys and half people. Well, where is this one? There’s no intermediates, there’s no links, how blind. Where’s all these half people and half apes running around? There isn’t anything like that. Everything reproduces after its own kinds, just like it says in a book of Genesis. Thank you. Now here in Romans, he says here in verse 3, and think is dalvis, Oh man, that judges them which do such things and do it the same that thou shall escape the judgment of God.

In other words, there are people who believe they will escape the judgment of God. And they’re not going to because God is just. He said every man shall receive according to his own works. God. He says in verse 4, or despises thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth into repentance, but after by hardness and impenitent heart, it means you don’t believe. Your heart had its death next. He says not knowing that the goodness of God lead through to repentance, but after the hardness and impenitent heart treasures up unto myself and you are to line this word wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to every man according to his deeds.

Now that’s what the Bible says. And I believe the Bible. I don’t believe there’s one man living in the world that’s going to get away. Either you accept the payment Christ made for you and you make peace with God before you die or God’s judgment, God’s wrath is upon that individual for all eternity. You say, well, they get away, but so much they won’t get away with anything. Nobody does. I, as a Christian, if I decide, well, I can live like I please.

I can try, but I cannot get away with it. My heavenly Father will chase in me, take me home before my time, or put me while I’m here, and I don’t know what it would be, but I don’t care to find out. If somebody else decides to serve the Lord, God will bless them. See, everybody gets exactly what they deserve. You’re going to get exactly what you deserve. Just don’t try to judge too soon. It’s not over. God hasn’t judged you yet.

He hasn’t either fully blessed you yet or rewarded you yet. See, when you get to heaven, you’re going to heaven was not because of what you did, because Christ made peace with you. He was the peace offering. He took your wrath. So you don’t have to answer for all those sins that would condemn your soul to hell. That penalty has been paid for. Now the Bible says as far as you, you can have his blessings and his rewards, but it’ll be according to whatever you did.

Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. So you’ll get what you deserve. It doesn’t matter whether people do or don’t appreciate you, don’t appreciate you, reward or juke behind you for you against you. That has nothing to do with anything. There is a righteous judge, God, who is going to take care of you. If you do what God says to do, God is going to bless you. You’re supposed to believe that. And God will honor you.

Look there in Romans chapter 1 and verse 18. You can’t deny that it’s in the Bible. There is a dark side of all of this stuff. Oh yes, there’s a bright side, a one long eternal day, no night there. Bible says the wrath of God, that period of time that comes upon the face of the year, is a time of darkness and no light. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness or resist the truth in unrighteousness or if you tied in to verse 25 who changed the truth of God into a lie.

that what God said isn’t true. Say it’s a lie. Say it’s a Bible is a lie. See, whenever you teach evolution, what you’re saying is that there is no God. When you teach evolution, what you’re saying is the Bible is a lie. That’s what they’re teaching when they teach evolution. So you teach the kids that they’re animals. After a while, why be upset if they act like it? Evolution is a religion. And the Supreme Court of the United States has declared the teaching of humanism, which is evolutionary teaching a religion.

It’s not even supposed to be inortiums. But we allow them to take over. So they are intelligent and they’re smart and they’re brilliant. The Bible says it this way. In verse 21, because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful and became vain in their imagination. And their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise, they became what? That’s what they are. Any person who believes in evolution, I don’t care what university, what college, where they teach how many degrees after their name, their fools, and anybody that believes them are fools.

I want you to know that you can’t be on both sides, you can’t play the middle, you think I’ll be one or the other, you can’t be both. So a good God create by the process of evolution. No, like some people think that I’ve never heard that argument. No, the Bible says how it is. The Bible is true. There is a judgment day coming, the Bible says, in which God is going to judge the nations. Take your Bible and turn there to the book of Revelation, chapter 19.

Very quickly, Revelation and chapter 19. The Lord says, He’s coming back. One day, just think about it. The sky is going to split. And all of a sudden, here comes the Lord from heaven. And the Bible says, every eye is going to see Him. Not only will they see Him when He showed Him, they’ll see Him coming. Before He gets you, they’ll see Him coming. In Matthew 24. And when He comes, the Bible says in verse 15, and out of His mouth of chapter 19, verse And out of his mouth go with a sharp sword that with it he might smite the nations, the nations.

Why? Because the nations are turning against God. They believe they’ve got the answer for everything. And they’re going to have their little one world religion and their one world government. And the Bible says, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron and he treadeth the wine and the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, wrath coming upon them. Take your Bible, look in chapter 11 of Revelation. The Lord is coming back. And it makes a statement in verse 15, and the 7th angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.

Now get this. this, the kingdoms of this world, the nations of the world are going to have one ruler, yes, one ruler one day, and it’s going to be the Lord, and he’s going to rule with a rod of iron. He will literally be here, and his saints are going to reign with him over the nations of the world. You’d think that what they do now on a day by day basis bothers me. I I have nothing to worry about.

I don’t care what they do, but I want to reach and educate as many people as I possibly can to understand and to know this and to realize it ain’t over yet. I know how it ends. All the kingdoms of the world will become his. And I’m going to roll with him. And the Bible says that in the last time, God shall have them in derision and that God will laugh at them. God’s going to laugh at the stupidness of the judgment of the people that rule the nations because they think they’re so wise, so smart.

God says your times coming. Look in verse 18 of chapter 11. And the nations were angry. I wonder if you could consider that a hate crime. When the nations get angry at God, because of the judgment that God pours out upon this world, when they have their earthquakes that he talks about and their hell stones of 120 pounds hitting upon this earth, when God says that he’s going to take and be the one that turns out turns out the light make the moon turn in the blood and everything in the oceans to die and one fourth of the world’s population destroyed at one time and people’s body consuming off their flesh.

When the Bible talks about it in their whole chuck and sum away out of their eyes, sockets and their flesh and their tongue chomp and sum away out of their mouth, when all that happens. And the Bible says the people rebel and get harder toward God and hate toward the wrath of the Lamb.” That’s okay. They get angry. In verse 18, “…and thy wrath is come and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that they should have give reward unto thy servants, the prophets unto the saints, and them that fear thy name small and great, and should have destroyed them which destroy the earth.”

This is awesome. This isn’t far away Because the nations of the world are chosen sides. Israel does want a peace treaty and the Jews want to rebuild a temple. But see those are things going to be built in the tribulation period. The tribulation period that’s seven years is called the wrath of God where God is going to pour out his wrath upon this earth. But right before all that happens the Bible says the rapture will take place. That’s where Christ will come in the year and He’ll take every one of us that no Christ is Savior and are living at that moment will be changed at a moment, the twinkling of an eye and caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

And so shall we ever be with the Lord to deliver us from the wrath to come. So God pours out his wrath upon individuals and his wrath upon nations, rafts upon governments. And he last days there’ll be the wrath upon the whole world. I know that I don’t have to worry about the wrath of God. Greatest peace of mind that a man can have. But if you have not accepted Christ as your Savior, that was God’s peace offering to you.

You reject Christ. You don’t have eternal life. You don’t go to heaven when you die. You will have God’s wrath upon you. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach by the line and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool free, 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30 and at six o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the 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. Now did Christ dial the cross and paper all the sins of all the world? Yes. And all that we have to do is believe He did it for us because it says it’s not by your works. So you got to leave that out. It means how you live doesn’t determine where you go.

You got to forget that. That’s null and void because it says not by works of righteousness which we have done. Not of works. So forget your works. That means how you live. I’ve had has nothing to do with where you’re going to spend eternity. And that’s what blew my mind when I was 18 years old. I argue with my father-in-law for three months ago, I said, there’s got to be more to admit. That’s too easy. That’s too simple. And I thought, if it’s so simple, why can’t everybody see it?

I had a hard time seeing it, and I wasn’t even raised in church. But to just simply think that I can go to heaven by just trusting what Christ did on the cross for me blew my mind. And yet there was no tricks to it, no gimmicks to it. I didn’t have to become a religious hypocrite, claiming to be something that I knew down deep inside I wasn’t. But I wanted to go to heaven. I want to have eternal life.

I didn’t want to go to hell. But see, nobody had ever stopped that explained how I could be certain of going to heaven when I die. And that was the best news I ever heard in my whole life. I want you to take your Bible and look at a verse with me. Look there in Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 8 and 9.

And look how important this is, even though you said, well, I already know those two verses, well, look at it anyway. You know, sometimes you can read a verse and not understand the verse. You can read it, quote it, and never really understand it. I had read John 3 16, the night I got saved, and didn’t understand the word of it, until the man explained it to me. You saw anybody out on the stand. I know, but I didn’t.

And I find there’s a lot of people that do the same thing. See there in verse eight, four by grace are ye saved. Saved as past tense. See this is already written to somebody who is saved, not somebody who is going to be saved. It means you already are. So I’m not expecting to be saved from hell. What? We already am. I can’t go there. Because see if he hasn’t saved me from going there, it means I still could go there.

And God says, I can’t go there. Why? Because I’ve been saved from it. It’s a past done deal. And He says this, for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves? Now what part of not of yourself would you not understand? Not of yourself means it’s not of yourself. That’s in the Greek. Well see, it’s all depending on how you read it. Okay, well here’s how I read that. that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

I read that is the gift of God. See, I don’t have to translate, it’s already been translated. All God does is believe what’s already been written. It’s the gift of God. People can’t believe that going to heaven is a gift. This gift is free. It means I don’t have to go to church to get it. I don’t have to give money to get it. I don’t have to change my life to get it because all that would be I’d required to do something to get it.

Then it costs me something. There is no cost. There’s no price to pay. It’s free, free. The gift, not of yourself, it’s the gift of God. So being saved and going to heaven is something that I can have now. For my grace are you saved, I’m saved. Past Him, I’m saved. I’ve been saved, I’ve been saved for 51 years. So if I am saved, then I’m not seeking to be saved. Because if I’m seeking to be saved, I’m saying that I am not saved.

If I’m going to call right on me, that I’m not there yet. How can I say it any other way? Surely you can understand what I’m saying. Am I hard and complicated? Can you follow what I’m saying? You can follow me. So God says here in verse 9, look at those three words, not of what? What? What works do you think he’s talking about? Not of works. Not of works would probably mean not of works. It means nothing that I do.

determines where I go. And this is why so many people can’t believe that it’s free, because they can’t believe that God would save them by grace. You don’t deserve that. But what is grace? Grace means unmerited favor. God given you something you didn’t deserve. I don’t deserve to go to heaven. I never have. I never will. You see, God saved me because He loved me because He sent His Son to pay for all of my sins, and I accepted Him as my Savior.

He gives me to her life, and I go to heaven whenever I die. Otherwise, nobody can know they’re going to heaven until they die. If it’s not free and you have to earn it, it’s only two ways. That means if you have to earn it, you have to wait till you die to find out if you got it or not. Well, you can wait till then if you want to. I think it’s a little late Because God’s going to tell you, you see, you’re either saved by grace or works, and you didn’t trust Christ as your Savior, so you didn’t accept grace.

So that means you’re trying to save yourself by your works. And I already told you it’s not by your works. I don’t know why you waited so long to get here to find this out. I told you in my Word, didn’t you ever read Ephesians 2, 8, and 9? I said it very clearly, you’re not saved by your works. Now why are you trying to think you’re going to get into heaven by your works? I can see all that taking place.

And yet there’s people that don’t see it, they never get it. Now take your Bible and look in the book of Titus chapter 3. Titus and chapter 3. Titus chapter 3, this is on page 1284. And you’ll notice there in verse 5. 953, look at what he says, not by works of righteousness, which we have done. But according to His mercy, He what? Saved us. That’s a done deal. It’s already done. So I have been saved not by my works of righteousness.

And yet you find people that think, you’ve got to do something. I’ve had people say, you can’t tell me and you sure can’t. God can’t tell them either. You can’t tell me that all you have to do is believe. And yet what is the only requirement for going to heaven? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that who so ever… Believe it. Won’t perish but have everlasting life. He that believeth on the Son half life and He that believeth not the Son of God half not life.

But the wrath of God abides upon Him. He didn’t believe it on him is not condemned, but he didn’t believe it not is condemned already because he believed it not. You see, it all boils down to do you believe it or not. You say, what do I got to believe? Here you are, you’re a senator. You do all these bad things. You deserve to go to hell. Christ in his son. Christ comes into the world. He got to any son.

So Christ comes into the world and he had no sense, so he doesn’t have to die. So he vauded in your place. He dies for all of your sins. And see what people don’t get is this. It is appointed under every man, wants to die and act this to judgment. So if you’re only going to die once, regardless of how many sins you commit, how many times do you die? One time. So if Christ dies for you, He only has to die one time for you.

So that means that even though I lived 70 years and then I croaked. Okay, well, how many times did I die? Only one time. Me for all those sins, but it doesn’t matter how many sins. I only died once. Christ only died once to pay for all the sins of all the world. So that means if He died for me, He paid for all of my sins. He died in my place. So if I died 20 years ago, or if I died 20 years in the future, he died for me in my place.

And all that I have to do is believe he did it for me. He did it for me. Christ. So I don’t have to pay my sins. The whole body is going to die in the grave when these things happen. But I have a new birth. I’m going to live till I die. Then I’m going to live forever. I sure am. Look at this verse again. into the Holy Spirit. See the new birth is by the Spirit of God.

That’s a new birth. It didn’t come because you went to church and you live right and you try to go according to Christian principles and you lived, all these ways and so on. That’s not gonna get you to heaven. You gotta never promise that. And so that’s why it’s deceptive on your part to try to think you could ever save yourselfossibility by the things that you do. Eternal life is truly a gift of God. You see, let her be there, or says justification from all my sins.

I want you to look at this. Look in Acts chapter 13, the book of Acts in chapter 13. So very, very important verse. Acts chapter 13 and look in verse 38. Be it known unto you therefore, man and brethren, that through this man, talking about Christ, is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. See if God forgives you of your sins, there’s none for you to pay for it. Or if He forgave you. So when Christ died for you and you believe He forgives you of everything you’ve ever done, your sins are forgiven.

So that means you don’t have to pay for them. I don’t have to pay for my sins. Christ did it for me. That’s hard for me to accept because when I was growing up, I was always under the impression, If I’m good, I’ll go to heaven. And if I’m bad, I’m gonna go to hell. I didn’t know that, and understand that Christ paid for my sins. So that’s why for years, I did my best. I wanted to go to heaven, so I tried to live right.

I tried to live a good life. I tried to be a good kid. I really did. But I didn’t understand. And so whenever I was growing up as a kid, before I even knew anything about it, I never took a drink in my life. I was always afraid I might like it. And I didn’t want to become a drunk. I never smoked a cigarette because I was told it was bad for you. So I never smoked a cigarette. I never swore cuss word.

And I’m almost seven years old. I still haven’t done none of those things. Am I going to heaven because I’m so good? No. By your righteousness, you’re never good. You have to be perfect to go to heaven. And nobody’s perfect. That’s why nobody can earn eternal life. Nobody works their way to heaven. No man has ever lived good enough to save himself. All people have to be saved the same way by grace. Either God saves you or you don’t get saved.

And if you trust Christ today’s your Savior, He saves you today. If you get saved tomorrow, then He saves you tomorrow. If He saves you 10 years ago, He got saved you 10 years. But whatever is He, you don’t have to seek something you already have. He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. See, the reason I don’t have to try to get eternal life is because I already have it. The Bible says, this is the true God referring to Christ.

This is the true God and eternal life. When you have Christ, you have eternal life because Jesus Christ is eternal life. And when I trust that Christ is my savior, the Bible says the Holy Spirit of God dwelt inside of me. And if I’ve got Christ, I’ve got eternal life. And he said, I’ll never leave you, and I’ll never forsake you. Never leave you. Never forsake me. Never. Never means never. And he is eternal life. So how long will I have eternal life?

Forever. Forever. That’s the only way you can know that you’re gonna make it someday. I know I’m going to go to heaven. I don’t have to hope and guess and wonder. I can’t lose something because I didn’t earn it to get it. And you see, if God can save me at the end of my life, by grace, why can’t He save me now by grace? And if God can save me now, in spite of all those bad things that I’ve done, why can’t He keep me saved, in spite of all the bad things I will do?

You say, well, you don’t deserve, I didn’t deserve that either. I didn’t deserve to be saved here because of all those bad things. And I’m not going to deserve to be saved after all these bad things. It doesn’t matter. Grace is grace. God loves me that way. You say, wait, don’t you think you ought to serve a Lord? Well, of course. I’ve been trying to serve a Lord the best I know how for 50 years. But that has nothing to do with me going to heaven.

I’m going to heaven because of his love for me. I serve him because of my love for him. And if you love the Lord, you want to live for the Lord, and you want to live a godly life. Whatever people tell you that you have to do and you have to live like this and go to church and pay and do money, I do all of that. I’ll go to heaven according to anybody’s religion, except God’s. I’m only going there because I trusted Christ as my Savior years ago.

And I say, only wait, see there in that verse, look in verse 39. And by Him Christ, all that do what? Believe. Are justified from what? All things. So all of these things that you need to be justified from, as though you didn’t do them, to be cleared. All you got to do is believe. I didn’t write this verse. But should I change it because I don’t agree with it? Should I alter it? Because I just can’t believe that.

Evidently God didn’t know what he was saying here. You don’t alter the word of God. You don’t change the book. God loves us so much. See, I’m not seeking to be justified because already am. I’m not seeking the gift of eternal life because I already am. I’m not trying to be a child of God someday. I already am. It’s a done deal. That was the best news I ever heard. And see once you trust Christ to save you and your God’s child.

Now there’s a few other things I do want you to see that you can’t expect and I’ll go through the very quickly. Psalm chapter 62 you can read that verse when you get a chance to but I want you to read those scriptures there. Because Because it’s simply saying that my expectation should be of the Lord. As you and I live our lives, the Lord is my sufficiency. He’s all I need. Remember that little song we sing, Christ is all I need.

He’s all I need. The Lord is all you need. But you see, you have to know that and understand that. But see, once you trust that Christ is your Savior and I have eternal life and I’m going to heaven whenever I die, well I haven’t died yet. I happen to have lived 51 years since I trust the Lord, but He’s still all I need. And if I put Him first, God said, You take care of the rest, and I trust Him to do that.

So you see here at letter A, 1 John 1, 9 says, God will forgive my sins when I fail. I believe that. I believe that as a child of God, when I don’t do the things that I ought to do, what I don’t think right, and when I commit things in my mind or actions, and I hurt somebody’s feelings and things like that, and bitterness or anger. I know that, I know, I know. My father, or wife, to slate clean, and I confess it to him.

You see, he does that because this is for fellowship between me and him. And I know that I can keep walking with the Lord. Do you know the perfect will of God lies as close as the next decision you make? If you only think about that. The next thing, first John chapter three, verse 22, God, I expect him to answer my prayers. I’m a child of God. I’ve got access to my Heavenly Father. And I know that my Heavenly Father, here’s the prayers of the righteous.

We spoke on this just last week about God answering our prayers. And some prayers that are be hindered because of sin between you and your Father. So God tells us, and I know that if I talk to the Lord and pray according to His wealth, I can expect God to hear. I can expect God to answer. We see it’s always desires of the will of God for my life. In Hebrews chapter 12, it talks about chasening. See, as a child of God, can I live as I please?

Yes, I can. Can I get away with it? No, I can’t because my Heavenly Father is going to chasen me and discipline me. So you can have children born into your family. It’s every time they do something wrong they get unborn? You wish. No. They’re still born and still of there and they’re still yours. But when they do something wrong, do you ever chase in your children? Correct them? It’s not because you hate them. It’s because you love them.

So you’re chasing your children. Why? Because they’re still yours. The only reason God can chase in me as his child is because I’m still his child. If every time I did something wrong, I’m not his child. Can’t touch me. I’m not yours. I wouldn’t try that. But because I’m a child of God, I know my Heavenly Father will chase me. I expect him to chase me, to beat the Torah to me, and he hasperialized the right to take me home early because of my rebellious attitude or spirit.

I can expect God to intervene. In 1 Corinthians 10, 13, I expect God to deliver me from temptation because he’s going to make a a wave escape. And if I look for the wave escape, I know God will deliver me from every trial, every temptation. Some of them he’ll let you go right through the middle of them on the trials, temptations he wants to deliver you from. The trials and tribulations, the hardships and things like any life, a lot of times he just wants to walk with you through it.

There’s thing he wants you to go through. There’s other thing he wants you to stay away from. God tempts no man to sin. God is not a sinner. He’s an tempt you to sin. That’s because of your own lust of your own heart, your own simple desires, not gods. First Peter chapter 4, where it says that you can expect, he says, think it not a strange thing concerning the fiery trial which is to try you because you’re going to suffer in this life.

You’re going to suffer. You see, in this, life, everything happens that causes us some sufferings. And we’re always trying to figure out a way to have some joy and peace and happiness in the midst of all of our sufferings. But sometimes it seems like your long dry spells. But you’re going to suffer. I expect my Heavenly Father. I expect Him to allow me to suffer. Whether it’s in the physical body or finances with people, I expect that I’m going to offend you.

I am not going to please everybody in here all the time. It is impossible. I know and I expect. I don’t have to desire it, but I expect it because it’s just reality. You married to that husband or that wife of yours? You ought to know right now. You are going to offend her or you’re going to offend him. You’re going to wrong each other. You can either forgive each other and love each other or murder each other. What a lot of people do.

Am I advocating you to go home and murder your wife? No. Don’t you try to put words in my mouth. But some of you are just looking for a reason. Don’t you use this preacher for that? The next one, God to comfort me when I sorrow. Do you expect God to comfort you when you sorrow? Because you’re going to sorrow. You’re going to hurt. You’re going to grieve. I don’t believe that Betty over here is enjoying watching her husband, Alex, laying in that bed, knowing that it won’t be long before he’s gonna leave this world.

She will grieve and she will hurt. And she’s gonna have sorrow. But she knows that and she can expect that. But I also expect God says He will comfort us why we sorrow and why we hurt and why we grieve. What lessons did God have to teach you yet? What are your expectations? I expect that whenever I leave this old world and I get to be with the Lord in heaven, I expect God to reward me when I get to heaven.

Rewards are earned. Rewards are things that God gives to me because of what I did. See, after I trusted Christ as my Savior, going to heaven, that was free. That was what he did for me. And as I live my life because of what he did for me, I know that when I get to heaven, God’s gonna reward me. And I expect God to keep his word and God will keep his word. And in closing, I do expect, I expect it, cause it’s real.

I expect the devil to fight me every step of the way. Don’t you? So that means you know that he’s gonna come at you. One way or the other, any way you can. He’ll do it to the husband, to the wife, to the kids, to the aunts and the uncles and in-laws and outlaws. He’s going to come at you some way. And he’s not going to ever leave you alone. He wants to cause you to question and doubt that the Bible is true or that God can save you by grace.

He wants you to question and doubt everything. He started that in the Garden of Eden with Adam, and even he ain’t stopped yet. Jesse was telling you about this little wallet of the illustration and said, what was that? I’m glad you asked. Let me show you. This is you and me. Wallach, this is sin. God says that we have all, we’ve all sinned. Now God says that He loves us, but He hates what we do wrong, but He loves us.

And for us, we gotta pay for that. We committed a sin, we ought to pay for it. We owe it dead. And the payment is eternal separation from God in hell. So everybody’s in the same boat. Nobody’s any better than anybody else. God loves us and wants us to go to heaven, go to heaven, you’ve got to be perfect, because righteous is God. And there’s the problem. None of us are perfect. And so you see, the only way you can be in heaven is to be perfect.

And we’re not perfect. So how are we going to be perfect by our works? Impossible can’t happen. So God says, your works are as filthy rags, all of your righteousness. So don’t even try to offer to God. Lord, I go to church, I sing and acquire, I do this, I do that, I give money. That has nothing to do with nothing. Zero, the people that only get that, yet in the back of most people’s minds, well, I’ll do it just in case.

It means you don’t believe what God said. It means you don’t really believe what God says. You can’t earn it. Don’t try. Don’t try to give him a quarter for a Mercedes. They cost more than that. This ain’t represent Jesus Christ. He’s God in the flesh. He came into the world because he loves us. Our sin because it separates us from him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. So He took all of our sins of the whole world.

Paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. And God says if you and I, if we would believe that He did it for us, He’d put that payment that I owe. He put it to my account. My debt is paid. My sins are forgiven. But the payment’s not put to your account till you believe that He did it for you. And the moment you believe it, He saves you from hell. It means that from this point on, you can’t go there.

You’ve been saved from it. And He’ll never cast you out, never lose you. You go to heaven because of what He did for you. He loves you that much. And God says, these things have I written unto you? That believe, on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. Can you know you have eternal life? The best news in all the world. There’s no gimmicks to it. You don’t have to join this church to go to heaven.

You don’t have to give any money to go to heaven. You don’t have to change your life. You just need to admit to God, you’re a sinner. Everybody knows it anyway. You might as well admit it. God already knows it. So it’s just a matter of being honest. I’m a sinner and you can’t save yourself. That’s why you need a savior. Christ is the only one. You eat the trust, Him, and go to heaven, or you reject Him, and you’ll spend eternity separated from God in hell.

I pray that your trust, Christ, is your Savior. Let’s pray, shall we? If you hear this morning, say, preachers, that made sense to me. I realize that I’ve never really trusted Christ as my Savior. Friends, you can be religious all your life and never really trust the Lord. I’m not God. I can’t save anybody. I can only tell you what his book says. I can only tell you that if you trust Christ, he will save you and give you eternal life as a freak yet.

Would you trust him? Would you just talk to the Lord? You see, I’m gonna ask you in just a moment to raise your hand, raising your hand doesn’t save you. It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you. And I just wanna know if what I said made sense to you and you say, yes, I will trust Christ as my savior this morning. So in the quietness of this moment, is there anyone who says, yes, I will trust Christ as my only hope of going to heaven and break child life for you to pray for me?

Would you sleep in it very quickly and better right back down? Anyone at all? Many of you have already trusted Christ of Savior. I know that. But there may be someone that’s never trusted. Our Father, we thank You so much for this time together. We thank You Lord for each person here. And Lord, I pray that each one will understand to put their expectations in the Lord. Thank you for this time together. Bless each person in Christ and we pray.

Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 tool free. 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10 30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline 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. live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 to be able to 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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleInemistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Everybody has expectations. That’s why when you stood at the altar and you said the said those words, I do, even after the preacher said those words, you know, and better or for worse, and you expected it to get better and then. And whenever you say those words for richer or for poor, you expect it to get richer. And whenever you say in sickness and in health, you never expect to get sick. You’re gonna be well from now on. Your expectations are not always met.

And so when your expectations are too high, you have a built-in possibility of frustration and disappointment because reality never meets all of your expectations. Well, there is a verse in the Bible and I preach one time, a sermon on getting the desires of your heart because the Bible says, delight I myself and the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. But I’ve lived long enough to know that I have not gotten all of my desires, but I have gotten most of my desires.

I’ve gotten some of my desires that I’ve dreamed of and hoped for because they were desires of the Lord, and you can always have those. But there’s other desires that I’ve had and expectations that never have been met. never will. So we’re supposed to live long enough to understand some things that you’re not going to get out of life. Everybody wants to be happy every day of their life and that’s not going to happen. It’s just not going to happen.

You don’t want any troubles in life. That’s not going to happen. I mean, you’re going to have all kinds of troubles and you’re desiring that they don’t happen and you’re going to wish it away. There’s a lot of things that we need to learn from what God’s Word says, but take your Bible, look into book and 2 Corinthians in chapter 3. 2 Corinthians in chapter 3, look in verse 5, not that we are sufficient of ourselves. You ought to underline that statement.

We are not sufficient of ourselves. There’s a lot of things you cannot do. You do not know. You cannot accomplish. And you might as well wake up to the fact you’re not going to have everything you want in life. But the last part of the verse says, sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, and you ought to underline this part of the verse because it says our sufficiency is of God. So I’m supposed to believe that God is sufficient for all that I need.

So set your desires and effects on things that are above things that you can have, because most of the desires that you can’t have are not realistic. And so God has laid some things down in His Word and we’re supposed to realize it and believe that. Take your Bible look in the book of Matthew in chapter 6. But if you’re noticed in verse 30, Matthew chapter 6 and verse 30, this is, therefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today and tomorrow is cast into the oven shall he not much more clothe you O ye of little faith.

Do you believe that God is able to take care of you? And to meet whatever those needs are, do you desire the things of God? You see, you can desire the things of God and get them, but you can desire the things of man and not get them. Now there’s some things you’ll get because you’ll work hard and you’ll try to make it happen. But remember the things of this world are hard to get, hard to keep in great sorrow when you lose them.

Look there also in this verse. In verse 32. And after all these things, do the Gentiles sing, for your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Do you believe that your heavenly Father knows what you have need of? And then he says in verse 33, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things shall be added unto you. Seek first the things of God and everything else will be taken care of.

But you see, if you don’t put God first And you put things first, you’re in for a great disappointment. Because if you can learn to be content and happy and satisfied with the things of God, you’ll have so much more peace and joy in this life. You see, the Bible says that the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness in the Holy Spirit, the Book of Romans. So God wants us to seek first His righteousness. What he’s really talking about is, you know and for sure that you have eternal life.

But you seek this first. And in God’s it, everything else will be added to you. Once you trust Christ as your Savior, God gives to you His righteousness. See, I’m not going to heaven on my goodness, on my righteousness. I’m going to heaven on His. my righteousness is not good enough. It wasn’t yesterday and it wasn’t today and it won’t be tomorrow. My righteousness will never be good enough to go to heaven on. So that’s why I don’t trust it.

God said I’m to trust Him and He will give me His righteousness. Now God gave me His righteousness that would meet me as righteous as who? As righteous as Him. As righteous as God. So all I had to do is believe that He did it for me. And He puts that payment to my account and I get to go to heaven I don’t know what he did, but I’m his child now. I gotta life to live. What about all these other things that needs in life?

Some God says there’s things that we need to know and do. So I wrote a few things down. I was sitting in a restaurant one day, and I usually drinking a cup of coffee, and I’ll make a little thought here, and I’ll have a thought, and I’ll write another thing down. Before I got through, I had me a sermon. I didn’t know I was gonna have a sermon. That’s why I get a lot of them. But look there at the first one.

desire an easy road. Now I desire it but I don’t expect it. Now isn’t that true? Think about it. You desire an easy road but you don’t expect an easy road because you know life is full of troubles. Life is full of heartaches. Life there’s a lot of speed bumps. Things that slows you down. Keeps you from getting where you want to go when you want to get there at your timing. So all these things are happening. I would expect everybody.

Well, I desire everybody to like me, but I don’t expect it. Because something’s wrong with their judgment. I’m the most likable guy I know. I don’t know why everybody don’t like me, but you know it wouldn’t take that much and I can offend you and you never talk to me again. I can come to church and I can preach a thousand sermons. I didn’t preach to a bunch of them already, But I can preach one thing that you disagree with and you’ll leave this church and never come back again People do it.

They do it all the time because they can’t stand to be offended You hurt my feelings People were there feelings right up there People need to grow up and get some grit in their backbone where they’re they’re made out of something and Not so easily offended by anything and everything We whine about everything instead of just I know that I’m not going to get everything I want. You can cut people a little slack and realize that people have got problems.

And nobody’s perfect down here. When we get to heaven, yes we’ll be. We won’t have to worry about none of that stuff. Nobody’s going to hurt you. I offend you when you get to heaven. Can’t you wait? And so while you’re down here, realize it. People are going to say things, do things that you’re not going to like. The next thing, I would like to have fame and wealth. Anybody here like to be have fame and wealth? Most people like to be well known.

Everybody wants to be loved. Everybody maybe would have a desire to be famous or to have a lot of wealth. You can desire it, but I don’t expect it. And I wrote a little statement down there in bold, expect nothing and anything will be a bonus. Expect nothing and anything will be a bonus. And that’s probably about the best way to do it with people. If you don’t expect anything, anything will be a bonus. And that way it keeps you from having such great moments of depression.

Maybe you’re sitting here, you’re thing too high and you can’t attain it. Now there’s times when we need to set our aim high and things like that, but that’s not the topic of the sermon this morning. It’s about what is my expectations for life, this period of time that I’ve got to live after I’ve trusted Christ as my Savior. And see, happiness, health, I’ve desired good health all my life, but I don’t always get it. My physical body, I can go to the doctor and he says, you’re fine, next day I get sick.

My father-in-law, he went to the doctor and got a health checkup on him and they said he was at A1 shape, he was 60 years old and great shape, He came home, habits, and heart-tagnets day. And it was a few months later, he died. But he already got a good health checkup. So you may be in good shape today and die tomorrow. So you don’t have any clue when. Right after camp, I was feeling great. And I even said to myself, self, you feel great.

I said, I sure do. And by Wednesday, I got a little cold and next thing you know, I thought, yeah, I’m not have to get somebody to preach for me Sunday. And I hate that. I hate not to speak on Sunday morning. I can tolerate a little bit on Sunday nights on Wednesday, but Sunday morning, I can’t stand it. So even when I’m sick, I’ll preach on Sunday morning. That’s why I’m not going to shake your hands though. I’m not going to be nice to you today.

So when I get through, I’m not going to smile at you or anything like that. Because I don’t want somebody else, I don’t know if it’s catchy, I don’t know if they got a little cold. But that’s not enough to stop anybody. But anyway, I want you to know that you can desire to be healthy every day. And some people say, well, if you get sick, it’s a sign of sin in your life. Oh, really? You’re going to die of something, did you die of sin?

I’ve had people say, well, you know, I haven’t sinned in 40 years. Then they ought not die. Why do they die? Because wages and sin is what? Death. Wades of sin. Death. If they didn’t sin, it wouldn’t die. I don’t care how long you live, you’re going to die because you have a body that doesn’t live forever. And God doesn’t keep it well forever. I died with a perfectly healthy body. Whoopee. And you want to be happy. You can desire, but it’s not going to be reality because happiness comes from happenings.

And when things don’t happen, the way you think they ought to happen, then you’re going to be miserable and you’re not happy. That’s why you’re up here and you’re down here. You’re up there and you’re down here because you expect something that’s not real. God says, as a man is born, the sparks do fly upward. I mean, trouble from the day you’re born, there’s always trouble. always problems and you’re going to have them. So you have to expect those things.

Look at the next little statement I have there. If you do expect all these things, you’re in for a life of disappointment because you’re not always going to have an easy road. You’re not going to have everybody love you and you’re not going to have all the fame and the wealth that you want and you’re not always going to be happy and you’re not always going to be healthy. It’s just not going to be. So if you don’t expect all these things, and you say, well, I don’t expect that okay then what’s your problem and people are just always bothered by the problems and yet if it wasn’t for problems nobody would have a job everybody here has a job because it says somebody else has a problem and we’re problem solvers we’re trying to take a how can I get a job I mean how can

I help solve somebody’s problems I got to find somebody that needs me somebody wants me somebody willing to pay for my wisdom on how to solve something And that’s why we want people to get an education because they’ll have the wisdom to do something help solve somebody else’s problems So as you go through life you’re to understand this not look at number two look at number two Things I don’t expect to get because I already have You know if I already have something I don’t expect to get it the book of Romans chapter 8 puts it this way Why do you hope for that which you have?

Because if you have it you don’t need to hope for it. You already got it See, I am not seeking to be saved someday. Like a lot of people think, Jesus is going to help me live a good life so that someday down the road he’ll save me. Now, if I am going to be saved some day in the future, then what I’m saying is that I’m not saved now. I’m waiting to be saved down the road. So if God can save me down the road, why can he save me now?

If I can’t be saved until the day I die, and then God’s going to save me because he looks at all my life and my good works that I’ve done, and now he can save me. Well, why can’t he save me ahead of time? Why does he have to wait until then? Well, he’d have to wait until I die if my salvation depends upon how I live. So he has to wait until I finish doing all my deeds to know if my good works outweigh my bad work, so he’ll know whether or not to save me.

Save me, or if I qualify to be saved. But see, that means that I must expect to be saved because I am not now saved. But if I already have salvation, I don’t have to seek salvation. See, there’s nothing that I have done in 51 years to be saved. Because see, I was saved when I was 18 years old. And when I got saved, when I was 18 years old, God saved me from hell. Well, if He saved me from hell, it means that I’m not going there.

And if I’m not going there, I’m not trying to do anything to keep from going there because I can’t go there. Why can’t I go there? Because all my sins are paid. If He paid for all of my sins, well, what sins do I have to pay for if He paid for all of them? There isn’t any. Either he did or he didn’t. If he didn’t pay for all of my sins, he didn’t do me any favors. So either he did or he didn’t.

Now did Christ die on the cross and pay for all the sins of all the world? Yes. And all that we have to do is believe he did it for us because it says it’s not by your works. So you gotta leave that out. It means how you live doesn’t determine where you go. You gotta forget that. That’s null and void. because he says not by works of righteousness which we have done, not of works. So forget your works.

That means forget how you live. It has nothing to do with where you’re gonna spend eternity. And that’s what blew my mind when I was 18 years old. I argue with my father on offer three months ago, that says there’s gotta be more to a net. That’s too easy. That’s too simple. And I thought, if it’s so simple, why can’t everybody see it? I had a hard time seeing it, and I wasn’t even raised in church. But to just simply think that I can go to heaven by just trusting what Christ did on the cross for me blew my mind.

And yet there was no tricks to it, no guinex to it. I didn’t have to become a religious hypocrite claiming to be something that I knew down deep inside I wasn’t, but I wanted to go to heaven. I want to have eternal life. I didn’t want to go to hell. But see, nobody had ever stopped to explain how I could be certain of going to heaven when I die. And that was the best news I ever heard in my whole life.

I want you to take your Bible and look at a verse with me. Look there in Ephesians chapter two, Ephesians chapter two and verse eight and nine. And look how important this is. Even though you said, well, I already know those two verses, but look at it anyway. You know, sometimes you can read a verse and not understand the verse. You can read it, quote it, and never really understand it. I had read John 3 16, the night I got saved, and didn’t understand the word of it.

until the man explained it to me. You say, anybody ought to understand. I know, but I didn’t. And I find there’s a lot of people that do the same thing. See there in verse eight, four by grace are ye saved. Saved as past tense. See, this is already written to somebody who is saved, not somebody who is going to be saved. It means you already are. So I’m not expecting to be saved from hell. What? We already am. I can’t go there.

Because see, if he hasn’t saved me from going there, it means I still could go there. And God says, I can’t go there. Why? Because I’ve been saved from it. It’s a past done deal. And he says this, for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves. Now what part of not of yourself would you not understand? Not of yourself means it’s not of yourself. That’s in the Greek. Well, see, this all depends on how you read it.

Okay. Well, here’s how I read that. That not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. I read that is is the gift of God. See, I don’t have to translate it. It’s already been translated. All God does believe what’s already been written. It’s the gift of God. People can’t believe it. Go into heaven as a gift. This gift is free. It means I don’t have to go to church to get it. I don’t have to give money to get it.

I don’t have to change my life to get it because all that would be I’d required to. do something to get it, then it costs me something. There is no cost. There’s no price to pay. It’s free. Free. The gift not of yourself is the gift of God. So being saved and going to heaven is something that I can have now for my grace. Are you saved? I’m saved. I’m saved. I’ve been saved. I’ve been saved for 51 years.

So if I am saved, then I’m not seeking to be saved. Because if I’m seeking to be saved, I’m saying that I am not saved. If I’m going to Colorado, it means that I’m not there yet. How can I say it any other way? Surely you can understand what I’m saying. Am I hard and complicated? Can you follow what I’m saying? You can follow me. So God says here in verse 9, look in verse 9, look at those three words, Not of what?

What works do you think he’s talking about? Not of works. Not of works would probably mean not of works. It means nothing that I do determines where I go. And this is why so many people can’t believe that it’s free because they can’t believe that God would save them by grace. You don’t deserve that. But what is grace? Grace means unmerited favor. God giving you something you didn’t deserve. I don’t deserve to go to heaven. I never have. I never will.

You see, God saved me because He loved me because He sent His Son to pay for all of my sins. And I accepted Him as my Savior. He gives me to life and I go to heaven whenever I die. Otherwise, nobody can know they’re going to heaven until they die. If it’s not free and you have to earn it, it’s only two ways. That means if you have to earn it, you have to wait till you die to find out if you got it or not.

Well, you can wait till then if you want to. I think it’s a little late because God’s going to tell you. You see, you’re either saved by grace or works and you didn’t trust Christ as your Savior, so you didn’t accept grace. So that means you’re trying to save yourself by your works. And I already told you it’s not by your works. I don’t know why you waited so long to get here to find this out. I told you in my word, didn’t you ever read Ephesians 2, 8, and 9?

I said it very clearly. You’re not saved by your words. Now why are you trying in here trying to think you’re going to get into heaven by your works? I can see all that taking place. And yet there’s people that don’t see it, that never get it. Now take your Bible and look in the book of Titus chapter 3. Titus and chapter 3. Titus chapter 3, this is on page 12, 84. And you’ll notice there in verse five. Verse five, look at what he says, not by works of righteousness, which we have done.

But according to his mercy, he what? Saved us, that’s a done deal. It’s already done. So I have been saved not by my works of righteousness. And yet you find people that think, you’ve got to do something. I’ve had people that say, you can’t tell me and you sure can’t. God can’t tell them either. You can’t tell me that all you have to do is believe. And yet what is the only requirement for going to heaven? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever, believe it, won’t perish, but have everlasting life.

He that believeth unto Son hath life, and he that believeth not the Son of God hath not life. But the wrath of God abides upon Him. He that believeth unto Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already because he believeth not. You see, it all boils down to, do you believe it or not? You say, what do I gotta believe? All right, here you are, you’re sitting. You do all these bad things, you deserve to go to hell.

Christ and his son. Christ comes into the world. Got to any son. So Christ comes into the world and he had no sense or he doesn’t have to die. So he voluntarily dies in your place. He dies for all of your sins. And see what people don’t get is this. It is appointed under every man once an act of this to judgment. So if you’re only going to die once, regardless of how many sins you commit, how many times do you die?

One time. So if Christ dies for you, he only has to die one time for you. So that means that you’re going to die. it even though I live 70 years and then I croak. Okay, well, how many times did I die? Only one time. Me for all those sins, but it doesn’t matter how many sins. I only died once. Christ only died once to pay for all the sins of all the world. So that means if He died for me, He paid for all of my sins.

He died in my place. So if I had died 20 years ago or if I died 20 years in the future, He died for me in my place. And all that I have to do is believe He did it for me. He did it for me. Christ died for me. So I don’t have to pay for my sins. This old body is going to die in the grave one of these days. But I have a new birth that’s going to live forever.

I’m going to live till I die. And then I’m going to live forever. I sure am. Look at this verse again. Verse 5, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. See the new birth is by the Spirit of God. That’s a new birth. It didn’t come because you went to church and you live right and you try to go according to Christian principles and you lived all these ways And so that’s not going to get you to heaven.

You know, I never promised that. And so that’s why it’s deceptive on your part to try to think you could ever save yourself by the things that you do. Eternal life is truly a gift of God. You see, let her be there, or it says justification from all my sins. I want you to look at this. Look in Acts chapter 13, the book of Acts in chapter 13. It’s a very, very important verse.

Acts chapter 13, and look in verse 38. Be it known unto you therefore, man and brethren, that through this man, talking about Christ, is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. See, if God forgives you of your sins, there’s none for you to pay for. What if he forgave you? So when Christ died for you, and you believe he did it for you, He forgives you of everything you’ve ever done. Your sins are forgiven. So that means you don’t have to pay for them.

I don’t have to pay for my sins. Christ did it for me. That’s hard for me to accept because when I was growing up, I was always under the impression if I’m good, I’ll go to heaven and if I’m bad, I’m going to go to hell. I didn’t know that and understand that Christ paid for my sins. So that’s why for years, I did my best. I wanted to go to heaven. So I tried to live right. I tried to live a good life.

I tried to be a good kid. I really did. But I didn’t understand. And so when everyone I was growing up as a kid, before I even knew anything about it, I never took a drink in my life. I was always afraid I might like it. Now I didn’t want to become a drunk. I never smoked a cigarette because I was told it was bad for you. So I never smoked a cigarette. I never swore cuss word. And I’m almost 70 years old.

I still haven’t done none of those things. Am I going to heaven because I’m so good? No. By your righteousness, you’re never good. You have to be perfect to go to heaven. And nobody’s perfect. That’s why nobody can earn eternal life. Nobody works their way to heaven. No man has ever lived good enough to save himself. All people have to be saved the same way by grace. Either God saves you or you don’t get saved. 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. Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. 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 toll-free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our home page at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the radio broadcast link.

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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10.30, and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 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.

So is there a reason why we should hope in the Lord, and put our trust in the Lord, because of what He can do for us? do for us. And you and I are supposed to believe above all things. Not only is God a great God, God is a good God. He is a good God. Take a Bible looking, Proverbs. Just turn to your right to the book of Proverbs. And Proverbs 25, Proverbs 25 and look there in verse 1.

And just the first seven verses here, I just want to throw a few things at you, but verse 1, These are also proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, King of Judah, copied out. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter. The heaven for height, the earth for death, and the heart of kings is unsearchable. Verse 4 needs to be underlined. Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer.”

In other words, the dross is the things in your life God wants to clean out of you. And he wants the silver to be pure silver. So whenever he gets through with you, you have been refined. So God is going to refine you and I, like a refiner would do that with silver and with gold. Turn to the book of Acts in chapter 9, the book of Acts and chapter 9. Remember a man by the name of Saul, not King Saul, the Saul in the New Testament, Saul before he became Paul.

And the Lord had to really deal with this man, but I want you to see what says here in verse 13. Then Ananias answered and said, Lord, I have heard many things of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem. So he said, Lord, I didn’t heard a lot about this man. This man is an evil man. This man’s done a lot of bad things. And God is sending him to see this man. Because he God had a plan.

Can God take a man that was totally against him and then use him for him? Is it that what we’re doing and teaching that we can get a person who doesn’t know the Lord, love the Lord, get him to trust Christ as Savior and then try to teach people that God can use you. God can change you. God can change your life. You know, during the 2008 election, now a lot of hope and change, hope and change. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if America would hope in the Lord and see a change in the people’s lives?

There’s the real hope and change, but it’s a spiritual thing. And so he says here in verse 14, and here he have authority from the chief priest who bind all that call on his name. Lord, do you know who this man is? Do you know what this man has done? Do you know what he can do? He’s a powerful man. And the Lord said, and the Lord said, in verse 15, go thy way, for he is a, and you ought to underline these two words, chosen vessel.

He’s a chosen vessel. Now you and I understand when we read the gospel of John in chapter 15, where the Lord says, I have chosen you. I have chosen you. And that you should go. So every one of us who know Christ is our Savior, you have been chosen by God, going to all the world and preached the gospel to every creature. You see, every one of us are chosen vessels. God has chosen His people to do His work, His way, and He didn’t ask the lost people to do it.

He asked us to do it. But look what else He says here in this verse. He has a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how great, wonderful, easy life he’s now going to have.” It didn’t say that. I’m going to show him how great things he must suffer for me. God is looking for a vessel who is willing to suffer for him. Are you ready?

Remember I preached to someone and I called, are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready to be the vessel that God wants you to be? Well, I sure hope so. Take your Bible and turn to 2 Timothy in chapter 2. 2 Timothy and chapter 2. 2 Timothy chapter 2. And look at verse 19. Verse 19. You know what he says in verse 15, he’s studied to show thyself approved unto God, he worked that needs not to be ashamed rightly divided in order to.

That’s to the believer. If you want to be prepared, he says, study, study. See, a lot of people want to be used, but they don’t want to prepare themselves. So he says here in verse 19, nevertheless, the foundation of God’s stand if sure, having this seal, the Lord know of them that are his. Now it’s great to say, I know the the Lord, but it’s also good that the Lord knows me and get the last part and let everyone that nameeth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

Is it the will of God for his children to study the word of God so that they’ll know how to discern right from wrong and depart from iniquity? To love the Lord is to hate evil. If you don’t hate evil, you don’t love God. If you love flowers, you have to hate weeds. Why? Because weeds kill flowers. And get what he says. In verse 20, but in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth.

Some to honor, some to dishonor. If a man, get this. Now we’re talking about a man being a vessel fit for God to use. If a man therefore purge himself. See these are things that God wants you to do. Sometimes we think, well God’s going to do this and God’s going to have God’s waiting on his people to clean up their lives. And well, there’s some things that God tells us to do to be fit for the masters used to be willing to do whatever it is God wants us to do.

And it makes a statement, if therefore for a man purge himself. These are things you and I have to do in our own life. Nobody can do this for us. And he says, He shall be, not might, He shall be. See, to be a vessel fit for the Lord to use, then you have to do the cleaning. You have to go to work and cut out of your life, things that will hinder God from using you. But my mom used to have all of these.

seen the lanterns. Anybody used to have any of those things? That would be a big old wick in it, it goes on and thing. And that’s what we had at night. And so, sometimes the sun could get inside of that thing and that little glass sleeve on it we know it would get all set it up. And then the light wouldn’t be very bright. So, my mom would take the thing off of it and she would clean out all the sun inside of it, put it back in, man alive!

It’s like you just turned on 10 of them. Well, see, our lives get there. See, the Holy Spirit living inside of you is as bright as you’ll ever be. He’s not the problem. We’re the vessel and we’re not letting the light shine through us. Let your light so shine that men may see your Father and glorify Him. So you and I are supposed to be light. But sometimes it gets dirty. And that’s where you have 1 John 1, 9, you go to the Lord and God will keep you clean.

Stay close to the Lord. Apply the water of the Word and keep yourself clean from that which can ruin your testimony and cause the light not to shine as clearly. And sometimes there’s others who keep themselves clean. They do right. They keep their mind clean and God is able to use them in a greater way. But look what he says here in verse 21 he shall be a vessel under honor sanctified pure holy Set apart, meet or fit for the master’s use.

Now the master in case you don’t know who he is, is the Lord. If he’s the master, then I’m supposed to be the servant. Now if you get this out of sync, you’re going to have a big problem. You and I do not depart from iniquity and make him the master of our life in order to be saved. That would be works for salvation. That’s what you call Lordship Salvation, making Christ the Lord and a master of your life to be saved.

That isn’t true. But after you trust Christ as your Savior, should the Lord be the master of our lives? Yes. And get what he says in verse 20. Flea also youthful lust. Follow after righteousness and faith and love and peace and with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. So that’s why you’re supposed to meet with the people who are doing the same thing. Who are trying to live a good life, a clean life, trying to keep their vessels clean, trying to keep their minds clean.

You help each other. And God said, I can use you, and you’ll be a servant that the Lord can use. And I’m sure that that’s what you want. Look in 2 Corinthians in chapter 4. 2 Corinthians and chapter 4. The Bible says, if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world had blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them.

Well where is this gospel? Where’s this light supposed to shine from? Well see there in verse 6, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness have shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So the light shined into us and is to come from us. So it came to us so that we might give the light. But where is this most powerful message in all the world?

Look down in verse 7. He says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that he says, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. You see, there’s a power in this message that God has given to us. And we are the vessels that God wants to use. And if you wonder why God may not use you the way you want to be used, it might be. It’s just something you have to find out between you and the Lord.

Maybe you’re not a clean vessel. Maybe you’re not a fit vessel. Maybe you’re not prepared for God to use you. You’re just not ready yet. Nobody can make you get ready. Nobody can prepare you. That’s a personal thing. There may be things that you harbor in your mind or in your life that you do not deal with. You’re not going to deal with it. And so God just puts you on the shelf. And when you’re ready, when you’re ready, and you might sit there for 10, 15, 20 years, when you’re ready, or wouldn’t it be great to be used by God all the days of your life.

Do you want to be settled in the shelf? Do you want to be hid under a bushel? God says you’re a vessel and you have this treasure in earthen vessels, a body of earth, a body of clay. The power might be from God and not of us. Oh, we’d like to take credit. That’s why I’ve told the Lord, give me a Superman body. So I could fly here, fly there, raise a dead, do all these things. Look how many people would just swarm around me.

You know what I did the other day. I was turning to the channels and I saw this thing about this, the Tea Party. I thought I wanted to see what this Tea Party’s doing. So I turned on and Sarah Palin was talking. And when it got over, you’d have thought she was a rock star or something. I mean, they were, it seemed like 100 deep. And she must have signed 200 or 300 signatures. She was putting her name on their caps, on their shirt, paper, anything.

And everybody was just jumping up there and trying to get their picture taken on her. And I thought, she’s just a woman. But she’s getting all this attention and so forth. I’m not against a woman getting all this attention and so forth. But she’s just a woman. What kind of a vessel is she though? What kind of a message does she have? I’m looking for somebody that’s got a good, deep spiritual message on the gospel. Wouldn’t it be great If all these candidates who have all these wonderful opportunities and they interview them, and they would get up there and say, I just want you to know that I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.

I know I have eternal life. He died on the cross, paid for all of my sins, and this is what you and I need. This is what America needs. America needs to know that when we trust Christ as our Savior, God gives us eternal life, and He’ll never cast us out and never lose us. And give the gospel. Why can’t they do that? Because that might cost them votes. And then the left would not like that at all. Me, you tell my God, go crazy.

But I believe somewhere along the line, God might be looking for a vessel that will give him all the honor and all the credit and all the glory. But what I watch is I see them just absorbing it and just getting all the on and all the credit Look at me look who I am. Am I somebody or what? Do you know who I am?

Well, I know who he is and I think it’s important for us to keep this in mind I’ll take your Bible looking Isaiah chapter 60 all the way back here to the book of Isaiah and chapter 60 you know in the Old Testament, the book of Daniel talks about Daniel saw this image of a beast. And remember this beast that had a head of gold, arms and silver of a silver, belly of brass and legs of iron and feet part of iron and part of clay.

So you had clay and iron and brass and silver and gold. And God says that he’s the one that raises them up and puts them down. God can determine the quality of a nation. God can determine the quality of an individual by the yieldingness to his power. Where you allow the Lord to mold you. And he says in every house, there’s vessels of honor and dishonor. And vessels of honor is those that he’s able to shape who yield to his will.

And there’s those who will not. And God says these are vessels of dishonor and God will use them to bestow his wrath upon. And others to bestow his grace upon. So look what he says here in the book of Isaiah because God can change things. God is a miracle working God. God can take a vessel of clay and make it into a vessel of gold. See what he says here in verse 17, for brass I will bring gold. Wouldn’t it be something that you could get some brass and make gold out of it?

Wouldn’t you like that? Look what else he says. Iron and brain force silver. Can you do that? Try it. You know what really amazes me and it’s hard to fathom. How about a cow? A cow can eat that green grass and eat nothing but green grass and be able to give white milk and yellow butter. You try it. But a cow can do that. Where did this manufacturing plant come from? Let our scientists try to figure out, hey, there’s grass out there.

Don’t you turn it into some milk and yellow butter. see how they do or steak. Eat grass and can make a tea bone steak. And we’re supposed to believe we’re the highest form of an evolutionary letter and we can’t do it but a dumb cow, a lot of brain can. Don’t I blow your mind and to think that you can get a brown cow and chocolate milk. But God says, I can take one vessel and if it yields himself to me, I can make it into a vessel of this.

Did you know God can take you, a child of God, an old broken down piece of nothing? And God can take you and if you’ll just yield yourself to the Lord, you’d be surprised how God can shape and mold your life. and turn you into something wonderful that you never dreamed of. You might look at yourself and say, I’m just a worthless piece of clay. And God can streamline you in such a way and filter out things out of your life and purge you and send you through the fire, and you can come out pure gold or pure silver.

Don’t underestimate the power of God in your life because you never know what God is going to do down the road because of who you are and what he can do. Now look at the last part, he said, and for wood, brass, and for stones, iron. Look what God can do. And God says that this is what he can do, I believe, in our life. Look now in the book of Job, chapter 23, the book of Job and chapter 23.

Now Job 23, oh, this is a good one. So much good stuff here. Job, chapter 23. And notice Job had, well, he woke up one day and he was having a nightmare. His life, his world was turned upside down, not for anything that he has done. And yet God broke the man, broken, to where he humbled himself to God and he cried out to God, because he couldn’t figure out why would God do this to a just man. It wasn’t because of how far Job had gone.

come, it was because God had so much further for him to go. It’s not because of all that he learned, it’s because of what he didn’t know and hadn’t learned yet. God knew what he was doing in his life, but looked there in verse 1 of Job, chapter 23, then Job answered and says, even today is my complaint bitter. My stroke is heavier than my groaning. All that I knew where I might find him. Have you ever sometimes had such a bad day and you wonder if God knows what’s going on?

If God only knew who I was and what I’m going through, nobody understands. You had to do. You realize a lot of people in this world that suffer just like you and hurt just like you, you’re not alone. And not only that God in heaven knows he understands, he feels, he knows every despair you have. And then he made the statement in verse 4, I would order my cause before him, feel my mouth with arguments. If I could only get five minutes with God, I’d like to tell him what I think.

I could argue with God. I’d like to present my cause. Well, I would know in verse five the words which he would answer me and understand what he would say to me. Oh, I love to know what he would say to me because I know, as Joe would say, I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve losing ten kids in one day. I don’t deserve losing my wealth. I don’t deserve losing my health. I didn’t do anything. I don’t deserve my wife turning against me and telling me, why don’t you curse God and die?

I don’t deserve the way people have treated me. I don’t deserve that. Okay, what do you deserve? Oh, sinner man. Anyway, looking verse 10, but he knoweth the way that I take. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as what? Oh, I’m not gonna be gold. I’m gonna come forth as gold. God’s doing it because he wants to purify me. He wants to make me better, not bitter. God doesn’t do anything to make you better. God doesn’t do things to us just to hurt us.

It’s because God wants to make us better. And he performs all the things. Look there in verse 14, for he performer the things that is appointed for me. That’s a powerful verse. Did you know that God has an appointment for you? There’s things that God wants you to know, God wants you to learn, God wants you to do, and maybe you’re right on schedule. Did you know that God has a day prepared for you tomorrow? If you should live, he might have all kind of things.

You don’t know what that day holds for you. But you’re supposed to believe that God has appointed certain things for me in every day. And with that, according to Lamentations chapter 3, the Lord is merciful. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is his goodness unto me. In the 103rd Psalm, He have loaded me with all kind of benefits. And then we wonder and we worry and we fret when God has been so good, so good to us. Look what He says in verse 11, my foot have held His steps, His way have I kept and not declined.

I want to serve the Lord. I want God’s will. I want to be a vessel that when God gets through purging me, I shall come forth as gold. I shall come forth as silver.” So God can take you that you might not think you’re worth very much. Just an old piece of clay or a hunk of coal and God can change you into a vessel of honor. Do you believe it? I believe it. I remember what God had to work with when I was saved and I was 18 years old.

Boy did he have his hands full. Boy did he have a lot of work to do. And evidently the reason he’s letting me live so long is because I got a long way to go. He might have a little bit more purging for me to do. You’re supposed to believe that God wants the best for you and there’s things in our life that might need to be purged out of our life. Look up here. Letting this hand represent you and me.

The wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. And the reason because, see, we have a sinful nature. You see, doing these bad things is not what makes me bad. Me being bad is why I do these bad things. You see, we do these bad things because we are a sinner. You can stop your drinking, smoking, dipping, chewing, and going to girls to do. girl to do, you’re still bad because he sins on the inside of you. It’s your nature.

You have a sinful nature. You are naturally rebellious to perfection. But God says that he loves us, and he hates our sin because our sins, he separates us from the Lord. So we have a payment that we have to make, and God loves us and wants us to go to heaven, but we have to be perfect nobody’s perfect. We’ve all sinned. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection. So the Bible says you cannot earn eternal life, you cannot work your way to heaven.

He says salvation is a gift. It’s not by your works. This hand represents Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from the Lord. So Jesus Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead and said if you and I, if we would believe He did it for us. He had put that payment to our account. We get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did.

Best news in all the world. Let’s pray, shall we? If you’re here tonight and you’ve never trusted Christ as Savior, remember this, God loves you. He knows everything in your life. He knows all the good, he knows all the bad. Still loves you. He sent his son into the world as the proof of his love. to let you know how much He loves you. He gave the most important, precious thing in all the world, His Son, to die on the cross for you, for me, for the whole world.

Said that anybody who’s so ever would believe it. He would give to them eternal life as a free gift. And you and I can know that we’re going to heaven by simply believing that He did that for us. I pray that your trust Christ is your Savior. If you have never done so before, but you’ll do it tonight. If you say, yes, that made sense to me, and I want to be certain of going to heaven when I die and preach our life for you to pray for me.

Would you just slip your hand very quickly and put a right back down? It won’t at all. If you’ve already trusted Christ to save it, you never have to do it again. But if you haven’t done so, smart as move you’ll ever make. Our Father, we thank You so much for the privilege we have of being your children. but also for the great privilege we have to be a vessel prepared, fit for the Master to use. We ask your blessings upon each one year.

In Christ name we pray, Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 toll-free. 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible Line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link.

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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on you on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage.

We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and And it’s one that you’ve heard, but it’s just maybe a little different twist to it. Every one of us knows that once we trusted Christ as our Savior, that the Bible talks about you and I being a vessel fit for the Master’s use. A vessel fit for the Master’s use.

Fit for God to use. Prepared under every good work. So the vessel that God wants to use, he wants a clean vessel. He wants a vessel that’s fit, vessel that’s prepared. So you see, some of those things, once you trust Christ’s Savior, is your responsibility. It’s my responsibility. How prepared we get depends on us. How fit you are for the Lord’s work depends on you. So you and I are supposed to prepare for God to use us. If you want God to use it, you don’t sit back and do absolutely nothing.

And I’m just waiting on God. God says, what do you mean? I’m waiting on you. God will use every vessel that makes themselves available. So that’s why it’s such an important thing. So turn in your Bible to the book of 2 Timothy and chapter 1. 2 Timothy, chapter 1, and look in verse 13. A vessel is for the purpose of holding something. Holding something. You can get a glass and it can be a vessel for holding some water and get a gas tank and hold gasoline, but a vessel is to hold something.

There’s something God wants to put into the vessel. Otherwise, the vessel is no good. There’s scripture that talks about a vessel being cracked. A cracked vessel. So here in verse 13, it says, hold fast the form of sound words. That means you and I are to be a vessel where the word of God abides. You see we’re not just holding water, we’re not just holding food, we’re supposed to hold the word of God. Something that’s very precious. So the Bible teaches this.

So take your Bible and turn to the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah in chapter 18, all back there in the Old Testament to the book of Jeremiah in chapter 18. Jeremiah and chapter 18. Jeremiah chapter 18, this is on page 791 in the Church of Bible or the Old Schofar reference Bible. And there’s a little story here about the Potter’s house. I’ve read these verses before but let’s look at it one more time. And verse one, the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, say, and arise and go down to the potter’s house.

There I will cause thee to hear my words. That word here, my word, means I’m going to cause you to understand my word. Even in the book of John chapter 5 verse 24, he that heareth my word and believeth on him, It’s not just hearing it, it’s understanding. When he says, do you understand what you are reading? He says, how can I accept some man should guide me? And even in the book of Nehemiah where it talks about that they had the reading of the Word of God and he caused them to understand.

That’s mainly what preachers tried to do is cause the people to understand what God’s Word has to say. So he makes the statement in verse three, then I went down to the potter’s house and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hands of the potter. So he made it again, another vessel as seameth good to the potter to make it. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?

Sayeth the Lord, behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hands. So are ye in mine hands, O house of Israel. And what instant I shall speak concerning a nation. and concerning the kingdom to pluck up, to pull down, to destroy. Remember, it was I, he says, the Lord that caused it to rise. God can cause it to rise, a kingdom, a nation, a family, an individual, and if you don’t do right, God can also put you down. God can uproot your whole life.

God can destroy this little life that we have, and it’s God that can rebuild us. There is a time to break the vessel. When the vard and God can’t use it, then he will break the vessel. and many times by sending to us problems and trials and tribulations that break us. You see, the will of man is a hard thing to break. And so God wants to break our will without breaking our spirit. So God wants you to serve him.

God wants you to love him. This is why he made the statement in the book of Hebrews in chapter 12 about, don’t faint when thou art rebuked of him. Nor faint when thou art rebuked. When God has to correct or chasten or maybe break the vessel. In other words, to humble a person. Because he God says one thing that harms a vessel from being used is pride. Pride hardens the heart. Pride causes the clay to get hard where God can’t shape it the way he wants.

So in order to God to work with it, he’s got to remake it and he’s got to break it. And then add some more water to it. those are the tears of the believer, and God can soften the clay and you become teachable and pliable in his hands, and God can use you again for his honor and glory. So just because you’ve messed up somewhere down the road doesn’t mean that God can’t use you in the future because he certainly can.

But he says in verse 8, If, if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them, and at what instant I shall speak concerning the nation and concerning the kingdom to build and to plan it. So God says, testimonials, I can tear it down and I can put it back. That was the lesson that, well Jeremiah was supposed to learn by watching the potter and the clay and how that it was marred in his hands and so he had to destroy it and start over again.

Now, if you are rebellious to the Lord because of a hard heart, do you think that God may have to break you in order to soften you? And sometimes there’s things God would allow to happen in your life to cause you to have to run to Him, that you need the Lord. You know, it’s hard to stop going down a sliding board half way. You generally go all the way to the bottom. And people who run from the Lord usually have to go all the way to the bottom until there’s nothing else.

Kind of like the what we call the prodigal son when the Bible says he came to himself funny Came to himself You know when the famines came and all of his money was gone and his riotous living was all over with and he was feeding the hogs finally God got his attention and he said I think I’m gonna go home to see my daddy And I’ll tell him who daddy I’ve sinned against you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son So he had humbled himself, but he had to be broken.

And so God is going to have to break up the ground in order to replant the seed. So God knows what he’s doing, and he will do that in our lives. If you know how God works, you’ll know what kind of a person you ought to be. Do not, under any circumstances, harden your heart toward God. Don’t you dare get bitter and mad and angry with God. God. Now you’ll do that toward people, but it’s God that you’re upset with.

People are only the recipients of your anger and explosion, but you’re not upset with the people. You’re upset with God because when you’re right with God, you can control all of that and you don’t have to respond the way that you think you’re doing. So take your Bible looking Psalms 31. A book of Psalms in chapter 31. Psalms 31, look in verse one. A couple interesting little verses that I wanna kinda go through here real quick. Look in verse one.

You This looks like it could be the sign of a very interesting yielded vessel. In verse one, in the O Lord, do I put my trust in thee? Do I put my trust? That sounds like a good idea. Look in verse three, for thou art my rock and my fortress, and you ought to underline this part of the verse in your Bible. Therefore, for thy names sake lead me and guide me. Have you ever heard people talk about God?

Lord, I want you to lead me to guide me. Lead me Lord, guide me. You see, if you want to be led by the Lord, you have to be doing something, going somewhere. You want the Lord to guide you. It is not within man that walk up to direct a step so everybody needs the Lord. Oh, look what he says in verse 5, into thy hands I commit my spirit. That is what makes you teachable. That’s what makes you pliable.

That’s why God is able to take you and mold you into the person that God wants you to be. Otherwise, you can grow up to be a mean, cantankerous, old woman or an old man. And that’s not what you want to be. Look down here in verse 9. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and you are on the line, these words, because the day will come when you’ll need this verse. For I am in trouble. Just because you know the Lord and just because you love the Lord doesn’t mean you’re not going to have trouble.

Trouble are like sparks that fly upward from the time you’re born. There’s always trouble. A look at what he says there in verse 10, for my life, my life is spent with grief. My years with sighing my strength faileth because of my iniquity my bones are consumed and the older you live the more you realize it. But anyway, we’ll move right along. Oh, look what he says there in verse 12. You ought to underline verse 12. I am forgotten as a dead man out of mine.

And look at the last part that verse 12, I am like a, and you are the line these two words, especially a broken vessel. Now God may have to take you at times and break the vessel. Break your heart. Have you ever had a broken heart? It can come in a lot of ways. It can come through your husband. It can come through your wife. It can come from the people that you work with. It can come from your children.

It can come from grandchildren. come from the people you work with. It can even come from people in the church. And you’d be surprised how many different ways you could have a broken heart. But do you think that God in heaven knows when you have that broken heart? God may know what it takes to make this clay, this vessel, in order to shape it into what he wants. It’s kind of like a woman who makes a cake depends on what kind of a cake she wants to make.

If she just wants to make a vanilla cake, I mean, where’s vanilla? Well, you don’t put a lot of chocolate in it. You can for me. I like chocolate. I like chocolate in everything. I just run like chocolate. But look what he says here. Look down in verse 14, but I trusted in the old Lord, I for thou art my God.” You know another good statement along his line? Look there in the first verse on the next page. In verse 15, my times are in thy hands.

You ought to underline that. You need to understand and believe it. There is a God in heaven who says, my times are in his hands. My life is in his hands. Do you believe it? Do you believe there’s a God in heaven that’s aware of life and he designed it. He made you, made me, knows everything that’s going to happen. We have a wonderful God. And believe it or not, he does have a plan. He does know what he wants from our lives.

Look there in verse 19. He’s, oh, how great is thy goodness. Ain’t that good? which thou hath laid up, get to for them that fear thee, which thou hath wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men. How great is thy goodness, which thou hath laid up for them that fear him. If you’ll learn to yield yourself to the Lord, to be whatever it is God wants you to be, you’re gonna find a lot of goodness.

Remember David made the statement. He says, Shirley, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And they will till he messed up. And then God says, I’m going to bring the sword against your home. Says four times it’s going to hit and buddy it did. And he had to pay a great price. Look down in verse 23. Oh love the Lord, all ye his saints. For the Lord, the Lord is the Lord. preserveth the faithful and plantifully rewardeth the proud doers.

Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart. All ye that hope in the Lord.” So is there a reason why we should hope in the Lord and put our trust in the Lord because of what he can do for us? And you and I are supposed to believe above all things. Not only is God a great God, is a good God. He is a good God. Take a Bible looking, Proverbs. Just turn to your right to the book of Proverbs.

And Proverbs chapter 25, Proverbs 25 and look there in verse 1 and just the first seven verses here I just want to throw a few things at you but verse 1. These are also Proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter. The heaven for height, the earth for death, and the heart of kings is unsearchable.

Verse 4 needs to be underlined, take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer. In other words, the draw is the things in your life God wants to clean out of you and he wants the silver to be pure silver. So whenever he gets through with you, you have been refined. So God is going to refine you and I like a refiner would do that with silver and with gold. Turn to the book of Acts in chapter 9, the book of Acts and chapter 9.

Remember a man by the name of Saul, not King Saul, the Saul in the New Testament, Saul before he became Paul. And the Lord had to really deal with this man, but I want you see what he says here in verse 13. Then Ananias answered and said, Lord, I have heard many things of this man. How much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem. So he said, Lord, I didn’t heard a lot about this man. This man is an evil man.

This man’s done a lot of bad things. and God is sending him to see this man, because he God had a plan. Can God take a man that was totally against him and then use him for him? Is it that what we’re doing and teaching that we can get a person who doesn’t know the Lord, love the Lord, get him to trust Christ as Savior and then try to teach people that God can use you, God can change you.

God can change your life. You know during the 2018 election, all the lives, hope and change, hope and change. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if America would hope in the Lord and see a change in the people’s lives? There’s the real hope and change, but it’s the spiritual thing. And so he says here in verse 14, and here he have authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on his name. Lord, do you know who this man is?

Do you know what this man has done? Do you know what he can do? He’s a powerful man. And the Lord said, and the Lord said, in verse 15, go thy way, for he is a, and you ought to underline these two words, chosen vessel. He’s a chosen vessel. Now you and I understand when we read the Gospel of John in chapter 15 where the Lord says, I have chosen you. I have chosen you. And that you should go.

So every one of us who know Christ is our Savior, you have been chosen by God, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. You see, every one of us are chosen vessels. He’s not as chosen as his people to do his work his way. And he didn’t ask the lost people to do it. He asked us to do it. But look what else he says here in this verse. He is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how great, wonderful, easy life he’s now going to have.

It didn’t say that. I’m going to show him how great things he must suffer for me. God is looking for me. for a vessel who is willing to suffer for Him. Are you ready? Remember I preached to a certain one night called, Are You Ready? Are You Ready? Are You Ready? Are you ready to be the vessel that God wants you to be? Well, I sure hope so. Take your Bible and turn to 2 Timothy in chapter 2. 2 Timothy and chapter 2.

Isn’t Timothy chapter 2? And look at verse 19. Verse 19. You know what he says in verse 15, he studied to show thyself approved unto God, he worked unto that need not to be ashamed, rightly divided in order to… That’s to the believer. If you want to be prepared, he says, study, study. See, a lot of people want to be used, but they don’t want to prepare themselves. So he says here in verse 19, Nevertheless, the foundation of God stand if sure, having this seal, the Lord know of them that are His.

Now it’s great to say, I know the Lord, but it’s also good that the Lord knows me and get the last part and let everyone that nameeth the name of Christ depart from iniquity, is Is it the will of God for his children to study the Word of God so that they’ll know how to discern right from wrong and depart from iniquity? To love the Lord is to hate evil. And if you don’t hate evil, you don’t love God.

If you love flowers, you have to hate weeds. Why? Because weeds kill flowers. And get what he says. verse 20, but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth. Some to honor, some to dishonor. If a man, get this now, we’re talking about a man being a vessel fit for God to use. If a man therefore purges himself. See, these are things that God wants you to do.

Sometimes we think, well God’s going to do this and God’s going to have God’s waiting on his people to clean up their lives. And well, there’s some things that God tells us to do, to be fit for the masters used, to be willing to do whatever it is God wants us to do. And he makes a statement, if therefore a man purrs himself, these are things you and I have to do in our own life. Nobody can do this for us.

And he says, he shall be, not might, he shall be. See, to be a vessel fit for the Lord to use, then you have to do the cleaning. You have to go to work and cut out of your life things that will hinder God from using you. But my mom used to have all these kerosene liners. Anybody used to have any of those things? That’ll be a big old wick in it, it goes on and thing. And that’s what we had at night.

And so sometimes the suck get inside of that thing and that little glass sleeve on it, we know it would get all set it up. And then the light wouldn’t be very bright. So my mom would take the thing off of it and she would clean out all of the sun inside of it, put it back in man alive. It’s like you just turned on 10 of them. Well, see, our lives get there. See, the Holy Spirit living inside of you is as bright as you’ll ever be.

He’s not the problem. We’re the vessel and we’re not letting the light shine through us. Let your light so shine that men may see your Father and glorify Him. So you and I are supposed to be light, but sometimes it gets dirty. And that’s where you have 1 John 1, 9. You go to the Lord and God will keep you clean. clean, stay close to the Lord, apply the water of the Word, and keep yourself clean from that which can ruin your testimony and cause the light not to shine as clearly.

And sometimes there’s others who keep themselves clean, they do right, they keep their mind clean, and God is able to use them in a greater way. But look what he says here. In verse 21, he shall be a vessel on the honor, sanctified, pure and holy, set apart, meet or fit for the master’s use. Now the master in case you don’t know who he is, is the Lord. If he’s the master, then I’m supposed to be the servant. Now if you get this out of sync, you’re going to have a big problem.

You and I do not depart from iniquity and make him the master of our life in order to be saved. That would be works for salvation. That’s what you call Lordship Salvation, making Christ the Lord and a master of your life to be saved. That isn’t true. But after you trust Christ as your Savior, should the Lord be the master of our life? Yes. And get what he says in verse 20 to him. Flea also youthful lust. Follow after righteousness and faith and love and peace and with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

So that’s why you’re supposed to meet with the people who are doing the same thing. Who are trying to live a good life, a clean life. Trying to keep their vessels clean. Trying to keep their minds clean. You help each other. And God said, I can use you and you’ll be a servant that the Lord can use, and I’m sure that that’s what you want. Look in 2 Corinthians in chapter 4, 2 Corinthians and chapter 4. The Bible says, if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them.

Well, where Where is this Gospel? Where is this light supposed to shine from? Well, see there in verse 6, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness have shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So the light shined into us and is to come from us. So it came to us so that we might give the light. But where is this most powerful message in all the world?

Look down in verse seven. He says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels. That he says, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. You see, there’s a power in this message that God has given to us. And we are the vessels that God wants to use. And if you wonder why God may not use you the way you want to be used, It might be, it’s just something you have to find out between you and the Lord.

Maybe you’re not a clean vessel. Maybe you’re not a fit vessel. Maybe you’re not prepared for God to use you. You’re just not ready yet. Nobody can make you get ready. Nobody can prepare you. That’s a personal thing. There may be things that you harbor in your mind or in your life that you do not deal with. You’re not going to deal with it. And so God just puts you on the shelf and when you’re ready, when you’re ready, and you might sit there for 10, 15, 20 years, when you’re ready, or wouldn’t it be great to be used by God all the days of your life?

Do you want to be set on the shelf? Do you want to be hit under a bushel? God says you’re a vessel and you have this treasure in earthen vessels, a body of earth, the body of clay, that the power might be from God and not of us. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tapp of Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast.

If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. 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.

God invited the whole world to come to heaven. He opened up the door where everybody in the whole world is invited. Can you get any greater of an invitation than that? Who does it exclude? It doesn’t exclude anybody. Everybody, whosoever will, may what? Everybody who will may come. The biggest invitation in all the world. No greater invitation has ever been given to mankind than whosoever, whosoever will. I also want you to notice when he says, be leave it in him, be leave it in him.

Now you and I know and we understand that when a man dies without the Lord, he is going to spend an eternity in hell. And the easiest escape that’s ever been offered to any man from the greatest danger in all the world is whosoever, believe it, believe. Can’t get any easier than that. If God had made salvation where a man had to earn it, then that would be hard. If he said you had to go to church every Sunday, that would be difficult.

That’s difficult for some y’all to come once a month. It’s difficult for people to pray every day if you had to pray. What if God told you you had to pay at least 10% of all of your money that you’ve ever made or you’d go to hell? A lot of people wouldn’t go to heaven there either. That would be hard. But God made salvation easy. He says, all you have to do believe. The easiest escape from the greatest place, hell, to heaven is made so easy for everybody in the whole world.

God so loved the world that He gave, has only been gotten, son, that whosoever, believe it in Him, should not what? Should not perish. Divine deliverance. It means that you will not perish. You will not go to hell. Think of the consequences if you don’t believe. Look what you get if you do believe. It is a divine deliverance where God Himself, created the heavens of the earth will deliver an individual from hell and let that person go to heaven and he does it all for us.

And then he says, but have everlasting life, everlasting life, the priceless possession, the greatest thing you and I could ever wish for. Ever want is to have eternal life. The greatest possession that a man can possess, he can have it, and it’s free. This is why the whole Bible was written because God so loved the whole world that he gave his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever anybody, Believe it, then Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Look up here. Letting this hand represent you and me and this wallet represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God loves us. He hates our sin. The Bible says that if we pay for this sin, it’s eternal separation from God in hell. But God wants us to go to heaven and to go to heaven, we have to be perfect just as righteous as God. And none of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. we needed a Savior.

Jesus Christ came into the world. This hand representing Christ came into world because He loves us. Hates our sin because our sins separates us from the Lord. So Christ took it, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. And now the payment for the sins of the world had been paid and everybody is invited to accept the payment that He made for them. So only by faith, by believing alone, they can have eternal life and go to heaven on what Christ did for them.

For God, so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That is what Christ did for us. I want you to look at this in John 3 16. When he says, for God so loved of a world, God loving the world is the richest possible mercy. The richest possible mercy. Why? Because what has the world done to deserve being loved? And not just what has the world done that would deserve God loving us, what has the world done that deserve God saving us.

Never thought about that. What is it about you? That is so wonderful. What makes you so great? Why does God love you? Can you explain it? And yet the whole world has sinned against God. The whole world was condemned. God’s so loving the world, every person in the world, all the same God loves them all. God loves the thief. God loves the homosexual. God loves the murderer. God loves Adolf Hitler. God loves the man who bombed that building in Oklahoma.

God loves all these people because of how many they have killed or raped. God loves them. God does not love their sin. God does not love your sin, but God loves you. And God can save every sinner, every sinner, all sinners. There isn’t anyone that God doesn’t want to save. God wants to save the whole world. That’s why He died for the whole world. You and I would like to blow them away. We’d like to part their soul in eternity.

We’d love to send a few people to hell, but God isn’t like us. He loves them all. He loves the whole world. He loves the people that you can’t stand. The ones you despise and the ones you look down on. The ones you think deserve to go to hell. Have you ever seen somebody that, well they deserve to go to hell. Did anybody ought to go to hell? They ought to go to hell. Well, if that’s true, so do you.

you deserve to go to hell. And that’s why God so loving the world is the greatest possible mercy that can ever be demonstrated upon mankind. The gift of his only begotten son. That’s the highest possible price that could ever be paid for something. What would you be willing to pay for your salvation? If you really believed there was a literal fire burning hell, what would you be willing to pay not to go there? Would you be willing to give all your money?

Would you be willing to give your wife and your kids? Just the wife? What would you be willing to pay in order to go to heaven to escape that place? What would it be worth to you? Would it be worth it for you to try to live right if you thought that would get you there? The highest possible price it could be paid was the life of God’s Only begotten son. Remember, Jesus Christ being born of this world was his only son that God fathered.

He fathered a child. He had a child, his own child. He only did that one time. He only had one son and he gave him to be the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. That whosoever, that means you, me or anybody else might not suffer. That’s the largest possible number that you could ever reach numerically concerning people. Every person is included into this number. It exempts nobody that God so loved the world that He gave is only begotten Son, that whosoever, anybody, the largest possible number, that He says that we shall not perish.

Shall not perish. That’s the darkest possible doom upon any man. Think for a moment. You may not have good health. That’s not the worst thing in the world. You may not have any money. That’s not the worst thing in the world. You may not be married. That’s not the worst thing in the world. You may not have your will. That’s not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing that could ever happen to you is to go to hell.

There’s nothing worse than that. That’s the darkest doom upon any man. And God says that when you trust him as your Savior, you are delivered. You will not perish. You will not perish means you will not be lost in hell into a literal flaming fire for all eternity. The Bible does not describe hell as a place of light, but a place of darkness, place of darkness. To be delivered from that will not perish. when he says, but have everlasting life or eternal life.

That’s the greatest possible blessing that any man can ever have. Think, isn’t it nice to be married? Is it nice to have children? Isn’t it nice to have good health? Isn’t it nice to have good clothes? Isn’t it nice to have a good house? Isn’t it nice to have a good job? And all those things nice, but there is no possession greater than the gift of eternal life. It’s the greatest possession you can ever have. I have that possession.

I can lose everything else, but I cannot lose the greatest possession of all. I can lose my health. I can lose my house. I can lose my wife. I can lose my kids. I can lose everything. But one thing that means more to me than anything else in this world is knowing that I have eternal life and I’m going to be with the Lord forever and I can’t lose that. The greatest possible blessing. When He said, who so ever believe it?

the easiest possible terms. God put it on the level that everybody can have it and everybody can do it. Only believe. God says it’s not by your works for by grace or you say through faith and that not of yourself it is the gift of God. Not a works, lest any man should boast. And you know what? All this is based upon the greatest security of all. What’s the greatest security of all of this. God said it. God’s Word.

Who said verse 16? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God. God said it and that’s the greatest security you and I will ever have because of the Word of God. I know that I’m saved, not because I feel it. I know I’m saved because I’m living for God. No, I’m not. I know I’m saved because God’s Word says I’m saved. I I know I have eternal life because God’s Word says I have eternal life. I’m God’s child because God’s Word says I’m God’s child.

That’s how I know this. And this will never change. I want you to look there in verse 16 again. When he says, for God, God is the author of our salvation. He’s the author of it. Who designed this plan of salvation? Man did not design it. Man did not come up with a scheme. ideas of religion is always man doing something to get right with God. Man trying to live a certain way. That’s all the religions of the world is man trying to attain unto something by his own efforts.

Christianity is where God reaches down to man. Religion is where man is trying to reach up to God. It was God who took the initiative and came into the world. This plan of salvation was designed by God, He’s the author of it. He designed it. He’s the architect. He’s the one that provided the way of salvation because no man can save himself. I want you to also notice that phrase that says, so loved the world. That’s the affection of salvation.

And it means in spite of all our sins, in spite of all that we’ve done wrong, in In spite of everything that’s contrary to the will of God, God still so loved the world. And that includes all the nations of the world. God so loved the world. Are you in this world? Then he loves you. He said, yeah, but you don’t know what I’ve done. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. You don’t know how bad I’ve been. It doesn’t matter how bad you’ve been.

It doesn’t matter. loves you and he loves you that much. The affection of our salvation is that there is a personal loving God who wants you to be saved. It’s not a machine. This is not just mechanics. There’s a personal God that has feelings and I cannot tell you and I cannot explain to you if I could I would why God loves us, why God wants us saved. All I know is it’s for his honor, is for his sake, that he does love us and that he does care and that he wants everyone to be saved.

I don’t know why God would love a murderer or a thief, no more than he’d love a liar, but he says he loves a song. I want the person. That might be listened even to the broadcast. I want that homosexual to know that God loves that man. That God hates his sin. God loves that murder, but God hates his sin. You see, God loves that person that’s living in adultery. But God hates the sin. God loves people. You and I need to keep it in mind as we look at people and we deal with people.

God loves those people. He hates their sin. Sometimes we get kind of mixed up sometime and we hate the person instead of hating the sin. Also want to let you know when he says that he gave, that he gave. That’s the agony of salvation. When he says he gave his son, he didn’t just, okay, I gave that. He knew that by giving his son what his son was going to have to do. He knew what he was going to have to endure.

When you stop and think about it, did his son, his only son that he gave into this world, did his son deserve to be slapped? Did his son deserve to be slapped with the hand? Did his son deserve to have a crown of thorns upon his head? Did he deserve all of that? No. Did he deserve to be spit on and to be beaten with a stick? No. Did he deserve to be placed upon a cross and nails driven into that.

Did he deserve any of that? No. Well, what did he deserve? He didn’t deserve anything like that. But by God doing what he did and letting him have his perfect righteous son into this world shows you how wicked sin really is. See, it’s one thing when you try to compare a hog with a hog. They’re both hogs. But when you put a sheep in amongst the hogs, you can see the difference. They’re not the same. You and I sin.

I wrong you. You wrong me. But here comes God’s son who wronged no man did nothing wrong to anyone who was perfect. He was righteous, had no fault, no flaws in him. And to see what the world did to him shows you how wicked we are. Because see, when they hid him, we hid him. When they lied against him, we all lied against him. When they hid him with their fist, we all hid him with our fist. When they drove the nails in his hand, we all drove the nailsartney his hands.

You see, when they crucified him, we all crucified him. So why? Because he did that for us. If I had no sin, he would not have had to die for me. If you had no sin, he wouldn’t have had to die for you. He’d have just died for the ones who had sin. But since the Bible says he died for all the world, that means all the world had sinned. And all the world deserved to die. He was given the agony of salvation.

He says his only begotten Son is only begotten Son. He’s the advocate of salvation. We know that in the book of 1 John chapter 2, we have an advocate with the Father. But you know, there had to be a time when the Father and the Son in the plan of salvation that the Son’s Father, if I go down there and if I pay for their sins, if I die and pay for them, will you save them for my sake?

Will you save them? The Father said, if you go and you do that for them, I’ll accept that payment you make as a payment for their sins. I’ll do that for you. I’ll do that. What a plan. No man could have sat down and wrote this story. You’re not capable of thinking like this. These thoughts are not our thoughts. These ways are not our ways. This is beyond you and I. We could not have come up with a scheme like this.

This was designed in the mind of God, between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, a Council of Three, the Godhead. They did this. And He is an advocate who pleases another’s cause. In other words, God said, if you will pay for their sins, I’ll let them come to heaven on that payment. And that’s why. Jesus Christ did it. That’s why God says, I’ll justify them on the basis of what you did for them. You and I have done nothing to deserve heaven.

We’ve done no good works worthy of God’s saving us. It was all because of the plan of salvation God did it all. Another thing I like to mention two years that when he says that whosoever, that is the availability of salvation means it’s available to every individual. If God had said He had only saved a certain percentage or a certain number, I wouldn’t know who to witness to and who not to. I believe it’s my responsibility as a Christian to try to reach everybody I can in every way that I can and to pay or to sacrifice anything that I have and whatever I can do in order to try to reach people.

And I believe some of you here believe the same thing. This salvation is for a whosoever and that includes you and me and everybody you know and everybody you don’t know. Believe it then Him the acceptance of salvation. It means that all you have to do is believe that when Jesus Christ died, He died for you. Came back from the dead. If you’ll believe He did that for you and trust Him as your Savior. You can hear that He died and paid for sins and you can know that He did it for the sins of the whole world.

But you must believe He did it for you. When you believe He did that for you, He puts that payment to your account and not before. So salvation is only for believers. Will you believe it? It’s the easiest escape you’ll ever have from the darkest doom that you can ever escape from in the easiest manner possible simply by believing. The alternative of salvation is that you should not perish because it means that if you refuse to believe it you refuse then you will perish.

When you read John 3 16 that whosoever be believe it in him shall not perish mean that whosoever will not believe will perish.” Isn’t that true? If you don’t believe it, you will perish. It means you will be lost. That there really is a literal fire burning hell for all the unbelievers. Now look there in John chapter 3 and verse 18. He that believe it on him is not condemned. That means if you believe it, you’re not condemned because you see he died in your place, he was condemned for you, his payment is put to your account so you’re not condemned.

You’re not going to be punished. You’re not going to go to hell. You’re not going to perish. But he says, he that believe not. If you do not believe, you will perish. You will perish. He that believe if not is condemned when? You’re already condemned. You’re not waiting for someday to stand it’s some judgment and to find out if you’re going to be condemned or not. The Bible says, you’re already condemned. I’m not the judge. I’m just telling you what the judge said.

That everybody in the world is already condemned. They’re just waiting for the day of execution. But he says, those that will believe it, it’s made on the level that anybody can have it. to as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. If you believe it, you have everlasting life. Now look in the last part of verse 18, but he that believe if not is condemned already and here’s why, because he hath not believed.

Nobody can believe for you. Nobody can get saved for you. No No one can accept that payment Christ made for you. No person can do this for you in your place. Every individual has to do it then self. You have to trust Christ as your Savior or perish. There is no alternative. Trust Him or perish. Believe Him or perish. And that perish does not mean that you’ll be annihilated someday. It means you’ll perish in a literal fire burning hell and you’ll be in conscious torment for all eternity because you have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

This is an abiding salvation. Because he says he that believeth on him should not perish but have what? Everlasting life. It means that if you do believe it, you do have something. He that believeth on me, hath, present tense, hath, right now everlasting life. Look there in verse 36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. If you believe it, you have what? Everlasting life. When do you have everlasting life? When you believe it. If you believe it now, you have everlasting life.

Now, if you believe it, you have it. How do I know when I really believe it? When you can say, I have it. If you cannot say, I have it, it’s because you don’t believe it. If you believe it, you have it. Isn’t that simple? Look in John 647. Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. If you’ll believe on him, that means you believe that Jesus Christ was God’s Son. God into place came into this world, died on the cross, paid for your sins, came back from the dead.

You believe he did that for you and you accept him as your payment, as your Savior. God saves you from hell, gives you as a free gift everlasting life when you believe it. I’m not waiting to do this someday. I’m going to get eternal life. I have eternal life. I have it now. I am God’s child now and it’s something that I cannot lose because it’s a free gift. It’s the gift of eternal life, not temporary life. If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, what do you have?

Eternal life. If it’s eternal life, how long will it last? Forever. If it lasts forever and all of your sins are paid, Where are you going when you die? To heaven. Do you have to wait until you die to find out where you’re going? No, you can know it right now And if you have not trusted Christ as your Savior and him alone, you don’t go to heaven You can hear about it. You can quote all kind of stuff whole Bible But if you have not trusted Christ as your Savior, you’re lost and you’ll go to hell when you die But God loves you.

So do I. And I want people to have eternal life and to go to heaven. And I hope that you do. Let’s pray, shall we? With heads bowed nice and closed, no one looking around. If you’re here this morning, if you have not trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, would you trust Him right now? I’m not asking to trust Me or this church. Don’t even trust yourself. Your good works. You can’t depend upon anything. Or anyone except Jesus Christ.

He is God in the flesh. He died. He paid for your sins You must believe he did it for you. And if you’ll believe that trust him right now right where you are You don’t have to come forward You don’t have to come up here to the front. You don’t have to confess anything to me You could talk to the God and confess to God Lord. I am a sinner. That’s what you are. That’s what I am I’m not perfect.

I believe Christ died. He paid for my sins and right now I’m going to trust him to take me to heaven when I die. And for any God’s that if you’ll believe he did it for you, he’ll save you and give eternal life. If you trust Christ as your Savior right now, then God saves you right now. He has you eternal life right now. You’re his child and your sin is forgiven. You become his child. 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 tool free 1-800-5777-1. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the 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. I can’t make you do anything and you know that. I know that. Because if I was God, I would. But I’m not God, so I can’t. All I can do is tell you things. I have no power over you, no control over you. I’m not a dictator, I’m not God, I’m not the Holy Spirit.

I’m just a man. Just a man, just like you. But something happened to me when I was 18 years old. I started studying the Bible. And the Word of God got into me. And I began to think about how I began to think about this and that. What I wanted to do with my life. What I wanted to accomplish. Where I wanted to go. It began to really play tricks in my mind and I battled back and forth the will of man versus the Word of God.

And I’ll tell you, I fought some battles. But I’m so glad that I went ahead and just did what the Word of God said do. And now 50 years later, as I look back, I can see how God has blessed. And it’s not because somebody’s better than somebody else’s because they’re somewhere along the line, because the Holy Spirit works in your life. And you begin to grow a little bit, and you’re learning a little bit more, and you grow some more, and you want to do something, you want to accomplish something, and you don’t want to waste your life.

You know that everything in this world is going to pass away. It’s not going to last. So why try to be able to mansion here? It’s going to pass. But what I accomplish for the Lord, that’s what’s important. That’s what’s important for you and it should be. And I want you to see that, look there in the book of Ephesians in chapter two, Ephesians chapter two, look in verse 10. And verse 10 says, for we are His workmanship. He’s the one that saved you.

Now he wants to continue working on you. You see, he gave you eternal life. He’s already saved you from hell. Now you’re going to heaven and he’s the one that’s doing the work. And he makes a statement. Well, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. You see, this is what God wants in your life. Now, you may not perform. You’re still saved from the penalty of sin, but you will not have the power that you need to be saved from the power of sin in your life.

And that’s where a lot of Christians have ruined their life, they’re ruined their testimony because they will not do what God wants them to do. And because of that, there’s a price to pay. But look at the last part of it. He says, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in that we should, should. Not that you have to or that you will. Is it possible for a lost man to defy the will of God? Yes. God is not willing that any should perish.

That means nobody’s going to perish? No, they still will. Why? Because they can defy the will of God. But there’s a price for doing so. Can a Christian defy the will of God for his life? Yes. God wants us to perform these good works. That’s why He left us here. But you can say no. I ain’t going to do it. Well does that mean God’s not going to keep His Word and save you? No, because His promise was not based upon you.

His Word is based upon His Word. He promised and he’ll never cast you out. He’ll never lose you for no reason. We go to heaven on what he promised, not what we promised. But as a child of God, God said, if I would serve him here, he said he would bless my life. Well after 50 years I should be able to look over my life and say, well did he keep his word? Yes, he did. He’s done just like he said he would do.

And I’m looking forward to the day when I get to heaven because I believe I’m going to see thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people that have led to Christ over the years. But you see, that’s because somewhere along the line, you have to dedicate your life to him and say, I’m going to serve the Lord. So God wants to save us from the power of sin in our lives. Now look at letter C, talking about the future tense, the future tense.

I will be saved from the very presence of sin when I die or when Christ returns for me. Turning your Bible to the book of Romans in chapter 13. I want to see this verse. Romans in chapter 13. I want you to look there in verse 11. Verse 11 says, and that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation near than when we believed. So we believed his past tense.

So salvation is near now. In the words, is this the result of I’ve finally been good and I’ve been haven myself and now God’s gonna going to take me on home and I finally earned the right to go to heaven. No, no, that’s not what he’s saying. See, I have been saved when I believed on Christ. God saved me and gave me the free gift of eternal life. I became his child. Now, I can say this. It’s been 50 years ago.

So now I am here 50 years down the line. But I can also say that now my salvation is near than when I believed. salvation of what? When I say, no, no, no, no, no, no. See, I’m going to be saved one day from the very presence of sin. I won’t be here. God’s going to take me out. God’s going to save me out of this world. It’s going to take me clean out of it. So I’m looking forward to my deliverance from this world and from the sin in the world.

You see, I believe on him and that saved me from the penalty of sin. I am now being saved from the power of sin and the day will come when we’ll be saved from the very presence of sin. We won’t be in its presence anymore. And God says heaven, there is no unrighteousness there. That’s why not even a lie. No sin can enter heaven because heaven is a perfect place. So I have been saved, saved, saved. It ain’t all over yet, but it’s as good as done.

Because when that takes place, I’m out of here. And I will not have this old body with this old sinful nature. I won’t have to worry anymore about having victory over the flesh and so forth. The battle is over. All the war is over. I don’t know about you, but you can get mighty tired and weary in this old life. You can get weary doing right, but you get weary and God says, don’t become weary and well doing. For you showers, you’re going to reap.

It’s just down the road. Just don’t worry about it. Just be patient. We’ll reap in this life what we sow. So down. The next thing to understand, this is about salvation. You got that clear. Two things about the Christian that he needs to always remember. One is salvation. I have been saved. I am being saved and I will be saved. be saved. That’s your whole life. Now the next part is on service. On this thing about service to understand these three little simple things.

Look there at number one, a letter A, chastening. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 7, I want you to look at it real quick, Hebrews and chapter 12, after you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior, yes, your God’s child, you say, well, what if I don’t serve the Lord. Okay, God will not make you. Now He’ll make you wish you had of, but He won’t make you serve Him. But look what He says in verse 5, chapter 12 and verse 5.

These are very important verses to understand. So in verse 5 He said, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speak unto you as unto children. My son despised not thou the chastening of Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. Did you know that your heavenly Father who gave you birth you’re his child born into his family and in this life. Now remember you’ve already been saved from the penalty of sin. You ain’t going to hell. That’s an issue you don’t have to worry about again.

But in my life to understand that if I do not serve God the way God wants me to serve him, My heavenly Father says, I can choose to rebel, but He will choose the form of punishment. Isn’t that fair? You can choose the sin and He can choose how to punish it. Ooh. And you don’t know exactly when or how He’s going to do that. That’s the mysteries. God doesn’t tell us everything. And how God disciplines one person doesn’t mean He’s going to do another one the same way.

Well, I saw them do it and get away with it. Man, every time I do something, I never get away with it. That’s where it’s been with my life. Kids can do all kind of mess up in school, but men, let me try it. One time I get nailed. I always get caught. I often wonder how come my mama, and you know you say that she had an eye in the back of her head. She dies in the back of her head.

Well, she just knows her kids were bolt onto. But God is always watching. And he wants to bless us. But sometimes he has to change. because we refuse to do what God wants us to do. And so it says our Heavenly Father is going to chase in you. He’s going to whoop you, for what it means. He’s going to spank you just like you would your child. Like we used to do when we weren’t afraid of the government. That’s why we don’t have that in discipline anymore because we’re afraid of the government going to take away our children.

You got to take your child, go to the social service and say, here’s my child. Now we’re going to have a decision. Either you raise them or I’m going to raise them. You want to raise them? You take them. I can’t take them, go ahead. If I can’t raise my child, then I don’t need my child. I can’t help my child. You can’t raise a child, correct, unless you have the right to discipline to correct a child. In the day we didn’t got so afraid, we can’t do anything with them.

And then we wind up raising a bunch of these little monsters and then they’re the one that controls the home. And then they control the school. Now if you don’t like what I’m saying, just be thankful for what I’m holding back. Looking for seven. He said, if you endured chasing, dealing with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chafes and not? So God is going to chasten you. It doesn’t mean he’s going to kill you.

Now he could take you home. He could be taken home. He says, some are sick and so forth. And many are dead because of it. And many are just plain way Christians. And God sometimes will just take him, put you on the shelf and not use you. But you don’t want to be put on a shelf. You want God to use you. Wouldn’t you rather have the blessings of God? I’d want the blessings of God in my life. And this is what God’s talking about.

Now, I want you to look at this because you need to see this first. Look in 2 Timothy chapter two, 2 Timothy and chapter two. Just turn to you left a couple of pages there. And look in verse 21. This is to the Christian, to the believer. You say, well, what if I’m not sure I’m saved anymore? and you have questions and doubts and remember this, if you have at a time in your life, trust the Christ is your savior, and you dependent upon him to take it to heaven when you die.

Then God says you’re going to heaven depends upon him keeping his word, he promised. And if you question and you doubt, it does not call God the question and God the doubt. And God says this, look there in verse 19, nevertheless, the foundation of God’s standard sure, having this seal and you ought to underline this part of the verse. The Lord know of them that are His and then He makes this statement. Let every one, that name of the name of Christ turn from sin, depart from iniquity.

That’s the will of God for His children, but not all of God’s children do what God says to do. And God says that there’s vessels that He uses, vessels of honor vessels of dishonor, a vessel that showed God’s grace and mercy and vessels that showed God’s anger and his wrath. See there in verse 20, in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver but also of wood and of earth, some to honor, some to dishonor.

Now he’s relating it to you and I. In verse 21, if a man therefore purged himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto what? Honor. But But see, that’s something that you do. You have to purge out of your life those things that would cause you to be a bad vessel. See, God’s looking for a clean vessel that he can use for his honor, for his glory. Somebody that will say, Lord, here am I, use me. But means you gotta discipline your life.

We live in a time and age where nobody wants to discipline anything. We’ve got insurance on everything. And so it doesn’t matter how I live, what I do, drive recklessly, no matter how I got insurance. We didn’t have all of that there. Everybody was more careful because you were responsible. And it was a price you had to pay. Today it doesn’t matter about things like that. You know what I noticed, let me just mention this to you. It’s a little sidetrack, but over in India, I mean, there’s peeming millions of people.

And you know, in most of the towns, in the cities, there’s no red lights and stop signs. There’s a few here and there, but most of them not. And I mean, there’s people going all over the place and they even drive on the wrong side of the road. The cars got the steering wheel on the wrong side than inside the car. And the first two days I’m there I am in panicville because I can see a car coming at me and he’s on the wrong side of the road.

And I’m on the passenger side and I thought I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. And they just miss you. You could just about picking each other’s pockets and not, you know, close. And then there’s people, these little rickshaw things, and they drive those three-wheeler deals, and they pick up, and there’s thousands of them all over the place. And everybody over there seems like everybody runs around on the motorcycle. And they got a picture of a woman going down the street.

She’s sitting on the back side saddle of her husband who’s riding the motorcycle, and she’s got a baby in her arm. There’s no seat belts, and she’s doing about 40 miles an hour. They’re all over the place like this. And there’s people walking and when they all come to an intersection, there’s no stop signs. There’s no red lights. Everybody just works their way through it. It’s just like if after we after church today and we say we want everybody to go to the fellowship hall, do we have to put red lights and stop signs here?

But everybody can get up and walk around and make a log in and you just walk through it. They do that with their vehicles. We’re decars. It just blew my mind. I thought that’s why we have all these traffic jams here in town. This is one of the worst places I’ve ever seen. It’s because they got red lights and stop signs. Do away without them things and this first come first served and nobody hitting each other. It was incredible.

I thought, man, that would have limited a lot of problems here in America, but they don’t have the expressways over there and they’re not going 75 and 80 miles an hour either. But here, you know, there’s areas of responsibility that we have as God’s children, and we need to discipline ourselves, and majority of God’s people don’t like to be disciplined. We don’t want anybody telling us what we can and cannot do. And you know what else I saw, what all that was going on over there?

And if you’re on a motorcycle and they pull in front of you, they’re just pulling in front of you, and you pull in front of somebody else, and it seems like everybody comes at all different angles. I never saw anybody getting mad. I didn’t see anybody, bless anybody. But here in America, I can drive down the street, and if one person pulls in front of me, I’m ready to take this thing and turn into a tank, and make them pay, because you realize I could have been another 15 feet further down the road.

And I think, look what you did, you held me up from getting someplace important, and we get mad at each other, we have road rage. I didn’t see the first person over here with anybody. It’s a different world altogether. But over here, we don’t do that. It’s not that we have a bad case of Me first, we have a bad case of Me onlyitis. I have no idea how I get sidetracked on these things. Well, I’m right here in 2 Timothy, but I did want to see that in verse 21.

If a man therefore purge himself, he shall be a vessel unto honor. And then in verse 22 he talks about what you need to flee. And in verse 23, things that you need to avoid. And then he talks in about the next one, you’re a servant, you’re a servant. Look what he says in chapter 2 there, and look down in verse 3, thou therefore in verse 3, endure hard as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warth entangled himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who have chosen him to be a soldier.

You and I, we can become so entangled with the affairs of this life that we don’t have any time to do what God wants us to do. And we make choices that affect our whole lives. There’s one thing that I wanted my kids to know and my grandkids. Now, I may not convince them total of everything, but I want them to know that they have a dad or a granddad that wants to practice what he preaches, that puts the Lord first.

I have tried to since I trusted Christ as my Savior. The first 18 years don’t count. I was a bad boy. I really messed up. But since that day, when I trusted Christ as my Savior, and I fell in love with the Lord, and the Lord became more real to me than the clothes that I’ve got on my back, more real to me than my wife and my kids, more real to me than you. I can’t make that happen to everybody.

And I don’t know why it doesn’t happen to everybody. I haven’t figured it out yet. But I just know this. God’s been good to me. And I can’t see me doing anything other than just serving Him with all my heart. I wish I could get everybody just to love the Lord and everything else will fall into place. You see, when you don’t love the Lord right, you think He doesn’t love you. And love is a very powerful motivating thing.

See, the last thing I have done here is the motive. It’s two motives, love and fear. Love is so powerful, but I know that if I don’t serve a Lord because I love Him, I know I’m going to fear Him. Because I know he’ll chase and discipline me and maybe take me home before my time. Oh yeah, I’m ready to go to be with Lord, but I want to go when he’s ready, not because he had to take me because of my bad testimony.

Serve the Lord while you can. There’s a guy that we had over there and he was driving us around and I was in holy fear. I really was. After a while I got to where I could accept it and relax a little bit. I felt like I guess they ain’t gonna hit nobody and Then I’m not gonna get smashed And everybody else seemed to relax and enjoy us. Yes, I will too So I’m sitting here in the front seat and the drivers over here.

That’s already backward to me And I asked him I says, um, can I ask you a question? He just looked at me. Yeah Real talkative guy I Guess he had to really concentrate on driving So there’s people walking all over the place too. And I says, are you Christian, Muslim, Hindu? And he says, I’m Hindu. Okay? I thought we’d strike up a conversation, but it was just one-sided so far. And after a while I asked him again, I says, I says, are you going to heaven when you die?

He says, I don’t know. I don’t care. I says, don’t you think about the future? He says, no. He’s answering every question the wrong way so far. He said, I don’t think about it. And then he kind of let me have a few little line sentences. He says, I only think about now today. Don’t think about tomorrow. tomorrow. don’t care about tomorrow, just today. He said, I said, well, what about heaven? And so I said, don’t care. Now, a Hindu can believe in many gods.

And I might come back as that old cow over there, or that dog over there in that yard, or somebody else, or whatever. And that’s dependent on how good I am here. But there was such nebgousness in this thinking that no couldn’t prove, couldn’t solve anything. And so I realized I’m not going to get too far here. I said, when we get to the meeting on Thursday night, I said, I want you to listen to what I say. He wouldn’t come into the meeting.

He stood outside and he listened to the window. And so that’s the Thursday night that we had, I don’t know, 5,600 that said that trust Christ is Savior. And everybody got into the van and we got ready to leave and he was still standing at the door. I said, did you listen to me tonight? He says I listened to you. I said you really listen. He said I listened Okay, I’ll let it go. What’s he listened?

We had the graduation I’ve been preaching two hours every day until the graduation and that was on a Saturday and I Says I want you to listen to what I have to say today. He says I’ll listen So he stood outside and he listened to the windows because they didn’t have glass on the windows just embars So he listened to what I had to say. When I was all over with, and we got really getting the card, and I knew I only got 24 hours before I was the last time I ever seen him.

And I got ready to get in the car, and I asked him, I said, did you listen to me tonight? Today? And he said, yes, I did. I said, did it make sense? Did you understand? He says, I understand. I said, where are you going to go? And he says, I’m going to heaven. I had to turn away because I got teary eyed. Didn’t say much just enough. Now, a man doesn’t know and then a man says, I know.

And I talked to him a little bit about serving the Lord, telling his wife and his two kids. I saw him one more day and I said, don’t you listen to me again? And I was on that Sunday who we left that night. And it was so neat. I forgot about the five or six hundred. That one became so important to me. See, a lot of times we think about if I can just reach the masses, you have sometimes you need to focus on just one person.

Isn’t there just one person that your heart burns for? One person, maybe it’s an aunt or an uncle, a relative of some kind or an in-law, an outlaw, an uncle who they are, somebody you work with. and it burns inside of you. I wonder if they know Christ is their Savior. Maybe you can’t do it all at one time, but a few words here and a few words there and a few words down the road and you start working because you care about people and you want them to know Christ is their Savior.

But anyway, if you’re here and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, this is what I told them, that you tell me if it was clear or not. This is you and me. You see, we’re all born into this world and we’re all sinners because we’re sinners. We commit sin. The wall represents sin. We all have sin on us. Now God says that He loves us, but He hates our sin. I realized while I was over in India, I needed to get me a new wallet, but I got me some bigger sin.

I want to make sure y’all see the sin. Can y’all see the sin? Yeah. I left mine at home. This is y’alls. But we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, short of God’s perfection. And to pay for sin is eternal separation from God in a place called hell. But God says that He loves us and He wants us to go to heaven and to go to heaven. We have to be perfect as righteous as God and none of us are perfect.

We’ve all done things wrong. Nobody’s any better than anybody helps. of sin we can’t get in and that’s the same for everybody. So it doesn’t matter what religion you are, it’s not important. It’s that have you trusted Christ as your Savior. You say God says you can’t earn eternal life, you can’t work your way to heaven by your good deeds. Church can’t get you to heaven, no church can’t, no preacher, no priest, nobody can get you to heaven. You can’t even get yourself there.

Your good works don’t even count. We’ve come short. This hand represents Jesus Christ, He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from Him. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. And God said that if we would believe He did it for us, if we would trust Him as our Savior, He would put this payment to our account and we get to go to heaven on what Christ did for us.

He that believeth, hath everlasting life. What did you got to do to go to heaven? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved from the penalty of sin. Would you believe what Christ said? He promised, all you got to do is believe it. If you’ll just believe it, he’ll never cast you out and never lose you. If you’re here this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ is your Savior. Would you trust Him? Would you depend upon Him to take you to heaven when you die?

He said if you would trust Him, He would save you. He means what He says. He won’t lie to you. So in the quietness of this moment, if you hear this morning, you say, I’ve never trusted Christ as my Savior, but I want to know that I’m going to heaven and preach out life for you, pray for me. I’m not going to have you stand up or come forward. I’m going to ask you in just a moment to raise but raising your hand doesn’t save you.

It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you and you said, in preacher, I will trust Christ as my Savior. I want to know that I’m going to heaven and I like you to pray for me in closing. Would you just slip in it very quickly and put a right back down? Anyone at all say, yes, pray for me. Anyone at all before we close say, yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior this morning.

I want to know that I’m going to heaven when I die. Our Father, we do thank You so much for all that You’ve done for us. for us, for the free gift of eternal life. And Father, I thank you so much for the opportunity to be able to go and represent this church and to present the gospel and to have so much fruit, fruit that abounds to their account. We thank you for this time together, and ask your blessings upon each person here.

In Christ name we pray, Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 tool free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30 and at six o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

I am preaching today on the subject, saved, saved, saved. So how can you be saved three times? Well, that’s what I want to tell you about. I knew you was curious. In your notes, I have a little topic called the two basic beliefs for Christians. To always keep it in mind is salvation and service. Salvation, simple, service, a little bit more complex. But one is dealing with how you get to heaven. And there are three tenses to our salvation.

We’re saved, saved, saved. And to that I want to address. If you look at number one, the three tenses of salvation, past tense, present tense, and future tense. So I am saved. I’ve been saved. I am being saved. And one day I will be saved. Now a lot of people take that to me. Well, I finally got on the right road and now I’ve got to keep working for my salvation. And I, if I keep hanging in there and walk that straight and narrow way, one day in the future, I will be saved.

Now I’m not talking about that stuff. That’s junk. I ain’t talking about that. I’m talking about saved, saved, saved. So will you explain that I’m going to just be patient But here in the Bible in Acts 16 look there in Acts chapter 16 and verse 31 tremendous portion of Scripture We often hear it called the story of the Philippian jailer Look at in verse 25 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed saying praises unto God and the prisoners heard them.

I wonder where they were. They were in prison. Have you ever wanted a jail ministry? This is amazing. We do everything we possibly can to stay out of jail. I think that greatest day of our lives is going to be when God puts some of us in jail. You, I’ll come and visit you. In verse 26, and suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were open and everyone’s bands were loosed and the keeper of the prison awakened out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors open he drew out his sword and would have killed himself supposing that the prisoners had been fled but Paul said it into him or cried with a loud voice do thyself no harm but we’re all here then he called for a light and spring and he came trembling and fell down before

Paul and Silas and brought them out and says sirs what must I do to be saved now if there’s any question that deserves a good answer, this is the right question. Because he asked the right question. He even asked the right question to the right person because he knew how to be saved. But look what he said. Now if you’re going to give an answer, you ought to give the truth of an answer. If you’re going to tell the truth, it ought to be the truth.

This is it. And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, keep the Ten Commandments, go to Calvary Community Church, pay 50% and behave yourself for the rest of your life and you might make it. Now that’s the way most people read that verse and you’ll be saved until you sin again. They had all that stuff in it. That ain’t what he said. All he said was, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. And if your house belemed it, they’ll be saved.

So they went there and preached the gospel of them and all of them believed it. So all they had to do to be saved was to believe on the Lord. Trusting Christ as their Savior. Because God, he made a promise that if you believe it, then He would save you and give you eternal life. Isn’t that what He said? He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I have eternal life. Because 50 years ago I accepted Christ as my Savior.

Now turning your Bible to the book of Ephesians in chapter two. Ephesians chapter two. Now these verses are tremendous. They’re my two favorite verses in the Bible. Ephesians two, eight and nine. Here in Ephesians chapter two verse eight and nine. For by grace are you saved through faith. Are you saved? That’s past it. That’s a done deal. So I have been saved. So when we say I have been saved, it means that I have been saved from the penalty of sin.

It means that I won’t have to go to hell and pay for my sins. I’ve already been saved from that. I have known for over 50 years that I’m going to heaven whenever I die, because see, I can’t go to hell. I can’t go there and pay for my sins because I’ve already been saved from hell. It’s a done and God can’t change that because He gave His Word. He said, if I trusted Him, He would save me. He is the Savior of the world, but He’s not yours until you trust Him.

So I trusted Him and He has become my Savior. So I have been saved, saved from the penalty of sin. So anyone who trusts Christ as Savior, that’s what we mean by being saved. means you’re saved from something. One of the things that I noticed over there is that three times that I’ve preached in three different churches, the one time that I preached a little stronger on hell and why we need to be saved. Why tell people you need to be saved if they don’t know what they need to be saved from?

Don’t that make sense? You gotta have, what am I being saved from? So there’s churches today and preaches today that don’t wanna say anything about hell because that makes people feel uncomfortable. Well, blessed be God, how can you talk to him about being saved then? How can you ask that you need to be saved? For what? Unless they understand there’s a literal fire burning hell. And you need to be saved from that. So in the one meeting on a Thursday night, and you had all these kids, I mean a lot of kids, I wanted those kids to know that there is a place called hell.

And I’ve explained it a little bit more in more in detail because I wanted them to make sure they understood that if I don’t trust Christ as my Savior, there is an alternative. I mean, there is a result. There’s consequences to not trusting the Lord. And so that by the time I got through and I explained to them how to have eternal life and why they need to trust Christ as their Savior because there is a literal hell, that’s when it was this like a one big sweep the whole room and all of it one time.

At two churches, I didn’t elaborate on it long enough. And if I could do it over again, I would do it again and I would sit stronger. But it never even came into my mind until after I got through, I talked, yes, about being saved. I gave the gospel and so forth and I would need to trust the Lord. I explained all of that, but I didn’t make it real enough into the people’s minds. So I think that I need to get better at it.

I need to realize there’s something that’s behind all of it. I don’t need a Savior if there’s no place to be saved from. And so whenever you trust Christ to save you, you’re saved from hell to an inheritance. It’s incorruptible and undefiled that fate if not away reserved in heaven for you. So I know that when I trust Christ is my Savior, I’m being saved from something to something. So I have been saved from the penalty of sin. I’ll look there at this next statement.

Present tense, I am being saved from the power of sin in my life. So I have been saved from hell. I’ve been saved from the penalty of sin. In my life, I want you to understand this. When God saved you, He did not do away with your sinful nature. You still have a sinful nature. That’s why you still think wrong and do wrong and make mistakes and all kind of stuff. We have wrong actions, wrong thoughts, wrong words. That’s because we still have an old sinful nature.

Dwelling within us. But the day you trusted Christ as your Savior, say the Holy Spirit of God lives within you and your body becomes the temple of God. Now the Holy Spirit living within you is to teach you the word of God to give you the power that you need over the power of the old sinful nature. You see, whenever you’re born in the world, you have an old sinful nature. God didn’t change it. That’s why you still have the desire to do things that are wrong.

Even though you’ve been saved from the penalties and you can’t go to hell now. For all eternity, you can’t go to hell. Never have to worry about that again. But in my life, maybe God will give me 10 years to live. Maybe 15 years to live. For me, it’s been almost 51 years that I’ve had to live since I trusted Christ as my savior. Well, God also, at the moment I trusted him as my Savior, gave me the indwelling Holy Spirit, who is the power of God that I need in my life because he’ll teach me what the Word of God says, so I’ll know what’s really right and really wrong, based upon what God says and not left upon my own imagination to decide.

It’s what God’s Word says, and that’s the truth. So the Bible says that I am to be saved in my present life from the power of the sin, for nature that I have, only by the divine nature that He gave me. So when I trusted Christ as my Savior, God gave me the Holy Spirit. That’s also along with the divine nature that helps me over the sinful nature, so that I have power in my life, not to let the sins of the nature that I have overrule and ruin my testimony.

So I am in my life being saved from the power of sin in my life. So I can say, yes, I have been saved from the penalty of sin. I am being saved in my Christian life as I walk with the Lord from the power of sin that’s still in my body. And one of these days whenever we leave the soul world, see this old body is going to die. And when the body is dead, the old sinful nature is in my body.

It’s not in my soul. God washed my soul wide as snow and made me spiritually alive. If you will, they’re looking Galatians in chapter one. I won’t just see the Galatians chapter one, first of all. Galatians in chapter one. Look in verse 4, in verse 4. Galatians chapter 1 verse 4, he says, Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever, amen.

See, there’s this present evil world that we live in. I need the power of God in my life to help me to have victory over this present evil world that I live in. You see, there’s a world out there that says, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, desire me, want me, want me, want me. And there’s a word of God that says love not the things of the world, but the things of God.

Sit your affections on things that are above, not on the things that are below. So as a child of God, I don’t have the strength to do that, but by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, who gives me the power that I need, according to his word, and if you don’t study the word of God, you see, that’s what the Holy Spirit uses. The sword of the spirit is the word of God. And so when you study the word of God, you’re gaining the toll by which the Holy Spirit uses to give you the power that you need in various certain stances and will bring to your remembers the thing that you’ve studied but if you haven’t studied it you don’t know it you will have no power in your life you can have the Holy Spirit but the power that the Holy Spirit uses is the

Word of God and no word no power and that’s why many Christians are not powerful in their life they’ve already lost their testimony or been set on the shelf and not used by the Lord. And yet they may want to be, but they will not discipline themselves. So God says that we need to have this done. Look in verse 16 of chapter 5. Verse 16 of chapter 5. This I say then, walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Walking in the Spirit means yielding yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit as you read the Word of God and study the Word of God and you apply it to your life. It’ll give you the strength and grace that you need not to yield to the lust of the flesh. You still have the lust of the flesh. It’s still there. You can still think wrong but what can help me not to think wrong is thinking right but you got to know what’s right.

So you can rightly discern what the word of God is talking about. So you need the Holy spirit power in your Christian life. And that is to help you to save you from the presence of sin in your life, having power over your life and ruining your testimony. So God, yes, wants to save me from myself, from that old sinful nature that you have. And if you don’t walk with the Lord, you’re not going to have the victory in your Christian life that you what to have.

Now you see when you list down through here in verses 19 on down when he says the works of the flesh are blah blah blah blah. This is what walking in the spirit can save you from. It can save you from… otherwise if you don’t walk in the Spirit, yield yourself to the Lord, you will walk in the flesh and you will fulfill the lust of the flesh. Maybe not every one of these, but majority of them, yes you will, because God’s Word says so.

So if that’s not what you want, then you’re going to have to have an alternative. What can give you the power that you need over the desires of sin in this world? What is that restraint upon your life? And I believe the Holy Spirit within you causes you to restrain yourself. As it says in the book of 2 Corinthians in chapter 5, where he talks about in verse 14, for the love of Christ constraineth us. It means it motivates you.

It gives you the power that you need, so that you will do the things that God wants you to do, and not the things that the world wants you to do, wants you to do or the flesh wants you to do. So the world of God is good for it. Now look in verse 22. Verse 22 says, but the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness and goodness and faith. This is what God wants you to have in your life.

Does that mean all of God’s children have this? No. No they don’t. Is it what God wants? Yes, because some Christians will not have any power of the Lord in their life. They’re saved, they’re going to heaven when they die, but there is no change in their life. Does that mean they’re not saved? No, no, it has nothing to do with that. They’re saved from hell because they accepted the payment Christ made on the cross for them. They believe what God said and they trusted Him.

That’s what keeps you from having to suffer in hell. But you may not have any change in your life. And still, yes, you’ll go to heaven because of what Christ did, not because of what you did. God didn’t save you based upon, well, you promise that you’re going to really change your life and deliver yourself from all these wicked things. No, God didn’t do that. There’s no prerequisite. It’s just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.

That’s from the penalty of sin. Now in your life, do you believe it’s God’s will that his children change their lives? I believe God wants there to be a change in my life. And I can say, yes, I am not the same guy that I used to be. Lord has done a work on me and in me and through me. If I had never become a preacher, I will still just as saved. And I’ll go to heaven just as quick as the apostle Paul or anybody else, because of what Christ did for me.

That’s getting to heaven, but I’m not there yet. In my life, I want the will of God in my life. I want there to be a change in my life. I want to grow stronger in my life. But I know I can’t grow strong without the word of God. Desire, the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. That’s the tool that the Holy Spirit uses in your life. That’s why I want you to come to Sunday School.

That’s why I want you in church. That’s why I want you here on Sunday night and Wednesday, when you can. And if you possibly can do it, because I want to feed you the word of God. Because I know there is no other power that can save you from the lust of the flesh or from loving the things of the world except the power that’s found in the Word of God. Are you getting my drift? Now follow me. Now, I can’t make you do anything and you know that.

I know that. Because if I was God, I would. But I’m not God, so I can’t. All I can do is tell you things. I have no power over you, no control over you. I’m not a dictator, I’m not God, I’m not the Holy Spirit, I’m just a man, just a man, just like you. But something happened to me when I was 18 years old. I started studying the Bible, and the Word of God got into me. And I began to think about how I began to think about this and that.

What I wanted to do with my life, what I wanted to accomplish, accomplish where I wanted to go. It began to really play tricks in my mind and I battled back and forth. The will of man versus the Word of God. And I’ll tell you, I fought some battles. But I’m so glad that I went ahead and just did what the Word of God said do. And now 50 years later, as I look back, I can see how God has blessed.

And it’s not because somebody’s better than somebody else’s because there’s somewhere along the line. The Holy Spirit works in your life. And you begin to grow a little bit, and you’re learning a little bit more, and you grow some more, and you wanna do something. You wanna accomplish something with you. You don’t wanna waste your life. You know that everything in this world is gonna pass away. It’s not gonna last. So why try to be able to mansion here?

It’s gonna pass. But what I accomplish for the Lord, that’s what’s important. That’s what’s important for you, and it should be. And I want you to see that look there in the book of Ephesians in chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2, look in verse 10. And verse 10 says, for we are His workmanship. He’s the one that saved you and now He wants to continue working on you. You see, He gave you eternal life. He’s already saved you from hell.

Now you’re going to heaven and He’s the one that’s doing the work. And he makes a statement, well we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. You see this is what God wants in your life. Now you may not perform. You still say from the penalty of sin, but you will not have the power that you need to be saved from the power of sin in your life. And that’s where a lot of Christians have ruined their life.

They’re ruined their testimony because they will not do what God wants them to do. And because of that, there’s a price to pay. But look at the last part of it. He says, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in that we should. Should. Not that you have to or that you will. Is it possible for a lost man to defy the will of God? Yes. God is not willing that any should perish. That means nobody’s going to perish?

No, they still will. Why? Because they can defy the will of God. But there’s a price for doing so. Can a Christian defy the will of God for his life? Yes. God wants us to perform these good words. That’s why He left us here. But you can say no. I ain’t gonna do it. Well, does that mean God’s not gonna keep His word and save you? No, because He’s… See, His promise was not based upon you. His word, based upon His word.

He promised. And He’ll never catch you out. He’ll never lose you for no reason. We go to heaven on what He promised. Not what we promise. But as a child of God, God said, if I would serve Him here, He said He would bless my life. Well, after 50 years, I should be able to look over my life and say, well, did He keep His word? Yes, He did. He’s done just like He said He would do. And I’m looking forward to the day when I get to heaven.

Because I believe I’m gonna see thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people that elected Christ over the years. But you see, that’s because somewhere along the line, you have to dedicate your life to him inside. I’m going to serve the Lord. So God wants to save us from the power of sin in our lives. Now, look at letter C. Talk about the future tense, the future tense. I will be saved from the very presence of sin when I die or when Christ returns for me.

Turning your Bible to the book of Romans in chapter 13. I want to see this verse. Romans in chapter 13. Romans chapter 13, I went to look there in verse 11. Verse 11 says, and that knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation near than when we believed. So we believed his past tense. So salvation is near now. In other words, is this the result of, I’ve finally been good and I’ve been having myself and now God’s going to take me on home and I finally earned the right to go to heaven.

No, no, that’s not what he’s saying. See, I have been saved when I believed on Christ. God saved me and gave me the free gift of eternal life. I became his child. Now I can say this, it’s been 50 years ago. So now I am here 50 years down the line. But I can also say that now my salvation is near that when I believed. salvation of what? When I say no, no, no, no, no, no. See, I’m going to be saved one day from the very presence of sin.

I won’t be here. God’s going to take me out. God’s going to save me out of this world. It’s going to take me clean out of it. So I’m looking forward to my deliverance from this world and from the sin in the world. You see, I believe on Him and that saved from the penalty of sin. I am now being saved from the power of sin, and the day will come when we’ll be saved from the very presence of sin.

We won’t be in its presence anymore. And God says heaven, there is no unrighteousness there. That’s why not even a lie. No sin can enter heaven because heaven is a perfect place. So I have been saved, saved, saved. It ain’t all over yet, but it’s as good as done. Because when that takes place, I’m out of here. And I will not have this old body with this old sinful nature. I won’t have to worry anymore about having victory over the flesh and so forth.

The battle is over. All the war is over. I don’t know about you, but you can get mighty tired and weary in this old life. You can get weary and well doing. Doing right, but you get weary and God says, don’t become weary and well doing. For you, shall we, you’re going to reap. It’s just down the road. Just don’t worry about it. Just be patient. We’ll reap in this life what we sow. So down. The next thing to understand, this is about salvation.

You got that clear. Two things about the Christian that he needs to always remember. One is salvation. I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved. That’s how simple that is. That’s your whole life. Now the next part is on service. On this thing about service to understand these three little simple things. Look there at number one, a letter A, Chastening. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 7, I want you to look at it real quick.

Hebrews and chapter 12. you trusted Christ as your Savior? Yes, your God’s child. You say, well, what if I don’t serve the Lord? Okay. God will not make you. Now He’ll make you wish you had of, but He won’t make you serve Him. But look what He says in verse 5, chapter 12 and verse 5. These are very important verses to understand. So in verse 5 He said, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children.

My son despised not thou the chasting of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. Did you know that your heavenly Father who gave you birth, you’re his child born into his family and in this life. Now remember you’ve already been saved from the penalty of saying you ain’t going to hell. That’s an issue you don’t have to worry about again. But in my life to understand that if I do not serve God the way God wants me to servant, my heavenly Father says, I can choose to rebel, but he will choose the form of punishment.

Isn’t that fair? You can choose the sin and he can choose how to punish it. And you don’t know exactly when or how he’s going to do that. That’s the mysteries. God doesn’t tell us everything. And how God disciplines one person doesn’t mean he’s going to do another one the same way. Well, Well, I saw them do it and get away with it. Men every time I do something, I never get away with it. And I swear it’s been with my life.

Kids can do all kinds of mess up in school, but men, let me try it. One time I get nailed. I always get caught. I often wonder how come my mama, and you know, you say this, she had an eye in the back of her head. She had eyes in the back of her head. Well, she just knows her kids were both down to. But God is always watching, and He wants to bless us, but sometimes He has to chasten us because we refuse to do what God wants us to do.

You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tapp of Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can and reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for a Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bible iMinistries.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. People who teach you can lose your salvation are deceitful. One is they have to deceive themselves first of all. And the reason they deceive themselves is because if they really and really believe that you’ve got to live a certain way to maintain your salvation so that you don’t lose it, they never know if they already have lost it.

And they are not living as good as they’re preaching that they do. I’ve heard people say, I haven’t sinned in 40 years. What’s he doing when he says that? He’s lying. Why can’t he see that he’s lying? Because he’s deceived. Because he’s not counting as a sin, what God’s word counts as a sin. And they think that if I don’t do those certain bad things, I’m okay, but they never think about the sins of the mind. And they don’t mind that if they get bitter and hateful and filled with jealousy and envy and just hateful.

But they don’t see that as that bad. And yet that’s what the Lord says. So they can keep their salvation if they don’t do too bad, too long. But He makes it so they can lose it so they never know when they’ve lost their salvation. So they deceived themselves, but not only do they deceive themselves, they deceive other people into believing the same thing. And if it’s one thing for an individual to say, well, it doesn’t hurt nobody but me.

But if you die and you go to hell and you taught other people to believe what you believe and they go to hell. Is it affecting only you? So there’s false teachers who teach false things and they are believed. People believe it and there is a consequence. So look what he says. Verse 15, therefore is no great thing if his minister. So you know and I know that Satan has his ministers and his ministers are ministers of righteousness, but it’s human righteousness, not the righteousness of God, but it’s the righteousness of man.

And so they will teach that, you know, you have to do something. They always use the word your trusting Christ, but, and then they butt it all over the place. They’re not really trusting Christ. They’re they’re depending upon their works for their salvation, because bad works cost them their salvation. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of Matthew chapter seven, Matthew and chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven, you’ve seen these verses an awful lot, but I want you to see this, they’re in verse 15.

Beware of false prophets. Today we would say beware of false preachers. Are there false preachers on radio and television? I don’t believe y’all said that. And there’s false preachers behind the pulpit. How do you know I’m not? You’re going to have to check with the book. And if you don’t know your Bible, I could teach you anything. But if you know the book, you judge and discern whether the knot, is that right or is that wrong? And many people in many churches cannot listen to other preachers on radio or TV or in other churches because they cannot discern whether they’re right or they’re wrong.

And they just go by, oh, the choir was so great. Air condition padded pews. Lazy boy chairs, they’ll sit in. I thought about, we ought to go to that, you know, have lazy boy chairs. And then have the ladies come in here with a little lemonade please, a little lemonade coffee, too. I bet we could really increase the attendance, you know, doing something like that. And then of course if you want to have a donut while we’re eating, you know.

Gary’s all favor for that. I mean, I’m here back here, right now, it’s licking his chops. in verse 15, be aware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing. It means they’re disguising themselves. They’re trying to give you the impression that they are a sheep, but what are they? They are a wolf. It means they come to devour you, to make merchandise of you, to use you. They don’t care about your soul. They don’t love you. People who are not saved by grace, are trying to earn their way to heaven.

So you are only a means of them trying to earn their way to heaven. You’re not the object of their love. It’s themselves. Because they have to do certain things to try to merit or deserve to go to heaven when they die. But anyway, in verse 16, you shall know them, the false teachers, the false prophet by their through by their message. And you must compare their message with the message of grace. And the message of grace, the gospel is that it must be free and it must last forever.

If it’s not free, it’s not the gospel. If it doesn’t last forever, it’s not the gospel. See how simple it is? So if you look there in verse 21, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but they are expecting to get in aren’t they? They are expecting something that will never happen. Why? Because some false teachers convinced them of this. To me I think murder is a great crime. I think adultery is a great crime.

Raping is a a great crime. There’s a lot of things that are just terrible in our world. But to me, one of the worst crimes that anybody can ever do is to give somebody a false hope, a false message on how to go to heaven. And then a person who believes that false message spends an eternity in hell forever. That’s worse than anything else than anybody else could ever do to anyone. That’s what I think is going to be greater judgment because people added to the Word of God and said that God said and God said, I didn’t say that.

And so he says in verse 22, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, many, not a few, many. So there must be more people that are trusting in their works. And why are they trusting in their work? Because somebody doesn’t understand grace because they don’t know it’s free. And there’s people that don’t understand the gospel and there’s false teachers and They’re leading people astray and there’s a great Price to pay for what is being done. I Think it’s a shame it really is Now if you read this and It says in the last part of this verse verse 23 Then will I profess unto them?

I never knew you. Now that you were saved once, but now you’re not saved anymore. Cause he says, I never knew you. So that 10 year old boy, if he got saved and never got lost and go to hell, if he ever was saved, then God knows him as his child. He knows he believed. Well, if he can sin and then lose his salvation, then how can Jesus say, I never knew you? So no saved man can ever get lost.

Because it would be impossible for Jesus to say, I never know you. You see, one of the things about going to heaven is when you can say, I know the Lord. And the other side of that is, the Lord knows me. And he says, and we have this confidence, this foundation, this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are His. the Lord knoweth them that are His. So if that 10 year old boy ever belong to the Lord, then he must still belong to the Lord.

And if this 50 year old man, trust Christ is Savior, then God knows Him and God can never lose Him because God can’t say, I never knew you. So I can’t go to hell in the future. Once the Lord knows you and you know Him, it’s forever. You’re his child forever. Now wolves in sheep’s clothing try to get a person to focus upon their life, their works, because Satan knows the only thing that ruins grace is works. And not one work of man can save himself.

I’ve heard people say, you know, and I asked the Lord to help me. When I saw I couldn’t save myself, I asked the Lord to help me. I’ve heard people make this statement. I’ve heard preachers make that statement. I don’t need him to help me get to heaven. I need him to take me to heaven without my help. He doesn’t need my help. He doesn’t want my help because then it means that I have a part in saving myself.

Jesus is not someone who comes alongside of me to help me live good enough to get to heaven. Now, he’s a paraclete. He does come alongside. He is a comforter to help me, to lead and guide me, and all these things like that. But not to save me. He saved me by himself. He had by himself purged us by himself. He didn’t need my help. He don’t need your help. Salvation is truly just what it says it is, the gift of God.

Now, take your Bible and turn over there to the book of Matthew chapter 23. Matthew chapter 23, this is a very interesting person of scripture because you’re talking to religious people, religious people. And he’s talking here and says in verse 1, then speak Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples, saying the scribes and the Pharisees said in Moses’ seed. In other words, they judge, make decisions, all that stuff. But He makes a statement over here in verse 13.

He says, but woe unto you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, and get this, for ye shut up the kingdom of God against men. In the word what they said, and the way they lived, they violated the word of God. They added to the Word of God and corrupted the Word of God and made their traditions the commandments of God. And so Jesus pulls no punches. He gets right between the eyes. And He makes His statement, for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you or permit ye them that are entering to go in.

There’s people who want to go in. people, but because he says, you have blinded, you have deceived, you have lied, and you said, God said, and God didn’t say that. And notice what he says in verse 14, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. He says, for ye devour at widows’ houses, for a pretense, make long prayers, so that people can see you, you do it to be seen of men, And they’ll think it’s your holy and you walk around in certain guard, but you’re supposed to do.

But he says, you have added so many more laws. It made it so hard upon the people. If you look down there in verse four, he says, for they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born, lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. but all their works they do for to be seen of men. They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments, love the uppermost rooms at fees and the chief seats in the synagogue.

They do it all to be seen. They want people to look up to them as though we’re some great thing and he says, you shut the door to yourselves and others that you could have made a difference. Look what he says here in verse 15. He’s in verse 15, whoa under you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. He says, for ye compass, see, and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

Not only have you taught this person a lie, but now that person will teach a lie. And lies are being told. And people are not being told the truth. This is what makes Calvary Community Church so important. This is what makes our radio broadcast so important. You say, well everybody’s got the same message. No they don’t. Not all churches are the same. Not all preachers are the same. You’ll find there’s a lot of preachers that can preach circles around me better, but you can’t find one preacher that’s got a better message than what I’ve got.

Because the gospel, is powerful. If you just tell it like it is, make it clear, make it simple. These teenagers are learning something at a very young age that most adults never catch. Not only to know the clarity of the gospel but how to present the gospel and if you do they get results. But what if all adults did what some of these teenagers are doing. We could turn the world upside down. They did it in the New Testament time.

And it says that they did this and they spread the Word. But most people don’t want to spread the Word. They’re scared. Or they live in their own little world. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Now is the day of salvation. Now must be the time to share the gospel and to give it. But look what he says in that last verse again in verse 16. Woe unto ye blind guides. Would you like to take a tour and have a blind guide?

I mean, would you like to take a trip in a car and go to Georgia and Tom soaks be your driver? Sorry about that, Tom. But he can’t see. Why follow a guy that can’t see? If a man doesn’t know for sure he’s going to heaven, why would you want to listen to him. And yet there’s people that will support missionaries and things like that and false teachers and they get all the money they want and somebody that’s clear in the gospel, sometimes you always have to ask for help and let people know and say, look, we’re trying to reach people for the gospel and you have to plead with people.

You think, man, if you found somebody that would make the gospel clear, man, let’s get the people out to hear it. That’s what we used to do would ranch. The kids will always bring kids to ranch because they know if when they got to ranch they knew that we would give the gospel. Every week we’d give the gospel. In church we try to always give the gospel. So that if a lost man is listening he should know how to get to heaven.

When a person comes to church they ought to know how to get to heaven. That is a gift and that is free. So even at the end of the service whenever we’re closing it down. Did you know that’s where we were headed all along? All the singing, the specials, the preaching, all is focused upon probably the last five minutes of the service. You’re trying to get a person to make decisions. Mainly a lost man to trust the Lord. And a Christian to serve the Lord.

So there’s only those two things, winning and training. And so that’s why it’s so important. I want you to take your Bible and look there in verse 24. Look in verse 24 of Matthew chapter 23 and it says here in verse 24, ye blind, ye blind guides which strain at a net, swallow a camel. You can’t tell me God doesn’t have a sense of humor. He says, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

But thou blind Pharisee cleansed first that which is within the cup and the platter that the outside of them may be clean also.” You see, when a person is doing their best to earn their salvation by their works. They go by what men see of them. And so they try to deceive you and look at me because of what I’m doing the way I am, I must be right. And they’re trying to earn their way to heaven, but they don’t look on the inside of themselves.

He says, first, get the inside taken care of and the outside should take care of itself. Have you ever heard that little statement like when you go fishing? Yeah, we catch him, he clean them. We catch him, he can clean them. I can’t clean fish. In reality, I don’t like to clean fish. I don’t mind eating the fish, but I really don’t like cleaning fish. I love it when we go fishing and somebody else cleans them. Isn’t that wonderful?

But I like to catch them. I don’t even mind if they put the worm on the hook. I do want to have a part in it so I cast it. And I don’t mind getting them into the boat. But when you get close, I want somebody else getting that and getting that and getting that. So there’s things that you can love about the Lord’s work and there might be some things you don’t like but we’re workers and Labors together as we work in the vineyard But look at this he’s talking about the inside in the outside the person who believes they can lose their Salvation is always about the sins that somebody can see that’s really bad The ones on the inside of them how they think and feel their motives their bitterness, their hatred, all those things like that.

See, you can’t see all of that sometime it comes through though. But they don’t think that that’s that bad. And yet they think they’re going to heaven because of how pure they’re living their lives. And that they’re so good and they’re so holy they become hippo crits. All people who believe you can lose your salvation and are going to church trying to live good enough are hypocrites. Am I making myself clear? I didn’t write the Bible, but this is talking about people that do the very same thing that people are doing today.

This, if Christ was here today, this is what He would still say about the religious people that are trying to save themselves by their works. They deceived themselves and then they do everything to make one little proselyte and then they teach that person to teach somebody else to full child of hell and it just multiplies. So unless somebody teaches the truth then they will not know. Luke what he says here in verse 27, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto white encephalus.

You know what a seperica is? It’s a grave. It’s a grave, a casket, open it up full of dead men’s bones. White encephalus, which indeed appear on the outside, beautiful outward. You know who he’s talking about? He’s talking about people that are trying to save themselves by their works. And people who are trying to earn their way to heaven because they don’t trust Christ as their Savior and they don’t see how bad they really are. They actually, there’s people who think they’re saving themselves because they’re good enough.

They think they are. They are deceived and they will fight for their belief just as much as you’ll fight for your belief. And they’ll believes that they’re right. Look what else she says, but are within full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness. So in verse 28, even so ye also outwardly appear righteous on the men. You appear righteous on the men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. This is how God sees them. So there are people who do not see and understand just how bad they really are.

That’s why we talk about having a holy God, a perfect God. Heaven is a perfect place and that you must be perfect to enter into heaven and people don’t understand they’re not perfect. They think they’re pretty good but everybody ought to understand they’re not perfect. And so to go to heaven you have to be as perfect, as righteous, as just as holy as God. Only by seeing the Lord, can you see how far short you have come? The word, harmatano means to miss the mark, miss the mark of perfection.

You and I have all come short of God’s righteousness and we need to be justified, just as if I have never sinned. So how can I get to where I look like I have never sinned? Only by his righteousness been given to me. So, when I believe that Christ died on the cross, paid for my sins, He gives me His righteousness as a free gift, I get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for me. And God said, if I believed that He did it for me, He would give me as a free gift everlasting life and I get to go to heaven.

And that is a gift. So the ten-year-old boy, if a person is ten years old, can God save a ten-year-old? Sure. Can God save a man that’s 50? Yeah. Can God save a man that’s 90? Yeah. See, God can save anybody. I talked to a man this week. He says, you don’t know how many people I’ve killed. He’d like to say that to me. He says, you don’t know how many people I’ve killed. But anyway, I kept talking to him.

It wasn’t long before he trusts me. to learn. To hit people understand, He paid it all for everybody. So, regardless of who you are and whatever you’ve done or ever will do, God can save anybody at any time. All that they have to do is believe that when He died on the cross, He paid for their sins. Or you might believe He paid for the sins of the world, but that doesn’t get you to heaven. You He must believe He did it for me.

Christ died for my sins so that I don’t have to pay for my sins. Because if He paid for them, I don’t have to. And so all that I have to do is believe He did it for me and He puts that payment to my account. And I go to heaven on what He did and He says, I will in no wise ever cast you out. He said, He will never lose you. He said that no man can pluck you out of my hand.

See the word of God says that whenever you trust Him as your Savior, you’re saved from hell. It means you can’t go there. Two in inheritance that’s incorruptible and undefiled, that faith, if not a way, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith and desalvation. you put your faith in Christ to save you. He saves you forever and reserves for you a place in heaven and will never cast you out and never lose you.”

Now buddy, that’s some pretty good news. That’s what we have. Let’s pray, shall we? Our Father, we thank you so much for all you’ve done for us. We’re thankful for the free gift of eternal life. We pray, Lord, that You’d help us to be found faithful to the clarity, the truth of the gospel. And Lord, we know that there’s a lot of people that’s never heard. So whether it’s the teenagers or the adults or whether the preachers, we preach, and so people believe, we ask your blessings upon the service today and that as different ones listen, we pray that they would understand that the only thing they can do is to trust Jesus Christ and Him alone is their only hope of going to heaven.

And Father, we ask Your blessings upon the service to follow, that Father, should anyone come in these doors and have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news on how they can be justified by faith alone. We pray, Lord, they would hear it, and that would be found faithful in presenting it, and that people would come to know You as their Savior. We pray, Lord, that you’d help us to point out the era of the false teachers, those that are hypocritical, the Pharisees that add works to salvation.

And even though they may mean well, it’s a damning message. And Father, we thank you for this church and these good people and all that you’ve done for us in Christ’s name we pray, Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 toll free.

1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our home page at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the radio broadcast link. 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 to be able to help you. continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleInemistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Well, I hope y’all had a good Thanksgiving day, week, and all that kind of stuff. And I eat a lot of good stuff. Does y’all eat a lot? Somebody sent me this email. I’m already doing church, but I just want to share with you now. Wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving. May your stuffings be tasty. May your turkey be plump. May your potatoes and gravy have an area of lump. May your yams be delicious. May your pies take the prize.

May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off of your thighs. gobble to you wobble. And above all, give thanks to the Lord for all he hath done. So did you gobble to you wobble? Now you got to admit that pretty good now. You got to have a little humor along the way. Anyway, take your Bible and turn to the book of 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 6. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, here a little, and there a little, learning all the time.

Sometimes you don’t learn a lot of new stuff, you just get refreshed on what you already know. These scriptures, you probably have seen them a mini a time. But just look at it one more time. I want you to see something here. The first one, we then as workers together, with Him, beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain. I like those words workers together. We’re workers together. It’s not all about who gets to be the big shot and all that.

We’re just all a bunch of little shots. We all put our feet on the floor the same way. And those are no big eyes and little ears. Everybody’s the same. serve the Lord do what we can, wherever we are, and thank the Lord for Him. But He says here that BC is also that you see not the grace of God in vain. In other words, the privilege of serving the Lord is not bestowed upon you in vain. Because you and I, we don’t deserve the time that God has given to us.

We don’t deserve it. That’s grace. The opportunity this side of the grave to serve the Lord, That’s grace. For the indwelling Holy Spirit, that’s grace. To be given to the new birth, to have His word, that’s grace. We didn’t deserve this, but these are things God has given to us. And He says, I pray that these things are not given to you in vain. And so some people get sidetracked. He don’t stay too focused too well. So He says in verse 2, for He saith, I have heard the inner time accepted and in the day of salvation have I Socrates.

Behold, and you ought to underline this word now, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Now is the time. And if now is the time for the loss to be saved, then now must be the time for the saved to witness. Duh. Don’t that make sense? So it’s always in season. I used to love to go out hunting, deer hunting, rabbit hunting. And I hated to wait so long for the next season. You had to wait a year.

Did you know that soul winning is always in season? And you’ve already been given a not a temporary license. You’ve got a permanent license. You can go anytime, anywhere. All you got to do is find a lost person. You got the weapons. And then he makes a statement in verse 3, giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed. You see, the overall thing about what we’re doing The cause is more important than you and I as an individual because you don’t want to say and do things that would cause the ministry to be blamed.

And here in Corinthians, these Christians were not too concerned about the testimony they had as a church. It was only about themselves and that’s why they were filled with envy and jealousy, bitterness and you become very critical. You find fault with everything and everybody. But when you see that God wants to use everybody and your part sometimes in serving the Lord is getting others to serve the Lord. And your example is very important and all this takes timing. So he says in verse 4, but in all things, approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonment, in tomolds, in labors, in watchings, and fasting, by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love and fame, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor

this honor by evil reports and good reports as deceivers and yet true regardless that the ministry be not blamed. You just keep doing right regardless of everything else. And behold, now is the time for people to trust the Lord. Don’t look upon the harvest and say we got four months, behold, it’s ripe already for harvest. Now, I want to ask you a question. is the best year to get saved. What’s the best year to get saved? All right, now listen, I’ve got up here.

There’s a 10-year-old boy standing over there. There’s a 50-year-old man standing right here. There’s a 90-year-old man standing over there. No, it’s not Jay. The overstand over here. So we got a 10-year-old, we got a 50-year-old, and we’ve got a 90-year-old. is the best time for a person to get saved. What would be the best year? 10, 50, or 90. Now, this is a very difficult question, I understand that. How many of you would say 10? How many would say 50?

Some of you? How many would say 90? A few of y’all say that? Y’all are all mixed above. Are all of the above? All of the above. Well, if you believed, if you believed that you could lose your salvation, do you believe you can lose your salvation? If you believed you could lose your salvation, which would be the best year to be saved? 10, 50 or 90. Huh? Look how many of y’all said 90. And the reason is because you have less time to lose it, right?

If you get saved when you’re 90, chances are you’re not going to have to battle too much with the flesh. Maybe. You don’t know some 90-year-olds that I know. So if you could lose your salvation, then the consensus is it’d be better to get saved when you’re 90 years old so that you have less time to lose your salvation. Or would that be the reason why you would say that? What if you died 89? What if you died 70?

Oh, so you don’t really want to wait that long. But if you could lose your salvation, you see the 10-year-old kid has got most of his sinning ahead of him. I mean, you don’t take a 3-year-old kid to trust the Lord. the Lord just saved me from a life of crime. Delivered me from all of my sins. He did all of his sin and after he got saved. But see, there is a problem with people that believe you can lose your salvation.

Because if you can get saved when you’re 10, you run a greater risk because of the length of time. You’ve got more opportunities to lose your salvation. Now. The one thing that most people don’t think about is this. When they think you can lose your salvation, it’s generally based upon the idea that you did something really, really bad. Little things don’t count. Big sins. You can’t tell me you can commit adultery or murder. And then still go to heaven.

The telling of lie or being envious or jealous never enters their mind. Because they isolate those little sins from those big sins and if I don’t do those big sins, I’m good to go Well that all sounds Maybe good a little bit. It’s bad theology But think about this if God can save a man when he’s ten years old Boy when he’s ten years old and God can save a man when he’s fifty years old and God can save a man when he’s 90 years old If this man that’s 90 years old, let’s just pretend that he has broken every law there is.

Not just one of the 10 commandments. I say he broke all 10 of them. He’s been on drugs and you name the sin and he’s done it. He has as guilty as guilty can be. He’s done it all. And he’s 90 years old. Can God still save him regardless of all the bad things that he’s done? people say, yeah. So he could have a deathbed conversion laying on his deathbed. And after ninety years of wicked living in that one moment, he can trust Christ to save you and go to heaven.

Now does that sound fair? But is it true? Can God do that? But now most people who believe you can lose your salvation say that this little ten year old boy, he can He gets saved. But if He does any of these bad things down the road, He’ll lose His salvation. Isn’t it amazing that God can save that 90-year-old man who has done all of those things but can’t keep that 10-year-old boy saved because He committed some of those things after He was saved?

So he would be better off to be lost and get saved when he’s 90 then run the risk of losing all these years. Something that just doesn’t add up, it just doesn’t make any sense. But believe it or not, people who believe you can lose your salvation don’t understand. That this 90 year old man, and that 10 year old boy, and this 50 year old man, could be the same guy. Because you were 10, you were 50, and now you’re our nanny.

So when is the best time to get saved? And you and I know the best time for a man to get saved is as soon as possible. As soon as possible. Because God gives him eternal salvation. And what most people that think you can lose your salvation don’t understand is that when Christ died for that person, God didn’t die for his sins up to the time he was 10, or up to the time he was 50. Or up to the time he was 90.

He paid for all the sins from the time he’s born till the time that he dies, whatever that might be. All the sin of every man, once and for all. So that’s why we say that whenever you trust Christ to save your nearly age, all these sins have already been paid. Because if the man doesn’t trust the Lord there, and he lives to be 50, the Lord still paid for all these sins. But if He doesn’t trust the Lord here, wait till He’s 90.

God still paid for all of those sins too. Because Christ only died one time. He didn’t die three different times. He only died one time for the sin of this man forever. So when we believe that it’s by grace, we have no trouble believing that God not only can save the kid, but keep him saved. So that when He gets 50, He’s still saved. And when he gets 90, he’s still saved. Now that’s what we believe. But people that believe you can lose your salvation can’t believe that God can keep them saved.

And because they don’t understand grace, because they say, well, you don’t deserve that. Did the 90 year old man who had lived his whole life in sin and yet trust Christ is his savior? Now God can save him and that’s okay. Because he’s nine years old! But what about the person who trusts the Lord when he’s ten? And he does all this after he’s saved and he still gets to go to heaven. Wouldn’t that be grace? That would be grace.

So we are saved by grace. Now take your Bible looking 2nd Corinthians in chapter 11. 2nd Corinthians in chapter 11. It makes the statement about being, you know, Corrupted. See there in verse three. But I fear less by any means as the serpent begali through his subtlety. So your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. When you get away from the simplicity of the gospel, you’ll have a false Jesus, a false gospel and a false spirit that’s mentioned in verse four.

Three things will be false. Those false things is because there’s false teachers. False teachers teach false things. Now look at in verse 13. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers. They’re deceitful. People who teach you can lose your salvation are deceitful. One is they have to deceive themselves first of all. And the reason they deceive themselves is because if they really and really believe that you’ve got to live a certain way to maintain your salvation so that you don’t lose it, they never know if they already have lost it.

And they are not living as good as they’re preaching that they do. I’ve heard people say, I haven’t sinned in 40 years. What’s he doing when he says that? He’s lying. Why can’t he see that he’s He’s lying because He deceived. Because He’s not counting as a sin what God’s Word counts as a sin. And they think that if I don’t do those certain bad things, I’m okay, but they never think about the sins of the mind. And they don’t mind that if they get bitter and hateful and filled with jealousy and envy and just hateful, but they don’t see that as that bad.

yet that’s what the Lord says. So they can keep their salvation if they don’t do too bad, too long. But he means that they can lose it so they never know when they’ve lost their salvation. So they deceive themselves, but not only do they deceive themselves, they deceive other people into believing the same thing. And if it’s one thing for an individual to say, well, it doesn’t hurt nobody but me. But if you die and you go to hell and you taught other people to believe what you believe and they go to hell, is it affecting only you?

So there’s false teachers who teach false things and they are believed. People believe it and there is a consequence. So look what he Verse 15, therefore is no great thing if his minister. So you know, and I know that Satan has his ministers and his ministers are ministers of righteousness, but it’s human righteousness, not the righteousness of God, but it’s the righteousness of man. And so they will teach that, you know, you have to do something. They always use the word your trusting Christ, but, and then they butt it all over the place.

They’re not really trusting Christ. They’re depending upon their works for their salvation, because bad works cost them their salvation. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of Matthew, Chapter seven, Matthew, and Chapter seven. Matthew Chapter seven. You’ve seen these, these verses an awful lot, but I want you to see this there in verse 15. be aware of false prophets. Today we would say, be aware of false preachers. Are there false preachers on radio and television? I don’t believe you all said that.

And there’s false preachers behind the pulpit. How do you know I’m not? You’re going to have to check with the book. And if you don’t know your Bible, I could teach you anything. But if you know the book. You judge and discern whether or not is that right or is that wrong? And many people in many churches cannot listen to other preachers on radio or TV or in other churches because they cannot discern whether they’re right or they’re wrong.

And they just go by, oh, the choir was so great. Air condition, padded pews. Lazy boy chairs, they’ll sit in. I thought about, we ought to go to that, you know, have a lazy boy chairs. And then had the ladies coming here was a little lemonade, please. A little lemonade, coffee, tea. I bet we could really increase the attendance, you know, doing something like that. And then of course, if you want to have a donut while we’re eating, you know, Gary’s all favor for that.

I mean, I’ll be back right now. It’s licking his chops. Now, look there in Matthew in chapter 7 and verse 15, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing. It means they’re disguising themselves. They’re trying to give you the impression that they are a sheep, but what are they? They are a wolf. It means they come to devour you, to make merchandise of you, to use you. They don’t care about your soul. They don’t love you.

People who are not saved by grace are trying to earn their way to heaven. So you are only a means of them trying to earn their way to heaven, you’re not the object of their love, it’s themselves. Because they have to do certain things to try to merit or deserve to go to heaven when they die. But anyway, in verse 16, you shall know them, the false teachers, the false prophets by their fruit, by their message. And you must compare their message with the message of grace.

And the message of grace, the gospel is that it must be free and it must last forever. If it’s not free, it’s not the gospel. If it doesn’t last forever, it’s not the gospel. See how simple it is? So if you look there in verse 21, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but they are expecting to get in, aren’t they? They are expecting something that will never happen. Why? Because some false teachers convinced them of this.

To me, I think murder is a great crime. I think adultery is a great crime. Raping is a great crime. There’s a lot of things that are just terrible in our world. But to me, one of the worst crimes that anybody can ever do is to give somebody a false hope, a false message on how to go to heaven. And then a person who believes that false message spends an eternity in hell forever. That’s worse than anything else than anybody else could ever do to anyone.

That’s why I think it’s gonna be greater judgment because people added to the Word of God. And said that God said, and God said, I didn’t say that. And so he says in verse 22, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, many, not a few, many. So there must be more people that are trusting in their works. And why are they trusting in their work? Because somebody doesn’t understand grace, because they don’t know it’s free. And there’s people that don’t understand the gospel and then there’s false teachers.

And they’re leading people astray. and there’s a great price to pay for what is being done. I think it’s a shame, it really is. Now if you read this and it says in the last part of this verse verse 23, then will I profess unto them I never knew you. Now that you were saved once but now you’re not saved anymore. So he says I never knew you. So that 10 year old boy, If he got saved and never got lost and go to hell, if he ever was saved, then God knows him as his child.

He knows he believed. Well, if he can sin and then lose his salvation, then how can Jesus say, I never knew you? So no saved man can ever get lost. Because it would be impossible for Jesus to say, I never knew you. You see, one of the things about going to heaven is when you can say, I know the Lord. And the other side of that is the Lord knows me. And he says, and we have this confidence, this foundation, this seal.

The Lord knoweth them that are His. The Lord knoweth them that are His. So if that ten year old boy ever belonged to the Lord, then he must still belong to the Lord. And if this fifty year old man trusts Christ as Savior, then God knows him. And God can never lose him because God can’t say, I never knew you. So I can’t go to hell in the future. Once the Lord knows you and you know him, it’s forever.

You’re his child forever. Now, wolves in sheep’s clothing try to get a person to focus upon their life, their work, because Satan knows the only thing that ruins grace is works. And not one work of man can save himself. I’ve heard people say, you know, and I asked the Lord to help me. When I saw I couldn’t save myself, I asked the Lord to help me. I’ve heard people make this statement. I’ve heard preachers make that statement. I don’t need him to help me get to heaven.

I need him to take me to heaven without my help. He doesn’t need my help. He doesn’t want my help. Because then it means that I have a part in saving myself. Jesus is not someone who comes alongside of me to help me live good enough to get to heaven. Now, he’s a paraclete. He does come alongside. He is a comforter to help me, to lead and guide me and all these things like that, but not to save me.

He saved me by Himself. He had by Himself, pushed ourselves, by Himself. He didn’t need my help. He don’t need your help. Salvation is truly, that’s what it says it is, the gift of God. Now, take your Bible and turn over there to the book of Matthew chapter 23. Matthew 23. This is a very interesting person of Scripture because you’re talking to religious people, religious people. And he’s talking here and says in verse 1, then, spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples, saying the scribes and the Pharisees said in Moses’ seed.

In other words, they judge, make decisions, all that stuff. But he makes a statement over here in verse 13. He says, but woe unto you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, and get this for ye shut up the kingdom of God against men. In the word what they said and the way they lived, they violated the Word of God. They added to the Word of God and corrupted the word of God and made their traditions the commandments of God. And so Jesus pulls no punches.

He gets right between the eyes and he makes this statement, for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you or permit ye them that are entering to go in. There’s people who want to go in. There’s people, But because he says, you have blinded, you have deceived, you have lied, and you said, God said, and God didn’t say that. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tappa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message.

Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. 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 tool free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 Broad 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. 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.

I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Matthew in chapter 13, because Christ says these things that He’s going to teach us is to help us to understand all parables. Now, a parable is a way of telling the truth in a story form where those that want to know the truth will understand it, and those that really don’t want to know the truth won’t get it. It’s a tremendous way to teach. See, the Holy Spirit didn’t convict them like the Holy Spirit does today.

See, today we teach the Word of God and then we trust the Holy Spirit to take the truth and penetrate into a person’s mind so they can understand it. Nobody is one to the Lord because of our trickery, because we’re able to connive an individual. You can’t persuade them against their will because a person can’t truly trust Christ unless the Holy Spirit enlightens their mind and they see it. And when they see it, all they got to do is believe it.

just simply believe it. And there’s others that they deny the Holy Spirit, refuse to believe it. You can’t make somebody trust Christ as Savior. And when it comes to serving the Lord, that’s something else that you keep in mind as you can’t make anybody serve the Lord. But what we ought to do is to give them the opportunity, always striving to get opportunities. Because if I say, do you understand what he’s saying. To say, yes, I see what you’re saying.

I understand. That means you have light. That means that you’re going to be held accountable because the more you see and more you understand, the more accountability you have. So can ignorance be bliss? So I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand. Does God know when you really understand something. God knows. So you can’t fool God. So whenever you study the Scriptures, there’s things God wants you to know. Here in the book of Matthew in chapter 13, look there in verse three, and he spake many things unto them in parables.

Say, and behold, a sower went forth to sow. When he sowed, sunseeds fell by the wayside, and the files came and devoured them up. Some fell upon stony places where they had not much earth, and forth with they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth. When the sun was up they were scorched because they had no root they withered away. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them. But others fell upon good ground, and brought forth fruit.

Some a hundred fold, some sixty fold, some thirty fold, who had ears to hear, let him hear. So he just told them a parable. What does it mean? And in these scriptures there are four illustrations, four illustrations. And out of these four illustrations, some people are always trying to make, well, it’s say something that it doesn’t say. Tryingforced understand is just talking about how a man is saved. And if it’s talking about how a man is saved, well, it looks like a command can be saved for a while and then lose a salvation.

And so many people who teach that you can lose your salvation, remember when I talk about people who teach you can lose your salvation, I’m talking about preachers, missionaries, and there’s multitudes of them that go to the foreign fields and they teach from these scriptures of the opposite of what it really says. But the people out there that don’t know the Bible, they don’t understand. So it breaks your heart when you see what people are saying. I’ve listened many times to certain creatures on the radio and it just breaks my heart.

They listen to what they’re saying. If I’m a lost man sitting out there listening, I say, I ain’t got a chance. I ain’t got a ghost of a chance. Oh, I’d say to my mind, I can’t get saved because I just, I can’t live the life. I just can’t live the life. Or I’m too bad. Or I’ve tried before and they, no sense trying again because I just can’t live up to that high standard Because they will make it sound like you’ve got the performer, you’re not going to get it.

Then he says here in verse 10, and the disciples came and said in the hymns, why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it’s not given. So we had a mixed audience, mixed group of people, even though the disciples didn’t really understand the parable either. He said, you’re speaking unto them in parables. They didn’t say, we don’t understand either, but they didn’t understand.

And the key to what Christ taught was always for people that wanted to know truth could understand the truth. So he says because it is given unto you the know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. So some people will never get it. They’ll never understand. But now he tells you why. It’s not because God has chosen a few people to believe and God has chosen another group of people not to believe.

And so it’s not their fault. They can’t choose Because God didn’t give them the faith to believe there are some people that teach When he says in Ephesians 2 8 9 for by grace or you say through faith and that not of yourself That is the gift of God. They say the gift there is faith and so you can’t be saved unless God gives you the gift of faith Therefore, it’s not your fault if you don’t believe Because God didn’t give you the faith to believe and so those that do believe is because God gave them the faith Well, that’s totally contrary to Scripture.

That means that if God didn’t give you the faith, you didn’t have the ability to believe, so why should you go to hell? That ain’t your fault. God says everybody’s got faith. It’s just a matter of where you want to place it. Salvation is the gift of God. It’s not faith. Faith is not a gift. Now there’s another place where it talks about faith being a gift, but that’s to the believers, to the church, and not for salvation. He makes a statement here because it is given under you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of heaven.

I had a man call me up this week. He says, what does it mean when it talks about the kingdom of heaven? He said, I need you to probably sit down with me and explain this to me and it’s going to take a while for me to get this through my head. I said, well, let me just tell you and then see if that’ll help. I said, the kingdom of God is the sphere of everything that belongs to God.

kingdom of God is God’s kingdom from eternity past to eternity future. I says, but the phrase kingdom of heaven refers to a pure time. The kingdom of heaven is when the king sets up his kingdom upon the earth. And that’s a thousand year reign upon the earth. So the kingdom of heaven is when Christ rules upon the earth. He says, I see it. He says, you’re not telling me no more. I got it. I got it. click. I said, it’s very simple.

So the kingdom of heaven is like an island in the sea of God’s eternity. So when you’re talking about the kingdom of heaven, God has given us some truths to explain this little island, this period of time that’s going to be a thousand years long and how you get into it and the seeds that are sown. And he says this kingdom is like like a mustard seed and it will grow and fill up all the earth, become a great mountain, mountains kingdom.

Then he makes a statement here in verse 12, looking verse 12, For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundant, but whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away even that he hath. And you say, take away what? Give them what? The key here is understanding. See there in verse 13, therefore speak eye to them in parables because they see not hearing, they hear not. Neither do they, and here’s the word understand. They don’t understand.

Now God says, he that understand it, I will give him more. that doesn’t understand, well, lose the knowledge they already have, like they have already been given. See, if you don’t use it, what happens to it? You lose it. You see, I used to study the Bible, study the Bible, study the Bible, but you don’t use it, you lose it. Light will be taken away from you and you’ll find yourself walking and darkness, but it’ll happen so slowly, you don’t even know it.

It’s like your eyes going bad, but you don’t know they’re going bad. Sometimes I get my ears checked. She said, now is that better? I said, man, man, I ain’t got a clue. I said, I have to have it to compare it with something because I could take out my hearing aid. And if I don’t have my hearing aid, I don’t know if I’m hearing better or worse unless I’m comparing it with something that was how it was before.

So whenever I check in downstairs and I go on the computer trying to get my broadcast done, I look at the levels. And I know where I’ve got my sound speakers set. And if it gets to that certain level, I know how it sounds. Well if I put my hearing aid in, now I’m something I hear loud. I know this working pretty good. So if I don’t even put my hearing aid in, I don’t even know I don’t have it in because I don’t know I’m hearing it not hearing better or worse until you have something to compare it with.

I know it sounds strange, but it’s the way it is. You’ll notice in verse 14, and in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which said, by hearing you shall hear and shall not en- you ought to underline those two words, not understand. You will not perceive the last part of the verse, seeing you shall see and not perceive. So you can hear something, but you didn’t hear it. And you can see something, but you really didn’t hear it.

don’t see it. One time he was talking to his disciples and he was talking to them and then the Pharisees came along and he had made the statement about somebody being blind and then the Pharisees says, are you saying that we’re blind? We’re not blind. And Christ says, since you said you’re not blind, you say you see. So therefore your sin remaineth with you in the Gospel of John. Your sin remains because you see. See, when you don’t see and you don’t understand, there’s a certain amount of forgiveness there because there’s no knowledge.

Like there’s some people that are retarded, as you completely slow, where they don’t understand, they don’t grasp. They don’t have the same responsibility. Even you and I don’t require of them the same thing you do if somebody else is supposed to be normal. Are you a normal Christian? Or you have normal? As a Christian, are you a retard, you don’t get it, you don’t see, you don’t understand. Now you don’t want to say that about yourself, do you? So if you say, well I understand what he’s talking about, greater than what?

Responsibility. Because the more light and the more you say, I perceive, I see it, I see it, I understand. Alright, you’re gonna give a count for that. More light, more expected. And then you’ll notice also, they’re in verse 15, for this people’s heart is waxed gross. Their ears are all of hearing their eyes as they have closed, less at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and you are on the line, these two words should understand, should understand with their heart and should be converted, I should heal them.

We see, you can’t get saved to understand. That’s why we’re always trying to help a person to understand you are a sinner. Do you understand that? Sometimes I’ve gone through the hand gesture step by step one phrase at a time and this is represent you and me. We are all sinners. Do you know what a sinner is? And prove that point. And the wages of sinner’s death, that means eternal separation from God. Do you understand what I’m saying? Because you trying to get them to follow you.

But when he says, I understand, I understand, I understand, I understand when they get through and they say, well, do you understand? All that you can do is trust Christ as your Savior. And if they understand all that, see, then it’s easier to get them to say, yes, I’ll trust Christ. But come, they understand. But when they don’t understand, don’t keep going on. You got to stop and get them to see this point because you move on to the next thing.

They don’t see that. They don’t perceive. And they have to have a certain amount of understanding. So that’s why you had to make the gospel clear. And the gospel is not clear because you understand what you said. The gospel is clear when the lost man understands what you said. So he makes this statement here in verse 16, but blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear. Now you want to be a blessed individual. How many of you have ever said, Lord, I want you to bless me.

Bless me. You want to be blessed. I just want God to bless me with what? Good hearing and good vision. Now I’ve wear glasses and I’ve got a hearing aid. So I’m not talking about a physical body. More than anything else in this life, you should want to hear what God has to say. You want see what he means and see the future, have spiritual eyesight because without it, what do you have? You don’t have anything. And the scripture talked about Christians in the book of 2 Peter being blind, blind, blind Christians because they cannot see a far off.

They have no vision for the future. Now notice what he says here in verse 17, for verily I say unto you that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them.” Now he’s talking about Old Testament saints because the promises were given to them and they lived their whole life without ever seeing the fulfillment of those promises but they like Abraham believed in a far country and believed the promise of God that it was going to happen.

And look for a city whose builder and maker was God. So he says here and they have not seen them. They have not heard them. And verse 18, here ye therefore the parable of the sore. Now when he explains the parable, it’s to give people understanding. Because after he gets through, he says to his disciples in another scripture, he says, do you understand? Do you understand what I’m saying? I’ve wondered many times that after I’ve preached so many sermons, and I’ve wondered how many people have actually understood what I’ve said.

Because if you really hear it and listen to it and you believe it, it should change a person’s life. If you go on like you never heard anything, you didn’t see anything, then he said it’s like a man that looks in the mirror, and behold his face, and then he goes out the way and immediately forgets what he saw. like it didn’t make a difference. And the scripture says be ye doers of the word and not hearers only. So why do you hear the word so you can be a doer of the word?

And if you don’t become a doer of the word then what’s the reason for hearing the word? It’s not just so we can just tickle our fancy, it’s for a reason. In verse 18 he says, hear ye there for the parable of the when anyone heareth the word of the kingdom and understandeth it. Now, understands, that’s a very important word, understandeth it, not, then come of the wicked one and catches the way that which was sown in his heart.

This is he which received seed by the wayside, but he that received the seed in the stony places, the same as he that heareth the word and immediately would joy receive at this. Yet hath he not root in himself but dirt for a while, for when tribulation or persecution rises because of the word by and by he is offended. He also that receive of seed among the forms is he that heareth the word and the care of this world and that his seedfulness of riches choked the word and he become unfruitful.

But he that receive of seed into the good ground is He that here at the Word and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit, bringeth forth some hundred fold, some sixty and some thirty. Not everybody brings forth the same amount of fruit, but those that did understand it and were fruitful brought forth fruit. So every one of these illustrations here, there’s four of them. Can you tell me which one refers to the lost man and which one refers to the safe man?

So if you looked at all four of these illustrations, how many refer to the saved and how many refer to the lost man? Alright, now look there at the first one. When it says in verse 19, he explains it in verse 1 what is going on trying to get him to understand. When When you’re talking about these illustrations down through here, there’s four, and the first one where he makes the statement that the seed that fell up by the wayside is the devil, and the devil is the one that steal the seed away before the person gets the chance to receive it.

and he says there in verse 19, see, and then comeeth the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received the seed by the wayside, but he understandeth it what not he didn’t understand. And the reason he didn’t understand is because when the seed was given the birds of the air that gets the seed by the wayside, he refers to as the devil that feels the seed from the mind before he believes it.

That’s the lost man, he doesn’t understand. Verse 20 is the saved man. How do you know? The same is he that he wrote the word and immediately with joy, received it that he understands, he receives it. It says, yet had he not root in himself, but dureth for a while. So he saved, he endures for a a while. And so you see why some people say then for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, he is offended.

But he started. He believed, starts serving, but he is like the person who has no root. And if you don’t have any roots down into the word of God, you’re not going to stay strong. And so the person is not going to be fruitful. shade. Verse 22, he also that received seed among the forens is he that hearth the word and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches showed the word and he became unproof. So he did believe it.

He did understand, but he’s not fruitful. See it always boiled down, okay, neither you’re saved. Are you or are you not fruitful? Verse 23, but he that receive it seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it, which also bear fruit and bring it forth some, a hundredth pole, some sixty and some thirty. So he gives us a very simple illustration and there is four stories in one story. There’s only one sower and as you sow the seed some people are not going to understand it at all.

So always remember when you’re witnessing not everybody will hear and understand it. Some are going to hear it and believe it but never do anything with it. And some are going to believe it and start off but they get choked up with the things of the world. and never become fruitful. And some are going to hear it and believe it and become fruitful in their life and some a hundred fold, some sixty and some thirty fold. So you don’t win everybody, but you will win somebody.

And so it’s a tremendous thing now. Take your Bible, look in Mark chapter four and notice you’ll get just a little bit clear understanding because now this same parable is used again. In Mark chapter 4, look in verse 13, and He said unto them, No you not this parable. How then shall you know all parables? The soar soeth the word. These are they by the wayside where the word is sown, but when they have heard Satan commit immediately and take it the way the word that was sown in their heart.

So the bird that came along the wayside and got the seed that the sower sows is a pitcher of the devil who steals the word from the person’s mind. Unless he should understand and believe it. Then he says there in verse 16 and these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground who when they have heard the word immediately receive it with gladness. So they receive the word and have no root in themselves. So endure but for a time afterwards when affliction or persecution arises for the words say immediately they are and what’s that word you are not online they’re offended.

Have you ever seen people that can come to church and the preacher say one word and they get so offended they don’t come back. That’s scripture. That’s scripture. You can witness to somebody and say just the wrong thing and buddy they don’t and they do it anymore. They write you off at the drop of a hat, so easily offended. And then he makes a statement here in verse 18, and these are they which are sown among forms, such as hear the word, they hear it, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other things entering in showed the word and it become unfruitful.

So the reason that you sow seed is so that everything comes up and bears fruit. God created the whole heavens and the earth. They created this world and created all the animals to reproduce and all the plants to reproduce and all the fruit trees to reproduce and everything reproduces after it’s on everything reproduces. Everything letting reproduces. And so when God creates a Christian, a saved man, a saved man is to reproduce. And so everything is based around this. Now look what he says in verse 20.

These are they which are sewn on good ground, such as hear the word and receive it and bring forth fruit, some thirty full, some sixty and some a hundred. Now look there in Luke chapter eight. Now notice in verse four, now if you read chapter 13 first of the book of Matthew, it kind of gives you a visual picture and it’s the best one. Then you get to the book of Mark, it’s not as much, but it’s got a little bit more detail concerning of what it means in the explanation.

Book of Luke gives you just a tad more. In the Gospel Luke in chapter eight, look in verse four, when much people were gathered together and we’re come to Him out of every city. He spake by a parable. Hey, so were went out to sow His seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and it was trodden down in the files of the air devoured it. Some fell upon a rock, and as soon as it was sprung up it whithered away because it lacked moisture.

Some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. And others fell on good ground and sprang up and bear fruit, a hundredthole. And when he had said these things he cried, he the half an ear to hear, let him hear. Now you heard a prayer about, do you? understand what he’s saying. Now a lot of people will listen to the parable of the sower. See I know that not heard the parable of the sower but they never apply it to themselves.

Did you realize that you are represented in one of these parables? One of these is you. Now you figure out which one it is. You’re one of them. Now notice in verse five there’s nothing in here about the seed springing forth, coming forth. It just simply said it was trodden down the fouls of the air devoured it, but we know what the birds of the air represent, the devil that stole the seed so that they wouldn’t hear and understand.

Then it says there in verse 6 there’s a word there. I want you to know in the line it called sprung up. As some fell upon a rock and as soon as it was sprung up that That means it germinated. That means it came forth into life. That’s why the first one is a lost man in verse 5. Of verse 6 is a saved man but withered away because it lacked moisture. Like we have a lot of teenagers that came to ranch.

Some of those teenagers believe it or not, we may never see what’s going to happen with some of those kids. You know some of those kids that came to ranch gave us nothing but headache. One day may be evangelist and pastors of some churches, radio evangelist, you have no idea. You say, I’ll have a, you don’t, don’t, don’t kind of short. See, I’ve lived long enough and I’ve already seen the results. I’ve seen what people have done. But the reason they fall by the way, I see sometimes because they didn’t get any moisture, they didn’t get any nurturing because we let them slip through the cracks.

Look at verse eight. Others fell on good ground and here’s two words. up. Spring up. In verse 7 it’s talked about and some fell among thorns and the thorns spring up with it. So they did spring up but also other things did too and choked it out. But you see there’s life in verse 6 and there’s life in verse 7 and there’s life in verse 8. Some fell all on good ground and spring up and bear fruit a hundred fold.

Not do you get it? See how simple it is? Did you understand the parable. You really understand what Jesus was saying. He says, there’s things like in this world the cares of this world, the riches of this world is what causes a lot of God’s people not to be fruitful. And yet God says that some fell upon good ground and sprang up. You’ve been listening to Bible line, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr.

Ralph Arnold, we pray that you are blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach by the line and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleline Ministries dot O-R-G homepage.

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. Alrighty, good to have you tonight. It’s Thanksgiving Day week. We should all learn to give thanks to the Lord. A Psalm of Thanksgiving, a Psalm of Thanksgiving. Psalm 75 one says unto the O God, do we give thanks? A lot of times we’re just gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, but the Lord likes to hear every once in a while, hey, thank you.

Thank you Lord. Thank the Lord for what you have. But I want you to take your Bible and turn to the hundredth Psalm. The hundredth Psalm, I want you to read it with me here. In verse one, read it out loud with me. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, he is God. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves.

We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is good, his mercy in everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generation.” Isn’t that a great song? It really is. There’s seven things that I believe from these verses that we could be thankful for and should be. You’ll notice there in verse three where it says, Know ye that the Lord, He is God.

He is God. Did you know we might know that there is a God, but we would not know that Jehovah is God. The Lord, He is God. L-O-R-D caps is a reference to Jehovah Himself. And this is because God had revealed Himself unto us. We have a book that’s revealing the will of God. I have not seen, ear have not heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.

But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. Yea, the Spirit searches all things, ye the deep things of God. For what man knew of the things of God, say the Spirit of man which is within him. Even though the things of God, no man can know, except the Spirit of God dwell within him. And then we compare spiritual things by spiritual means, and we know things that the natural man does not know because the things of God are spiritually discerned.

So we have a book that reveals to us the mind of God, the way of God. And so we are very fortunate that we have such a wonderful book that we can read and know about the true and living God. The next thing here is the word creation. And that is in verse three, if you look there, it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. Now I know sometimes we hear about the I’m a self-made man.

Yeah. There was a couple of these, you know, scientists, atheists that said we can do anything that so-called God could have done. We can make man from the dust of the earth. So they thought they would just have a contest and they wanted to show that they could take dirt and make a man. So they reached down there to get them some dirt and a voice out of heaven said, get your own dirt. They couldn’t even start because they couldn’t even make dirt let alone a man.

God can make the dirt and God can take a body and form it from the dirt of the ground and breathe into his nostles, the breath of the blade man becomes a living soul. Look there in the 139th Psalm. Hold your place right here. But the 139th Psalm. And you’ll get a glimpse of just what David understood. Look how smart this guy was. Now, you know, either God gave him this wisdom, or he was a mighty smart man. I think God could have intervened and told him some wonderful things.

But what I want you to see about what God has done look down in verse 13 Verse 13 For a thou has possessed my reigns thou have covered me in my mother’s womb So he’s saying that God knew me when I was in my mama’s womb and God’s the one that formed my body He says in verse 14 good what he says I will praise thee For I am fearfully and wonderfully made Marvelous are thy works and that my soul knoweth the right will believe God made me God made me My substance was not hit from the when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest part of the earth Thine I did see my substance yet being unperth thee and in thy book all my members were written means it probably every hair you head to, which in continuance were fashion when is yet there was none of them.

How precious also get this are thy thoughts on the me, oh God. How great is the sum of them. In other words, God thinking about me. You think God has a lot of things on his mind. He got a lot of things to think about and then to realize God is up in heaven. Thank you about me. Did you know that when Christ went to the cross, when He was on the cross, what? I was on His mind. First time I ever heard that song, a lady from Lee Patton’s church, got up there and sung that song.

I had never heard it before. And I loved that song. I fell in love with it. When He was on the cross, I was on His mind. And that God so loved the world and His nobody that he loves more than me, but he loves me. He loves me. He loves you. And if that is true, then he has to think about me. If he died for my sin, then he had to think about me and my sin. He has all these thoughts.

And God thinks about me. If I should count them, they’re more in number than the sands. When I wake, I am still with thee. Surely, thou will slay the wicked, O God, and so on. Now look at verse 23. You and I are supposed to believe that God made us. He made us. So we examine ourselves and see is there any wicked way in me? Is there anything in my life that would hinder me from being what I should be with my heavenly Father?

Look what he says in verse 23. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way and lead me in the way everlasting. This is what God wants you and I to do. God created us. So when you are thankful, you should be thankful that God had revealed himself. I guess we can be thankful that God made us. Take a look in the 19th Psalm. The 19th Psalm. is a mighty good psalm.

He kind of lets us know who’s running things around here. In verse one of the 19th psalm, the heavens declared the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day, unto day, utter a speech, and night, and the night showeth knowledge. To believe, believe it or not, that every day the rotation of the year, the sun, the moon starts, all that teaches things. I believe in the very beginning before they had the Word of God, they all taught lessons.

I believe the 12 signs of the zodiac is not a wicked evil thing. I believe astrology has ruined it, but God in the beginning, I believe God started it. I believe they have signs and they they meant things. You can study the signs of the zodiac and there it’s actually it’s like the gospel in the stars. But anyway in verse 3 it says, there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world.

And Demhati said a tabernacle for the sun. Just think how big the sun is. It would be 93 million miles away from the earth. Just big old ball of fire. And yet think of how many stars there are. How big they are and yet he was able to place this one here and place that one there and did this and All the stars all over the universe everywhere Have you ever wondered what’s at the end of the end? At the end of space, what’s out there then?

Is there no end to anything? It’s all interesting to me. But then he says, the the sun, every day when the sun goes to the heavens, it’s like a strong man running to win a race. And then lo and behold, it comes back to where it started and does it again because God has a course. And it says they’re in verse four, their line has gone throughout the earth and their words to the end of the world. to them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom cometh out of his chamber and rejoices a strong man to run a race.

His going forth is from the end of the heaven and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the Lord is perfect, so he gets into the Word. So God made the world to reveal God, and God made His Word to reveal God. So if the world was made by God and the word was given by God, then the world and the word should agree. And it does. Evolution doesn’t agree with the world and the teaching of evolution doesn’t agree with God.

It does agree with the word. Evolution must be wrong. It is. But the law of the Lord is perfect talking about His word. And God has given it to us. In Luke, in verse 11, I want you to see this. Moreover, by them is thy servant, get this warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward. So there is the reason why God has given to us his word and revealed these things unto us, because we are his creation.

He not only made us, but he has a purpose for our creation. And that’s why we studied the word of God to see what is it that God wants us to know. And look down in verse 14, he says, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be in your underlying this word be acceptable and thy sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. So we have in the word of God an admonition that though he made the world he also made us and he gave us his word which is perfect.

And by it, we are warned and that we are going to be rewarded based upon what we do with the word that we’ve heard. So as an individual, I am supposed to learn and to do that which is acceptable in God’s eyes. So we often do what we think is acceptable to us. You know, it pleases me. It’s what I want to do with my life. Yep, but it belongs to God. Number three, manifestation. In verse 5 there in the 100th Psalm, it makes the statement, God is good.

Did you know that for you to serve the Lord and to be happy serving the Lord, to be pleased and serving the Lord, you have to believe that God is good. If you don’t believe that God is good, you’ll have a serious problem walking with him. I have lived long enough to see and to believe with all my heart. God is a good God. What if God had been a bad God? What if God had been a mean God?

But the Bible says God is good. In the book of Acts it talks about Jesus Christ and everywhere he went. He went about doing good. Just doing good. Sometimes you may not get a chance to witness to somebody. You can still do good. Sometimes you don’t always get a chance to just challenge somebody’s servo, but you still do good. Just do good by people. Be kind because that’s what God is. Be loving because God is loving. Be forgiving because God is forgiving.

But God is good. David said this, and I want you to see this because it’s so good, hold your place right here and just look there in the 23rd Psalm. Most of the time we always use the 23rd Psalm at a funeral. But since nobody’s dying here tonight, as I know of, I want you to look at this as David gave it because he was a shepherd and he had sheep and he says, the Lord is my shepherd. So in verse 1 of the 23rd Psalm, he says, the Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want. Want for what? the Lord you shepherd. Then you trust the shepherd to lead you, to guide you, provide for you. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the steel waters. He restored my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil. For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparedst a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anorneth my head with oil, my cup runneth over.” And look in verse 6, this is what David said, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord temporarily forever So David knew that he was going to be with the Lord forever But he also knew that he wasn’t there yet and going through this life is going to the valley of the shadow of death death, because at this time all of us live under the shadow of dying.

We don’t know if we’re going to die or if the raptor is going to take place. We all hope that the raptor takes place and we all get out of here without feeling any pain. I’ve never died before and I just don’t want to hurt. But I believe that God can give you dying grace, grace that you need for that moment. It’s called new grace, grace for the moment, the strength, the grace, power to do the will of God at the hour that you need it the most.

So I don’t have to worry about it. I just believe God will tell you, look, look at all the other saints that have already faced it and gone to heaven. If they can face it, we can face it and knows no reason for us to fear. I was thinking as far as the Lord goes, I believe I knew the Lord better than my mom. I believe I know the the Lord better than my two sisters that have already died.

And they can handle it. And they knew they were dying. Surely God will give me the grace that I need at that moment too. And I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rotten thy staff, they comfort me. And he will lead me and guide me into still waters, restoreth my soul. All these things he’s going to do for us all because we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. He is our shepherd. Remember one time I preached a sermon on the great shepherd, the good shepherd?

And I added in there the chief shepherd, the three kinds of shepherds because of who Christ is and what He’s done for us. Look at number four. Number four there in the hundredth Psalm is it says we are His people. We ought to know who we are. This is our redemption because in order to be His people then we need to be redeemed and to be redeemed then somebody had to buy us. Somebody had to make a payment for us.

So you and I can look at it and say yes we believe that Jesus Christ died on the I’ve never had trust paid for all the sins of the world, and by faith alone, I have been redeemed into the family of God. God has done this for me, so I can be thankful that God had revealed Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ, and coming into the world, that he created me. I’m thankful that I have a chance to live.

I have enjoyed my so far 68 years of life. I don’t know how much time God’s gonna give me. It might be I’m on the downhill side of life. But then I might live to be, I mean after all Abraham he lived to be 175 years old. Remember He was old and an old man and he couldn’t even have a child and then Lord had to strengthen his body And then he wound up after sir. I got married again and had some more kids lived to be a hundred and seventy five a Lot thought he was I mean not like a joke thought he was gonna die and Yet God gave him some more kids and some more kids and some more kids.

It’s a more kid grandkids to the fourth generation after that. And it says that he died full of age. Well, of course, of that old. They say that, you know, cheese gets better with age. I don’t really know. Somebody tried to tell me that wine gets better with age. I wouldn’t know that either. But I do believe that we ought to enjoy life. We ought to enjoy life. God has been good to us. God is a good God and I can be thankful for all the things that he brought into my life.

Yes, I can look back and I can see a trail of tears. I’ve had a lot of times when I have spent time just crying to the Lord. You know, whining a little bit to the Lord. You’re a whine. I’ve done a lot of that. But God’s always brought me through. He’s always brought me through. I couldn’t always see how he’s gonna do it, but I always believed. God’s a good God. I don’t know how you’re gonna do it.

God’s a good God. And he knows who I am. He knows I’m his child. I’m in his family. And he’s good, and he loves me. And if I can just keep believing that, it didn’t matter what happens. My heavenly father walked with me. There’s a song that I learned years ago called, just me and my Lord, just me and my Lord, walking together, me and my Lord, walking alone. Even though you can have a husband or a wife and you can have kids and go to church and you all know all the people, there’s no substitute for just you and the Lord walking together.

Lord has to be real and precious to you. So he is our Redeemer. The number five restoration, the sheep of his pastor. Now if he’s the, with the sheep of his pastor, I mean it’s his responsibility to provide for us. You see the shepherd would lead the sheep and provide the green grass and make sure that there was some still waters. And the shepherd was gonna protect the sheep. You know, you can’t find anything dumber than a sheep, maybe a turkey.

But they are so naive. And that’s why sometimes people might call you, you turkey. That’s not a compliment. I am not a sheep without a shepherd. I have one. I know his name. And when I hear his voice, I want to follow him. The next word is restoration. of his pastor, he restored my soul. You ever get tired and weary and worn? Is it going to bed and resting such a wonderful invention? I love a bed. I love going to sleep.

Eating and sleeping are two wonderful inventions of God. It is so enjoyable. But anyway, the word justification, his mercy, his mercy. He had mercy upon us and his mercy, if it last forever, then it means I’m justified and I have mercy forever. See, once you’re saved, you’re always saved. Once you’re forgiven, you’re always forgiven. That’s what’s wonderful about the Lord. I have been redeemed. I’m justified just as if I had never sinned. That’s how I got to be part of his family.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. I’ve often wondered if somebody had not led me to the Lord when I was 18 years old, what would have ever happened to me? What I would have done. Would I have lived this long? I am so glad. God has intervened in my life and wrong my bell. And I am so glad that I know the Lord, but I’m glad that He knows me. And I’m just thankful for that. Every person living in America, all to be so thankful that we have the freedoms to believe like we believe and that we can serve the Lord without persecution.

But we might lose that someday, but we have this moment. We ought to do what we can with what we have where we are. And God bless us for it. The last word is inspiration. His truth endures to all generation. His truth is His word. And the Bible says concerning His word, thy word is truth. Thy word is truth from the book of John in chapter 17. Saint defy them through thy word, thy word is truth. It is inspired to believe that the word of God didn’t come from a man, but it came from God himself.

And that you and I have such a wonderful book that we can read and study it and get as close to the Lord as we wanna get. You can get as close to God as you want to. and nobody can stop you. You can be as holy of an individual, as godly of an individual as you want to be. You can be as dedicated to God as you want to be. Think that good. That’s something everybody ought to be thankful for.

But I believe that it’s good to be thankful to the Lord and let other people know that you’re thankful. And what are you thankful for? Because you see, a lot of people have an a rough time. Some people may not have a job. Some people may be facing surgery. A lot of people have a lot of problems that they just don’t know how they’re going to solve. And something that you say about what God means to you could be such an uplifting.

I love it in their life. People need help. People need encouragement. I only got so many stories to tell. I can only face so much. But see, y’all got things that God has taught you. God’s brought you through some things. But you keep serving the Lord and don’t let anything in this world stop you from doing what God wants you to do with your life. Look up here. This hand represent you and me and the wallet represents sin. We all have sin upon us.

us. We’re supposed to believe that it is He, God, that have made us. And even though He didn’t make us, He didn’t make us a sinner, that’s because we have some parents from down the road that decided to rebel against the Lord. And they send. And because they send, were given an old sinful nature, and that old sinful nature is why we commit all these sins. This does not make us a sinner. We do all these sins because we are a sinner.

And the Bible says that wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God in hell. But God loves us and wants us to have eternal life and to go to heaven. But we’re separated from God. That separation God calls death were separated. But God loves us and there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves. This hand represents Jesus Christ, He’s the Lord God and the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from Him.

So Jesus Christ who had no sin did not have to die. He took our sins, paid for them on the cross, came back from the dead and said that if we would believe that He did it for us. He had put this payment to our account and we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. I trusted Christ as my Savior. I know that I’m going to heaven when I die. And I hope that you have.

Do you believe that God is a good God? I believe He is a good God. And we need to be thankful because God is good. Now you may have bad things happen in your life, but God doesn’t do bad things to us. If you’re disobedient, God would allow chasting and so forth in your life. But if you’re certain Lord, those same things can happen to you and it’ll build your character, it’ll be a blessing to you based upon how you are between you and God because of the things that happen.

God knows what he’s doing and God loves you. And this is simply a song on Thanksgiving. Let’s pray, shall we? You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 tool free, 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10.30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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. live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleline Ministries dot O-R-G homepage.

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. Alrighty, good to have you tonight. It’s Thanksgiving Day week. We should all learn to give thanks to the Lord. A Psalm of Thanksgiving, a Psalm of Thanksgiving. Psalm 75 one says unto the O God, do we give thanks? A lot of times we’re just gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, but the Lord likes to hear every once in a while, hey, thank you.

Thank you Lord. Thank the Lord for what you have. But I want you to take your Bible and turn to the hundredth Psalm. The hundredth Psalm, I want you to read it with me here. In verse one, read it out loud with me. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, he is God. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves.

We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is good, his mercy in everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generation.” Isn’t that a great song? It really is. There’s seven things that I believe from these verses that we could be thankful for and should be. You’ll notice there in verse three where it says, Know ye that the Lord, He is God.

He is God. Did you know we might know that there is a God, but we would not know that Jehovah is God. The Lord, He is God. L-O-R-D caps is a reference to Jehovah Himself. And this is because God had revealed Himself unto us. We have a book that’s revealing the will of God. I have not seen, ear have not heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.

But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. Yea, the Spirit searches all things, ye the deep things of God. For what man knew of the things of God, say the Spirit of man which is within him. Even though the things of God, no man can know, except the Spirit of God dwell within him. And then we compare spiritual things by spiritual means, and we know things that the natural man does not know because the things of God are spiritually discerned.

So we have a book that reveals to us the mind of God, the way of God. And so we are very fortunate that we have such a wonderful book that we can read and know about the true and living God. The next thing here is the word creation. And that is in verse three, if you look there, it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. Now I know sometimes we hear about the I’m a self-made man.

Yeah. There was a couple of these, you know, scientists, atheists that said we can do anything that so-called God could have done. We can make man from the dust of the earth. So they thought they would just have a contest and they wanted to show that they could take dirt and make a man. So they reached down there to get them some dirt and a voice out of heaven said, get your own dirt. They couldn’t even start because they couldn’t even make dirt let alone a man.

God can make the dirt and God can take a body and form it from the dirt of the ground and breathe into his nostles, the breath of the blade man becomes a living soul. Look there in the 139th Psalm. Hold your place right here. But the 139th Psalm. And you’ll get a glimpse of just what David understood. Look how smart this guy was. Now, you know, either God gave him this wisdom, or he was a mighty smart man. I think God could have intervened and told him some wonderful things.

But what I want you to see about what God has done look down in verse 13 Verse 13 For a vial has possessed my reigns. They’ll have covered me in my mother’s womb So he’s saying that God knew me when I was in my mama’s womb and God’s the one that formed my body He says in verse 14 good what he says I will praise thee For I am fearfully and wonderfully made Marvelous are thy works and that my soul knoweth the right will believe God made me God made me My substance was not hit from the when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest part of the earth Thine I did see my substance yet being unperth thee and in thy book all my members were written means it probably every hair you head to, which in continuance were fashion when is yet there was none of them.

How precious also get this are thy thoughts on the me, oh God. How great is the sum of them. In other words, God thinking about me. You think God has a lot of things on his mind. He got a lot of things to think about and then to realize God is up in heaven. Thank you about me. Did you know that when Christ went to the cross, when He was on the cross, what? I was on His mind. First time I ever heard that song, a lady from Lee Patton’s church, got up there and sung that song.

I had never heard it before. And I loved that song. I fell in love with it. When He was on the cross, I was on His mind. And that God so loved the world and His nobody that he loves more than me, but he loves me. He loves me. He loves you. And if that is true, then he has to think about me. If he died for my sin, then he had to think about me and my sin. He has all these thoughts.

And God thinks about me. If I should count them, they’re more in number than the sands. When I wake, I am still with thee. Surely, thou will slay the wicked, O God, and so on. Now look at verse 23. You and I are supposed to believe that God made us. He made us. So we examine ourselves and see is there any wicked way in me? Is there anything in my life that would hinder me from being what I should be with my heavenly Father?

Look what he says in verse 23. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way and lead me in the way everlasting. This is what God wants you and I to do. God created us. So when you are thankful, you should be thankful that God had revealed himself. I guess we can be thankful that God made us. Take a look in the 19th Psalm. The 19th Psalm. is a mighty good psalm.

He kind of lets us know who’s running things around here. In verse one of the 19th psalm, the heavens declared the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day, unto day, utter a speech, and night, and the night showeth knowledge. To believe, believe it or not, that every day the rotation of the year, the sun, the moon starts, all that teaches things. I believe in the very beginning before they had the Word of God, they all taught lessons.

I believe the 12 signs of the zodiac is not a wicked evil thing. I believe astrology has ruined it, but God in the beginning, I believe God started it. I believe they have signs and they they meant things. You can study the signs of the zodiac and there it’s actually it’s like the gospel in the stars. But anyway in verse 3 it says, there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world.

And Demhati said a tabernacle for the sun. Just think how big the sun is. It would be 93 million miles away from the earth. Just big old ball of fire. And yet think of how many stars there are. How big they are and yet he was able to place this one here and place that one there and did this and All the stars all over the universe everywhere Have you ever wondered what’s at the end of the end? At the end of space, what’s out there then?

Is there no end to anything? It’s all interesting to me. But then he says, the the sun, every day when the sun goes to the heavens, it’s like a strong man running to win a race. And then lo and behold, it comes back to where it started and does it again because God has a course. And it says they’re in verse four, their line has gone throughout the earth and their words to the end of the world. to them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom cometh out of his chamber and rejoices a strong man to run a race.

His going forth is from the end of the heaven and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the Lord is perfect, so he gets into the Word. So God made the world to reveal God, and God made His Word to reveal God. So if the world was made by God and the word was given by God, then the world and the word should agree. And it does. Evolution doesn’t agree with the world and the teaching of evolution doesn’t agree with God.

It does agree with the word. Evolution must be wrong. It is. But the law of the Lord is perfect talking about His word. And God has given it to us. In Luke, in verse 11, I want you to see this. Moreover, by them is thy servant, get this warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward. So there is the reason why God has given to us his word and revealed these things unto us, because we are his creation.

He not only made us, but he has a purpose for our creation. And that’s why we studied the word of God to see what is it that God wants us to know. And look down in verse 14, he says, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be in your underlying this word be acceptable and thy sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. So we have in the word of God an admonition that though he made the world he also made us and he gave us his word which is perfect.

And by it, we are warned and that we are going to be rewarded based upon what we do with the word that we’ve heard. So as an individual, I am supposed to learn and to do that which is acceptable in God’s eyes. So we often do what we think is acceptable to us. You know, it pleases me. It’s what I want to do with my life. Yep, but it belongs to God. Number three, manifestation. In verse 5 there in the 100th Psalm, it makes the statement, God is good.

Did you know that for you to serve the Lord and to be happy serving the Lord, to be pleased and serving the Lord, you have to believe that God is good. If you don’t believe that God is good, you’ll have a serious problem walking with him. I have lived long enough to see and to believe with all my heart. God is a good God. What if God had been a bad God? What if God had been a mean God?

But the Bible says God is good. In the book of Acts it talks about Jesus Christ and everywhere he went. He went about doing good. Just doing good. Sometimes you may not get a chance to witness to somebody. You can still do good. Sometimes you don’t always get a chance to just challenge somebody’s servo, but you still do good. Just do good by people. Be kind because that’s what God is. Be loving because God is loving. Be forgiving because God is forgiving.

But God is good. David said this, and I want you to see this because it’s so good, hold your place right here and just look there in the 23rd Psalm. Most of the time we always use the 23rd Psalm at a funeral. But since nobody’s dying here tonight, as I know of, I want you to look at this as David gave it because he was a shepherd and he had sheep and he says, the Lord is my shepherd. So in verse 1 of the 23rd Psalm, he says, the Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want. Want for what? the Lord you shepherd. Then you trust the shepherd to lead you, to guide you, provide for you. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the steel waters. He restored my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil. For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparedst a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anorneth my head with oil, my cup runneth over.” And look in verse 6, this is what David said, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord temporarily forever So David knew that he was going to be with the Lord forever But he also knew that he wasn’t there yet and going through this life is going to the valley of the shadow of death death, because at this time all of us live under the shadow of dying.

We don’t know if we’re going to die or if the raptor is going to take place. We all hope that the raptor takes place and we all get out of here without feeling any pain. I’ve never died before and I just don’t want to hurt. But I believe that God can give you dying grace, grace that you need for that moment. It’s called new grace, grace for the moment, the strength, the grace, power to do the will of God at the hour that you need it the most.

So I don’t have to worry about it. I just believe God will tell you, look, look at all the other saints that have already faced it and gone to heaven. If they can face it, we can face it and knows no reason for us to fear. I was thinking as far as the Lord goes, I believe I knew the Lord better than my mom. I believe I know the the Lord better than my two sisters that have already died.

And they can handle it. And they knew they were dying. Surely God will give me the grace that I need at that moment too. And I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rotten thy staff, they comfort me. And he will lead me and guide me into still waters, restoreth my soul. All these things he’s going to do for us all because we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. He is our shepherd. Remember one time I preached a sermon on the great shepherd, the good shepherd?

And I added in there the chief shepherd, the three kinds of shepherds because of who Christ is and what He’s done for us. Look at number four. Number four there in the hundredth Psalm is it says we are His people. We ought to know who we are. This is our redemption because in order to be His people then we need to be redeemed and to be redeemed then somebody had to buy us. Somebody had to make a payment for us.

So you and I can look at it and say yes we believe that Jesus Christ died on the I’ve never had trust paid for all the sins of the world, and by faith alone, I have been redeemed into the family of God. God has done this for me, so I can be thankful that God had revealed Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ, and coming into the world, that he created me. I’m thankful that I have a chance to live.

I have enjoyed my so far 68 years of life. I don’t know how much time God’s gonna give me. It might be I’m on the downhill side of life. But then I might live to be, I mean after all Abraham he lived to be 175 years old. Remember He was old and an old man and he couldn’t even have a child and then Lord had to strengthen his body And then he wound up after sir. I got married again and had some more kids lived to be a hundred and seventy five a Lot thought he was I mean not like a joke thought he was gonna die and Yet God gave him some more kids and some more kids and some more kids.

It’s a more kid grandkids to the fourth generation after that. And it says that he died full of age. Well, of course, of that old. They say that, you know, cheese gets better with age. I don’t really know. Somebody tried to tell me that wine gets better with age. I wouldn’t know that either. But I do believe that we ought to enjoy life. We ought to enjoy life. God has been good to us. God is a good God and I can be thankful for all the things that he brought into my life.

Yes, I can look back and I can see a trail of tears. I’ve had a lot of times when I have spent time just crying to the Lord. You know, whining a little bit to the Lord. You’re a whine. I’ve done a lot of that. But God’s always brought me through. He’s always brought me through. I couldn’t always see how he’s gonna do it, but I always believed. God’s a good God. I don’t know how you’re gonna do it.

God’s a good God. And he knows who I am. He knows I’m his child. I’m in his family. And he’s good, and he loves me. And if I can just keep believing that, it didn’t matter what happens. My heavenly father walked with me. There’s a song that I learned years ago called, just me and my Lord, just me and my Lord, walking together, me and my Lord, walking alone. Even though you can have a husband or a wife and you can have kids and go to church and you all know all the people, there’s no substitute for just you and the Lord walking together.

Lord has to be real and precious to you. So he is our Redeemer. The number five restoration, the sheep of his pastor. Now if he’s the, with the sheep of his pastor, I mean it’s his responsibility to provide for us. You see the shepherd would lead the sheep and provide the green grass and make sure that there was some still waters. And the shepherd was gonna protect the sheep. You know, you can’t find anything dumber than a sheep, maybe a turkey.

But they are so naive. And that’s why sometimes people might call you, you turkey. That’s not a compliment. I am not a sheep without a shepherd. I have one. I know his name. And when I hear his voice, I want to follow him. The next word is restoration. of his pastor, he restored my soul. You ever get tired and weary and worn? Is it going to bed and resting such a wonderful invention? I love a bed. I love going to sleep.

Eating and sleeping are two wonderful inventions of God. It is so enjoyable. But anyway, the word justification, his mercy, his mercy. He had mercy upon us and his mercy, if it last forever, then it means I’m justified and I have mercy forever. See, once you’re saved, you’re always saved. Once you’re forgiven, you’re always forgiven. That’s what’s wonderful about the Lord. I have been redeemed. I’m justified just as if I had never sinned. That’s how I got to be part of his family.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. I’ve often wondered if somebody had not led me to the Lord when I was 18 years old, what would have ever happened to me? What I would have done. Would I have lived this long? I am so glad. God has intervened in my life and wrong my bell. And I am so glad that I know the Lord, but I’m glad that He knows me. And I’m just thankful for that. Every person living in America, all to be so thankful that we have the freedoms to believe like we believe and that we can serve the Lord without persecution.

But we might lose that someday, but we have this moment. We ought to do what we can with what we have where we are. And God bless us for it. The last word is inspiration. His truth endures to all generation. His truth is His word. And the Bible says concerning His word, thy word is truth. Thy word is truth from the book of John in chapter 17. Saint defy them through thy word, thy word is truth. It is inspired to believe that the word of God didn’t come from a man, but it came from God himself.

And that you and I have such a wonderful book that we can read and study it and get as close to the Lord as we wanna get. You can get as close to God as you want to. and nobody can stop you. You can be as holy of an individual, as godly of an individual as you want to be. You can be as dedicated to God as you want to be. Think that good. That’s something everybody ought to be thankful for.

But I believe that it’s good to be thankful to the Lord and let other people know that you’re thankful. And what are you thankful for? Because you see, a lot of people have an a rough time. Some people may not have a job. Some people may be facing surgery. A lot of people have a lot of problems that they just don’t know how they’re going to solve. And something that you say about what God means to you could be such an uplifting.

I love it in their life. People need help. People need encouragement. I only got so many stories to tell. I can only face so much. But see, y’all got things that God has taught you. God’s brought you through some things. But you keep serving the Lord and don’t let anything in this world stop you from doing what God wants you to do with your life. Look up here. This hand represents me and the wallet represents sin. We all have sin upon us.

us. We’re supposed to believe that it is He, God, that have made us. And even though He didn’t make us, He didn’t make us a sinner, that’s because we have some parents from down the road that decided to rebel against the Lord. And they send. And because they send, were given an old sinful nature, and that old sinful nature is why we commit all these sins. This does not make us a sinner. We do all these sins because we are a sinner.

And the Bible says that wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God in hell. But God loves us and wants us to have eternal life and to go to heaven. But we’re separated from God. That separation God calls death were separated. But God loves us and there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves. This hand represents Jesus Christ, He’s the Lord God and the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from Him.

So Jesus Christ who had no sin did not have to die. He took our sins, paid for them on the cross, came back from the dead and said that if we would believe that He did it for us. He had put this payment to our account and we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. I trusted Christ as my Savior. I know that I’m going to heaven when I die. And I hope that you have.

Do you believe that God is a good God? I believe He is a good God. And we need to be thankful because God is good. Now you may have bad things happen in your life, but God doesn’t do bad things to us. If you’re disobedient, God would allow chasting and so forth in your life. But if you’re certain Lord, those same things can happen to you and it’ll build your character, it’ll be a blessing to you based upon how you are between you and God because of the things that happen.

God knows what he’s doing and God loves you. And this is simply a song on Thanksgiving. Let’s pray, shall we? You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 tool free, 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10.30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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. live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for a Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the 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. We believe that Christ died for the sins of the whole world, so that everybody in the world could have eternal life and go to heaven whenever they die.

But it doesn’t mean everybody’s going to heaven just because Christ paid for everybody sins. He made a way, but people can reject what Christ has done for them. Now take your Bible and turn it up to the book of Matthew chapter 25. Matthew chapter 25. and look there in chapter 31, Matthew 25 verse 31. This is when Christ comes back to the earth after his death, Berlin resurrection. It’s already been 2000 years, so we know it’s been a while.

And notice what he says, now this is in the future when he comes back with his holy angels and he sits up his kingdom upon the earth and there is going to be the judgment of the nations. And he says in verse 32, and before him shall he gather all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divided the sheep from the goats. He shall set the sheep on the right hand goats on the left.

So there’s sheep and there’s goats. There’s saved and there’s loss. There’s righteous and there’s wicked. And this is what he says here in this verse. So there is a judgment that will take place. This is right at the beginning of the 1000 year reign upon the earth. Now look what he says there in verse 41 verse 41. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepare for the devil and his angels.”

Now the ones that go here, now we’re not talking about the devil going there though it says that. And we’re not talking about the angels going there though the verse says that they go there. He’s talking about those unbelievers, he’s talking about those that did not And he says, depart from me, he cursed. This is the goats in the chapter. This is those who have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And can I get a lost man from these scriptures into hell?

And not only get him there, can I keep him there for all eternity? Because if it’s true that a man will go to hell and will be in hell for all eternity, then everybody’s not going to be saved. It means that there will be people in hell who did have their sins paid for, but they rejected the payment Christ made. They rejected their Savior. They could have been saved, but they rejected. Look what he says, 9 in verse 46, and these shall go away into, get this, temporary punishment.

But the righteous into life eternal, now know that there is a difference between the two groups. One is forever. And one is talking about everlasting punishment and the other is life eternal. There’s two different places, two different groups, two different results, consequences. And what makes the difference is Christ. Now did Christ die for the sins of the whole world? Or he only died for those that were going to believe in the other ones. There was, so there are those who called themselves Calvinists and don’t believe that God pay for all the sins of everybody.

So you see, you could have air by not believing that Christ paid for all the sins of all the world, but just believe He paid for just a certain group and He didn’t save or pay for the sins of the other. Then you have others that believe He paid for everybody’s sins. So everybody’s going to heaven. There’s air on both sides. I believe he paid for all the sins of the world, but only those that believe on him have everlasting life.

Christ said, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abided upon him. So there’s those who believe and there’s those who do not believe. But not everybody is going to believe. going to be saved eventually. Because there’s those who are going to be suffering, as he says right here, everlasting punishment. Be punished forever. And those who trust Christ is Savior will have everlasting life and live with Lord forever.

He says, and I’ll never cast you out, never lose you. I will be with you always. So there is a difference. And we’re not all going to be saved. Don’t you believe for a moment that your friends and your mama, your dad, your relatives, your aunts and your uncles and all that? Well, they’ll be saved eventually because Christ paid for everybody sins and so everybody’s going to be saved. It is not true. And you and I need to take it seriously because it’s the Bible that says they’re those that reject Christ and will spend eternity separated from Him.”

Now, I want you to take your Bible and turn all the way over there to the book of Jude, the book of Jude. In the book of Jude, right before the book of revolution, there is an interesting statement found here. And you’ll look there in the book of Jude in chapter 1. It’s only got one chapter, so if you get to chapter two, you went too far. But it has to deal with believing and those that do not believe.

You see what he says there in verse 7, looking verse 7, even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, given themselves over the fornication going after strange flesh set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Now here is using an example of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them. Now I had Jehovah’s Witnesses, I might as well tell you where they were. They said, yes, yes, I know that verse in there, but it’s not talking about the people, it’s talking about the cities.

I don’t know why I didn’t see that. So the first national bank committed for an occasion with the Safeway store and going And then after strange cement, they didn’t like that. But look what he says, giving them cells, so we’re talking about people, giving themselves over to fornication. We’re talking about the people that were there. And God said, are set for for an example, get this in your underlying history of the Bible, suffering, that’s present tense. Suffering the vengeance of what kind of fire.

Eternal fire. So this was written, you know, 2000 years ago, and saw to make a more of 1,500 to 2,000 years before this, and they’re still there suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. So is it possible that Christ died on the cross and paid for the sins of the world? And at the same time, there’s people who reject that payment? See, don’t you believe that people are going to be saved anyway? It won’t matter. to go to hell. I actually believe that there’s Christians who don’t believe that their loved ones are really going to go to hell.

They never witness and I talk to them and they have no concern. They love them, they want them to go to heaven, but they never find a way. They never talk to them about the Lord. I’ve talked to husbands and wives that know the Lord and they never ask their husband or their wife if they’re going to heaven or not. I can’t Fathom that. I just blows my mind. Listen, if I love my children, pray, tell, why wouldn’t I want to know if they’re going?

Wouldn’t you ask them? Wouldn’t you want to find out if they’ve trusted the Lord? Do you believe, well, they’re gonna go to heaven anyway? You know, Christ out of the cross pay for everybody’s sins and eventually everybody’s gonna go to heaven. I don’t believe nobody’s gonna go to hell. They will go to hell. That’s what makes it serious. If it wasn’t serious, then take your Bible and throw it in a trash and do whatever we want to do. But we’re not supposed to play a game.

It’s not we’re not supposed to be hypocrites. If this is true, then it’s true. People will go to hell. People are lost. Look what he says there in verse 13. Where it says, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame. Wonder stars get this to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for how long? It’s forever. It’s not temporary, it’s forever. Whoever they may be, but we’re talking about people. You how do you know that? We’ll look at the very next verse.

And Enoch also the seventh from Adam prophesied of these, these that will be like wondering stars forever and ever in the blackness to blackness. This Enoch who lived before the flood says, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints. Now you won’t turn in your Old Testament and find where Enoch preached one message. But the Bible tells us that he did. And if he knew about Jesus Christ coming and power and great glory, how much more did he know?

He had to know a lot more than that one little line. He either had a short sermon. But I believe he probably knew as much as what we know today. Except we just have the scripture, but I believe God told them things that were never written down, but they knew. And it just like whenever you read in the book of Hebrews in chapter 11, how that the Bible talks about how Moses chosen to suffer affliction with the children of God rather than the people of Egypt.

And he says that he esteemed the reproach of Christ’s greater riches and the treasures of Egypt. Well, how did he know about Christ? And the treasures. How do you know all that? Evidently, they knew things that’s not in the scripture. Because you go back to the Old Testament, You don’t see where he, where did he know all that? Or it’s in there and we just ain’t seen it yet. But to whom is reserved the mis, the blackness of darkness forever.

And get what God said. That when Enoch preached back then, he says to execute judgment upon all to convince all that are ungodly, among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed and have all their hard speeches, which they ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurs, complainers walking after their own loss and their words speak of great swelling words, having men’s persons and admiration because of advantage. But beloved, remember ye the words which was spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Is he talking about people? Talking about people. People that are going to be suffering the vengeance of eternal fire forever in the midst of blackness forever. You think it’s going to be, you know, you go to hell with fire, fire, light. Hey, everybody, you don’t see everybody. Hey, there’s Joe over there. Hey, there’s Peter Motto. Hey, there’s, you know, no. It’s going to be blackness. There’s no light there. There’s no light. Hell is going to be dark. And it says in verse 23, because in verse 22, we talk about having compassion, having compassion, making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, pulling them out of the fire.

You see, everybody is lost, condemned, and going to hell. And God tells us to go into all the world and to do what He came to do, to seek and to save that which was lost. So as we seek every man I win the Christ, I pulled him out of the fire. I win this kid to the Lord. I pull him out of the fire. I win that waitress to the Lord. I just pull that one out of the fire.

These that went so when they just pulled him out of the fire, they’re making a difference because of compassion. You see, but if I just believe that everybody’s going to be saved anyway, then why should I have compassion? Why should I want to make a difference for 51 years? I wanted to make a difference. Because when I trusted Christ as my Savior, and I thought, everybody ought to know this. Everybody ought to know this. And I have no desire to slow down.

I’ll slow down when I can’t go. When I get old like melds and I’ll slow down. By the way, I am older than melds. I want you to take your Bible and look in the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation in chapter… Oh, what’s a good chapter? I don’t know. There ought to be a good chapter in here somewhere. Look in chapter 14, Revelation 14, and look in verse 10, verse 10. The same shall drink of the wind of the wrath of God.

Which is poured out without mixture. It means it’s not deluded. God’s gonna pour out his wrath and see when you read in the book of John chapter 3 verse 36, he that believeeth on the Son half life and he that believeeth not the Son half not life but the wrath of God abided upon him. Those that do not believe the wrath of God will abide upon them. This is the wrath of God that is talking about, saving us from.

So he says here and he says, the wrath of God, which is poured out without mercy. is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation. And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb and the smoke of their torment. Ascendeth up for how long? For ever and ever, and they have no rest, day nor night. And this is after after they die. forever and ever.

So you see, if you can just get one man in hell, it disproves the theory that even though Christ paid for all this end, that payment he made can be rejected. God does not save anybody against their will. God does not and will not force anybody to trust Christ as their Savior. If a man chooses to reject that payment Christ made, that man is going to spend an eternity in hell. And not because he has to, it’s because he chose.

He rejected the only way out. And I believe that most people think, and you can talk to people, and a lot of time I open up a conversation this way. I do it a lot of times. I say, can I ask you two questions? isn’t it true that you’ve heard most of your life that Jesus Christ out on the cross and paid for all the sins of the world? And most of them said, well yes. Well if they’ve heard that do they automatically believe?

Well I’m going to heaven he paid for all of my sins. They don’t automatically believe it. And then I asked them if he paid for all the sins of the world have you ever wondered why you would have to go to hell and pay for sin if he paid for all? There is a reason why a man would still go to hell because he rejects the payment Christ made, because it will not believe that he did it for them.

If you believe he did it for you, the not payment he made is put to your account and you get to go to heaven on what Christ did for us. See all of us in this room that know we have eternal life, the only reason you know you’re going to heaven, you know it’s not by your works. The only reason you know is because you believe you’re going? Because you believe it. You believe you’re going to heaven because you believe a promise that he made.

And the promise is too full. One, we should believe what he said and what he did. You see, what he did was pay for all the sins of the world. And what he said was, if I would believe it. I got to believe it. He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that And whosoever believeth shall not perish, that mean he won’t go to hell. He won’t go to if he believes.

Take your Bible and turn there, because I want you to see this very quickly. Over there in the book of Romans and chapter 4. Romans chapter 4, Romans chapter 4, and you’ll notice there in verse 21, a good definition of what faith is, where He makes the statement and being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was also able to perform. Why do I trust Christ as my Savior? Because I believe that He is capable of performing what He promised.

He will save me. You see, I could trust males to take me to heaven, but I don’t believe He can do it. I think He’ll come up short. I one girl one time I says, why? Why do you date this short guy? She says better today than not at all. Now there’s wisdom somewhere in there. Look at verse 22. Therefore, it was imputed to him for righteousness, put to his account. Verse 23, now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, to Him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we what?

If we believe. See, His righteousness that we need to go to heaven on is not imputed to you or put to your account till you believe that He did it for you. So He made a payment so that you could have eternal life. But you must believe it that he did it for you. And when you believe he did it for you, he puts that payment to your account. He imputes his righteousness to your account. And you get to go to heaven on his righteousness, not your righteousness.

See, he can’t impute his righteousness to you with your sins. He had to pay for the sins, but that doesn’t give you righteousness. That doesn’t make you perfect just because he paid for the sins. The righteousness can’t be imputed to you until the sins were paid for. That’s so clear in my mind, but something’s not able to get across to some people. They don’t see it. And yet I believe it’s the most important thing. Very quickly as we close, look here in Revelation in chapter 21.

Excuse me, Revelation chapter 20, my first mistake. In Revelation in chapter 20, we know that the devil is cast into the lake of fire. And it says that the beasts and the false prophet are still there. So they have already lived their life. A thousand years has passed and the devil is cast where the beasts and the false prophet are. And those were the two men that were up on the earth, the heads of the last world government and the religious leader.

So here he makes the statement in verse 11, I saw a great white throne and him that’s Saturnate from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were open. And another book was open, which is the book of life. So there’s the book of living and the book of life. The book of living, your name can be blotted out.

But the book of life, the land book of life, it cannot be blotted out. For example, in the Old Testament, the book of Genesis chapter 5 verse 1, the Bible says, and this is the book of the generation of Adam, and the day that God created him. And he lived so long, and he died. In the book of Matthew in chapter 1 and verse 1 it says, this is the book of the generation of Jesus Christ. That’s the Lamb’s book of life.

And in that genialit there’s no deaths. So there’s two books, Genesis, Adam, they all die, book of living. Here the book of life, the Lamb’s book of life. And that’s why he says, Rejoice into your names written in the Lamb’s book of life. Now he says you cannot have your name blotted out of the Lamb’s book of life. He could be brought out of the book of living. Two different books. When you get to heaven, God says all the lost people are going to have to stand and there’s two books.

And the books will be open. And it has in that book all their works that they have done and they will be judged by their works. Because they wouldn’t accept the payment Christ made. They didn’t want salvation by grace. They think, I don’t need His payment. I don’t need His grace, and therefore by their works, and God will show that He is just, and every one of those people that are condemned, for all eternity, that God has kept a record.

And by their works, they are condemned. By their words, they are condemned. By their thoughts, they are condemned. And then He says, the book of life. and it says there in verse 15, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast where? To the lake of fire. So there’s those that will be cast into the lake of fire. Now that lake of fire, they will be cast into it forever and ever. See what it says even in verse 14?

Death and hell, those that were judged, that came, this is after they’ve been resurrected and death and hell means the death, the bodies that were in the grave and the souls that were in the place of torment, they will stand before God and those same people, those same people that have already died are going to be cast into a hell. And this is after they’ve already died once. That’s why it’s called the second death when they were separated from their body and from this life.

And then when they’re separated from God for all eternity. And that’s why it makes the statement there in verse 14, death and hell were cast into the lake of power. This is the second death. That’s why we often say, if you’re born twice, you’ll only die once, but if you’re born once, you’ll die twice. Don’t that make sense? It’s that new mass I got out of gifts, I don’t know. Look up here. I know I’m going to heaven because I believe on Christ because I have trusted him as my Savior.

And I believe that if a man has not trusted Christ as Savior. They will not go to heaven. And they will not be forgiven in this life nor in the one to come. This is why when you read the book of Luke in chapter 16 that once they’re dead, they can’t go from one place to the other place. So the person who dies without the Lord can’t ever go to the other place. I believe the Scriptures are clear. Look up here.

This hand represent you and me and the wall of represents sin on us. God says that He loves us, but He hates our sin. And for us to pay for that sin, eternal separation from God in a place called hell, but God loves us, wants us to go to heaven and spend eternity with Him. But you see, heaven is a perfect place. And to go to heaven, you’ve got to be perfect because God is perfect and heaven is perfect, but because of sin, can’t get in.

So the Bible says you cannot earn eternal life, you cannot work your way to heaven. That’s why Christ died, because there was no other way. You’ll never be good enough to go to heaven. So Jesus Christ, God’s Son, had no sin, He came into the 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 because He loved us, He took our sins, paid for them on the cross, came back from the dead.

And God said that if you and I, if we would believe He did it for us, He would put that payment to our account and we’d get to go to heaven on what he did. There’s no tricks to that. See, if I offered you my microphone and you accepted, I’d have a microphone. I offered you my Bible and you accepted, I’d have a Bible. I offered you my wallet and you accepted, I’d have an empty wallet. Now, if Christ walked in here and offered you eternal life and you accepted what you’d have, eternal life.

If it’s eternal life, it would last forever. And if it lasts forever and all your sins are paid, then where would you go when you die to heaven? So can you know you’re going to heaven before you die? Yes, that’s what makes it good news. It’s free and you can have it now. Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bowed and every eye closed and no one looking around, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your only hope of going to heaven, would you do that right now?

I’m not gonna have you forward, not gonna embarrass you, but perl right where you’re sitting. You say, preacher, that made sense to me. I wanna be certain I’m going to heaven. I don’t want to run the risk of waiting till I die. Find not it’s all true and then I’ve done messed up. But why not right now? Just the best you know I’ll say, Lord, I believe Christ died and He paid for my sins and I’m going to trust Him as my only hope of going to heaven.

See, friend, God knows if you believe it. He knows if you believe it. He knows if you don’t believe it. So you can fool people, but you can’t fool God. And this is between you and Him. So if you will trust Christ as your Savior, I’d like to know it. And I’d like to have a word of prayer for you. But I don’t want to embarrass you, and so I do it with head by a nice clothes. I’m not going to have you forward.

But right where you are, if what I said made sense, you said, yes, preach what that did. And I’ll trust Christ as my Savior. And would you just slip your hand very quickly, better write that down? Just slip it up real quick, put it right back down. And we’re all. Our Father, we thank You so much for all You’ve done for us. Help us Lord to understand the importance of this message so that we would have something that challenges and motivates us because that’s why we need compassion.

That’s why we want to make a difference. And we do want to pull people out of the fire. Thank you Lord so much for days that went so in the other night. Others that witnessed on their job. Those that plant seeds all over by passing our tracks. And Father, we just thank you so much for those. Many that indicated they would trust you. We thank you for this time together. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, A teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr.

Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach by the line and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link.

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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10.30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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 in the air. So live today and every day, believe in that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleline Ministries dot O-R-G homepage.

We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family. I wanted to mention this to you. In the movie that I saw one time, it was at the end of it. So I never got the jest of the whole thing. But it had something to do with a woman who had several sons. And anyway, a couple of them had been killed.

And they found out that the woman had a couple more sons that was in the service or something. But anyway, it was about saving private Ryan. Anybody ever heard of that? And I don’t go to move you, but it was on TV one night, and it was talking about the part of it. And I caught it. And this older man was going through the cemetery, and he got to a grave, and he kneeled down, and he was kind of like weeping, and there was somebody that was there with him, and I can’t remember if it was an adult or a young child or whatever.

And he’s crying, he says, I hope that my life was worth your death. Something along that line. And in the end of that thing, it was talking about, I think the guy was shot and he was laying up against the wall and he’s dying and he looks at the guy that they were trying to save to get back. And he says, I hope that you make your life worth it. Because of how many people had died trying to protect this one guy, get him home.

And I thought this is, to me it was a very moving, a little segment of it that I got to enjoy. And I thought there’s a lot of people who have died for our country. And as I’ve gone around the country, and I’m not a child anymore, I’ve been here for a a few years. And I see people that have wasted their lives, just wasted their lives. And when they waste their life, it’s like the man who died for that individual to live and to enjoy freedom in this country to waste their life is to waste the man’s life that died for Him.

And sometimes people can see this and some people can’t see it. Now you and I, when we trust Christ as our Savior, the Lord saving you and giving you eternal life and then giving you the chance to live your life for the Lord. Has your life been worth it? Or have you thrown your life away? I’ve had to deal with over the years, people that have been on drugs and alcohol and other addictions of various kinds. And they totally ruined their life, they ruined their health, they ruined their marriage, they ruined their children, they ruined their home, they ruined their jobs.

Everything ruined. And I think the people who died to give us freedom and liberty isn’t ashamed to misuse that freedom or to misuse that liberty where God has been so good to us. To me, when I trust the Christ as my Savior, and I realize what God has done for me, I wanted to serve the Lord. I wanted my life to account for something. I had heard so many times, Yanki, you’ll never amount to a hill of beans. I had no clue how much a hill of beans was worth.

But I wanted to amount to at least a hill of beans to accomplish something, to do something with my life. Because you only get to live one time. No reruns, no instant replacers. One trip through life. And we need to do the right thing while we can. And make your life worth living for something. And I believe it’s a good thing. I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Luke, the book of Luke, and chapter 16.

Luke chapter 16. Now let me just tell you this, and I want to be honest with you, I’m not going to make this up. But there are people in the world. And many of them do not mean any harm by it, but in their reasoning, their reasoning. They come to a conclusion that I don’t believe is necessarily a correct answer. the view to hold. And that is, and follow my logic because there’s universalists or people that believe that eventually in the future everybody is going to be saved.

And you take like Peter taking those kids out. Well some people’s mind those kids that they talked about, they would have been saved anyway. See I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that. I believe the trusting Christ is saving because somebody got the gospel to them. And if they had done it, they may never have trusted the Lord. I believe that if my father-in-law had not talked to me that night when I was 18 years old in that little old living room, nobody may never have witnessed to me again because I have lived now almost 70 years and I’ve only had one person ever try to lead me to Christ.

And that was my father-in-law. think of all the places I’ve been to countries that I’ve been and all the churches I’ve been, all the molds that I’ve been everywhere I’ve been. Nobody has ever tried to win me to the Lord. It’s amazing that if it hadn’t happened, when it did happen, it might never have happened. But I’m thankful to the Lord for allowing me to hear the gospel. And he says, how can they hear without a preacher, somebody could explain it to them.

If it wasn’t true and not necessary, then having camp is a waste of time. Going so when it is a waste of time. But here’s the logic. Since Christ died on the cross and paid for all the sins of the world, then all the sins of the world are paid for, so therefore everybody will be saved. So if everybody’s going to be saved, there is an advantage of knowing it now because he says these things that have are written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

It’s just that when you believe it, you know it and the other ones are still going to go to heaven and be saved, but they just don’t know it because they’ve already pay for all the sins of the world. So here you are in this room and let’s say for example half of you you know it and y’all don’t know it but don’t worry about it because you’re going to go to have many way because your sins are already been paid for.

It’s just that there’s more joy in serving the Lord because when you serve the Lord you’re going to get rewarded they just miss out. So y’all just going to miss out but you’re going to go anyway because you paid for your sins. Now it sounds like That ought to be right. Christ paid for all the sins of the world. So everybody sins are paid. Isn’t it true that a lot of time we go out to eat with somebody and we’ll use the illustration.

If you get a state dinner and I get a state dinner, but you pay for it, well then I don’t have to. Well if Christ paid for all the sins of the world, well they don’t have to. We say that all the time. Well then if they don’t have to, then they’re not going to hell because they don’t have to pay for their sin because it’s already been paid. And so there’s a rationale. And as you listen to me, I hope that I’m not mutilating your mind at this time.

But you’ve got to follow my thinking. And so it comes down to then eventually in the future, nobody will ever go to hell. Those that do go, it’s temporary, but afterwards everybody’s gonna be saved. Because doesn’t the Bible say that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. Well, if everybody’s gonna bond, everybody’s gonna confess, everybody’s gonna be saved. See there? So we don’t have to worry about the soul, we don’t have to worry about missionaries.

We don’t have to worry about giving money for anything. We don’t have to worry about camp because it’s all gonna work out in the wash. Everything’s gonna be fine. Everything’s gonna be cool. So we don’t have to do anything. And there’s churches that teach this and believe this. And so therefore they don’t have to have a passion for soul. They don’t have to be on fire for the Lord. They don’t have to witness to anybody. So it is a it can be a deadening effect.

But the reason we witness though is so that we can have people to know it, to understand it. And it can sound so reasonable. But I want you to take your Bible and look there in the book of Luke chapter 16. Because in my mind, those that do believe that and there are those. It’s not just isolated one here and one there. Now, this is a major teaching, but I believe it’s flawed and… I believe this, if I can show from the Scriptures where one man goes to hell, it shoots the whole theory out of the water.

If I can put one man in hell and keep him there. I can’t just get him there, I gotta keep him there. To show that even though Christ paid for all the sins of the world, it doesn’t mean everybody saved. It means that everybody can be saved because their sins have been paid for, but I don’t believe that the payment Christ made is put to your account until you believe that He did it for you.” So look what he says here in verse 19, there was a rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and there’s sumptuously every day.

And there was a beggar named Yanki, Elazra, which was laid as a gate full of sores, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. over the dogs, came licked his sores and he came to pass that the beggar died. Carried by the angels in Abraham’s bosom. Rich man also died, was buried. In hell he licked up his eyes, been in torments, and seeeth Abraham afar off, lasered in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and sin lasered that he may dip the tip of his finger and water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame.

So we have two individuals, one rich, one poor, both die. And the Bible says one went to a place of like paradise, Abraham built him, and a place of comfort, and the other one went to a place of torment. And so we know several things. The man died. He was buried, and immediately he lifted his eyes in hell. So there was no soul sleep. He immediately was placed in hell. So he did go there, but then the object comes up to this is that, well, this is before Christ died because Christ is telling the story.

But there’s something else about this I want you to see. When he makes the statement there in verse 25, but Abraham said, son, remember the thalandai lifetime, receiveth thy good things and likewise, Lazarus evil things. Now he is comforted, thou art toward mened. One is comforted and one is toward mened. for how long, how long is this going to take place? I mean, is this until the cross or is it going to be after this too? But look what he says.

And verse 26, and beside all this between us and you, there is a great Gothic so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from then. Now, there’s something that I see here in this verse. One is that if you are in the place of paradise or Abraham’s bosom, a place of comfort, you cannot, you cannot go to the place of torment. You can’t go there. And it’s after death.

The person that is in hell, torment, cannot, and we’re talking about the next lifetime because he’s already said, in thy lifetime or thus past. So this is after death. And now after death, that person that is in hell in torment cannot, cannot go where the, the last of was. They cannot go to the other place. So there is a man in hell, and that man in hell can’t ever go to the place where he is. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes place, or if it’s before or after Christ died, the truth of the matter is there is a man in hell.

And it’s after that he cannot get out, he cannot go anywhere. He can’t go to where the place of comfort is. So there is a good possibility that there is a man that did die and go to hell forever. So I believe that I got a man in hell forever. I didn’t send him there. I’m just telling that this is the truth of the matter. And I don’t believe it matters whether or not before the cross-earth. This is a person that went to a place and he can’t go to the other place and it’s after death so we can’t go there and there’s no other clause in him.

But one thing I do want you to see is it because he was rich and Lazarus poor that made the difference? Not exactly. You see there in verse 27 he says, I pray to you therefore Father that thou would have sent him to my father’s house. For I have five brethren that he may testify under them unless they also come to this place of torment. So there’s a possibility. I’ve got five brothers and I don’t want them to come to this place of torment.

So I want him to be able to go back and testify. So the testifying, something that they have to say and something that they need to hear that will make all the difference in the world. It’s not a matter of they had to live a certain way as they had to believe the right thing. You see down here, he makes a statement in verse 29, Abraham said unto him, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. So in the Word of God, it explains how a man was to be saved.

Then he says in verse 31, he said unto them, if they will not hear or hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they, and here’s those two words. You need to unwind your Bible. Be persuaded, the one rose from the dead. So winning is persuading someone with the good news to accept Christ as their Savior. That’s what we do. This is what it’s all about because we believe that Christ died for the sins of the whole world so that everybody in the world could have eternal life and go to heaven whenever they die.

But it doesn’t mean everybody’s going to heaven just because Christ paid for everybody’s sins. He made a way, but people can reject what Christ has done for them. Now take your Bible and turn it up to the book of Matthew chapter 25. Matthew chapter 25 and look there in chapter 31. Matthew 25 verse one. This is when Christ comes back to the earth after his death, Berlin resurrection. It’s already been 2000 years, so we know it’s been a while.

And notice what he said, now this is in the future when he comes back with his holy angels and he sits up his kingdom upon the earth and there is going to be the judgment of the nations. And he says in verse verse 32, and before him shall he gather all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divided the sheep from the goats. He shall set the sheep on the right hand, goats on the left.

So there’s sheep and there’s goats. There’s saved and there’s lost. There’s righteous and there’s wicked. And this is what he says here in this verse. So there is a judgment that will take place. This is right at the beginning of the thousand reign upon the earth. Now look what he says there in verse 41, verse 41, then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepare for the devil and his angels.

Now the ones that go here, now we’re not talking about the devil going there, though it says that, and we’re not talking about the angels going there, though the verse says that they go there. He’s talking about those unbelievers. He’s talking about those that did not. And he says, depart from me, ye cursed. This is the goats in the chapter. This is those who have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And can I get a lost man from these scriptures into hell?

And not only get him there, can I keep him there for all eternity? Because if it’s true that a man will go to hell and will be in hell for all eternity, then everybody’s not going to be saved. It means that there will be people in hell who did have their sins paid for, but they rejected the payment Christ made. They rejected their Savior. They could have been saved, but they rejected. He says, down in verse 46, and these shall go away into, get this, temporary punishment.

But the righteous into life eternal, now know that there is a difference between the two groups. One is forever. And one is talking about everlasting punishment, and the other is life eternal. There’s two different places, two different groups, two different results, consequences and what makes the difference is Christ. Now did Christ die for the sins of the whole world? Or he only died for those that were going to believe in the other ones. There was, so there are those who called themselves Calvinists and don’t believe that God paid for all the sins of everybody.

So you see you can have air by not believing that Christ paid for all the sins of all the world, but just believe he paid for just a certain group and and he didn’t save a pay for the sins of the other. Then you have others that believe he paid for everybody’s sins. So everybody’s going to heaven. There’s air on both sides. I believe he paid for all the sins of the world, but only those that believe on him have everlasting life.

Christ says, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him. So there’s those who believe and there’s those who do not believe. But not everybody. is going to be saved eventually. Because there’s those who are going to be suffering, as he says right here, ever-lasting punishment. Be punished forever. And those who trust Christ is Savior will have everlasting life and live with Lord forever.

He says, and I’ll never cast you out, never lose you. I will be with you always. So there is a difference. And we’re not all going to be saved. Don’t you believe for a moment that your friends and your mama, your dad, your relatives, your aunts and your uncles and all that? Well, they’ll be saved eventually because Christ paid for everybody’s sins. And so everybody’s going to be saved. It is not true. And you and I need to take it seriously because it’s the Bible that says they’re those that reject Christ and will spend eternity separated from Him.”

Now, I want you to take your Bible and turn all the way over there to the book of Jude, the book of Jude. In the book of Jude, right before the book of revolution, there is an interesting statement found here. And you’ll look there in the book of Jude in chapter 1. It’s only got one chapter, so if you get to chapter 2, you went too far. But it has to deal with believing and those that do not believe.

You see what he says there in verse 7, look in verse 7, even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, given themselves over the fornication going after strange flesh are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Now here is using the example of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them. Now I had Jehovah’s Witnesses, I might as well tell you where they were. They said, yes, yes, I know that verse in there, but it’s not talking about the people, it’s talking about the cities.

I don’t know why I didn’t see that. So the First National Bank committed for an occasion with the Safeway store and going after strange cement. They didn’t like that. But look what he says. Giving them cells, so we’re talking about people. Giving themselves over to fornication. We’re talking about the people that were there. And God said, are set for, for an example, get this in your underlying decision about them, suffering, that’s present tense. Suffering the vengeance of what kind of fire?

Eternal fire. So this was written, you know, 2,000 years ago, and sawed in the Gamora, 1,500 to 2,000 years before this, and they’re still there, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. So is it possible that Christ died on the cross and paid for the sins of the world and at the same time there’s people who reject that payment. See, don’t you believe that people are going to be saved anyway? It won’t matter. Nobody’s going to go to hell. I actually believe that there’s Christians who don’t believe that their loved ones are really going to go to hell.

They never witness and I talk to them and they have no concern. No, they love them. They want them to go to heaven, but they never find a way. They never talk to them about the Lord. I’ve talked to husbands and wives that know the Lord and they never ask their husband or their wife if they’re going to heaven or not. I can’t fathom that. I just blows my mind. Listen, if I love my children, pray, tell, why wouldn’t I want to know if they’re going?

Wouldn’t you ask them? Wouldn’t you want to find out if they’ve trusted the Lord? Do you believe, well, they’re going to go to heaven anyway. You know, Christ out of the cross, pay for everybody’s sins and eventually everybody’s going to go to heaven. I don’t really know nobody’s going to go to hell. They will go to hell. That’s what makes it serious. If it wasn’t serious, take your Bible and throw it in a trash and do whatever we want to do.

But we’re not supposed to play a game. It’s not, we’re not supposed to be hypocrites. If this is true, then it’s true. People will go to hell. People are lost. Look what he says there in verse 13. Where it says, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame. Wonder stars get this to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for how long? It’s forever. It’s not temporary, it’s forever. Whoever they may be, but we’re talking about people.

You how do you know that? We’ll look at that very next verse. And Enoch also the seventh from Adam prophesied of these, these that will be like wondering stars forever and ever in the blackness of blackness. This Enoch who lived before the flood says, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints. Now you won’t turn in your old testament and find where Enoch preached one message. But the Bible tells us that he did. And if he knew about Jesus Christ coming and power in great glory, how much more did he know?

He had to know a lot more than that one little line. He either had a short sermon. But I believe he probably knew as much as what we know today. Except we just have the scripture. But I believe God told him things that were never written down, but they knew. And just like whenever you read in the book of Hebrews in chapter 11, how the Bible talks about how Moses chosen to suffer affliction with the children of God rather than the people of Egypt.

And he says that he esteemed the reproach of Christ’s greater riches and the treasures of Egypt. Well, how did he know about Christ and the treasures? How do you know all that? Evidently they knew things that’s not in the scripture, because you go back to the Old Testament, you don’t see where he, where did he know all that? Or it’s in there and we just ain’t seen it yet. But to whom is reserved the mist, the blackness of darkness forever.

And get what God said. That when Enoch preached back then, he says to execute judgment upon all to convince all that are ungodly, among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed and have all their hard speeches, which they ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurs, complainers, walking after their own lusts and their words speak of great swelling words, having men’s persons and admiration because of advantage. But beloved, remember ye the words which was spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Is he talking about people, talking about people. People that are going to be suffering the vengeance of eternal fire forever in the midst of blackness forever. You think it’s going to be, you know, you go to hell with hell, fire, fire, light. Hey, everybody, you’re gonna see everybody. Hey, there’s Joe over there. Hey, there’s Peter Motto. Hey, there’s, you know, no. It’s gonna be blackness. There’s no light There. There’s no light. Hail is going to be dark. 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. Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. 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 tool free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. 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.

There’s a lot of things that I wanted to do in my life that I don’t think I’m gonna live long enough to do them all There’s a lot of places that I wanted to go I Don’t think I’m gonna live long enough to do all those things anymore But there’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do There’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do and I haven’t got to do it yet. I Want to see God now I’ve seen this world and I believe that God exists because he’s given me his world to look at.

And I come to the conclusion, I didn’t make it, somebody did. It didn’t make itself. So yes, I believe that there is a God and He made a world. But I want to see God, not just His world. And God gave me His Word that tells me all about God. So I have in front of me a Bible that describes what God is like that made the world. But I want to see God. And God won’t reveal Himself to you personally.

He said, why not? There’s a reason. God says if anybody saw His face, they’d die. If you saw His face, you would die. Now, I remember me and Betty was riding along one day in a car, and this one girl came up in a sports car, and she looked over at me and she gave me a great big old smile. I said, you see that? I said, she gave me a big smile. I said, that’s not the first time I saw you, I laughed out loud.

But one day we’re going to see his face. And you don’t know how you’re going to react if you ever met him face to face. I’m talking about literally see the face of God. Now, Moses wanted to see God. God had asked Moses to do a big thing. And Moses says, how do I know you’re God. He says, let me see you. And so I want you to turn it with me very quickly to Exodus 33. And look what he says in verse 12.

And Moses said unto the Lord, see, thou saith unto me, bring up this people, and thou hast not let me know whom thou will sin with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast for I will so found grace and thy say, of course you said, you know my name, you know me, you know me, I’m Moses. That’s great. You haven’t even told me who’s gonna go with me yet. Down there to tell Pharaoh, let your people go.

He’s in verse 30, now therefore I pray that if I have found grace and thy side, show me now by way that I may know thee, that I may find grace and thy side and consider that this nation is thy people. How do I know? Prove it to me, show me. Let me see you God. Wouldn’t you like that? I mean, wouldn’t you wanna see God? That’s one of the things that a lot of people say, well, I don’t believe in God, why?

Because I ain’t seen him. You see, before you say there is no God, you should know everything there is to know because if there’s anything that you do not know, it might be the knowledge of God. True? So before you can say there is no God, you ought to have that ability to prove that there is no God. Well, I don’t think you qualify.

But what it says, in verse 14, and he said, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. I, my presence, who’s going to go with me? He said, I’m going with you. Let me see you. As you walk through life, you know, according to the word that he’s promised to lead us, the guide us, he’s supposed to indwell us. And he holds me by the hand. He said, let me see you. And I know that we’d love to be able to lay our literal eyes upon him.

Because if we could lay our eyes upon him, then we know. It wouldn’t require faith because then it would be fat and you know. But God has asked us to trust him. He revealed certain things to us that no man could do. He says, I tell you things that have happened in advance so that you’ll know that I’m God. And there is no other God beside me. He says here in verse 15, and He said unto him, if I prisons go not with me, carry us not thence.

If you’re not going, I ain’t going. He says in verse 16, for therein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy side. Is it not in that thou art of the Lord? go with us, so shall we be separated, I invite people from all the people that are upon the face of the earth and the Lord’s that in the Moses. I will do this thing also that thou had spoken, for thou have found grace in my sight and I know thee by name.

And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” And he said, thou can’t not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. That’s an awesome statement. And then he says there in verse 21, and the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me and thou shalt stand up on a rock.

And it shall come to pass when my glory passes by that I will put thee in a clip of the rock and and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by. And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back part, but my face shall not be seen.” In other words, you’re gonna see the remaining part of my glory, but you can’t see my full glory. Wouldn’t you love to see? Man, I wish something like that would happen to me.

Well, take your Bible and turn there to the book of John chapter 1. John chapter 1. I would like to see the face of God. One day we will. Here in the book of John chapter 1, the Bible says in the beginning what the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. And all things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.

Then He tells us that He came into the world. The Word. The Lord came into the world, revealed Himself. Look what He says up there in verse 18. No man have seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. In other words, God says, you can’t behold my face because of the glory of the Lord. There is even the arc that was made in which God presents the Shekana glory rested upon that arc.

But if any man so much has touched the arc, the Bible says he would be shot through like with radiation and die instantly and some people did die because of it. God says you can’t even come close to the mount, tell the people to stay away from the mount. If they touch the mount that he was on, they would literally die, be shot through with whatever force that was on that mount. You see, God is power, but you and I could not actually come face to face with God, he said, and live in his presence.

Must be a powerful God. So God says, I am going to come into the world and reveal myself to you, but I’m going to veil myself. I’m going to tabernacle in our human body and you’ll be able to see God. You’ll be able to see Him face to face with a human face on Him. That was Jesus Christ. You see there in verse 10 of chapter 1, he was in the world, the world was made by him, world knew him not.

Verse 14, and the word was made flesh dwelt among us. We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Fatherful of grace and truth. He took upon a human form, and God became a man, lived in a human form, so that literally people upon the earth could see God. But now because he looked like a man that didn’t believe he was God. Some people never satisfied are they? If God came into this room today and you say, well how do I know He’s God?

Have you ever seen God before? Well, now how do you how would you compare? Well, let me see you do some magic tricks for me. What do you want Him to do for you? Perform something for you, little miracles for you? Well, when Christ was here, He did a few little miracles like that. You know, He raised the dead and they still didn’t believe. He walked on water and they still wouldn’t believe. He’d feed 5,000 and they still wouldn’t believe.

He could read men’s thoughts and tell them everything was going to say, well, they still didn’t believe him. What miracle do you think he’d have to perform for you? How would God prove to you he’s God? And yet how many people say, I don’t believe in God. I’ve never seen God. If you had, you would die. And if he revealed himself, you won’t believe it. But the Bible says the day is coming, which every man will confess. Every knee will bow and confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father.

One day, they will take your Bible look there in John chapter eight. John chapter eight. And notice in verse 52. Then said the Jews unto him Christ. Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, the prophets. And thou sayeth, if a man keep my sins, he shall never taste of death. Aren’t thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? And the prophets are dead, whom makeest thou by self. Who do you think you are? Who was he?

He was God. And the thing is, He was claiming to be God, because everybody wants to see God, and God came. Well now, wouldn’t that convince everybody? No, it didn’t. And it wouldn’t probably convince you. If Jesus Christ today walked into this room and did the miracles that He did, 2,000 years ago, there’s still people who still will not believe it. God will not go against your will. He won’t make a person believe. I have people who are approved to be there as a God.

How am I supposed to do? God couldn’t even prove to some people that he’s the God. What am I supposed to do? Get ahold of God, bring me to the rooms and borrow your ears. No. You don’t want to believe in God? Don’t believe in God. I can’t make a person believe in God. If you don’t believe in God, don’t exist. Tell him. Don’t tell me. Look in verse 54. Jesus answered, if I honor myself, my honor is nothing.

It is my father, but honor of me. of whom you say, he’s your God. Yet you have not known him, but I know him. And if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar just like you. But I know him and keep his saying, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. Then said to Jews unto him, thou art not yet 50 years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

Did they understand what he was saying? Yeah. Jesus said, I saw Abraham, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. Has thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto him, Barely, barely, I said, before, get this, get what he said. Before Abraham was, I am, I am before Abraham. Do you think they understood what he was claiming to be? That’s what made him so mad. Because you see, if God, God revealed yourself, all right, he did, he came into the world, did all these wonderful miracles and so forth, and then they didn’t believe him.

For if I could just see God, for if I could just see God, Well, then I’d really be convinced. Then I’d really know. Well, I don’t think you would. And God knows that. We have a mind that doesn’t perceive things correctly. We don’t love like we ought to. We don’t live like we ought to. And the thing is, these things that are mentioned here in the Bible are very simple, very clear. The Bible says like the Gospel of John was written so that we might believe that Jesus was the Son of God.

Take your Bible and look there in the book John chapter 14. John chapter 14. I’m just to see that this is awesome. When he says there in verse one, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. Why? I’m God. You believe there’s a God? Well, I’m God. Here I am. I’m revealed in the flesh. And no, you’re not. No, you’re not. You’re a liar. You’re full of the devil. You’re mad. You’re beside yourself.

All these are statements that they made about him. He says, in my father’s house, for many mansions, If we’re not so, I would have told you. I go to the prayer place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I’ll come again and receive you unto myself. That where I am, there you may be also. Okay, who’s God and where are you God and what are you doing? He said, I’m God and this is where I’m going.

I’m going to a place called heaven and I’m gonna make a mansion for you and I will receive you unto myself. I will come again. I will take you there. He’s gonna do that. Oh God, what man can do that? Man can’t do that. man ain’t got no power. Jesus Christ was God. Then he says in verse six, Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comeeth unto the Father, but by me.

Now get verse seven. Verse seven is awesome. If he had known me, he should have known my Father also. And from henceforth ye know him. Ye know God. And you’ve seen him. Look at those last words. And you’ve seen him. You know God and you, seen him. Oh yeah, well, when did we see God? In verse 8, Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied. It’ll suffice us. Still, the things going on. All the way from Moses wanted to know.

Everybody down through time wants to know. And everybody even in this room would love to see God. I was told that if you take everything you’ve got and put it in God’s hands, it won’t be long before you see God’s hand and everything that you’ve got. It depends on how you look. Or can you see with an eye of faith? Because you believe in God and everything that God says, because you know it’s real. You can see God working in your life.

I have seen God work in my life. I haven’t seen God, but I’ve seen God work. I’ve seen what God’s done for me and what He’s done to me. I’m not the same person that I used to be. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, changed my life. My life has been changed. My goals have been changed. My purpose for living was changed. The book is real. And I’ve said this before and I’ll sit again. The Lord is more real to me than the clothes that I’ve got on my back.

I don’t know if He’s real to you. There’s just somebody you know about, but He’s real to me. In the last part of verse seven, you know Him and have seen Him. Philip, Lord, show us the Father. the ill-suffices. And Jesus said to him, have I been so long time with you? And yet has found not known me, Philip? He that have seen me have seen who? You’ve seen the Father. How can you say show us God? I am God.

I’m the Father. I am Him. I am the Father, or one, were one in the saying, John chapter 10, awesome. Look in Revelation 22, Revelation chapter 22. The Bible tells us here, no uncertain terms about heaven, about the Holy City. All these wonderful things that have gone a big there. When you and I finally leave this world and we get to heaven, he says they’re in Revelation 22 and he showed me in verse 1 a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

In the midst of the tree of it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life which bear twelve men of fruit and yielded her fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the heel of the nations and there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him. God on the line verse four, and they shall and they shall what?

And they shall see his face, see his face. There’ll be no more curse and you’ll see God. I’m looking forward today when I get a chance to literally lay these eyes upon God almighty. One of the greatest moments in a person’s life, I’ve read about Christ and Christ is the revelation, the revealing, the manifestation of God in the flesh, but I didn’t see Him except through the pages of this book. And the story that it tells about Him, I believe it.

I believe it wholeheartedly. I believe this book is true, that every word of it is real. And I believe that one day I’m going to see God face to face. I bow to eyeball. Now, that’s going to be our great happy moment. When we get to heaven, and you see the reason is God says, sin cannot enter into heaven for a man to leave this world and say, I want to go to heaven, well heaven is a perfect place and the Lord is perfect.

And you have to be perfect in order to go there. But whenever you get to heaven, am I still me or am I made into something else? But when I get to heaven, what’s going to happen to my memory? What’s going to happen to my mind? Just listen to this. Psalms 34 Verse 16 says, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. There’s people on the earth because of wickedness and they will not trust Christ as their Savior.

God says a time will come when He’ll cut off our remembrance of them. We won’t remember them anymore. She inglesque God worked a miracle upon your memory. Heaven won’t be heaven for eternity. You have right now a lot of heartache and sorrow. You have a lot of things that you personally have done, sins that you’ve committed against God and even though God has forgiven you, you can’t forget them. Now God can forgive and forget, but you can’t seem to forget.

You can forgive your loved ones because they wronged you, but you can’t forget about it. And maybe they don’t either and remind you once in a while. You can remember the things that you’ve done and the sins that you’ve committed over the years. And every once in a while they can come back like flashbacks and haunt your mind and produce the same horror and the guilt and the feelings of whatever that you experienced 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Wouldn’t you like to be cured of that? You stop and think for a moment that a lot of the hurt and the heartache that you’ve gone through in your life is because of what somebody else also has done to you. People wrong you, people hurt you, people say things about you. People have disappointed you and discouraged you and brought you to despair. And you, because of what people do to you, that’s what causes that hurt and some of that grief and that bitterness and that that Indian and that jealousy and that revengeful attitude, all those things, this what’s been eaten at you for years.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just forget about all those things that people have ever done to you? And then to think about all the things you’ve done even to God. Now a verse I’d like to share with you, listen to this, this is in Isaiah 26, I love Isaiah 26. There’s several verses that he talks about the piece that you and I are supposed to have, the piece that can pass understanding. And the Lord tells us that they will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon thee because he trusts us in thee, talking about in Jehovah.

But here in verse 14, part B it makes a statement, and made all their memory to perish, all their memory to perish, where you can’t remember anymore. Another scripture says in Isaiah 65 verse 17, I want you to see this verse. I want you to turn this verse. This one is an awesome verse. Isaiah chapter 65, and look there in verse 17. Verse 17, for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor in your underlying, these words come into mind.

Have you ever had somebody else’s, do you remember blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? No, I don’t remember that at all. Well, let me see if I can refresh your memory. You remember this day, you know, this day here we went there and we did this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, yeah, now I remember. No, you’re not gonna have anybody be able to help you recall anything because you’re not gonna be able to remember nor come into mind. Look what he says also there in verse 16.

That he who blessed himself in the earth shall bless himself the God of truth and he that swareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth because the former troubles are you are on the line. The former troubles are what? Forgotten. Then he says that there will be a new heavens and a new earth and the former world will not be remembered. So what it means is let me give you three little miracles before we close. Three little miracles that I think are awesome.

The Lord will erase all memory of our sins from our minds. We won’t even know we ever committed them. That’s grace. When we get to heaven, there’s going to be a period of time. And then after the great white throne judgment and the lost are cast unto an everlasting fire called Gahimah, the Lord says, he’ll wipe away all peers from our eyes, because up to that time, I believe there’ll be tears because we’ll remember and yes, there’ll be pain and grief, but notice the Lord will erase all memory of our sins from our minds.

We won’t know we ever committed them. Number two, the Lord will erase from our minds all memory of the sins of others. We won’t even know they ever happened. The Lord will erase from our minds the memory of all our relatives and friends who went to hell, we won’t even know they ever existed. I don’t believe you will be in heaven forever in anguish over your loved ones that never trusted the Lord after the great white throne judgment. But at that point at the great white throne the Bible says God will have to wipe away all tears from our eyes because you’ll see that individual and there will be remembrance and the hurt those people will not be in heaven forever.

But then God is going to do a miracle upon our minds, what will no longer remember the former things, the formal world. And all of your sins that you’ve committed will be totally erased as though you never did them. You’ll never remember them. All the things that people did against you will be completely erased and done away with. And the people that never trusted Christ as their Savior, will be as though they never existed. Because in heaven it’s only those…

Who are born into God’s family. First birth don’t count, only the second. They were never in the family. In heaven it’ll only be those that knew the Lord. God says, Moses, I know thee. I know your name. But remember Jesus Christ made the statement in Matthew chapter 7. Many will say to me Lord Lord in that day, have we not? And he said, I never knew you. You need to find out. God know you, does God know you? What it means is, do you know Him as your Savior?

Are you His child? Have you been born into God’s family? Look up here, this is you and me, this is sin. We all have sin upon us. God loves us, hates our sin. For you and I to pay for this sin is eternal separation from the Lord. In hell, but God loves us, and He wants us to go to heaven. But to go to heaven we have to be perfect because righteous is God, None of us are perfect. None of us are righteous.

We’re all sinners. We cannot save ourselves. That’s why we need a Savior. This hand represents Jesus Christ, God in a flesh. He came into this world. He, God, came into this world. Took upon flesh. He didn’t have any sin. Didn’t have to die, but He loved us. So He took our sin, paid for them on the cross, came back from the dead. And said, if we’ll believe He did that for us, that He’d put this payment that He made to our account, we go to heaven on what He did for us.

That’s grace. I have eternal life. I trust He Christ is my Savior years ago. God saved me years ago, gave me eternal life years ago, made me His child years ago, and I still am His child. I still have eternal life. And He’ll never cast me out, never lose me. I can’t go to hell, impossible for me to go to hell, because of what He did for me. He paid for my sins. It’s not because I’ve been good, not because I go to church.

It’s not because of my good deeds. By grace are you saved through faith that not of yourself, It is the gift of God and not of works less than a man should boast. It’s the greatest thing in all the world. And by the way, one day you will see Him face to face. Be patient, wait. You saw Him today. You’d have to be dead to do so. Do you want to see Him right now? You think you could wait a little while?

You could wait another year or two years, five or ten years? I think you can. Hanging her. Let’s pray, shall we? your heads by nice clothes and no one looking around. I’m not gonna ask you to come forward and I’m gonna embarrass you, but right where you are. If you have never, honestly, you’ve never trusted Jesus Christ as your savior. Would you right now just say something between you and the Lord, say this, Lord, I’m a sinner and I believe Christ died and paid for my sins and I’m gonna trust him to take me to heaven whenever I die.

And for in God said that if you trust him, he’d give eternal life and never cast you out and never lose you. If you haven’t done it, do it right now. And if you will, I’ll like to have prayer for you. And if you will do that, would you just slip you hand it very quickly? In one of the alls, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior and preach I like you to pray for me. In one of the alls before the close.

Our Father, we do thank you so much for your blessings to us. I pray Lord, your blessings upon each person that’s here. And Father, I know that the desire of each one of our hearts is we want to see God. And until then, we have your word. And we can see what you’re like. You can see what you’ve done and we’re to believe it. And one day we will see you face to face. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.

You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 tool free. 800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleline ministries.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. So number one, if you keep any notes from the back of your bulletin, you can write it down because I’m not ashamed because of the person of the gospel, the person, because he is not just anybody. This person is the Son of God. This person is God. And so it’s the good news about what God says.

And it’s something that you and I are supposed to love and we’re supposed to tell. So it’s not about what, it’s about who, it’s about this person. And that’s why if the devil can, he’ll get you to do anything, talk about anything except this person. Because we cannot talk about the gospel without talking about the person. And when I’m not ashamed of the message, it’s because I’m not ashamed of the person. And if you’re ashamed of the person, you will be ashamed of the gospel.

And a lot of God’s children, I think, are ashamed to tell the message. I don’t understand why. I can’t fathom that yet. But I do believe there’s some things that we need to remember. Without Christ, see, there is no gospel. And there’s several words that we talk about all the time. And yet, without Christ, these words have absolutely they have no meaning. You see, there would be no such thing as there is no power. The man needs to be saved, but there’s no power if there’s no Christ.

Without Christ, there is no power to save anybody. You see, without the gospel of Jesus Christ, you and I can’t know God. You may know there is a God, but you can’t know God, except through this story. This is the story that lets us know what God thinks about his attributes. It talks about the perfection of God, why we need to be perfect, how holy, how just, how righteous. All these things about God that you and I need to know about.

And then because of Christ, we know about justice and law and mercy, compassion, forgiveness. All those things about God you and I will not know except through this story of the gospel. You see there’s a word it’s called salvation. You realize there is no salvation without Christ. There is no righteousness without Christ. There is no gift without Christ. it didn’t mean anything more. It went really really psiing to this unit. It’s annual, 80% weighted calm on this condition. It’s going to set U.s to 30 judge out here.

It’s going to set U.s to 100% of you. Something is going to function for you. Notguns k to Racialization. Your neighbor is mole from, not even a Jamaican, don’t look at the There’s no eternal life without Christ. But with Christ we have all these things, man from Devez. They’re going to call. Keep on saying. That’s not going to be a record case at 68. Our Nus a lot of your schools are here. He’s also calling for but you take Christ out of the equation.

There is nothing left. And as far as this you. life goes, there’s nothing worth living for. That’s why so many people are so hopeless in their lives. They don’t have believng worth living for. And you can be so discouraged and so in despair. But if you had something that was worth living for, it gives meaning to everything else in life. There’s a purpose there that drives you on. So the first thing I wanted you to see is simply in this verse.

I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the person. I’m not ashamed of Jesus Christ. I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. The second thing is the power of the gospel. I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power. This message is the most powerful message in the world. There isn’t anything with greater power than this message.

It is the dynamite of God. little story. You see why the devil fights the gospel and the clarity of the gospel. He’s trying to dilute its power where it cannot save by adding works to it, diluting it, mixing it all up, confusing people. That’s why you and I have to strive for the defense of the gospel. where we know that man cannot save himself and therefore only through Christ can a man be saved. It’s so important. You see chapter one, chapter two, chapter three of the book of Romans, paints a picture of how terrible man is, how wicked man is, how that when he knew God, He did not honor Him as God.

That became vain in their own imagination, and brought God down to man and worship creation instead of the Creator. And talked about all the wickedness that people do, men with men and women with women and all the sins and the wickedness, and talked about how that He gave the law to Israel, and they violated it. Nobody ever kept the law. Talk about the Gentiles and by creation itself, given to man the power of reason with conscience. And yet he fails, cannot even live up to that knowledge that he has, that there is a God and a Sikh God.

And then by the time you get to chapter 3, let’s just see just how wicked man is. There’s none righteous, not one. There’s none that seeketh after God, not one. There’s none that doeth good, not one. Let God be true in every man a liar. And as he says in his word, so I say these things to them that are under the law, that all are guilty before God. All have sinned and come short of God’s perfection. pretty pitiful sight.

So there isn’t any man or woman ever lived good enough to be saved. So God paints a black picture for all of mankind and then but God, but God, but God has the power of salvation. For I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the person. It is the power of God. Think of all the power that will be needed. Now there was tremendous power used in creating the heavens and the earth. A man can’t be saved without the power of God.

It means that man cannot save himself by his power. Salvation is by God’s power. He’s the only one that has the power to save you. And if he has the power to save you, he only has the power to keep you saved. Because when you’re saved, you’re saved from something to something. To an inheritance, it’s incorruptible and undefiled that, paid if not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God on the salvation.

You see, God is the only one that has the power to save a USL man. That’s all wrapped up in that little store that we call the gospel, the Good News, of how a sinner can be made righteous, how that he can be justified before a righteous holy God. And there is no other message that can accomplish this. No religion can do this. Only the book, the Word of God. So Christ is the answer. We hear it all the time.

The next thing I want you to understand is, it is the power to save. It is the power of God. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation. The only power that can save us is in this message. There’s a story. And a man must hear it. And he that heareth my word and believe it on him that sent me half everlasting life. the power to save, that we brought that before, the penalty of sin, the power of sin in our life now, and one day to be saved from the very presence of sin.

You think the word salvation in the Bible is most important, we’re one of the most important words in all the world to be able to stand and say, oh yeah, I’m an American. I’m an Arnold. That’ll be great. I’m saved. I am saved. Not going to be. I am saved. I mean, I’m not going to hell. I am a saved man. That is more important than anything else in the whole world. It’s more important than that job you have or the job you don’t have.

I’m saved. I’m saved. My sins are all forgiven. I can never go to hell from this day forward. Never. I’m saved. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, and I’m saying so. I am redeemed. I am saved, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.” You see why is that important? Because see that’s the purpose of the power. What’s the purpose of the power to save? And I have been saved.

It’s the one of the greatest words in the whole world. I’m a man. You can say, I’m a woman. I’m 70 years old. I’m 30 years old. I’m, I’m saved. There’s nothing better than that. There are no words better than those words. I’m saved. I’m going to heaven when I die. And you stop and think of how many people in this world, they cannot say that. They can’t say that. Because they don’t know that. They never heard this message, this most powerful message in all the world.

Or they’ve heard religions. They’ve heard that you’ve got to earn your way to heaven by your good works. And that’s not the good news. The good news is, is he died on the cross and paid for my sins to give me eternal life as a free gift. And I get to go to heaven on what he did for me. That’s the best news in all the world.

The next one I wanted to mention too is because I’m not ashamed because of the plan of the gospel. What’s God’s plan? What’s the purpose and the power? What’s the plan? The plan doesn’t go in all the world until people keep the tank of Man-Mamacy go to heaven. To qualify, to be good enough, the plan was that whosoever, what’s the word? Believe it. What a simple plan. That’s too easy. You may not have all the thing that talks about the person of Christ and everything that He did and who He was.

They come into this world and all the power of God that it takes. The purpose of God. The plan is just to be able to the man God of belief, that’s all. And yet the power that’s in that. It’s the power to save a person, the power to save a person. You see, that’s God’s plan. The plan is that all that people have to do, it’s the only thing they can do is believe it. You see, sometimes we try to get things so complicated.

God made it simple. And he says, all that a man has to do, the only thing that he can do, is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. So simple. You know what? I’m encouraged by it. The other night I had James call me up and he says, Pastor, we had somebody trust the Lord. Reformers, unanimous. Now that is so neat. That is so neat. And then Peter calls me up and tells me that they had some people trust the Lord in Friday night or Thursday night, Friday night’s old with him.

And I don’t know, 10, 15, something like that. But I think it’s just so great. And different ones that I’ve heard of y’all that are going out and you talk to people and you never know who’s going to talk to somebody next. Edgar said that he was in the hospital and his chaplain came in, her, and he says, do you know where you’re going, you die? She said, well, I hope I’m going to heaven. So he explained the gospel to her.

Don’t you think the chaplain, I don’t know where they’re going when they die? How can you bring great comfort and hope and so forth to people? And they ain’t got to clue where they’re going when they die. Isn’t it true that you might die? I mean, you go to the hospital, you know there’s a possibility. You might not come out. It’s a possibility. But isn’t it wonderful to know that you can give people this hope, this joy? And the only way you can do that is by telling them that message.

Now if I was a devil, I don’t care what you do with your life as long as you don’t talk to people. You see, that’s what really is the crux of the matter. The hardest part is just getting started. Getting started. But you’d be surprised how many opportunities God gives to us. I don’t take advantage of all my opportunities. I’m gonna have to answer the God for that. I do get a few here and there, but I realize that that’s why I want the radio and I love to have a TV broadcast.

I just want people to hear and understand it and they may trust the Lord and they go to heaven when they die. See, sooner or later everybody dies. Everybody dies. And what are they going to spend eternity? In verse 17 there’s a statement made there. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed. See, that’s the product. That’s the end result of God giving you His righteousness. He spent three chapters telling you how unrighteous we are. And then he tells us how righteous God is.

Thanks. But he says, look, I’ll give you mine. Oh, so look there in chapter three. And you’ll notice in verse 21, but God. But now. But now the righteousness of God is revealed. Look at that, without the law. You mean I can have God’s righteousness without the law, without me earning it, without me deserving it, because God’s already showed. No man deserves to be saved. No man is righteous. No man can be justified by his works in the sight of God.

so since no man can save himself. God says, I’ll send you my righteousness. And if I accept the righteousness of Christ, I’m made as righteous as Christ. You see, the righteousness of God is Christ. And it says in the book of 1 Corinthians and chat one talks about, he is my righteousness. He is my wisdom. He is mine. And so he makes a statement here in verse 21, but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. Been witnessed by the law and the prophets.

They told all about this in advance. They prophesied that Christ is coming someday. And Christ did come. And in the first chapter of the book of Romans, it talks about how that the prophets told about the Messiah, Christ coming of the flesh. as the son of David, and this is what he was going to do. And proved it by the power of the resurrection from the dead. Because if he has the power to come back from the dead, he got the power to bring you back from the dead, so that if you can come back from the dead, you can live forever.

You really wouldn’t matter how many times I died, if he’s had the power to bring me back from the dead, I can live forever. That’s the power of God. That’s why it takes the power of God for the good news, the gospel. I’m not ashamed of the God. In other words, there was another message better than this message.

Paul didn’t have to worry about, you know, I’m spending my life doing this, but is there another way? Is there a better way? Is what I’m telling is it’s second rate? Or this is the only way, not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God on the salvation. There’s the purpose. Now, whosoever believe it, that is the plan, would receive His righteousness, the product. You see, I have received His righteousness 51 years ago in a little old living room in Athens, Georgia.

See, it doesn’t matter where you are, you can receive it because it’s given to you by faith. See, in the last part of verse 16 and 17, it says, from faith to faith, from faith to faith. You see, whenever I believed it, and then I share it, from faith to faith to faith to faith to faith to faith. And so God says, the just shall live by his faith. So I’ve been justified by faith. I am supposed to live by faith.

It means I’m supposed to share this word with others so that they can put their faith in. Isn’t that how I got it? Because a man who I thought at that time was really an old man, he was only 50, he was my father-in-law and he explained the gospel to me and I heard it and I understood it and I trusted Christ as my Savior. And I’m going to heaven because of what he did for me. Don’t have all the answers.

And I hope you don’t mind me just kind of talking a little bit about, you know, just on the gospel. You all all know this stuff. But I don’t feel the best today. This is not my A-game. But it’s something that I know so well. It’s easier for me to do this. You understand? You understand? So you forgive me for not having my A game and you accept my C game. That sounds good to me. Look up here. This hand represents you and me.

The wallet represents sin. Don’t you think it’s about time you learn how to do this? Don’t you think it’s about time you learn how to do it? How many of you have already used this little wallet or you use an illustration similar to it? You’ve already done it. Let me see your hand. All right. Half of you’ve never done it then. Half of you in this room have never used the little wallet illustration. Did you know that when you get to heaven the first thing God’s going to ask you, did you ever use that wallet illustration?

I sent two preachers down there and they told you all that every week. This is you and me. Wallet represents sin. Just represents sin. I was in a restaurant one day and I put my wallet down there. This waitress came up. I said, you know what that is? She says, yeah, I asked the wallet. I said, nope.

He is too. I said, nope. What is it then? I said it since. She jumped back about two feet. She thought it didn’t turn into a rattlesnake. Anyway, he took a while, but I got it to trust the Lord. This is you and me. This is sin. We have all sinned. Everybody’s in the same boat. The whole world. And the Bible says that God loves us. He hates our sin, but the sin has to be paid and the wages of sin is death and hell.

And so God says that to go to heaven, we have to be perfect as righteous. This is God and none of us are perfect. So God explains how righteous He is and how bad we are. That no man can save himself. This then represents Jesus Christ, He’s the Lord, God in the flesh. He sent His Son into the world who was perfect. He was righteous. He didn’t have any sin, so He didn’t have to die. But because He loved us, hates our sin, because it separates us from Him.

He took it, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. And God said that if we would believe He did it for us, He would put that payment to our account and we’d go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. That’s good news. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, or it is the power of God to save a man. What it means is that man can’t save himself. It takes the power of God.

That means you’re not saved by what you do. You’re not saved by how you live. You’re saved by what he did. He paid for your sins. You see, this was the purpose behind it. The plan is for you to simply believe that he did it for you. And if you’ll believe he did it for you, he will give you the end result, the product, his righteousness. God accomplished what he came to do. He came to save me. He died on the cross for me.

He came back from the dead, offered me eternal life. I accepted it. He saved me. He came to seek and save that which was lost. I was lost. Now I’m saved. Now I’m going to heaven. It worked. It works. I was lost. I was blind. Now I see. Let’s pray, shall we? Every head by and every eye closed, no one looking around. If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you trust Him this morning? I’m not going to have you forward, not going to embarrass you, but right where you’re sitting.

Would you just talk to the Lord and say, Lord, I know I’m a sinner, I know I’ve done things wrong. I don’t deserve to go to heaven. But I believe Jesus Christ, your Son, And I don’t know that cross for me, that he came back from the dead. And I believe that he’s coming back again. I’m trusting him as my Savior. And, Prajav, would you pray for me? Yes, I would. I’d love to know what I’ve said made sense to you.

So in the quietness of this moment, with no one looking around, as anyone had also said, yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior. And, Prajav, I’d like for you to pray for me. We just let you hand it very quickly and put it right back down. Is it on at all? Yeah, it won’t at all. If you’ve already trusted Christ to save you, you’d never have to do it again. I want you to tell somebody. I want you to make it a point that you’re going to do that.

Father, we thank you so much for all you’ve done for us. We thank for this time together, for the study of your word, simplicity, simplicity of the gospel. from not ashamed. In Christ name, pray, Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 toll-free 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10 30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Take your Bible and turn to the book of Romans the book of Romans and chapter One Romans in chapter one. I Got an email yesterday and I thought I would read this letter to you Because it was a letter That shares her testimony of 40 years ago See one thing it’s good about if you live long enough enough, you see the results of it down the road. And it’s very encouraging. You know, sometimes the pastor wonders if anybody ever really listens and learns from what he has to say.

Because you know, when you’re on that little perch, everybody takes a shot at you. Everybody demands you got to be perfect or they turn you off. And you’re going to offend people so easy. I never try to offend anybody, but I do because I’m a person. I’m a human being. I have a sinful nature. I say, I do things not always perfect. Christ was here and He was perfect and you won’t believe this, but He offended people. So I like to know when somebody’s blessed because of your life or your ministry.

So she wrote this to me. At the age of eight, I recall a night my father came home from one of his many hunting trips. I was always very excited when he returned because he often brought me a gift. This particular trip included several men from our church who ventured west to Colorado to Hanout and Mule Deer. On Sunday morning, the men took a break from hunting and attended a church service in the mountains of western Colorado. his return, I sensed an unusual amount of excitement from my father.

This was interesting because he was typically such a calm man. Soon he became apparent that the heightened excitement my father exhibited was not coming from the number or size of mule deer he encountered on the trip. But from a preacher he heard doing that Sunday morning service. The only thing that more intriguing to me that my father’s excited state was the name of the preacher, Yankee. I just kept thinking what’s a Yankee doing in Colorado. I thought they were Northerners.

As was my usual practice, I clung to every word that came from my father’s mouth. So as he proceeded to share his excitement with me, I began to envision this young, tall, handsome, dynamic preacher, where they message about going, I didn’t write that now, where they message about going to heaven. Growing up in the church, nothing seemed unusual about a preacher talking about heaven. But it was uncommon to hear Dad explain how Yankee told them they could know they were going to heaven.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but in the years to come, This preacher with a strange name would split our church congregation right down the middle. You unite another group of new believers, change many of ourURRENT lives here on earth, and share a message that would affect us for all eternity. She didn’t mention that I also got boycotted, black-balled, and two major denominations one year after I left Florida of a college. But anyway, that’s another story. Yankee was invited to our small town of Dora Lake.

Minnesota, to share this special message with our church. Doing one of his early visits, he prompted questions in my young mind about my eternal destination. A short time later, while fishing with my father on the Big Fort River in northern Minnesota, I asked him this question, if Yankee is right and we have to be perfect to get to heaven, how am I going to get there if I keep doing things wrong? And since I still get spankings, I know that I do things wrong.

Very brilliant kid, huh? It was then that my father explained to me that I do things wrong because I inherited this sinful nature from Adam and Eve. He reiterated Yankee’s message of salvation by grace. When he explained that I cannot escape that sinful nature by doing good things, it is only by believing in the payment Jesus made on the cross that God would give me or see me as being perfect, sinless and able to enter this perfect heaven, even though I didn’t always do everything right here on earth.

I cannot pinpoint the exact moment that I trusted Christ as my Savior. I imagined it was shortly after that memorable moment with my father in that beautiful river in northern Minnesota. Bottom line at some point known only to God, I pieced it all together and it made perfect sense to me a small but inquisitive child that God had given his perfect son to pay the complete sin debt for me so that I could spend eternity with him. So this message of salvation by grace preached by Yankee Arnold many years ago to a group of rough bearded hunters from northern Minnesota is one that continues to amaze me.

Even now, some forty years later, the clarity of the gospel makes its way into every conversation between my father and me. I am eternally grateful to Yankee and the women or the woman behind the man, his ever dedicated wife Betty, for the sacrifices they have made throughout their lives to share the clear gospel with so many. They have planted seeds throughout the country, if not the world. Seeds that the Lord has watered result in countless numbers of individuals, knowing what certainty, even though they are challenges in this world, they have absolute assurance of the eternal destination.

No greater gift could ever be given than the message of salvation to the grace of God. you to my Father Jim who not only accepted the message of salvation by grace, but realized the importance of sharing the good news with his family. And that’s a good story. She sent that to me yesterday because she wrote it about her, how she came to know the Lord. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment, but in my mind, I remembered the exact moment.

I was riding in the pickup truck with her dad, and she was sitting between us. She was eight years old. And on the way to the church, door like church, on the way there I explained it to her. And she finally understood. Anyway, I emailed her back and I told her that, 40 years ago, when you get to heaven, do you realize that you’re going to see the faces of the people that you want to Christ, to see the faces of the people because of your concern and what you sacrifice to get the gospel to people, whether through money or prayers or individual talking.

There won’t be anything greater. Paul says, ye are my crown of glory. You are my joy whenever he sees you at the coming of Christ. That’s gonna be the most important thing you’ll ever experience in your life. To know that there’ll be people in heaven because you shared the greatest story in all the world with him. So I want you to take your Bible, look there, a verse that we read every Sunday morning, the book of Romans in chapter one and verse 16.

Look what it says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the the just shall live by faith. What two great verses in the Bible. And whenever you think about those verses, you think of how simple everything is that God made.

And I want you to think about this. Of all the messages there are in the world, of all the books that have been written, there is no story as great as this story. There is no message more powerful than this story. That’s why you and I are supposed to love it. And Paul says, I’m not ashamed of the gospel and it didn’t stop there. I’m not ashamed of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So it’s not just anybody, it’s a particular individual. So number one, if you keep any notes on the back of your bulletin, you can write it down because I’m not ashamed because of the person of the gospel, the person, because she is not just anybody. This person is the Son of God. This person is God. And so it’s the good news about what God says. And it’s something that you and I are supposed to love and we’re supposed to tell.

So it’s not about what, it’s about who, it’s about this person. And that’s why If the devil can, he’ll get you to do anything, talk about anything except this person. Because we cannot talk about the gospel without talking about the person. And when I’m not ashamed of the message, it’s because I’m not ashamed of the person. And if you’re ashamed of the person, you will be ashamed of the gospel. And a lot of God’s children, I think, are ashamed to tell the message.

And I don’t understand why. I can’t fathom that yet. But I do believe there’s some things that we need to remember. Without Christ, see, there is no gospel. And there’s several words that we talk about all the time. And yet without Christ these words have absolutely they have no meaning. You see, there would be no such thing as there is no power. See, a man needs to be saved, but there’s no power if there’s no Christ. Without Christ there is no power to save anybody.

You see, without the gospel of Jesus Christ, you and I can’t know God. You may know there is a God, But you can’t know God, except through this story. This is the story that lets us know what God thinks about his attributes. It talks about the perfection of God, why we need to be perfect, how holy, how just, how righteous. All these things about God that you and I need to know about. And then because of Christ we know about justice and law and mercy, compassion, forgiveness.

All those things about God you and I will not know, except through the story of the gospel. You see there’s a word it’s called salvation. You realize there is no salvation without Christ. There is no righteousness without Christ. There is no gift without Christ. There’s no justification without Christ. So without Christ, there’s no life. There’s no eternal life without Christ. But with Christ, we have all these things, but you take Christ out of the equation. There is nothing left.

And as far as this life goes, there’s nothing worth living for. That’s why so many people are so hopeless in their lives. They don’t have anything worth living for. And you can be so discouraged and so in despair. But if you had something that was worth living for, it gives meaning to everything else in life. There’s a purpose there that drives you on. So the first thing I wanted you to see is simply in this verse. I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the person.

I’m not ashamed of Jesus Christ. I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. The second thing is the power of the gospel. I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power. This message is the most powerful message in the world. There isn’t anything with greater power than this message. It is the dynamite of God. This little story, you see why the devil fights the gospel and the clarity of the gospel, he’s trying to dilute its power where it cannot save by adding works to it, diluting it, Mixing it all up, confusing people.

That’s why you and I have to strive for the defense of the gospel. Where we know that man cannot save himself and therefore only through Christ can a man be saved. It’s so important. You see chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3 of the book of Romans, paints a picture of how terrible man is, how wicked man is, how that when he knew God, he did not honor him as God. That became vain in their own imagination and brought God down to man and worship creation instead of the Creator.

And talked about all the wickedness that people do, men with men and women with women and all the sins and the wickedness and talked about how that he gave the law to Israel and they violated it. Nobody ever kept the law. Talk about the Gentiles and by creation itself, given to man the power of reason with conscience and yet he fails, cannot even live up to that knowledge that he has that there is a God and a seek God.

And then by the time you get to chapter 3, let’s just see just how wicked man is. There’s none righteous, not one. There’s none that seeketh after God, not one. There’s There’s none that doeth good, not one. Let God be true in every man a liar.” And as he says in his word, so I say these things to them that are under the law, that all are guilty before God. All have sinned and come short of God’s perfection, pretty pitiful sight.

So there isn’t any man or woman ever lived good enough to be saved. So God paints a black picture for all of mankind. And then, but God. But God. But God has the power of salvation. I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the person. It is the power of God. Think of all the power that will be needed. Now there was tremendous power used in creating the heavens and the earth. A man can’t be saved without the power of God.

It means that man cannot save himself by his power. salvation is by God’s power. He’s the only one that has the power to save you. And if he has the power to save you, he only has the power to keep you saved. Because when you’re saved, you’re saved from something to something. To an inheritance, it’s incorruptible and undefiled that fate, if not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God on the salvation. You see, God is the only one that has the power to save a man.

That’s all wrapped up in that little store that we call the gospel, the Good News, of how a sinner can be made righteous. It’s going to be justified before a righteous holy God. And there is no other message that can accomplish this. No religion can do this. Only the book, the Word of God. So Christ is the answer. We hear it all the time. The next thing I want you to understand is it is the power It is the power of God, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation.

The only power that can save us is in this message. There’s a story and a man must hear it and he that heareth my word and be leaving on him that sent me that everlasting life. The power to save, that we brought that before, the penalty of sin, the power of sin in our life now, and one day to be saved from the very presence of sin. You think the word salvation in the Bible is one of the most important words in all the world, to be able to stand and say, oh yeah, I’m an American.

I’m an Arnold. I’ll be great. I’m saved. I am saved. Not going to be. I am saved. I mean, I’m not going to hell. I am a saved man. That is more important than anything else in the whole world. It’s more important than that job you have or the job you don’t have. I’m saved. I’m saved. My sins are all forgiven. I can never go to hell from this day forward. Never. I’m saved. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, and I’m saying so.

I am redeemed. I am saved. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God on the salvation. You see why is that important? Because see, that’s the purpose of the power. What’s the purpose of the power to save? And I have been saved. It’s the one of the greatest words in the whole world. You can say, I’m a man. You can say, I’m a woman. I’m 70 years old. I’m 30 years old.

I’m saved. There’s nothing better than that. There are no words better than those words. I’m saved. I’m going to heaven when I die. And you stop and think of how many people in this world they cannot say that. They can’t say that because they don’t know that. They never heard this message, this most powerful message in all the world. Oh, they’ve heard religions. They’ve heard that you’ve got to earn your way to heaven by your good works, and that’s not the good news.

The good news is, is he died on the cross and paid for my sins to give me eternal life as a free gift, and I get to go to heaven on what he did for me. That’s the best news in all the world. The next one I wanted to mention two years, because I’m not ashamed because of the plan of the gospel. What’s God’s plan? What’s the purpose and the power? What’s the plan? The plan doesn’t go in all the world until people keep the 10 commandments that go to heaven, to qualify to be good enough.

The plan was that whosoever was the word, believe it. What a simple plan. That’s too easy. You may not have all the things that talks about the person of Christ and everything that He did and who He was. They come into this world and all the power of God that it takes and the purpose of God. The plan is just the man got to believe that’s all, and yet the power that’s in that. It’s the power to save a person, the power to save a person.

You see, that’s God’s plan. The plan is that all that people have to do is the only thing they can do is believe it. You see, sometimes we try to get things so complicated. God made it simple. And He says, all that a man has to do, the only thing that he can do, is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. So simple. You know what I’m encouraged by. The other night I had James call me up and he says, Pastor, we had somebody trust the Lord.

Reformers unanimous. That is so neat. That is so neat. And then Peter calls me up and tells me that they had some people trust the Lord Friday night or Thursday night, Friday night so with him. And I don’t know, 10, 15, something like that. But I think it’s just so great. And different ones that I’ve heard of y’all that are going out and you talk to people. And And you never know who’s going to talk to somebody next. Edgar said that he was in the hospital, and his chaplain came in, her, and he says, do you know where you’re going, you die?

She said, well, I hope I’m going to heaven. So he explained the gospel to her. Don’t you think the chaplain ought to know where they’re going when they die? How can you bring great comfort and hope and so forth to people? And they ain’t got to clue where they’re going when they die. Isn’t it true that you might die? I mean, you go to the hospital, you know there’s a possibility. You might not come out, there’s a possibility. But isn’t it wonderful to know that you can give people this hope, this joy?

And the only way you can do that is by telling them that message. Now, if I was a devil, I don’t care what you do with your life, as long as you don’t talk to people. You see, that’s what really is the crux of the matter. the hardest part is just getting started, getting started. But you’d be surprised how many opportunities God gives to us. I don’t take advantage of all my opportunities. I’m gonna have to answer the God for that.

I do get a few here and there, but I realize that’s why I want the radio and I love to have a TV broadcast. I just want people to hear it and understand it. And they may trust the Lord and He go to heaven when they die. Because sooner or later everybody dies. Everybody dies. And we’re a big understanding. 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.

Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. 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 Dye-Link Tool Free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30, and at six o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Bibleline, Bibleline Here God’s word on Bibleline Everywhere, every time Here God’s truth on Bibleline Welcome 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 a Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the 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. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of God’s people all agreed on what the word of God says? But that don’t happen. Now wouldn’t it be great if all the preachers in the world all preach the same gospel. If it is the gospel they are. It’s just that most are not preaching the gospel.

Because the gospel and the test of the gospel is grace. If it’s not grace, it’s not the gospel. If it’s not eternal, it’s not the gospel. So the gospel has to be free and it has to last forever. And if anyone of those is missing, it’s not the gospel. So it has to be free or it’s not the gospel. And it has to be forever or it’s not the gospel. So is the message that people are preaching? Is that what they’re saying?

When you tell people that they have to turn from their sin, then it’s not free. You’ve got to make Christ the Lord and Master of your life, then it’s not free. If there’s something you have to, you’ve got to go to church and live a good life, then it’s not free. Okay, so it is by grace and it’s free. Okay, if it is free, then it has to be forever. If it’s really free, it has to be forever. And if it’s not forever, it wasn’t really free.

Because it took it away from because you weren’t willing to pay a price on how you lived. So then it’s got to be free. It has to last forever. Or either of those, it is not the good news of the gospel. Don’t you all understand what I’m saying? I mean, this is the crux of the matter. And majority of preachers do not understand this simplicity. They just don’t get it. So anyway, look at number one up there under that.

A Christian can lose his salvation. If this was true, they could not be saved again. Why? Because if they shall fall away, it is impossible to renew them again. In the word, let’s just pretend for a moment, you are a saved man. And then because of whatever, now you’ve lost your salvation for whatever reason, then it says you can’t get saved again, because it’s impossible for those that have been once enlightened that are pasted the heavenly gift and all this stuff, and then to lose it or to fall away, if that means you lose your salvation, then it also means you can’t get saved again because it says right there, if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance because everybody knows you got to repent to be saved.

Well, that could be one of those views, but is that what it’s saying? That you can be lost after you’re saved. And if you can be lost after you’re saved, then it’s also saying you can’t get saved again. Oh boy, and yet how many people preach that, but they never preach that you can’t be saved again. They believe you can get saved and lost, saved and lost, saved and lost, saved and lost, and you just hope you died when you were saved.

But you never know for sure. So I don’t believe that’s correct. The second point was a mere profession and not possession of salvation. Is this just people who are claiming to be saved but not really have ever trust of the Lord. And the reason they say that because they just past it. Just taste it. See what it says in verse 4? For it is impossible for those who are ones enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift. Well if you just taste it, that means you didn’t fully partake of it.

Well the next part of the verse says, and we’re made what? Partakers. So it’s Those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. That’s also mentioned in the book of 1 Peter and chapter 2. Taste and see that the Lord is good. But since it’s right here in the book of Hebrews, look there in chapter 2. Look in chapter 2 and verse 9, where it makes a statement, but we see Jesus, who has made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.

Crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of God, and you ought to underline this, should taste death for every man. Now when he tasted death, you think he would. Did he really die? Yes. He just says he suffered for the suffering of death. And when he tasted death, have you ever tasted tribulations and trials? Yeah, I just tasted it, but I didn’t do any further than that. It means that you really did go through trials and tribulations.

Jesus really did die. And so for those who have tasted the Lord is those who have trusted Christ as their Savior and you know you have eternal life and you have been enlightened and you have been partakers of the Holy Spirit living within you. This is the saved people not lost people. This isn’t talking about those that those they’re professing but they’re not real. No this is talking about real Christians. You’ve heard the phrase you’ve got to be a born-again believer or a born-again Christian.

What are the kindnesser? Or you’ve been really saved or gloriously saved? Yeah. Like the guy laying up in this casket. He’s an atheist. All dressed up nowhere to go. Whatever your shame. All dressed up nowhere to go. But he’s really dead. Now this guy over here in this other casket, he’s just dead. But this guy’s really dead. Well this guy is saved, but this guy is really saved. Now look there in Hebrews chapter 6. So when he talks about those in verse 4, I believe he’s talking to those that believe on the Lord and why it’s impossible for those who have been once saved in verse 6, if they should fall away to get saved again.

And the reason why couldn’t they get saved again? Well, because that means that Christ would have to die again. Because the only way that a man could be saved and then lost is because it means there had to be a sin that Christ didn’t pay for. So Christ paid for all of your sins, and this is how most people believe it. Christ paid for all of your sins up to the time you believe. Then after that, you’ve got to keep getting forgiveness for all of these individual sins as you commit them.

And if you die before you got convicted, so that’s it, none, you’ve got to go to hell. Either Christ paid for all of my sins, or He’ll have to come back every day to take care of mine, or did He do it all at one time. It’s appointed unto every man once the die and after this the judgment. So if Christ is going to die for a man, how many times must he die? time because a man only dies once.

So when a man dies, that’s the end of his life. So when Christ died on the cross for me, he paid for all of my sins. And so the only way that I could lose my salvation is to commit a sin that Christ didn’t pay for. And then if he didn’t pay for that sin, well, the only way I could ever get saved again is for Christ to come back afresh, anew and pay for that sin. Well, then if I commit another sin and then I’ve got to die, well, now he got to come back and pay for that sin and then I get saved again.

And then if I commit another sin, then I lose my salvation. Then I’ve got to wait for him to come back and pay for that sin so I can get saved again. Well, if this rate, would never get off the cross. I mean, how many times would he have to do this? Now, in the Old Testament, they had to do it over and over and over again, but Jesus, he’s different. He’s one time for the sins of the whole world, and people can’t believe this because it’s so simple.

It’s too easy. I mean, people say, well, that’s just too easy. That’s just too easy. What if it’s so easy? Why Why can’t you believe it? You mean you believe it’s hard? What’s this? There’s my glasses. So what are that? There’s a pair of glasses. No, no, no, that’s too easy. Believe hard. Mm. How do you believe hard? I guess by making it hard to believe. It’s supposed to be something that every person in the world Can understand. Even children can understand it.

Going to all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It means it must be something that every person can understand. It didn’t say because of, well, based upon their education. How smart and intelligent they are because, you know, this is hard and complicated now. Now even a child knows something that’s free. It’s free. God loves you. God loves you. kids can understand that. So here, if you look there in your notes, on the second thing, are these believers or unbelievers?

So what are they? Are these believers or unbelievers? These are believers. These are believers, once enlightened and to illuminate their mind and have tasted the heavenly gift. So this is talking to believers and we’re made partakers of the Holy Spirit. And so as you go down through here, you can see I got some verses in here that talks about been partakers and partakers and so forth. So the conclusion is that this is clearly to the Christian. Now, go back to verse one, look in verse one.

Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto maturity, perfection maturity. Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead work. So what is salvation? Repentance is not trusting in your works to get you to heaven, but Christ. So repentance means you don’t trust in your works and you trust in Christ. So it is required in Scripture that every man must repent. It means not to trust in the flesh, but in the Lord. And so you can’t and you will not trust in the Lord until you have come to the conclusion, I cannot save myself by the flesh.

I can’t save myself by my works. So I don’t trust in my works. I’m trusting in Christ. And when a man supposedly really understands that, then you have ceased from your labor of trying to earn something because you know it’s free and you already have it. Makes sense to me. So that’s why he says, leaving the gospel You don’t have to try to get a man saved again. We will go on to maturity if God permits, and God will permit if you will believe what his word says.

See, there’s many promises in the Word of God. But see, if you don’t believe the promise of God, then you will not go forward. And he used the Old Testament illustration of the children of Israel that had been in the wilderness and they came to Cady’s Barnia and they were going to go into the promised land and they sent in some spies. And they came back with a evil report, 10 out of 12 did, except Joshua and Caleb. Joshua and Caleb says, hey, we can do it.

God promised him. Boom, boom, boom. We’re ready to go. They believe the promise of God. 10 of them didn’t. Those 10 convinced the whole nation, hey, we can’t do it. They’re children. they’re in their giants in the land and we’re going to die. So they didn’t believe the promise of God. And so they didn’t get to go into the land because of unbelief. You cannot grow in the Lord until you believe what God’s word says. Now you believe them to get saved.

Now believe it to grow. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. How did you receive him? By faith. How do you walk? By faith. So it is the will of God for you to know the word of God so that you might know the will of God. And as you learn the word of God and begin to grow in the word of God, you’ll find yourself maturing in the Lord and you’ll be able to discern right from wrong.

See, the last thing you want is always somebody else telling you what’s right and wrong in the Christian life. what you can and cannot do, or you should or should not do. Don’t you want to learn how to walk between you and the Lord? Well, I haven’t depend on somebody else always tell you. Then grow up. Grow up. Mature, haven’t you seen children that never seem to learn? And they become wild when they become teenagers? Of course, unless you’re mowing always come to church anyway, and she’s 17 years old now.

She’s had a birthday, right, Mo? today, but she will mature into a beautiful lady and… God’s got all kind of great, wonderful things down the road for her as long as she keeps walking and seeking the Lord’s will. And that’s the same it is for anybody, but some people just don’t seem to mature. I know adults that haven’t matured. They haven’t grown up yet. Still lack like a bratty teenager. So God’s word tells us that this is what the story is, and so He says there in verse 6 that if they shall follow it to renew them again and to repent and see and they crucified to themselves, the Son of God, of fresh and put them to an open shame.

I don’t believe this wise for God’s children to live in sin for what Christ died for. And I believe that it is the will of God for God’s children to walk and to serve a Lord and to do right because I believe it’s like slapping Christ in the face for a child of God to rebel against what he did for them. Anyway, that’s another sermon, but I want you to see these couple verses. He uses now an illustration that I think a really good super.

Looking in verse 7, for the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh off upon it, bringeth forth herbs, meet for them by whom it is dressed, and you ought underlined this phrase, receiveth blessing from God. And then he talks about the earth also in verse 8, but that the earth which beryth thorns and briars is rejected and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned. But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you and things that and you ought to underline these two words, a company salvation.

So there’s things that God wants you as a child of God to do in your life. So He uses the illustration of a piece of ground. Let’s say I’ve got 10 acres of ground. I work that ground and I sow seed and then I, you know, water it and fertilize it and all that. And know me, I’ve got me some beautiful crop on my piece of property. Now, the land is one thing and what is produced is another. And so I can see the blessing of God on that piece of ground.

But you see, it didn’t do it by itself. And like this one man, he had a preacher come see him and was trying to get this old man to realize how wonderful God is. And he says, you know, look at this beautiful piece of land God gave to you. Yeah, yeah. Look at all that crop you got out there. Look how good God did. Look what God did. And he went on and he founded this soul farmer. He says, you should have seen it when God had it by himself.

You should have saw that piece of land when God had it all by himself. You are the land, but there’s a certain amount of effort and work that you’re supposed to put into it. And if you will do with that land, what God wants, there will be blessings to receive. You are a Christian, and if you will apply and sow and water and you’d be surprised what you might be able to produce in your life and to see the blessings of God upon your life.

But if you don’t and if the farmer doesn’t, you know, tall as land, doesn’t do anything with it, just let it go, it will naturally bring forth briars and thorns. Fruit takes effort to let it go in a run wild. The same thing with your life. You may know Christ is your Savior. And you can either be a piece of land that can produce the fruit of the Lord, or you can be a piece of land that brings forth nothing but briars and thorns.

And I can guarantee you, you’re not going to like the briars and the thorns. And you’re going to waste your life. And all of that is, as the Bible says, hay, wood, and stubble. Or you can bring forth gold, silver, and precious stones. So this is what the Lord is talking about, and I believe it’s all in contact. It makes perfect sense. So you see there again in verse 7, With that understanding, now look what he says, for the earth which drinketh in the rain or the Christian that drinks in the Word of God, bringeth forth herbs or fruit and receive a blessing from God.

So easy it is. And in verse eight, and that Christian that doesn’t sow or drink in the Word of God, then he’s not going to sow and he just lets his life run wild. You’re going to bear thorns and briars and it’s rejected because God’s going to have to chase you. So by the time you get through going through all of this and you get to Hebrews chapter 10, it talks about cast not away your confidence which hath great recompense of reward.

He says, but you’re to live by faith, taking God at his word. And then he says in chapter 12, those that do not do what God says to do with their life, God says he’s going to have to chase them in discipline. And they’ll be tears. And the chasing for the present seem not to be joyous but grievous. But afterwards it yielded forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness. So there’s saying God wants in your life, and if you put it in his context, it’s just light reading a nice beautiful little story is nothing wrong with it.

You start trying to twist this and say, well, this is talking about something else. Then the whole meaning is lost. The truth of these scriptures were totally be lost because you apply them to something else that doesn’t even reply to. So then he makes a statement here in verse 9, but beloved. We talk into believers or not. Yeah, be loving. We are persuaded a better things, better than what? Then briars and thorns. There’s something better for the Christian. And the thing is to study the word of God so that you know the word of God so that you can grow in the Lord and learn how to trust the Lord and do what God wants you to do so you can have the peaceable fruit of righteousness in your own personal life and not only that, what you can produce in the world in the lives of other people.

So then he says in verse 10, for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love. So when it’s talking about your work and your labor of love, do you think that will refer to salvation or service? See how simple? Service has to do with works. It’s how you live. But when it talks about salvation, it always has to be free. So I’ve already trusted Christ as my Savior. He gave me eternal life. I became His child.

That was free. Now He’s talking about what I produce with my life. Now, do you want fruit on your land, or do you want briars and thorns? And if you got briars and thorns, and as you walk about on your life, you’re going to find yourself being pricked over and over again, and you’re going going to hurt yourself. But look what else he says in verse 10, for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward his name in that ye have ministered, and you’re going to land this to the saints.

Now, is it supposed to be Christians’ medicine to the saints or the lost man, minnesting to the saints? It’s believers that minister to the saints and do minister and get this. And we desire that every one of you do show, show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end, the end of your race. To you reach that place in maturity where you can bring forth the fruit that God wants to produce in your life. And in verse 12, that you be not slothful.

This is to the Christian. He’s talking about his walk in the Lord. Be not slothful, but followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the promises. And then when you get to Hebrews chapter 11 and the Old Testament saints and the promises that they have somewhere, all of it ties together. But don’t get away from the simplicity. Salvation is always the gift of God. And once you are saved, you cannot lose your salvation. There is no sin that I can commit that can send me to hell.

Christ died for my sins so that I don’t have to pay for them. And now because I am his child, it is the will of my Heavenly Father that we serve the Lord. Look up here. This end represents you and me and the wallet represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God says that He loves us. He hates our sin. And for you and I 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 We have to be perfect as righteous as God because heaven is perfect God is perfect and we have to be perfect to go into heaven But we can’t because of sin and God will not allow us in the heaven Remember the sin is not just the sin that I commit.

It’s the sin nature. That’s within me I could take this away and I still can’t get in Because you see the sin nature is still inside of me. I committed this because I am a sinner So God has to give me a new birth, not change me, not change me, and I send him to church and do all a good deed. God has to give me a new birth. So this hand represents Jesus Christ, he’s the Lord God in the flesh.

He came into the world, he has no sin, no sin nature. So he has no sin. But Christ, because he loves us and hates our sin, it says that he hates it because it separates us from him. So what Christ did for us, He took our sins, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead and said, if we would believe it, He would give us His righteousness. And if God gave me His righteousness, then I would be as righteous as God.

Can I go to heaven if I’m as righteous as God? Well, yes. That’s a righteousness that God gives to me by faith in what He did for me. And God says, once you trust Him, He’ll never cast you out and never lose you. news in all the world. Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bowed and every eye closed and no one looking around, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, right now why not just talk to the Lord and say something simple like this?

Lord, I know I’m a sinner. I don’t understand it all, but I know that I’ve done things wrong. I believe that Christ died, paid for my sins, and I’m going to trust Him this morning. It’s my only hope of going to heaven. Friend, I’m not going to have you forward. I’m not going to embarrass you. But right where you’re sitting, if what I said made sense. Would you say, yes Lord, I will trust Christ as my Savior right now.

And friend, by doing that, God will give you eternal life as a free gift. And they’ll never cast you out, never lose you. And you can know that you’re going to heaven when you die. Would you believe it? Would you trust Him? If you’ve already trusted Christ as your Savior, do you see the responsibility? How that all of us as God’s children are responsible to preach the gospel. One way or another, find a way, because one day we’ll all stand before the Lord and give an account of ourselves.

Let’s pray, shall we? Our Father, we thank you so much for all that you’ve done for us. We’re so thankful that eternal life is truly a gift. It’s free and it lasts forever. And Father, we ask now your blessings upon each person here, help us as your children, to realize that yes, we got a piece of land, our lives, and we can either bring forth fruit or bring forth briars and thorns. The Lord according to your word, you desire better things of us.

Things that accompany salvation doesn’t replace salvation. It’s just a company. We’re thankful for your word in Christ’s name we pray. Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 toll free.

1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our home page at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friends, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleignmenistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

All right, take your Bible and turn to the book of Hebrews and chapter 6, Hebrews chapter 6. Sooner or later, you are going to have to deal with this passage of Scripture. And the reason is because the Scriptures here has something to say that is very easily, well twisted, because it seems to say, well, something along the lines that you can lose your salvation and that you might have to get saved again. And so many people use these verses and so you need to know how to explain them to keep yourself from doubting their questions.

So if you notice the title of it is a study in Hebrews chapter 6 verses 4 through 6. And the first word there are harmonetics. That’s the art of biblical interpretation. In other words, there’s a whole book and lecture that I’ve taught many times on the subject hermeneutics, the arbabar of biblical interpretation. How do you understand the Bible? And so there’s certain things that you’re supposed to do to help you to understand what it’s talking about. And once you learn certain things, they help you to understand the scriptures.

So let’s read there in Hebrews chapter 6, look there in verse 1. Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not land again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and a faith toward God. Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of lannell of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, of eternal judgment, and this will we do, if God permits. For it is impossible for those who are ones enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucified to themselves, the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”

And then he uses an illustration that we’ll look at in just a moment that kind of explains the teaching that’s going on here. The book of Hebrews so that you know, you should always try to find out who is the scriptures talking to, and to understand that the scriptures does not contradict itself. In other words, the teaching in one place will not contradict another situation or another place, if it’s talking about the same subject, talking about the same thing.

Now you can take parts of scripture all over and make it say whatever you want to but not any context. A lot of people just try to make it say whatever they want and sometimes I’ve had people, they’ll ask me says, what do you think about this verse? And I’ll tell them what I think about that verse. Yes, but, because they don’t want to accept that answer, they want it to be a different answer so their conscious doesn’t bother them that if they violate that verse.

So they want to know another verse that makes them feel better. And so that’s why even if you go to Bible college you might study for four years, it’s just to teach you how to study the Bible. Doesn’t mean you come out with, you know, you’re a Bible now and you know everything. It just gives you certain things to study for the rest of your life. But the reason this is important because Because Hebrews is written to believing. Israelites, believing Jews.

These are people that are of the nation of Israel. They’ve trusted Christ as Savior and they still have that inclination of the law that they’ve been doing all their life. It’s just like you and I here. We go to church, don’t we? Yeah. And we read the Bible, yeah. And we’re baptized in water, yeah. But we don’t do those things to be saved. But because we are saved, there’s things that we do. But there are some people they get into teaching that, you know, that’s what you got to do to be saved or to stay saved.

Well, they were doing the same thing on the law. And so they had gotten their messages mixed up. And so it’s so easy to be saved by grace. And then because of air in your theology or teaching, you can believe the wrong thing and begin to teach a message that you were not saved by. But are you still saved? Yeah, you still be saved. But can a Christian teach a false message? Yes, you can teach a false message and still be saved.

But it’s not the will of God and there might be a little chastion coming your way. So we’re supposed to watch ourselves and guard our testimony. So here in the book of Hebrews when he makes the statement and what usually causes the problem is is when it says they’re in verse six, if they shall fall away. Now, look there in your notes at the top of the page there where I have always interpret difficult passages with clear passages. You don’t do it the other way around.

You and I know that salvation is the gift of God. So therefore it’ll never be my works. And since you know that it’s not by works, You know that salvation in the scriptures will never be kept by works. So you know that whatever it seems to say, it cannot say that you’re saved or kept saved by your words. It’s impossible because that would contradict the clear teachings of scripture that a man is saved by grace. If he saved by grace, he is kept by grace.

That means you didn’t earn it to get it and you can’t earn it to keep it. It was given to you as a free gift and you keep it as a free gift. You didn’t do any good works to get it and you don’t do good works to keep it. And your bad works didn’t keep you from getting it and bad works can’t take it away from you. But once you understand that, then you can read the Bible and understand a lot of other scriptures and say, Why not?

I can’t mean this. It can’t mean that. So you eliminate certain possibilities. The next statement there, always compare scripture with scripture. Know this verse. And if it seemed like it says something, check that verse. Because you know that it has to be in agreement. And if you understand it, it will help you as you rightly divide the Word God. Always considered to whom a book is written. So this is the book of Hebrews. So it must be written to who?

Hebrews. All right, they’re saved Hebrews and there’s lost Hebrews. I wonder what kind we’re talking to. We’re talking to those that know the Lord. These are saved individuals. And I preached to sermon the other night on the let us, let us, let us, let us. And and I’m not going to repeat that sermon. But it’s written to those that believe on the Lord. So whatever these verses are saying, it’s saying to those who know the Lord that cannot lose their salvation, so they can’t get saved again.

So you got to find out, okay, what is it saying? And so when someone says, these are those that comes right up to the door of salvation. They’re right there at the door. But they don’t get to go in. No, that’s not what it’s talking about. Now you could use the illustration in the Old Testament where the children of Israel is there in the wilderness and they get right up to the promised man and they didn’t get to go in.

Well, they didn’t get to go in, but that’s not talking about heaven and hell either. The Bible does talk to us about as a child of God going on to maturity. And while a person may be a child of God, it doesn’t mean that they’re automatic, you know, qualified to teach the word of God. So as time goes on, you ought to be learning the word so that you can teach the word. So look there in Hebrews in chapter five and verse 11, of whom we have many things to say and hard to be uttered or explain senior dull of hearing.

For when for the time you ought to be teachers. So we’re talking to those who ought to be something that they’re not. It didn’t say you ought to be saved. No, you ought to be lost. No. It’s talking to those who know the Lord, but are not serving the Lord. They’re not growing in the Lord. They’re not able to teach the Word of God yet. You have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God.

In other words, you got to relay the foundation. Not get saved again, but teach you the simple basic things that you need to understand as a child of God so that you can grow. You don’t have to get a person saved again. And so he says there in verse 13, for every one, now we’re talking to believer. Now we’re talking about lost people. The believer, he says in verse 13, that everyone that uses milk is what? Unskillful in the Word.

So evidently we must be talking about something about, in the book of Hebrews, about a person becoming skillful in the Word of God. And that they were not skillful. In other words, they could not rightly divide the Word of truth. So you may be saved. And you’ve had a Bible for 20, 30, 40 years, but you’re not mature enough to know how to make it work for you. So you don’t just need a knowledge of the Bible, you need a working knowledge of the Bible.

And that’s why he says there, and you look at that verse in chapter 4 and verse 12, for the word of God is quick. I mean, it’s alive. And it’s powerful, and it’s sharper than any two-edged sword. So the thing that lies between a child of God a man of God is the word of God in between. So as you grow in the Lord, you are to mature in the Lord so that you can teach the word of God.

So at this point in your Christian life, can you teach the word of God? So I’ve been saved for 30 years. It’s not the question. These people could have been saved for 30 years, but they were still unskillful in the word of righteousness and they were still considered babes in the Lord. And he’s, well, I know this, I know, but do you have the knowledge of the Word of God that you can teach forth the Word of God? Look what else he says.

In verse 13, everyone that uses milk is unskilledful in the Word of righteousness. He is a babe, but strong meat belong to them that are mature, full age. Those who by reason of use, See those three words, that’s very important. See, if you want to grow in the Lord, learn to use the knowledge that you now have. And if you will use the knowledge that you have, God will give you more knowledge. And when you get more knowledge and then you use that, then you’ll grow and God will give you more.

But if you don’t use what you have, then you’ll lose what you have and you can’t remember the scriptures. You have to, wow, you can’t remember it. it will not be there. So you study the Word of God so that you can use it, and then if you’ll use it, God will give you more because He’s leading you and you’re growing in the Lord. Part of the problem of these, He says, you can’t go to maturity unless God permits you to go.

You say, how does God keep me from going there? He doesn’t give you more light. You may read the Bible and not gain anything. You can go to church and not get why because you’re not walking according to the light you have. And God says there in chapter 6, in verse 3, and this will we do. What will we do? We will go on to maturity if God permits. And why wouldn’t He permit it? Because if you’re not obeying the light that you now have, why should God give you more light?

The more light you get without using it or applying it will only blind you then you can’t see it all. And so that’s why you’re to line up on line, precept upon precept. Here a little, there a little, you’ll learn little by little. God doesn’t allow a man to learn it all at one time. You have to get a little by little and then you have to apply it, then you get some more, and then you apply it, and you grow that way.

And so this is what God’s talking about. See there in verse 14 of chapter 5, where it makes a statement, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern. So you part of your growing in the Lord and maturing in the Lord is your ability to discern. That means you can decide and understand what’s right and what’s wrong. Look back there, just notes. Always consider the context of the passage. So we understand these verses if we eliminate the chapter division and just look at the context.

What are we talking about? Are we talking to the lost men on how to get to heaven? Are we talking about a Christian on how to discern the word of God? A Christian that needs to grow into Lord, a Christian that needs to be maturing in the Lord, a Christian that ought to be able to teach the Word of God. So when you put it in that context in the last part of that, or chapter 6, will make a little bit more sense.

You can understand it. So you always got to consider the context. Look there in your notes where I have number one, three things the author is warning us about. And this is what it says. Now we’ve got to find out what it means. Number one, consequences have fallen away. Whatever that means, there’s consequences. If they shall fall away. So there’s a consequence. The second point, what would happen if they fall away? It’s impossible to renew them. Now you can’t deny that scripture says that.

Why is it impossible? Seeing they crucified to themselves, the Son of God afresh. Again. So what does that mean? Cause that’s what is stated in these verses. And so when you don’t keep it in its context, then you will let your mind run wild and you’ll leave the context and you’ll use imagination and you’ll run hither and dither and go wherever you want to go and try to figure out what it’s talking about. But maybe it’s explained right here where you are.

A lot of times what you find written in a book will be explained in that book, not all the time, but a lot of time the answer is right there. So we know we’re talking to the believers and what they needed to do. Why shouldn’t we go on to maturity? And if I go on to maturity, it means that I haven’t lost my salvation. And if I haven’t lost my salvation, then you don’t have to try to get saved again.

And the reason you don’t have to get saved again is because you didn’t get lost. Just because you did not grow in the Lord and mature in the Lord doesn’t mean that now that’s a sign you never really were saved. No, it doesn’t mean that. It means your babe. Because once you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior, you’re saved forever. Your God’s child forever and that will never change. So number two, there are four views of this chapter. One, a Christian can lose a salvation and there’s people who teach you can lose your salvation.

Number two, a mere profession and not possession of salvation. You’re saying you’re saying but you’re not really saved. Ah, that’s a good possibility. So you can be a Christian and in Lucius salvation. Or maybe you’re somebody who says you’re a Christian and you’re not really a Christian. And the third one is hypothetically, if a Christian could lose their salvation, there is no provision for repentance. Number four, a Christian who falls away is warned of be disqualified for service and blessings now in future reward.

So there’s a bunch of options that you can say, well, this might be, well, this might be. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of God’s people all agreed on what the Word of God says, but that don’t happen? I wouldn’t be great if all the preachers in the world all preach the same gospel. If it is the gospel they are. It’s just that most of not preaching the gospel because the gospel and the test of the gospel is grace.

If it’s not grace, it’s not the gospel. If it’s not eternal, it’s not the gospel. So the gospel has to be free and it has to last forever. And if anyone of those is missing, it’s not the gospel. So it has to be free or it’s not the gospel and it has to be forever or it’s not the gospel. So is the message that people are preaching? Is that what they’re saying? When you tell people that they have to turn from their sin, then it’s not free.

You’ve got to make Christ the Lord and Master of your life, then it’s not free. If there’s something you have to, you’ve got to go to church and live a good life, then it’s not free. Okay, so it is by grace and it’s free. Okay, if it It is free, then it has to be forever. If it’s really free, it has to be forever. And if it’s not forever, it wasn’t really free. Because they took it away from it because you weren’t willing to pay a price on how you lived.

So then it’s got to be free. It has to last forever. Or either of those, it is not the good news of the gospel. Don’t you all understand what I’m saying? I mean, this is the crux of the matter. Majority of preachers do not understand this simplicity. They just don’t get it So anyway Look at number one up there under that a Christian can lose his salvation if this was true. They could not be saved again Why because if they shall fall away it is impossible to renew them again in the word let’s just pretend for a moment you are a saved man and And then because of whatever, now you’ve lost your salvation for whatever reason, then it says you can’t get saved again because it’s impossible for those.

That had been once enlightened and have pasted the heavenly gift and all this stuff. And then to lose it or to fall away, if that means you lose your salvation, then it also means you can’t get saved again because it says right there. If they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance because everybody knows you got to repent to be saved. Well, that could be one of those views. But is that what it’s saying that you can be lost after you’re saved?

And if you can be lost after you’re saved, then it’s also saying you can’t get saved again. Oh boy. And yet how many people preach that, but they never preach that you can’t be saved again. They believe you can get saved and lost, saved and lost, saved and lost, saved and lost. And you just hope you died when you were saved. But you never know for sure. So I don’t believe that’s correct. The second point was a mere profession and not possession of salvation.

Is this just people who are claiming to be saved but not really have ever trusted the Lord? And the reason they say that because they just taste it. Just taste it. See what it says in verse 4? For it is impossible for those who are once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift. Well, if you just taste it, it means you didn’t fully partake of it. Well, the next part of the verse says, and we’re made what? Partakers.

So it’s those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. That’s also mentioned in the book of 1 Peter in chapter 2. Taste and see that the Lord is good. But since it’s right here in the book of Hebrews, look there in chapter 2. Look in chapter 2 and verse 9, where it makes a statement, But we see Jesus who has made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of God, and you are on the line this, should taste death for every man.

Now when he tasted death, do you think did he really die? Yes. He just says he suffered for the suffering of death. And when he tasted death, that’s, have you ever tasted tribulations and trials? Yeah, I just tasted it, but I didn’t go any further than that. It means that you really did go through trials and tribulations. Jesus really did die. And so for those who have tasted the Lord is those who have trusted Christ as their Savior. And you know you have eternal life and you have been enlightened and you have been partakers of the Holy Spirit living within you.

This is the saved people not lost people. This isn’t talking about those that those they’re professing but they’re not real. No, this is talking about real Christians. You ever heard the phrase, you got to be a born again believer Or a born-again Christian? What are the kindnesses? Or you’ve been really saved or gloriously saved? Yeah. Like the guy laying up in this casket. He’s an atheist. All dressed up nowhere to go. Whatever your shame. All dressed up nowhere to go.

But he’s really dead. Now this guy over here in this other casket, he’s just dead. But this guy’s really dead. This guy’s saved, but this guy’s really saved. Now, look there in Hebrews chapter six. So he talks about those in verse four, I believe he’s talking to those that believe on the Lord, and why it’s impossible for those who have been once saved in verse six, if they should fall away to get saved again. And the reason why couldn’t they get saved again?

Well, because that means that Christ would have to die again. Because the only way that a man could be saved and then lost is because it means there had to be a sin that Christ didn’t pay for. So Christ paid for all of your sins, and this is how most people believe it. Christ paid for all of your sins up to the time you believe. Then after that, you’ve got to keep getting forgiveness for all of these individual sins as you commit them.

And if you die before you got convicted, so that’s it, none, you’ve got to go to hell. Either Christ paid for all of my sins, or He’ll have to come back every day to take care of mine. Or did he do it all at one time? It’s appointed unto every man once the die and after this, the judgment. So if Christ is going to die for a man, how many times must he die? One time. Because a man only dies once.

So when a man dies, that’s the end of his life. So when Christ died on the cross for me, he paid for all of my sins. And so the only way that I could lose my salvation is to commit a sin that Christ didn’t pay for. And then if he didn’t pay for that sin, well the only way I could ever get saved again is for Christ to come back afresh, anew, and pay for that sin. Well then, if I commit another sin and then I’ve got to die, well now he got to come back and pay for that sin.

And then I can get saved again. And then if I commit another sin, then I lose my salvation. Then I got away from him to come back and pay for that sins I can get saved again. Well, if this rate Christ would never get off the cross. I mean, how many times would He have to do this? Now, in the Old Testament they had to do it over and over and over again, but Jesus, He’s different. He’s one time for the sins of the whole world and people can’t believe this because it’s so So simple, it’s too easy.

I mean, people say, well, that’s just too easy. That’s just too easy. What if it’s so easy? Why can’t you believe it? You mean you believe it’s hard? What’s this? It is my glasses. So what are that? Does it have a pair of glasses? No, no, no, that’s too easy. Believe hard. Mmm. How do you believe hard? I guess by making it hard to believe. It’s supposed to be something that every person in the world can understand. Even children can understand it.

Going to all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It means it must be something that every person can understand. It didn’t say because of what based upon their education, how smart and intelligent they are because this is hard and complicated now. Now even a child knows something that’s free. It’s free. God loves you. God loves you. Kids can understand that. So here, if you look there in your notes, on the second thing, are these believers or unbelievers?

So what are they? Are these believers or unbelievers? These are believers. are believers, once enlightened and to illuminate their mind and have tasted the heavenly gift. So this is talking to believers and we’re made partakers of the Holy Spirit. And so as you go down through here you can see I’ve got some verses in here that talks about been partakers and partakers and so forth. So the conclusion is that this is clearly to the Christian. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tappa, Florida with Dr.

Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. 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 toll-free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible and programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the radio broadcast link.

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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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 believe in that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 us to be able to help you. for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. 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.

I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Peter chapter two, 1 Peter chapter two. In chapter two and verse two it says, as newborn babes desire the sensor milk of the word that you may grow thereby. It’s one thing to be born into God’s family. It’s another thing to grow in God’s family. You were born into his family when you trusted Christ as your savior and now because you are his child, God wants us to grow.

I want you to take your Bible and turn the book of Romans in chapter 5. The book of Romans and chapter 5, I want you to know there are some things that will help you in your walk with the Lord, say things that will help you to grow. But one thing every Christian needs to be convinced of is that the Bible is the Word of God, that the Bible is the sole authority for faith and practice, for what you believe and what you do.

So that whatever you believe is in agreement with the Word of God and whatever you do does not go against the Word of God so that you know what to think, what to believe and you know what to do with your life. Here in Romans in chapter 5 and verse 1 says, therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know that we’re saved because the Word of God tells us we are.

How are you saved by faith? How do you know you’re saved by faith? Because the Bible says it’s by faith and faith alone. It says that a man is justified, made righteous by faith in Jesus Christ alone, and therefore being justified. Now that I’m going to be justified someday, I am justified right now. I’m just as if I have never sinned in the eyes of God. And you and I are supposed to believe that because the Word of God teaches that.

You see, you cannot grow as a Christian until you’re sure of your salvation. If you’re always wondering whether you’re saved or whether you’re lost, you can never mature as a Christian. Because those building blocks are based upon the foundation and the foundation is Christ. And if you’re not sure of your foundation, you cannot build as a Christian. You’ll never mature. You’ll always be a babe in Christ. So you need to make sure that if you trust that Christ is your Savior, you know that you have eternal life and that you’re going to heaven when you die.

That is the gift of God. Take your Bible looking first John chapter 2, the book of 1 John and chapter 2. And the Bible tells us there in verse 12, I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake. Every one of us as little children in order to grow and to become mature, you have to understand and believe that God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you of all your sins. And now as a child of God, you should forgive yourself Because sometimes Christians cannot grow because they’re still laboring under a load of guilt and will not forgive themselves.

You see, you sinned because you were a sinner. That’s why you sinned. You still have a sinful nature and you’re still going to sin. But God had for a Christ’s sake, not because of any great thing you’ve done, but because of what Christ did for you, God can justify you as though you never sinned forgiven you of all of your sins. So you need to understand that and believe that because that is a foundation upon which you need to build and to grow.

Otherwise you’ll think afterwards, okay, I committed another sin, I must be lost. No God forgave you of all your sin from the time you’re born to the time you die. All of your sins are forgiven because they’re all paid. The only reason God can forgive a sin is because the sin was paid for by Jesus Christ. And you’re simply claiming in that forgiveness. Look in the Bible to the book of Colossians in chapter 1. You and I need to understand that we are only pilgrims in this world.

We’re only passing through and that one day we are going to be with the Lord in heaven and the Bible says in Colossians in chapter 1 verse 27, To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory. Glory is the perfection of God. Glory means there’s no sin there. It means that you and I have come short of the glory of God.

of God’s perfection. So the Bible says when we trust Christ as our Savior, we will one day be glorified. We’ll have a body that will not have any sin in it whatsoever. We will go into the glory of the Lord and to where it is perfect. Heaven is a perfect place. We will enter into that glory. And the Bible tells us that Christ in you is the hope of this joyful anticipation of the perfection that one day you’re going to literally claim and you’re going to be there.

But until then, you know you have been saved from hell and you’re saved to heaven. It’s an incorruptible place, undefiled, reserved in heaven for you. So you were saved from something to something, but we have to live in the nasty here and now. And now what’s causing most of our trouble is the thing that we have to go through now. How do I grow as a Christian? What are some things God tells me that I should do? What are some things that I should not do?

Romans 10, look there in verse 9. He says that, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeeth under righteousness. Remember confessing Jesus Christ to people is not what saves you. It is when you believe with the heart, the Bible says, man, believe it under righteousness. His faith alone is what gets him righteousness. You’re made righteous by your faith.

Not what you do. After you trusted Christ as your Savior, the Bible says confession is made known unto salvation but not for salvation. Because you and I are saved, you and I should confess that. When you trusted Christ as your Savior, have you ever confessed to anybody that you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior? That is something that God does want us to do. And I believe one of the things that helps a person to grow in the Lord is learning to confess Christ at all times in all circumstances, regardless of the trials and tribulations, all the time confessing Christ.

In other words, acting like a Christian at all times. It is God’s will that God’s people confess Christ. Do I have to confess Jesus Christ in order to be saved? No, I do not. When the Bible says here in verse 9 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, that was you believe that Jesus Christ, he is the Lord. And you believe that he died and he paid for your sins and came back again from the dead.

The only way people can ever hear about that is that somebody who believes that in their heart tells somebody about it. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word. Take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Timothy in chapter 4. The book of 1 Timothy and chapter 4. Look there in verse 12. says, Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers. What are you supposed to do between the time that God saves you and the time that God takes you home to be with Him in heaven?

God expects you to be a Christian, live like a Christian, act like a Christian, talk like a Christian, in every area of your life until you get home. That is God’s will. That is a way of you confessing Christ before the world. You’re not to live like the world, think like the world, do the things the world does. God expects his children to be different, to live different, to think different. And therefore you do not look to the world for leadership.

You don’t look to the world for guidance. You don’t look for the government to what to do. you’re to look to the incorruptible Word of God. To find out as a Christian, what does God want me to do? Under any circumstance, you’re to live and think and do like a Christian is supposed to. Why? Because you are a Christian. That’s what you are. And you’re supposed to live that way. In verse 12, let no man despise that youth, but be thou an example of the believers in what?

In word? In conversation or behavior, in charity, in love, in spirit, at your attitude, in faith, and in purity. For how long? Well, look what he says in verse 3. Till I come. Now here, of course, he’s talking about the Apostle Paul. When Paul comes and he’s going to minister to that, I believe we ought to do it also till the Lord comes. Or until you leave this world. Take your Bible and turn all the way over there to the book of Matthew and chapter 10.

Matthew and chapter 10. understanding that as a child of God, you and I are commanded by the Lord to live a certain way. There’s things you’re not to do in your life. Then God says to put off. And he says here in chapter 10 and down in verse 28 and fear not them which killed the body. In verse 31 fear ye not therefore ye are a more value than in his sparrows. See verse 26 tells you what you are called to do and that you’re not to be afraid.

Down in verse 28 you’re not to be afraid of what people can do to you even if they kill you. Down in verse 31 you’re not to be afraid of thinking that I’m not worth anything. I don’t have much value to me. God can’t use me. I don’t have any talents and I don’t have any ability. God says you’re not to put yourself down. You are valuable because God thought you are worth it for him to send his son to die for you.

If nobody else ever trusted the Lord, but only you, you were worth dying for. God thought you were worth the whole world. If a man shall gain the whole world and who shall soul, what did it profit the man? So God says, your soul, your one soul is worth more than all the world and all the wealth and all the world. So if God says you’re valuable, you’re valuable. If God says you’re important, you’re important. because it was worth what he did in order to get you.

And so God so loved the world. And God’s not a respecter of persons. That means that not one person in this world is worth more than anybody else. But neither is anyone worse less than anyone else. So then he says here in verse 32, Who so ever therefore shall confess me before men? Him will I confess also before my Father, which is in heaven. Is it God’s will that you while you’re here? You’re supposed to confess Jesus Christ before others.

You don’t do that to be saved. You were saved by your faith, trusting in what he did for you. But when God saved you gave you eternal life and left you here, you’re supposed to confess Christ before other people. And don’t you be afraid? And don’t you be ashamed of saying, I am a Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ. I know in whom I have believed, and I’m not ashamed of that. No man should be ashamed of that. Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And if you’re not ashamed of it, then preach it. If you’re not ashamed of it, tell people about it. Or why do you hold back? Are you afraid? Listen, in this world, there is nothing that can happen to you. That’s greater than death. And death is our doorway to heaven. Here he makes this statement, him will I confess also before my Father, which is in heaven. This is not for salvation. This is for rewards so that you understand that look in chapter 10 there and look in verse 41 verse 41 He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s what?

Reward and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s Reward and whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of the disciple I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. Rewards are earned. Salvation is free. Going to heaven is the gift of God. It’s not a works, lest any man should boast. So getting to heaven is free.

Rewards, something that you have when you get there, is a result of what you’ve done for the Lord. So when he’s talking about confessing Christ before men, this is not what you have to do to be saved. And God have mercy upon all those preachers who are trying to get people to confess Christ before man in order to be saved, because the Bible doesn’t teach that. A man does not have to let anybody know who’s trusted Christ is saving.

You can trust Christ as your Savior and never let a soul ever know it. But it be a shame and a disgrace to you if you do so. Here in Matthew and chapter 10, look again there in verse 33, but whosoever shall deny me before men. will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. One of the things that will help you to grow as a Christian is learning to talk about the Lord openly and unashamedly and boldly to anybody.

And don’t be afraid of the results. This is why the disciples in Christ, they turned the world upside down. But the day we’re afraid or ashamed, we’re timid or shy. We don’t want to offend anybody. We don’t want to make anybody mad. Why not? But remember when he says here, but if you will deny him before men, him also, my father will deny in heaven. What’s he going to deny you? Salvation? He can’t deny you. Salvation because that was a gift that he gave you without works.

But He can deny you rewards that you want to have. And that’s why He says, if we will serve the Lord down here, God says, by your good work, you’re laying up treasures, treasures in heaven that thieves cannot break through and steal. And moth and rust does not corrupt. It means once it’s laid up, it cannot be lost. That’s why it’s to your advantage to serve the Lord. And it’s to your disadvantage if you don’t serve the Lord, Because it’s cost to you hit blessings now and it’s going to cost you rewards when you get to heaven You said what are those rewards?

I don’t know and I don’t care but whatever they are it will be worth it all It’ll be worth it Take your Bible now and turn to the book of Psalms the book of Psalms in chapter 17 the 17th Psalm Never go to meetings or join in amusements where you would not like the Lord to find you You should not say things. You don’t want to be saying when the Lord comes and you don’t want to be doing something You shouldn’t be doing when the Lord comes and you shouldn’t be in places.

You shouldn’t be when the Lord comes That’s why the Bible says children abiding him that when he shall appear you may not be ashamed before him at his coming Don’t be ashamed now if you knew when he was coming now that maybe you could plan it and get away with it But do you know exactly when he’s coming? Do you know the day of the hour when he’s coming? No. So then you ought to just go ahead and do right because you wish you had of anyway.

Look there in the 17th Psalm and notice what he says there in verse 4. In verse 4, he says, concerning the works of men by the word of by lips I have kept me from the past of the destroyer, realizing that in this world the world has a path that it travels. And the world is doing everything it can to lure you into the path that leads to destruction. Satan doesn’t care how he destroys a Christian just as long as he destroys you.

He doesn’t care how he has to ruin your testimony as long as he wins. You can use a thousand reasons. Well, it was because of some Christians. I didn’t like what they said. I didn’t like this. And I watched this movie and I did. The reasons won’t matter as long as you quit serving the Lord, Satan wins, you lose. And there is a path that leads to destruction. And the world is trying to lure you into its path, but there’s another path.

You see there in verse five, hold up my goings in thy path, that my footsteps slip not. In other words, there’s two paths. The one that the world walks in and the one that God has for you. And you’re the one that determines which path you take. Every child of God, if you want to grow strong in the Lord and you want to be mature in the Lord, you’re gonna have to make up your mind which way do you wanna go?

Do you want his blessings? And if you don’t make the wise decision, remember this. All the fruit comes from a root. And the root decision is I will serve God. And then you make all of your decisions in relationship to that one major decision. If you say, I’m not going to serve a Lord. All of your decisions then are in relationship to that decision. So you have to settle it in your mind. If you really want to grow in the Lord, what am I going to do with my life?

I will serve God, I won’t serve God. And your decisions will reveal which one you really want to do. And you can lie and you can cheat and you can deceive and blame and all the rest of it. Why you didn’t do what God wanted you to do? But the only main reason because I did not really want to serve God because nobody can make you serve the Lord and nobody can stop you from serving the Lord if you choose to do so.

Take your Bible and turn to the book of Mark, chapter eight, the book of Mark and chapter eight. There’s a verse here that every Christian needs to understand that this is talking to a Christian not talking to a lost person. He says, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? It’s not talking about Christian going to hell, it’s talking about your life because you see a fairy in verse 34. When he had called the people unto him with his disciples, he said unto them, whose silver will come after me, let him deny himself, take of his cross and follow me.

This is to the Christian. Not about how to get to heaven but how to live your life. This is talking about those who already know they’re going to heaven, but now what are you going to do from the time that he saved you? In the time you get to heaven, what are you going to do? You got to make up your mind. He says, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel the same shall find him.

In other words, that’s your purpose in living. If you will do what God wants you to do, you’ll find your purpose in living. It’s why God left you here. the statement in verse 36, for what shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his purpose for living? If he loses his life, he wastes his time. Remember, life is what time is made out of. And when you waste time, you waste life. And you don’t get much of that to live.

You only got so many years in which to live, so many years in which to accomplish something for the Lord. If he gains the whole world and you lost your purpose and living. What did it profit? What did you gain? And then he uses this phrase, what shall a man give in exchange for his life? Remember that if God tells you I want you not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together and you do. Okay, what did you get for it?

You traded obedience for disobedience. Or was it worth it? What did you gain by disobeying God? Whatever you gained is temporary because what it cost you was something eternal. Rewards that you would have gained when you got to heaven. The blessings of God upon you now. You exchanged something that was permanent, that was spiritual, that was eternal, and you gave it all up for something that was temporary. For a moment, have you ever seen a little child And you can offer them a piece of candy for something valuable, and they don’t know the value of it.

Oh, give me the candy. And that’s the way Christians are. Satan offers you little trinkets and you take them. And yet Satan offered Christ the kingdoms of the world. And he says, no. He turned them down. Because he knew the real value. You revealed your wisdom by the decisions that you make, by the life that you live. You don’t give to God’s work the way you should or you disobey. By your disobey that you exchanged that obedience for something.

What did you gain by not doing it? See I was gonna give $50 but I changed my mind and I’m gonna keep it for myself and I’m not gonna give to God’s work. Okay you made a choice. You exchanged it. I’ll tell you that that $50 is not worth any amount of of what you supposedly gained with and what you can buy based upon what you could have done by your obedience to God. Do you read the word? Do you pray?

He said, no, what did you exchange for it? I exchanged my Bible reading for worries. Instead of praying, I worry. What’d the gentleman give an exchange for his life? See, as a child of God and you want to grow to maturity, That is revealed by the wisdom that you have and the choices that you make. You have to settle it in your mind. I want God’s best for me. And when you get that clear in your mind, that helps you to make all these other decisions that you need to make.

But it all goes back to that. Look in the book of Luke chapter 14. And Luke chapter 14, I want you to notice there in verse 27. He makes the statement similar to what we saw just a moment ago in the book of Mark, but a few things I want to share with you. In verse 27, and whosoever, deaf not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. Now you can be saved without being a disciple.

You can have eternal life because that was a gift. The God gives you that. But you may never serve God. And he says whosoever, that means it’s a choice. You see, your salvation was a choice. Remember John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever, whosoever, that’s the choice. God doesn’t make people believe, God doesn’t make people reject Him. Now out of those who do believe it, God says whosoever, whosoever will, can have something in those that won’t, they won’t get it.

God will use those that will dedicate themselves as I want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. I want to serve Him. I want to grow. I want to be what God wants me to be. So then He says here in verse 28. Why does some Christians seem like they start off like a rocket and then they fizzle out just as fast? They never maintain that steadfastness in the Lord. He says, for which of you intended to build a tower, it said if not down first.

In other words, it’s something you ought to do first. Sit down and figure out what’s it gonna cost me? You as a child of God need to understand if you say I’m gonna serve Lord, it’s gonna cost you all kinds of things that you’ll have to do in your life. And it’s gonna cost you because you got to replace it with something better. And a lot of people are not willing to pay that price for discipleship. You see salvation costs us nothing.

But discipleship will cost you everything. And he says, how many of you do not sit down first? And it says in verse 20, count the cost. What’s it gonna cost me? Look what else he says down in verse 31. Or what king going to make war against another king said if not down first? First of all, you got to counsel in yourself. What’s it gonna cost?

What is it gonna take to finish? Otherwise, you’ll be like the verse 30 says, this man began to build but was not able to what? wasn’t able to finish. You started off, but you didn’t finish because you didn’t count the cost. Serving God can cost you friends. It can cost you an awful lot. It can cost you finances. It can cost you promotions because you might let people know you’re Christian and you believe that serving God is more important than anything else in the world in you.

And maybe you don’t want to go to the places where you used to go. You don’t want to do the things that you used to do. You say, well, well, maybe you do want to do them, but you realize it’s not the best. And so as a child of God, you’re going to have to make a decision. And you sit down and you think, what’s it going to cost me? And you need to understand also what am I going to gain because of it?

And realizing that what you it cost you is only costing you here. But what you gain, You’re going to gain it there. And you cannot out serve God. You cannot out give God. And that God will take care of you here and reward you when you get to heaven. And then he makes the statement here in the last part of verse 31, sit us down first and consult with whether he be able with 10,000. In other words, it’s not do you have enough money to finish, do you have enough faith to finish.

You grow because of that little confidence that you have in God. I want God’s will for my life. And I believe that God will bless me. And I believe God will help me. And when you face your temptations and your trials and your tribulations, I believe God will help me. And because I believe that, though I don’t understand a lot, by faith, because I’m going to keep on studying the Word of God and faith coming by hearing and hearing by the Word of God and your faith increases.

And as your faith increases. That’s what you need to sustain you through life, whether you have money or whether you don’t have money. Whether people are for you or whether people are against you. You’ve got to sit down and think, can me and God, between me and God, we can whoop anybody. Me and God can take on any trial. Me and God can whip any temptation that I have. Me and God. Without Him I can’t do anything but with God I can do all things through Christ which strengthen with me.

You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 tool free, 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link.

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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10.30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline 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. live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the 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. As a child of God, you can’t live as you please and get away with it. You can try. But there’s a God in heaven that has laws set up. Call the law of sowing and reaping, the law of the harvest. You reap what you sow, you reap later than you sow, and you reap much more than what you sowed.

So God is in charge. Do you think for a moment that God knows what’s going on in this nation? I think God knows what’s going on in this nation. You see, well, why don’t God do something? He is doing things. He most certainly is. You see, there’s a thing that you need to understand. It’s not whether or not is God on my side, is God a Republican or is God a Democrat, is God an independent? What is God? I sure hope God’s on our side.

Well, it’s interesting. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Joshua chapter 5, the book of Joshua and chapter 5. You see, to recognize God’s jurisdiction is a way of appreciating his sovereignty. Understand very clearly, there are extremes in everything. One of the extremes is this, secular humanism, humanism, human man, man in charge, no God, no creation. Man is the epitome of all things. Man is God. And so man can determine his own destiny. So it is a religion in itself, the religion of humanism.

If you follow humanism to its ultimate destination, it will always lead to socialism and communism. It has to go that way, because it is the survival of the fittest. It means that a few people get in power and control the rest. It will not be for individual freedoms and liberty and life and the pursuit of happiness, because there is no such thing. You have no right to anything. will be controlled. So it always leads to bondage, humanism. That is what is being taught in our schools today.

Now that is one extreme, but there’s another extreme. The extreme of religion. You see religion, not Christianity, religions of the world when they are in charge and they can control will always be oppressive. All religions because they mandate by force how you must live. How you’re going to live. Take for example the religion of Islam. That peaceful religion. It’s not peaceful. It’s not of God. The Quran is a war manual. Muhammad was not a prophet of God and Allah is not God.

You say, you shouldn’t say things like that. And blessed be God. Why not? It’s the truth. So anyway, because everybody believes that they oppress everybody. And you are free to worship the religion of Islam. And they’ll all do the same thing. Oh, they may pray there five times a day and they get on their knees and they bow and all that time. And everybody does it. You’d be scared not to do it. But it becomes oppressive. That’s not freedom.

The thing that makes true Christianity different is Christ. Christ sets us free. Christ says, be not entangled with the yoke of bondage and entangled with the laws of man and not the freedom that we have in Christ. But what I want you to see here in the book of Joshua in chapter 5, there’s an interesting story here that come up to the river Jordan. They’re about to cross the river Jordan. They’ve been in the wilderness for 40 years, Moses has passed away.

Joshua is now in charge. And so they had to get some new food in the new place because the manna had stopped. Now you wanna live and you wanna eat. Hey, there’s some over there in that land. You just gotta cross a little river here and get over there and there’s Jericho. There’s a big city of Jericho and the walls around it, fortified giants in the lands. That’s a scare half the death. And there was another little town called A.I.

which is mentioned in chapter 7. A little town called A.I. and a big one called Jericho. So the key comes down is, Lord, who side of you on? Are you on our side? Are you on their side? So we’ve got to find out what side God’s on. Well, look what he says here in Joshua chapter 5, looking verse 13. And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.

And Joshua went unto him and said unto him, our thou for us or for our adversaries. Hey, are you with us or are you with him? Hey, who are you for? Who side you want? This was an angel of the Lord. And it’s not so much as are you on our side. The question to ask is are you on his side? Are you on God’s side? So you always try to find out where does God stand and I stand with him.

That’s where I stand. It’s not am I a Republican, a Democrat, a Washington Aborigine, or Penn Striped. am I standing where God stands? What would God want me to do? How would God want me to vote if I had the freedom, the choice of voting? I would find out what are the principles, the principles that affect life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Because true freedom gives you the choice of how do you live your life? liberty that you have, to be what you want to be, to pursue whatever it is that you believe God wants you to have.

That’s freedom. That’s why this country was set up different from all countries, never had one like this country. We have truly been blessed. And so because of this, we have the freedom of choice. So an individual should always keep in mind when And it comes to somebody in place of leadership or in government who are given a power or authority to make laws, you want them to make laws in agreement with God’s. No man has any authority to make any law contrary to the Word of God.

He has no jurisdiction. God, James chapter 4, John, he is the law giver. The Lord, he’s the law giver. He gave the law. He knows how to run a nation. God knows how to run a family. So when the family is falling apart, it’s because you’re not making choices in agreement with God. When your individual life is falling apart, it’s not because God isn’t in charge and God is not, you’re not making choices in agreement with God’s choice. You see, God has told us how to make decisions, choices, right choices, that’s why he says order it over again.

Choose you this day. Choose your choice. And if you choose the right thing, they’re going to be certain consequences. You choose the wrong thing, they’re going to be consequences. So it’s up to us to make wise choices. God, who is going to go by your decision, the choices that you make. That’s why it’s so very, very important. So he says in verse 14, and he said, nay, but as captain of the host of the Lord, am I now come?

and Joshua fell on his face to the earth and says, I’m on your side. That was in Hebrew. I’m on your side. I submit to you. You see, it wasn’t that God was just choosing. I’m on Israel’s side. And that’s why you won the Battle of Jericho. The first one to go across was the priest, not the army. Now, when you come over to this other little bitty place, they came to the conclusion that’s a small place, so we don’t have to send a lot of them in there.

Well, let’s just send about 3,000 of them in there. So they went up and they got hooked. Well, wasn’t God on their side? And God says, you sinned against me. You sinned against me. whether something is big or whether something is small, your decisions are important because are you on his side? Not whether he’s on your side. Are you on his side? Do you find out where God stands on things and you make decisions in agreement with the Lord?

As you look at the election, one of the things you could always look at and think about is this. You want a government that is set up and designed to protect as an individual your right to life and your liberty and your pursuit, your freedom to be and choose what you want. That’s not government’s job. Government’s job is not determined who lives and who dies. You already have the right by God. So therefore people who are for abortion, it is murder, it is not according to the Lord.

It violates Godly principles, and therefore the individual should wait carefully. Should I vote for a person who wants to take away the right of a person life? You think it through? Become intelligent? The scripture that was read by Jay this morning about young Solomon making a wise decision, and God God gave him an understanding heart to discern, to make judgment, and God richly blessed him. And the whole nation, sin is a reproach unto any people, and God will bless a nation that is a righteous nation, and a nation whose God is the Lord.

So we want God, bless America without yielding to God. And you can’t have it both ways. It has to be, I want God to bless America because we’re one nation under God’s authority, under his sovereignty, accepting his rule, his law, his judgment. You see, we want God bless America so that we can live as dirty and as rotten, as filthy as we want to live. That’s not what freedom is about. You see, God has made decisions. He’s already decided that He’ll bless those that honor Him.

And He’s going to chasten those that will not. So as an individual, you look at it and you look at a candidate and you find out which one comes closer to preserving the longest life and the liberty and my right to do whatever I want to do is my dream. It’s not government’s job to determine your dream. It’s not government’s job to determine what job you have and work for and how much you get paid. It’s not government’s job to take from these people and give to these people.

That is not their jurisdiction. They have none. Our Constitution doesn’t give them the right. You say, well, they’re so compassionate. They’re so feeling and so loving. They want to help everybody. Take all your money and help all you want. I don’t care. But you don’t have the right to take mine. I want to do with my money what I want to do. Why should I give it to you? That’s not your job. We’re supposed to pay for them to protect this country and post-office in the roads.

There ain’t many more things outside of that there’s supposed to do. You see, as individuals, government needs to understand. They don’t make laws governing the home. They have no jurisdiction over the home. God established the home. home. God made the laws for the home. Government is to make sure that another man doesn’t take away the right of another man. Or here’s a family. You don’t have a right. You have no jurisdiction, no power to impose upon another family. You don’t do that.

There’s a limit, for example. Back to that ball field. That ball game is going to go on. There is a playing feel and there’s an out of bounds. You see you’re supposed to do all you’re playing with inside those boundaries and the referee is just supposed to make sure you play according to the rules. And when they throw that flag and Leroy said, what do you do that for? purposely tried to hurt the quarter back 15 yards. He says, you stink.

He says, another 15 yards. He says, now how do I smell? You see, the one that can make the rules based upon the choices you make on the field. You see, they just can’t arbitrarily, I just find you $50,000 for what? because I just wanted to. You were out of bounds. I was not. You see, they’re supposed to play by the rules. So there’s this team and there’s this team and there’s another team called refs who are determining whether you stay inside the boundaries.

And did you play according to the rules? Whether you get kicked out of the game or penalize 15 yards when it comes to life, there’s a ref. and you don’t see the wrath, but you’re still on the playing field and he says you have all kinds of freedom as long as you stay within the boundary. When you go outside of the boundary, God is free to chasten you. Or if you don’t play according to the rules within the playing field, God can chasten you, discipline you and maybe take you home.

You see, God is in charge. He is the ref and he does see and nothing misses his eyes. I watched the game of two weeks ago and I thought the guy’s blind is a back and lo and behold most of the nation thought so too. But God doesn’t miss anything. Did you really understand that there is a sovereign God who is on the throne and who is rolling and that you can’t make any decision you want without suffering the consequences of your decision.

Do you realize that your buried life, your breath is in his hands? He even makes a statement in the book of Corinthians in chapter 11. He says, and many are sick and many are weak and some are dead because they violated his law, his rules. Didn’t play according to the rules. That’s why you study the Word of God so you’ll know how to live life. Government has no jurisdiction over the Church of Jesus Christ. God never gave government that right.

There’s thing government, government’s not free to do whatever they want to do, there is a boundary. They have a certain jurisdiction and the Congress is bound by the change of the Constitution about what they can and cannot do. So this is why every child of God, you study the word of God so that you know what’s right and what’s wrong. What is in agreement with the principles of God and you make your decision based upon those principles. Now there’s people that run for office.

I don’t like the one. It’s not my religion. It’s not what I believe. But when I get on an airplane, I don’t ask them. I just hope the guy knows how to fly the plane. Sometime I don’t even get to see the guy at the parapolo in that plane. I just hope he can get me up and get me down safely. When it comes to running a nation, I just want somebody who understands their limitations, the jurisdiction, things they cannot do.

I want a man that appreciates life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They don’t determine that. They only protect the right for you to do it. They’re not to supply the needs of everybody in the world. You see, there’s nothing. in our country that government has to do concerning caring for one another. I get a lot of flack on this, but it’s okay. I believe that if you are taught the Word of God and you love the Lord, and you learn the love of the people, then you want to help people.

You want to help people. I believe we ought to be charitable to give and to help, But I don’t believe we need our government to pass a law dictating that you have to give your money so they can give it to whoever they choose. That’s not their right. So they should not violate our right. And by the stroke of the pen, the illegal plunder steal the wealth from the American people and give it to people so they’ll vote for them.

I believe it’s wrong. It’s not according to the principles found in this book. So therefore, I just wanted to share that with you just a little bit. Freedom means you control the choices and God controls the consequences. The progress of a nation is directly related to the state of its morality. Let me read it to you again. The progress of of a nation is directly related to the state of its morality. We want to go forward, whatever. What is the morality of this nation?

Would you say it’s good? You say, you can’t legislate morality. Why not? Have you ever heard of the moral law? That’s the moral law. It means God legislated morality. What do you want? Laws that legislate immorality, so that people can live in whatever sin they want in it to be an acceptable lifestyle? Sin is sin. Wickedness is wickedness. I could get sidetracked here today, and I’m trying my best not to. I had determined before I decided to preach this sermon, I’m not gonna make anybody mad.

I was just gonna be nice and cool. But look up here now. you’ll see the because this is so important. This is what’s behind everything because you see, regor stand God is sovereign. It means that God makes decisions without your permission. To understand that sovereignty of God means that everything happened because God caused it or God permitted it. Can’t get away from it. This hand represents you and me. This wallet represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God loves us.

Now, he hates what we do wrong, but he loves us. But he says, everybody is a sinner. Everybody does wrong. We’re all in the same boat. And God says, the wages of sin is death. So that means that we are all condemned to die, to be eternally separated from the Lord. But God loves us. God loves you. Wants you to go to heaven. To go to heaven means that you have to be perfect as righteous as God. And nobody’s perfect.

You see, God being sovereign, He decided this. He didn’t even ask our opinion. He decided this after the counsel of His own will. And for us to be with Him for eternity means that we have to be perfect just like Him. If we went to heaven the way we are right now, with lying heaven. With cheat, kill, murder, rape, and you name it, we’ll do it. So God says, you can’t go unless you’re perfect. What, then nobody gets to go.

How you gonna get there? So God says, by your works, you’ll never earn eternal life. So you don’t go to church, hoping that you’ll be good enough to go to heaven or giving money or trying to live a certain way thinking that this is why I’m going to heaven because I’m so good. God says that won’t even help. So how are you going to get there? There’s only one way. You see, this hand represents Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, well, He’s the Lord.

He’s God. He has no sin. Doesn’t have to die. He came into this world and lived a perfect life. Didn’t have to die because it didn’t sin. But because He loved us, He took all the sin of all the world upon Himself. Paid for it, came back from the dead. He said that if we would believe that He did it for us, He would put this payment that He made to our account, and we get to go to heaven on what He did.

So when you believe that Christ died and paid for your sins, it means you don’t have to pay for your sins. He paid for them. He’s paid for the sins of the whole world, but that payment’s not put to your account unless you believe He did it for you. So when you believe He did it for you, He gives you as a free gift, eternal life, and you get to go to heaven. I’m going to heaven whenever I die, because, see, all my sins have been paid for.

I didn’t do it. I don’t deserve to go to heaven. It’s called grace. Grace means unmerited favor. I didn’t merit it. And people can’t believe that. It sounds so strange. But, you see, God is sovereign, and He didn’t ask our opinion. He just said, this is the way it is. And if you want to go to heaven, you’re going to have to accept it the way it is. You cannot earn it. Do you get that? You can’t earn your way to heaven.

So don’t even try. The only way to get to heaven is will you believe that when Christ died, He died for you. And if you believe He died and paid for your sins, means you know that you don’t have to pay for them and you know that you couldn’t earn it and you’re trusting Christ as your Savior and you’re going to heaven because of what he did. He gets all the honor, he gets all the credit, he gets all the glory.

You get how much? None. Because you didn’t do anything. He did it all. Christ paid for all of your sins, all of mine. Now, were you believe he did it for you? See, there’s no tricks to this, this will get me. You can’t go to heaven. Joining this church ain’t gonna get you to heaven. Being baptized, I’m gonna get you to heaven. seeing your prayers and counting your beat. That won’t get you to heaven. Nothing gets you to heaven, except Christ.

Will you trust Him? If you will, God said He would save you and give you His free gift of our lasting life. Let’s pray, shall we? If you’re here this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ as your savior, friend, that’s the most important thing you can ever do. You see, the only way Christ can rule your life and bless you is because you make the right decision. Will you become God’s child? Will you become his child? Will you accept him as your Savior?

He said, if you’ll trust him right now as your Savior, he would give you right now as a free gift ever lasting life. And if it’s ever lasting life, it lasts forever. It lasts forever and all you send are paid. Where would you go when you die? You’d go to heaven. Don’t that make sense? It’s simple. It’s free. It’s free. It doesn’t cost you anything. God loves you so much. Would you trust him? If you will, I’d like to know and I’d like to have prayer for you.

and I’d like to have prayer for you. I’m not going to have you forward. I’m not going to have you stand up. Not going to embarrass you. But if what I said made sense to you, and you say, preacher, that made sense to me, and I will trust Christ as my Savior this morning, and I’d like for you to know it, and I’d like for you to pray for me. Would you just slip your hand out quickly and put a right back down?

Does anyone at all? And by that, say yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior. Our Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for every family here. We thank you for our church. We thank you for our nation. We pray Lord for good people in place of leadership to make wise decisions to protect our life, liberty, so that we can enjoy the freedom of fulfilling our God given responsibilities. We just pray, Lord, Your will, be done in Christ and we pray.

You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 tool free. 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Would you say that the world is a mess? I mean, believe it’s a mess. Alright, how many believe that God is on the throne? I mean, believe that God’s in charge. I mean, believe that the world is a mess. I mean, believe that God’s in charge. We got a problem, don’t we? We have a problem. You hear all the time that God is still on the throne. Alright, He’s on the throne. He’s ruling in the affairs of men. Something don’t look right.

The world’s a mess and God’s in charge. What about your home? Can your home, Dad, be a mess and you’re in charge? Ooh. Can the church be a mess and the preachers in charge? I wouldn’t know about this one. How many believe the nations in a mess? And the presidents in charge. You say, where in the world are you going? I haven’t got a clue. I’m a mess. You’re a mess. The whole world’s a mess. Well, maybe we’ll get a few things straightened out here.

I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Romans in chapter 13. Romans chapter 13. I want to speak on the sovereignty of God in the choice of man, the choices of man. If God’s in charge, it means that God is sovereign and if God is sovereign, he answers to nobody. So dads, you may be in charge of your home, but you’re not sovereign. The pastor and the elders and the deacons may run the church, but they’re not sovereign.

You as an individual, you can make your own decisions, but you’re not sovereign. There’s only one that is, and He doesn’t answer to anybody. Do you have to answer to anybody? Individually, you have to answer to God. In the home, do the children, are they in charge? Don’t answer that. the children are in charge? But they’re not sovereign. There’s people in our church, nation. We have a problem. And remember, if there is a problem, there’s only two kinds of answers, gods and everybody else’s.

So the key is toouple out what is the answer to the problem, to the chaos, to the mess. And so there’s a God that says he’s in charge. So sometimes you wonder, well, what are you doing about it? Look at this world. Look at the mess of the homes. Look at how me different churches there are and they’re all fighting and disagree with everybody? Look at the nation. Look at the nations of the world. It is a total mess, a chaos.

And God is in charge. Now there has to be, I asked a person one time, I says, what’s a happy medium? Says a jolly fortune teller. You’ll get that after a while. I want you to look there in the book of Romans in chapter 13. Have you ever wondered whose side is God on? Whose side is God on? I mean when you stop and think about it, you have the Republicans and the Democrats. I wonder if God is a Democrat or is he a Republican?

Did you ever think he might be an independent? Maybe he don’t vote at all. The Buccaneers, are they playing today? are? Who are they playing? Who? Kansas City Chiefs. How many teams are on the field? Three. Did you know that there is the Buccaneers, Kansas City Chiefs, and a team of referees? What side are they on? Who side are the refs on? Well the referees are not supposed to be on any side. They’re just to referee the game. But anyway, we could get in just a minute.

By the way, is which team do you think God wants to win? Somebody else say to Buccaneers! But there’s people that are probably saying God is on the other side, Kansas City Chiefs side. So if we could only find out, well, whose side is God on? Well, here are in a book Romans chapter 13 verse 1, let every soul be subject unto the higher power. Every soul means every soul. It means every person in the world. Every soul, higher power, there is no higher power than God.

He is supreme authority. And in His sovereignty to do whatever God wants to do and answer to nobody, because when God came up with this plan, He didn’t ask me or you for an opinion. He did it without us. He have determined all things after the counsel of His own will. Well, there’s a verse in the Bible that says that. After the counsel of his own will, he said within his self, self, this is the way it’s going to be.

God is in charge. He’s rolling. He’s on the throne. He’s not sick. He’s not dead. If he’s in charge of what? Did he just wind this thing up And then take a vacation. So you’re on your own. See you later. We’re in a mess. And God’s in charge. How can he be ruling in the affairs of man if everybody does whatever they want to do? Doesn’t he make people obey him? Evidently he’s not making anybody do anything. He’s letting them get away with murder.

So how do you justify all of this? all of this. I can’t wait to hear what I’m going to say. And I can’t hear too good because you don’t have a hearing aid in this ear. So I’m only going to hear half of what I’m saying. Romans 13, for there is no power, no authority but of God. The powers that be ordained of God. What are these areas of authority? When God made a man, God gave him certain authority.

Authority to make decisions, to rule the Garden of Eden. Told him some things to do, and told him one thing not to do. How did he do? Look around. The individual is very important. So it is God who gave the institution of self-government to an individual. It is God who established the home. That is a divine institution. When it comes to the church, it is a divine institution designed by God. God designed the church. When it comes to government, Genesis, chapter 9, God designed government.

It is a divine institution created by God. So God has given to the individual certain authority. God has given to the head of the home certain authority. God has given to the church certain authority. God has given to the nation a government certain authority. authority. God is responsible. He set all of this up. But in His sovereignty to set it up any way He chooses, He chose to give man a free will. He gave us the right to make choices.

So that means that if He gave us responsibilities, He gave us jurisdiction. See, God has jurisdiction over the world. Everything is under his jurisdiction. He is allowing us to make decisions at this point in time. There is coming a time when the Bible says he will have put all things under his feet. It means that when Jesus comes to the earth himself, he will rule and reign and And it’ll be the way you knew it could have been. We will have the Prince of Peace ruling and there will be peace.

Because He will be here literally Himself in charge. Right now, God is still just as much in charge as when Jesus comes and sets up His Kingdom. He’s in charge right now. You see, God didn’t take a vacation. He’s not on a journey somewhere. He’s on the throne and His laws are in effect and He is ruling. He is making decisions. There are consequences to all these decisions. But look what He has when He talks about the divine institution of government.

In verse 2, whosoever therefore resisteth the power, the authority, the jurisdiction of government. Look up here just a second. The individual that we’ve come to understand has the right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. That’s a good thing. All of those, those three came from the Word of God. God gave an individual the right to life. God had granted him life. And God has granted to that individual liberty, the freedom to fulfill God’s responsibility. The first man and woman that God ever made, he didn’t have to answer to anybody outside of that jurisdiction.

He was the only man, She was the only woman. And then they messed that up. But you see, the family has jurisdiction. The man is to be the head of the home. I mean, he has jurisdiction. He is the authority. I know most women don’t like that, but it doesn’t matter. Your opinion don’t count. God is in charge. God is sovereign, and that’s the way he said it up. Now, I can’t help but if that guy you married is a bum and a no-good astoundrel, and maybe he is.

And you may have to make some wise decision because the guy is not a man to take responsibility. And there’s a lot of those around. But think for a moment. because there is an individual that is a low life, a astoundrel, a dirty dog, would you say that all men are alike? Not non girls, don’t do that. All the men are alike. No, all men aren’t the same. are some men who are good men, godly men. So don’t say, well, they’re all like that.

They’re not all like that. Okay, now we move it up to this family. There’s a family. Now in this family, there is jurisdiction means he gets the right to make decisions that governs the family. And he may make good decisions. He might make some bad decisions, but he is responsible. He has jurisdiction. But if a man doesn’t do the job and his home falls apart, would you say all families are the same? No. What they’re all like that? No, they’re not.

There’s a lot of them like, but not all of them. There are some men who are godly men and they realize they have jurisdiction, they have accountability, they have responsibility. And they know that God in heaven who sets up these areas of divine institutions is going to have to count to him. So you as an individual, I’ll do whatever I want, Anyway, I want you can try. You can make decisions and choices that may not be the best. But the God in heaven has already declared before he ever set this thing up.

Those who would be obedient and make wise choices, God said, I’m going to bless you. And individuals who say, I’ll do whatever I want and nobody can stop me. I’ll live like I please. You can make the choice, but God in heaven is free to determine the consequences of your decisions. So you see, there is a God in heaven that rules. For example, here’s Mommy and Daddy with a little Johnny. Little Johnny is misbehaving. So daddy takes little Johnny in the other room and blisters his little behind.

Now just because Johnny is rebellious and he’s got a bad attitude and wants his own way. Does that mean that daddy is not in charge just because the child seems to be disobedient? It doesn’t mean that his jurisdiction has been removed or he’s not in charge or that he can’t discipline that child. It doesn’t mean that just because a child is rebellious doesn’t mean that his rights and his authority is null and void because they are rebellious.

In the same way it is with God, just because you don’t see God doesn’t mean that God isn’t real. Just because you can’t see the devil doesn’t mean the devil isn’t real. There is a God in heaven that rules in the affairs of men. So God can bless our chasing. God can allow to live or take out of this world. So you see, God is in charge. He’s not on the vacation. He is even at this point in your life, ruling in your life.

It doesn’t mean you fully obey Him. You may not obey Him at all. That doesn’t mean that he’s still not in charge. But did you know the God who is in charge has the freedom to bring all kind of things into your life? Because your life to be one miserable hell on earth as a result of your bad choices? You see, as a child of God, you can’t live as you please and get away with it. You can try.

But there’s a God in heaven that has laws set up. Call the law of sowing and reaping, the law of the harvest. You reap what you sow, you reap later than you sow, and you reap much more than what you sowed. So God is in charge. Do you think for a moment that God knows what’s going on in this nation? I think God knows what’s going on in this nation. You say, well why don’t God do something? He is doing things.

most certainly is. You see, there’s a thing that you need to understand. It’s not whether or not it’s God on my side, it’s God a Republican, or it’s God a Democrat, it’s God an Independent. What is God? I sure hope God’s on our side. Well, it’s interesting. Take your Bible and turn to the the book of Joshua chapter 5. The book of Joshua. And chapter five, you see to recognize God’s jurisdiction is a way of appreciating his sovereignty. Understand very clearly.

There are extremes in everything. One of the extremes is this. secular humanism, humanism, human man, man in charge, no God, no creation. Man is the epitome of all things. Man is God. And so man can determine his own destiny. So it is a religion in itself, the religion of humanism. And if you follow humanism to its ultimate destination, it will always lead to socialism and communism. It has to go that way because it is the survival of the fittest.

It means that a few people get in power and control the rest. It will not be for individual freedom and liberty and life and the pursuit of happiness because there is no such thing. You have no right to anything. You will be controlled. So it always leads to bondage, humanism. That is what is being taught in our schools today. Now that is one extreme, but there’s another extreme. The extreme of religion. You see, religion, not Christianity. Religions of the world when they are in charge and they can control will always be oppressive.

religions because they mandate by force how you must live, how you’re going to live. Take for example the religion of Islam, that peaceful religion. It’s not peaceful. It’s not of God. The Quran is a war manual. Mohammed was not a prophet of God and Allah is not God. You say you shouldn’t say things like that. And blessed be God. Why not? It’s the truth. So anyway, because everybody believes that, they oppress everybody. And you are free to worship the religion of Islam, and they’ll all do the same thing.

Oh, they may pray their five times a day, and they get on their knees and they bow and all that time and everybody does it. You’d be scared not to do it. But it becomes oppressive. That’s not freedom. The thing that makes true Christianity different is Christ. Christ sets us free. Christ says, be not entangled with the yoke abundance and entangled with the laws of man and not the freedom that we have in Christ. But what I want you to see here in the book of Joshua in chapter 5, there’s an interesting story here that come up to the river Jordan.

They’re about to cross the river Jordan. They’ve been in the wilderness for 40 years. Moses has passed away. Joshua is now in charge. And And so they had to get some new food in the new place because the manna had stopped. Now you want to live and you want to eat? Hey, there’s some over there in that land. You just got to cross the little river here and get over there and there’s Jericho. There’s a big city of Jericho and the walls around it, fortified, giants in the lands.

That’s the scare half the death. And there was another little town called A.I. which is mentioned in chapter 7. A little town called A.I. and a big one called Jericho. So the key comes down this. Lord, whose side are you on? Are you on our side? Are you on their side? So we’ve got to find out what side God’s on. Well look what He says here in Joshua chapter 5, look in verse 13. And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.

And Joshua went unto him and said unto him, our thou for us or for our adversaries. Hey, are you with us? Are you with him? Hey, who are you for? Who side you on? This was an angel of the Lord. And it’s not so much as are you on our side. The question to ask is are you on his side? Are you on God’s side? So you always try to find out where does God stand and I stand with him.

That’s where I stand. It’s not, am I a Republican, a Democrat, a foot washing Aborigine, or Penn Stripe. Am I standing where God stands? What would God want me to do? How would God want me to vote if I had the freedom, the choice of voting? I would find out what are the principles, the principles that affect life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Because true freedom gives you the choice of how do you live your life, the liberty that you have, to be what you want to be, to pursue whatever it is that you believe God wants you to have.

That’s freedom. That’s why this country was set up different from all countries. Never had one like this country. We have truly been blessed. And so because of this, we have the freedom of of choice. So an individual should always keep in mind when it comes to somebody in place of leadership or in government who are given a power or authority to make laws, you want them to make laws in agreement with God’s. No man has any authority to make any law contrary to the Word of God.

He has no jurisdiction. God, James chapter 4, John, he is the law giver. The Lord, he’s the law giver. He gave the law. He knows how to run a nation. God knows how to run a family. So when the family is falling apart, it’s because you’re not making choices in agreement with God. When your individual life has fallen apart, it’s not because God isn’t in charge and God is not wrong. You’re not making choices in agreement with God’s choice.

You see, God has told us how to make decisions, choices, right choices. That’s why he says, hold it over again. Choose you this day. Choose your choice. And if you choose the right thing, they’re going to be certain consequences. You choose the wrong thing, they’re going to be consequences. So it’s up to us to make wise choices. It is God who is going to go by your decision, the choices that you make. That’s why it’s so very, very important.

So he says in verse 14, and he said, nay, but as captain of the host of the Lord, am I now come? And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and says, I’m on your side. That was in Hebrew. I’m on your side. I submit to you. You see, it wasn’t that God was just choosing. I’m on Israel’s side. And that’s why you won the battle of Jericho. The first one to go across was the priest, not the army.

Now when you come over to this other little bitty place, they came to the conclusion that’s a small place. So we don’t have to send a lot of them in there. Let’s just send about 3,000 of them in there. So they went up and they got hooked. Well wasn’t God on their side? And God says, you send against me. You send against me. So you, whether something is big or whether something is small, your decisions are important because are you on his side?

Not whether he’s on your side. Are you on his side? Do you find out where God stands on things and you make decisions in agreement with the Lord? 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. Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. 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 tool free, 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for a Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the 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. Do you understand that the people in the Congress today, many of them, I believe over half of them, are set and have declared war on America? And they’re changing this country from being a Republican form of government into a democracy that goes into a socialistic kind of government and then into communism.

And communism is not dead. It is not dead. But anyway, it’s been moving right along. It is ludicrous to believe that we can go on allowing the humanists and the liberals to be reflected in government and not have our liberties threatened. We can’t have them in Washington and not think they’re going to try to vote away our freedoms. That’s what they’re doing there. They’re going to do everything possible to little by little. Oh, they won’t do it with the gun.

They’re going to do it with legislation. I remember one man said years ago by the name of Khrushchev will take over your country without firing a shot. I remember Khrushchev saying that. All the wall came down. The Union of Social Security, the Republic. All that’s hauled on away with it. Time andism lost. The Cold War is over. We won. No, we didn’t win. They’re in all of our universities. They’re in our schools. They’re in our high schools. They’re teaching your kids and my kids and my grandkids.

And we don’t know it being done, but they are there. And they’re overthrowing our country from the inside, because when you can’t storm the gates, you infiltrate. And this is what’s going on. And so little by little, they’re turning our country into a socialistic country. And that’s going to be a dictatorship. And most countries who get like we are right now, never reverse the order. And that’s what I don’t like. there’s not enough people to understand and believe correctly that can take their country back.

Unless there’s a spiritual revival, unless God does it. The Republic is predicated upon the concept that a self-governed individual will require minimum civil government or external control. In other words, if you and I serve the Lord and we do write because of our relationship between us and the Lord. You see, we don’t need as many laws to govern and control us because we have the Holy Spirit living within us to help us to do so. Our founding fathers knew that.

That’s why Princeton and Yale and Harvard, no schools, all started the University of Georgia. They were started to produce preachers so they would understand our form of government and be able to preserve it because you cannot preserve a nation without preserving the education of the children. And we gave our children to the government. We gave them the most precious thing to us in the world and they have taught our children and our grandchildren all over the United States, and we wonder why they think the way they think, and why they’re so rebellious the way they are, it’s because we allow them to be taught a humanistic philosophy for how many years.

On the other hand, the liberal concepts, see civil government ever providing more and more of the needs of the people. Don’t you see that? That’s what’s going on. They want to provide more and more for the people, supports socialization, social services, and thus produce an ever weaker and more dependent person lacking Christian character. But see, they can’t accomplish their goal as long as the word of God is in the schools. Prayer is in the schools. Christian philosophy is in the school.

You have to get that out of the school. Why? Because they’re going to replace it with another religion. Humanism is the religion of mankind. That’s why, remember at one time the Bible and creation was taught in our public schools. And then along comes evolution and evolution now has replaced creation. Evolution is a religion of an atheist. So if you don’t believe in God, you can’t believe in creation. So you believe in evolution. So man is the epitome of everything on the evolutionary ladder, and that’s where we are.

And so they have to remove the one and replace it with something else, and they’ve done it. But see, it’s all part of a plan of somebody that knows what they’re doing. And let me just throw this out to you. No charge. Noah Webster said this in 1962, express the need for our nation to turn to the Scriptures for the principles of civil liberty. To understand how you’re supposed to have civil liberty, you have to understand the Bible. That’s the only thing that gives you and I the proper understanding of the rights of every other individual.

I know that God gave you the right to life and God gave you the right to pursue happiness and God gave you that right and I don’t have a right to take it away from you. But that’s because of my understanding of the Bible. And I know that I’m supposed to love one another and we’re supposed to care for one another. But I don’t believe that by the pen I’m supposed to take things from you and give it to this person over there.

I don’t believe God has given to us the right to redistribute wealth. What if we did that right here in this church? Let’s just find out who got the money and who doesn’t have the money. And those that have the money, let’s just vote to take their money and give to the people who don’t have any. Do you see anything wrong with that? Now the people that don’t have any said, hey that’s a great idea. The people that have money said, I don’t like that idea.

But this is what people are doing. This is what’s going on in government and you say they can’t see that. Yes they do see that. But their goal is is they want a one-world government and they are for communism, therefore the socialism, and therefore this is their goal and so they made their decisions based upon their philosophy of government. And their philosophy of government is not the philosophy of government that was given to you and I by our founding fathers.

The scriptures were intended by God to be the guide of human reason. The creator of man established the moral order of the universe knowing that human reason left without a divine guide or rule of action would fill the world with disorder, crime, and misery. Look around the world. Look what’s starting in our country. That’s because man’s wisdom is not sufficient to guide him. The book of Jeremiah says it’s not within man that walk up to direct his steps. You and I are not smart enough to guide ourselves.

And the last thing we need is somebody else that don’t have any brains telling us how to live. That’s why we go to the source of all wisdom, which is the Word of God, and God’s Word tells us how we’re supposed to live. God’s Word tells us of a kind of government we’re supposed to have. Webster continues, the principle of all genuine liberty and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority.

The man therefore who weakens and gets this or destroys the divine authority of that book may be acessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer. The people that say we don’t need God in the schools and we don’t need prayer and we don’t need the establishment of our home between a man and a woman only, those are the ones that are seeking to destroy this country. They’re not our friends. They’re enemies of this country. People who want to have legalized marriage between homosexuals and those are enemies of our freedom.

I hope that my convictions are slowly leaking out. Our nation now is standing at the crossroads. Today our American youth is being trained in state schools whose educational program is committed by law to secularize the citizens of tomorrow and that it states expense which we pay for through our taxes, did you realize 80% of all your property taxes go for the public schools? To teach our children and the next generation how to overthrow our own country and take away our liberties?

And we’re paying for it. Boy, are they smart. They took over our schools. Does that get me a little upset? Yes. To save our country from the dry rot of secularism, secularism just means without God. To raise the generation of people without God. And you take them to church in Sunday school on Sunday morning one hour a week and then they’ve got them for six, seven hours a day, five days a week for twelve years. Who do you think is going to win?

Numerically, just numerically. Eventually they will outnumber us, oh, folks. You see what I’m saying? Eventually they will be more than us. And when they’re more than us, all the boats in the world won’t matter because they’ll outvote us. There’s more of them. And they’ll be able to take over our country. Well, I’ll fire in a shot, and we’ll be a communist country under a dictator. It’s coming. You just remember there was a preacher stood at his pulpit and told you this.

Anyway, as is often the case, we must be threatened with the loss of something precious before we realize that subtle changes have taken place. Remember to preserve our nation. We must preserve our American Christian heritage for our children. If we lose our nation to socialism and communism, it is because we lost our children first. Whether our children attend a private school or state school, the Lord holds the parents responsible for the education of the children. Parents must not allow the state the right to control the education of their child.

God and God alone is the source of rights. Governments are instituted among men to secure, protect these inalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator. The Lord God of the Bible has given to each individual specific responsibilities. The Lord cannot hold you accountable to fulfill a responsibility unless He also gives you the right to fulfill that responsibility. Now this was written almost a hundred years ago by the Secretary of War, some were all, and he makes a statement, while we were thirteen colonies, Professor Alexander Fraser Tyler pointed out why democracies fail.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It’s always temporary. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largest out of the public treasury. In the words, when you find out that you can vote for an elected official that will do everything in his power to give you something from government that they took from somebody else that had it, people will vote for the man who promises from the most. That’s why you hear all these politicians talking about how they’re going to give you this and they’re going to give you this and you’re going to have two pots of chicken and a thing and two cars in the garage and we’re going to pay your mortgage and we’re going to do this.

I want to be called to take it from somebody else that worked for it and give somebody else a didn’t. Trying to explain this to some people at a university that believed that it was nothing wrong with people and the distribution of wealth. It says, all of the students in here that got A’s, why don’t we take all those who had an A and we’ll give it to those who had a C. And that way everybody would get a B.

Is anything wrong with that? And they said over and over again, no, no, no, no. They couldn’t see anything wrong with government taking away and given to people who don’t work, but they could see that those who had worked hard for that A don’t want to give that A to somebody else so that we can all have a B. Because you see the next time the exams come around, it got a C before is going to get a D.

And those that had the A is not going to work as hard because he knows they’re going to take it from anyway so he’ll only get a B. Now we’re down to everybody getting a C. And after a while, it’s nothing more than everybody having shared misery. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result of that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy. What do you think’s going on?

This was written a hundred years ago, a hundred years ago explaining why we are a republic and why that position is wrong. Now let me tell you this, I’m not interested in arguing with anybody over any of it. It’s my position, and I like stating my position because I believe it’s a scriptural position. I’m talking about understanding the philosophy of government based upon what the founding fathers give to us, and we ought to be patriot enough to love our country to stand for what’s right and do what’s right.

Anyway, the last part there is always to be followed by dictatorship, and that bothers me. Once again, back to this little chart. You’ll notice in the little schoolhouse, it’s American Christian. In other words, realizing that yes, here in America, we have been given a wonderful country because of our faith in the Lord, our founding fathers. And because of that, they developed a form of government never seen before upon the face of this earth. America is the greatest nation in all the world, world and that’s where freedom came from.

We got freedom because we had Christ as the foundation and it was taught in our schools and our universities the importance of the Lord and the importance of the Word of God but now we got people don’t think that’s important anymore and look how we’re how we do it. They always say well are we better off now than we were four years ago. You ever Do you see him say that? Are you better off now? Are we better off now than we were 50 years ago?

And so we have a Republican form of government. It teaches how to think. See, when you have the right root, you can have the right fruit. And you’ll find out there’s academic excellence. You’re talking about godliness. The Christian Republic, God is alive, moral standards, and typical women’s roles, and sex only in marriage, character, and bill of families, and good literature, individualism is important. All these good things and discipline, you see, when you used to have a man of character, because he knew the Lord, loved the Lord, and he walked right, he talked right, he looked you in the eye, shake your hand, and you knew the man will keep his word because he’s a man.

dead. It wasn’t a weasel. Well, when you have secularism, man’s power of reasoning that guides him without God. You want to know how a man thinks without God, read the book of Ecclesiastes, all his vanity and vexation of spirit. And that’s exactly where they are. Then you’ll have the fruits of secular humanism. Teaches how to think. Teaches what to think. You see, when you learn how to think, you become creative. You could solve problems. You have drive. You have initiative.

You want to take a chance and take a risk. You want to have some freedom to do what you dream about doing. They talk about have a dream, have a dream. Everything they’re doing is to take away your dream. What they’re doing is destroying the dreams that people have had. If people do not want Christ, God, the Bible, or prayer in this country, you can not have freedom or prolonged freedom. It is impossible. We have a spiritual problem in this country.

People in order to preserve this country have to know the Lord. If you don’t know the Lord, you cannot preserve our freedom. Because only by getting people in America back to the Lord is there any hope for America. We need a spiritual revival of people knowing the Lord, the true God. I mean, the one that I’m talking about that has a son named Jesus Christ. I got a little question for you. If Obama loses the election, yeah. Do you believe he’ll step down?

If I believe that belief, and I have the opportunity as the president of the greatest nation on the earth, and know that I’ve only got this chance to do what I want to get done, I will do whatever it takes to cause a dissension between government and the people in order to create strife enough that riots will break out, like we’ve seen in other countries. So that we have to look to government, do something, government’s got to do something and declare martial law, and all of our constitutional rights will be suspended, and we’ll have ourselves our dictator.

Just remember there’s always that possibility. There’s enough. Executive orders have already been given that a man can take over this country if he’s the president of, this country. And that’s not a joke. No time to cover it right now. Let me mention this to you. I mean, I might as well just unload how I think so that you won’t have any question about it. I believe our founding fathers, if they were alive today, would have already gone to war.

Now that’s strong language, I know that. But you take our founding fathers and they went to war because they tried to tax them on tea and they knew that they did that there’d be no end to it and they wanted their freedoms and they didn’t want that control and look what we have allowed government to do to us. We have become a virtually economic slaves. When And those on the right realize they cannot take our country back by the ballot.

I believe there will be a literal war as a last result, and I hate to see that happen. We got an election coming up, but I believe that you need to think and try to figure out who you’re going to vote for. I’m not telling people who to vote for them, but I believe you need to be wise, and I believe you need to pray. I believe there are going to be ten regions in America that will establish mental institutions to place dissenters of a one-world order.

I believe that they had already been done to a certain extent. But these mental institutions that are supposed to take care of these right-wing fundamentalists that are the problems in this country, this keeping us from going forward, as homegrown terrorist are going to be disappearing in place into mental places which another name for it would be concentration camps. And I believe it’s already underway, but I don’t have time to cover all that stuff with you. I would like to go through all the stuff on humanism.

I got so much stuff that’s unreal, but I guess I’ve said enough to let you know a little bit about where I stand. I’m not telling everybody that has to agree with me on everything you don’t. But I love our country. I love our freedoms. I hurt that I see where we’re headed. And myself personally, I don’t see how we can get it back unless God intervenes and unless God shakes his country. And people realize how important it is.

Or we’re going to lose it all. And one day we’ll look back and think, what in the world should I have done. I’m a preacher. I’m just supposed to alert to make you aware. But what you do is a responsibility between you and the Lord. I’m going to say and do what I believe God wants me to. I don’t know how long it will last. But yes, I’m looking for the rapture to take place. And I wouldn’t mind if it happened in the next month and a half or so.

It’d be fine with me. I get me in hand for a lot of like in a few things, but most preachers, and I’ll be honest with you, do not cover these things like this. But I’m doing it at the risk of this church voting me out or whatever you want to do, but that’s fine with me too. But I want you to know what I believe. I don’t think I should hide it from you. And I believe I should try to use all the power of my ability that might as well as try to influence others to my way of thinking.

But I don’t try to make anybody believe like I believe. If I can’t win you and convince you, then forget it. I just did my dead level best. But I want to preserve our country and I believe it’s so important. I really do. Let me show you something I think you do agree with me on. Hopefully every word. This sin represents you and me.

The Bible says that you and I have all sinned. Let this represent sin. We have all sinned. We’ve all done things wrong, but God loves us. He hates what we’ve done wrong. And the Bible says to pay The pay for the sin is eternal separation from God. The wages of sin is death. To go to heaven, you and I have to be perfect, because righteous is God and none of us are perfect, none of us are righteous. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection.

And because of sin, we can’t get into heaven. And God says, buy our good works, it’ll never pay for sin. So we need a savior. And God says, you can’t save yourself. That’s why you don’t go to heaven because you went to church or you tried to be good gave money and all those things. This then represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord and He’s God in the flesh. He came into this world. Because he loves us. He had no sin, so he didn’t have to die.

But because of his love for us and hatred for sin because it separates us from him. Jesus Christ took all the sins of the world and paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead. And he said that if you and I if we would believe that he did it for us, he would put this payment to our account and we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. There’s no trick to that.

There’s no giving to it. God so loved the world that he gave us. He gave His only begotten Son. The whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Just believe it. Only believe. And God says these things have already done to you that believe that you may know that you have eternal life. You can know that you’re going to heaven whenever you die. Let’s pray, shall we? If you’re here tonight and you never trust that Christ is your savior, I know you probably have heard it a thousand times, if you never trust the Lord, you’re still lost.

But would you right now, right where you’re setting, say, yes, that made sense to me. I want to be certain of going to heaven and preach our life to pray for me. Would you just slip your hand very quickly and put it right back down? Is there anyone at all? Our Father, we thank you so much for all you’ve done for us. We thank you for this great country you’ve given us. For the freedoms we presently enjoy. But we’ve also been eyewitnesses of many people that are losing their homes losing jobs, losing their savings, losing so much.

In some cases, losing their kids. And Father, we sometimes don’t know what causes it. Why? But Father, we pray that You’d help us to be wise and to do right. We don’t know how You want to use us, but we want to honor You in everything that we do. Lord, I pray that You’ll bless this country with some good men to be good leaders and will help restore that which has been lost. And Father, there may be some good people running, but Father, we pray Your blessings upon each one to help us to filter out those that are not qualified.

Or maybe that’s not the best. And Father, we pray for those that are already elected officials, even though they have a a different philosophy of government that Father somehow you could turn their hearts and help them preserve this country. They utilize sometimes their bad decisions to accomplish your will. We don’t know how it all works out, how it all plays out. But Father, we know one day you’re going to split the eastern sky and we’ll be caught up to meet you.

We pray Lord that you would come and as you said in your word, come Lord Jesus come. We thank you for this church and all your good people. We pray, Lord, you’ll be done in the lives of each person here. Help us not to be mean and unkind. Help us to love each other as we should. Help us to be wise. In Christ’s name we pray, amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr.

Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are 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 tool free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. 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 are 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 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bible Eye, 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.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

I wanted to talk to you about the two forms of government and what I believe is going on in this country at this time and how things are going to get, I believe, worse and why? How did we ever get to this place? And is there anything that we can really do about it? So that you know at the outset, I believe our problem is a spiritual problem. And so I’ve got a list of some things that I wrote down that when I get through with this little presentation, I want to cover them with you.

And remember, not everybody sees eye to eye on everything. Some things you may agree with me on, some things you may not. I’m not telling anybody how to vote. I’m just telling you how not to vote. So now we got that clear. And I want you to know that in the founding of our country, you have to know the foundationPlug that we have. And that is the Word of God itself. There were men who knew the Word of God, and they knew the principles found in the Word of God by the three branches of government that’s found in the Word of God.

And so we did have godly men that established a constitution so that we could have a Republican form of government. And the only way you can preserve that form of government is by the education that people receive so that they’ll be ingrained with that philosophy of government. If we don’t do it, you cannot preserve the nation. And unless something is drastically done, we will not because we don’t have enough people to vote for the right man because the people today do not have the discernment of what or who is the right man.

They don’t have principles themselves and they lack the Christian character to vote for the a guy that would be a good leader in our country. So anyway, there is a difference between the Republican form of government and a democratic form of government, and we’ll show you that in just a minute. Now, every course you teach is subject to your philosophy of government. And if the American Christian philosophy of government is not part of a teacher’s philosophy of education, then that teacher is liable to be governed to some degree by man’s secular, socialistic philosophy in presenting that subject.

Every subject in school that is taught, and we had a Christian school and we taught the principles of education concerning the Bible as the foundation for every lesson that is taught so that they knew that the origin of math and the origin of our languages and the origin of every subject that we teach comes from God. So there has to be a foundation of truth. What is the source of your truth? So if we don’t have that, then you have the secularism.

If it’s not Bible and with God as the source, then you’ll have to revert to man being the source of all wisdom. And then it’s hit from the idea of humanism. Humanism is the religion of atheism. And I will show you a little bit later about how that all works together and what is going on in our country. No subject can be taught separate from a philosophy of government. For example, yourself, you have to have a way of governing yourself.

Whether it’s you personally, your home, church or government, there is an order of government. Everybody has to understand you will either be self-disciplined or imposed disciplined. Somebody has to determine what’s right and wrong and then by either force or by education help people to see why they should do what they should do. So your philosophy of education is a philosophy of a government. Your view of a subject is based upon the source and the origin of your authority for it and who or what will control and direct the purpose for what or which it is taught.

Indeed there is no such thing as neutral, objective or impersonal teaching. In other words what you believe is going to come through in your teaching. So therefore teachers that have been taught the humanistic philosophy, it’s going to come forth in their teaching of the children. What people believe is going to make a difference in what kind of movies they put out or the music they put out, how they live for themselves, what they believe is right and wrong, everything based upon what does a person believe.

And so if we don’t teach them the truth of the Word of God, then they’re going to have a humanistic reasoning that they do what is right in their own eyes as we read in the book of Judges. What one teaches and how is subject to one’s philosophy of government which constitutes his philosophy of education. The democratic philosophy will of the majority shifting sand. In other words, when you use a man as the basis of your educational philosophy, it shifts because there’s no absolutes, everything to dirty gray.

There’s no right and wrong because men’s desires change, their philosophy keeps changing and there’s nothing solid there. This is what’s going on in our nation today. That’s right because they don’t know what to do. They have no anchor. There’s nothing solid. People do do not know what to do next because they don’t know what government’s going to do next. And so people are afraid of stepping out on the limb, taking risks, investing, doing what needs to be done because they know that government is going to take whatever they do and could cause themgomery sync because they don’t obey all the rules and regulations.

So people are afraid because of government. Government is killing the will of the American people to produce. But there’s a plan behind that. It’s all part of a wonderful little plan to bring down this country so that we will not be a republic anymore. There is a move on and war has been declared. It’s just that we don’t know they’ve done it yet. But anyway, little by little, hopefully, somebody will understand. You’ll notice the little house there. That’s the school house.

That’s a classroom situation, where whenever you have a certain philosophy, you want to teach that philosophy. And so to the children of our country, there has to be a source of information that comes from what? It’s either going to be from the Lord or it’s got to be from man. And so man has leaned out toward science as its God and not to the Lord, but there’s a price to pay. And so we call that secular humanism. That is the root of our problems in our country.

It’s one of the reasons for the problems in our churches because without adults even knowing it, even those who know the Lord, they have been so ingrained with secular humanism. that they can’t totally trust the Lord. See, the reason people are so rebellious to spiritual things from the Word of God is because they themselves are ingrained with humanistic reasoning. And they don’t trust God. They don’t believe the Bible. And they battle with it. And they’ll trust only parts of it here and there, but majority of God’s people are not totally committed to truth in whatever God’s Word has to say.

American Christian education comprehends true Americanism. Not just feeling and stories of patriotism. And loyalty to the country, but embraces the biblical principles of America’s Christian history. See, we’re supposed to be educating our children in the American Christian foundation of our country. But are the children getting that kind of an education in our public schools today? No, they’re not getting it. So if they don’t learn our true heritage and the purpose of our Constitution and where rights come from, the Lord, then they’ll think that government gave us the rights.

And therefore government can change all of that. And the majority makes right. No, that’s a democracy and not a Republican form of government. But most people do not know the difference and therefore they don’t see anything wrong with whether they send a Republican party or the Democratic party. They just vote for whoever they like the best. You need to find out where does that person stand on the issues because where they stand on the majority of the issues will reveal their source of knowledge.

It reveals their foundation whether or not is it secular humanism or did they get it from the Word of God? And therefore you can learn a lot by seeing what do they believe about the various issues that face our country. Christian history, the Bible as the great political textbook of the Patriots and America’s gospel purpose. In the founding of our country, believe or not, Congress even printed up Bibles to send to missionaries. And Congress is the one that authorized the printing of the Bible to be the first textbook in our public schools.

Now, if it was unconstitutional, why did they do it? It was an unconstitutional then. It is not unconstitutional. Now, that’s what we have been told, because we believe a lie. You go to Washington and you check out all of our buildings and you’ll find out their scriptures everywhere. They’ve got the Ten Commandments on the buildings. They’ve got Moses standing there with a lot on the buildings. I’ve been there. We have a tremendous heritage in this country. But majority of people don’t know it.

Now, if our founding fathers didn’t mean for us to know the truth like this, and to stand upon the Christian faith, and if it was so unconstitutional, why did they even do it to start with? What did they say all of that? Because see it wasn’t unconstitutional. We have been fed a lot of baloney. The problem is not educational or political. Those are only the results of a source, the root problem. You see if you knew the truth and believed the truth, you would understand politics and you would understand how that education is the key in education is religion.

That’s why in the Constitution there’s nothing about education in the Constitution because education is religious. And as people say, well there’s two things I never worry about religion and politics but that’s all there is. It’s what you believe and what you do. So therefore, if you will know the truth and believe the truth, then you’ll know how you’re supposed to be governed, because you’ll govern yourself according to the principles in the Word of God. And a free-thinking people who know truth and understand what God’s Word says, the less laws you will need if you will govern yourself.

But you see, they don’t want that. They don’t want you to govern yourself or to be self-disciplined, they want to control you. They want to take away the individual determination of what you can and cannot do and they don’t want you to be educated because an educated man is a thinking man and a thinking man it’s hard to enslave. So they got to take away your power, your ability to think, to reason, to relate, to record. All these are principles that are more important than reading, writing, and arithmetic.

In the statement here, humanism, secularism, and socialism operate in the educational and political arena, but they are not educational and political problems. Humanism, secularism, and socialism are spiritual problems and in matter are a battle for the survival of American Christianity. Now, most of the stuff that I’m referring to right now are things that I put in my little booklet that I did 30 years ago. This was stuff that, out of my book, 30 years. And I believe it’s still pertinent for today.

It’s still truth because truth doesn’t change. The battleground is not the school room, the courthouse, the legislative chambers. The battleground is primarily in the heart of the individual Christian and the contest is over who or what will be in control. a Christian who wants to fulfill his God-given responsibilities wants the Lord to lead and guide him. Take away God, take away that responsibility, and then you’ll look to government to lead and to guide. And they tell us what we can’t and cannot do.

And so then people bow down to the government, and government solved this problem. Government needs to solve this problem. Government is our problem, but it’s our problem because people put into our place of government those people who have a humanistic philosophy. It’s how they think. And most people just go by well, you know, I like his haircut. Or I like, and you can you believe this, there were people in America, Christians, women, most of them that voted for a guy like Bill Clinton, He said, no, yes.

Was it because of his character? If he’d go by character, say he couldn’t have got in. But people don’t care about character. The economy’s good. And people say, well, it’s the economy’s stupid. No, it’s not the economy’s stupid. Spiritually America is bankrupt because we don’t have any moral fiber in our country. people don’t have an idea how to think and the reason to do the things that they should do.

Man, either Christian or otherwise believe he should yield himself a servant to man through the state or to be governed by God, through Christ with the state being limited to being a minister of God to be for good, a servant to be prayerfully supervised that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Now you’ll hear me make this statement over and again. Pray for our people in place of leadership that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life.

That’s what the Word of God teaches and I believe that’s what we ought to do. But it doesn’t mean that I have to close my eyes to what I see is wrong in our country and how it’s affecting our churches. It’s affecting your job. It’s affecting your savings. It’s affecting every area of your life. That’s why the gas prices hide. The food goeth up all these things is because of government. But government, because of a philosophy, the philosophy is wrong, and most people don’t know the difference.582 Now, the challenge of humanism, secularism, socialism is primarily internal and spiritual, secondarily external and political.

See, whatever you believe inside and want to do is going to affect the outside, the external. So you see, instead of having no control inside, then that means I have to have somebody else control me. And so when people don’t1900 the personal control in their own life, self-disciplined, then you have to have imposed discipline. Imposed discipline comes by way of more rules and more regulations controlling you. And they will be able to tell you everything that you can and cannot do.

It’s a manipulation of your will without you knowing it. And little by little, it’s going to steal all of your property. It’ll steal your mind. It’ll steal all of your wealth. It’s going to steal your children and your grandchildren. There’s thieves out there that are going to do their dead level best to take this country away from what our Founding Fathers intended it to be. James Rose, a great man that I met years and years ago, he got a copy of my book and he liked it.

They have a Pilgrims Institute and he’s the president of it. But anyway, made this statement here. He says, I submit that if America has a Christian history and originally instituted a Christian form of government, the challenge to maintain this heritage is the Christians, not the heathens. The alternative is in the hand of the biblicists, not the socialist. The only way they can take our country from us is that the Christians hand it to them. We gave it up. We didn’t fight for it.

Therefore, we don’t deserve it. In America, we don’t deserve our liberty. We don’t deserve our freedom because we would not do what our founding fathers did and that’s the fight for our country. We’ll go overseas and we’ll fight wars over there. And I’m out against fighting wars. I believe there’s a time for it. But do you understand that the people in the Congress today, many of them, I believe over half of them, are set and have declared war on America?

And they’re changing this country from being a Republican form of government into a democracy that goes into a socialist kind of government and then into communism. And communism is not dead. It is not dead. But anyway, as we’re moving right along, it is ludicrous to believe that we can go on allowing the humanists and the liberals to be reflected in government and not have our liberties threatened. We can’t have them in Washington and not think they’re going to try to vote away our freedoms.

That’s what they’re doing there. They’re going to do everything possible to live our little. Oh, they won’t do it with the gun. They’re gonna do it with legislation. I remember one man said years ago by the name of Khrushchev will take over your country without firing a shot. I remember Khrushchev saying that. Oh, the wall came down. The Union of Social Republic. Oh, that’s all done away with communism lost. The Cold War is over. We won. No, we didn’t win.

They’re in all of our universities. They’re in our schools. They’re in our high schools. They’re teaching your kids and my kids and my grandkids. And we don’t know it being done, but they are there. And they’re overthrowing our country from the inside, because when you can’t storm the gates, you infiltrate and this is what’s going on. And so little by little, they’re turning our country into a socialistic country, and that’s gonna be a dictatorship. And most countries who get like we are right now, never reverse the order.

And that’s what I don’t like. Because there’s not enough people to understand and believe correctly that can take their country back. Unless there’s a spiritual revival. Unless God does it. The Republic is predicated upon the concept that a self-governed individual will require minimum civil government or external control. In other words, if you and I serve the Lord and we do right because of our relationship between us and the Lord. You see, we don’t need as many laws to govern and control us because we have the Holy Spirit living within us to help us to do so.

Our founding fathers knew that. That’s why Princeton and Yale and Harvard, no schools, all started the University of Georgia. They were started to produce preachers. So they would understand our form of government and be able to preserve it, because you cannot preserve a nation without preserving the education of the children. And we gave our children to the government. We gave them the most precious thing to us in the world. And they have taught our children and our grandchildren all over the United States.

And we wonder why they think the way they think and why they’re so rebellious the way they are. It’s because we allow them to be taught a humanistic philosophy for how many years. On the other hand, the liberal concepts, the civil government ever provided more and more of the needs of the people. Don’t you see that? That’s what’s going on. They want to provide more and more for the people, supports socialization, social services, and thus produce an ever weaker and more dependent person, lacking Christian character.

But see, they can’t accomplish their goal as long as the Word of God is in the schools. Prayer is in the schools. Christian philosophy is in the school. You have to get that out of the school. Why? Because they’re going to replace it with another religion. Humanism is the religion of mankind. That’s why, remember at one time the Bible and creation was taught in our public schools. And then along comes evolution and evolution now has replaced creation. Evolution is a religion of an atheist.

So if you don’t believe in God, you can’t believe in creation. So you believe in evolution. So man is the epitome of everything on the evolutionary ladder. And that’s where we are. And so they have to remove the one and replace it with something else. And they’ve done it. But see, it’s all part of a plan of somebody that knows what they’re doing. And let me just throw this out to you. No charge. Noah Webster said this in 1962, expressed the need for our nation to turn to the Scriptures for the principles of civil liberty.

To understand how you’re supposed to have civil liberty, you have to understand the Bible. That’s the only thing that gives you and I the proper understanding of the rights of every other individual. I know that God gave you the right to life and God gave you the right to pursue happiness and God gave you that right. And I don’t have a right to take it away from you. But that’s because of my understanding of the Bible. And I know that I’m supposed to love one another, and we’re supposed to care for one another.

But I don’t believe that by the pen I’m supposed to take things from you and give it to this person over there. I don’t believe God has given to us the right to redistribute wealth. What if we did that right here in this church? Let’s just find out who got the money and who doesn’t have the money. And those that have the money, let’s just vote to take their money and give it to the people who don’t have any.

Do you see anything wrong with that? Now the people that don’t have any said, hey, that’s a great idea. The people that have money said, I don’t like that idea. But this is what people are doing. This is what’s going on in government. And you say, they can’t see that. Hey, can’t see that. Yes, they do see that. But their goal is, is they want a one-world government and they are for communism, they’re for the socialism, and therefore this is their goal and so they made their decisions based upon their philosophy of government.

And their philosophy of government is not the philosophy of government that was given to you and I by our founding fathers. The scriptures were intended by God to be the guide of human reason. The creator of man established the moral order of the universe knowing that human reason left without a divine guide or rule of action would fill the world with disorder, crime, and misery. Look around the world. Look what’s starting in our country. That’s because man’s wisdom is not sufficient to guide him.

The book of Jeremiah says it’s not within man that walk up to direct his steps. You and I are not smart enough to guide ourselves. And the last thing we need is somebody else that don’t have any brains telling us how to live. That’s why we go to the source of all wisdom, which is the Word of God, and God’s Word tells us how we’re supposed to live. God’s Word tells us what kind of a government we’re supposed to have.

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. Part 2 of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach by the line and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll-free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link.

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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friends, 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.