Bibleline Radio Show – 2010-04-21

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So, church, the Lord of the King of the House, To know by truth, He said that’s my nature. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Hank Lindstrom, a ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Declan. Declaring God’s love through radio and the internet. Providing real answers to an ever-searching world. To reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep Bibleline on the air in your community, dial toll free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771.

Well, good morning and welcome to Bibleline. And great to be with you today. Thanks for tuning into the broadcast. We look forward to being with you each and every day. And Monday through Friday as we come to you from our studios here in Tampa, Florida at the Calvary Community Church. We are glad to be able to be with you today. And thank you for tuning in. We invite you to come by when you’re ever in the area and visit our resource center open every day until about 430.

You can also visit our Resource Center online. Again, going to BibleLineMinistries.org. Click on the online bookstore and you’ll be visiting our Resource Center and you can check that out anytime. If you’d like a Resource Sheet to be sent to you, you can just request that on the phone and we’ll be glad to mail one out to you that’ll have it printed out for you. All the things that we have here in our Resource Center. Alright, we’re gonna talk about the Bible again today.

If you have your Bible you might want to get it out. Just received a track here that somebody gave me from a church that had given them the track and it’s of course from Good News Publishers but what is interesting? You need to read tracks. This is apparently since 9-11 and it has the flag on the front and it uses a patriotic theme to so-called present the gospel. When you get down to the and this is where you need to look on a track.

When you get to the end. It says here about heaven. Heaven cannot be entered into by just wishing or by working or even by chance. Get ready. Here is the line that is amazing to me. Instead, number one, you must believe in Christ’s sacrifice for you. Number two, you have to turn from your sins. Number three, you have to live wholeheartedly for God. Now that’s a tragedy. terrible. This is works for a lifetime to be saved. Look at the last one.

Live wholeheartedly for God. That’s telling you that all of your life you have to live wholeheartedly for God if you’re going to be saved. That’s salvation by works. That’s completely contrary to the Bible. Then it says your turn from your sins and that’s works. That’s works. And by the way, no one can ever completely turn from sin in the sense that they would stop sinning. It’s impossible. But, and nowhere does the Bible ever say that someone has to turn from their sin to be saved.

Isn’t that amazing? Now somebody’s going to say, Oh, wait a minute. Think about it. Jesus died for sinners. I love the hymn. Christ died for sinful men. That’s the only kind. Christ didn’t say I came to call the righteous. He said I came to call the sinner. So Christ died for sinners. In Romans 5, it tells us that He died for us while we were yet in the state or act of sinning. Christ died for sinful men. I love the hymn writer, he got it right when he wrote, Just as I am I come, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me.

Now there are people who will argue with me and say, You have to turn from your sins to be saved, and yet in their church they’ll sing just as I am. I don’t think people are thinking. I don’t think people are making things that up. I believe A plus B has equal C. And the Bible is clear that Jesus died for sinful men. Christ died for the whole world, the whole human race, and we’re all sinners. One thing we’ve taught the children this week is for all have sinned and all have come short of the glory of God.

We’ve also said the wages of sin is death, but the good news is the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And when you trust Christ as your Savior, you receive his wonderful gift which is not based on anything that you or I might do. I love Hebrews 1-3, we mentioned it about a week ago in the program, it says Christ, who is the express image of God’s person who is the brightness of God’s glory and the one who upholds all things in this universe by his power.

It says in Hebrews 1-3, when he had by himself, by himself purged our sins. Jesus didn’t need our help. In fact, our help is excluded. If you’re to be saved, you have to, just like the dying thief, admit that you can do nothing to save yourself. And simply trust Christ. And when you trust Him alone, exclusively Christ alone, excluding all human works. God saves you. But this track, and you know, I did an experiment years ago, I was teaching a class in a Bible college.

I had 180 students in a class I was teaching on contemporary theology. As one of the assignments I had them write to all the different track companies. and get samples. And then they were to evaluate 10 tracks. And that was probably one of the greatest experiments we ever did because people came back and they said they had difficulty finding a track that gave a clear gospel that didn’t add works to the planet’s salvation but just like this track and most tracks are this way.

Check out the track rack in your church And maybe somebody ought to be on the track alert and say, pastor, can we really in all honesty pass this out as being truth if our church is representing the Word of God and representing truth can we and this church by the way has put their little stamp on it with their website and their phone number and apparently proudly are are distributing these tracks and here are three things and and maybe the church this is what they believe I hope not but the track says number one you believe in Christ number two you turn from your sins number three you live wholeheartedly for God well guess what two out of three are wrong two out of three works two out of three require you to do something and that’s always the false plan of salvation this is

Bible and I’m Dr. Hank Lindstrom at our church we had to come up with our own track to get it really clear it was amazing you can’t hardly find one out there from the track publishers. If you like a sample of our track, if you can send us a self-adurance damn tumbler, we’ll be glad to send you a sample. It’s called, Am I Going to Heaven? It has a quiz, and it lists all of the most popular things. People are trusting in to get them to heaven.

Being religious, going to church, being a church member, tithing, praying, living the Christian life, being a good neighbor, all those kind of things, baptism, confirmation, so on. And you know, most people will just check and we give a verse of scripture why each of those are wrong and that the correct answer is only Christ, only Christ, trust Christ as Savior. Guess what? Sondervin, the publisher, has been purchased by unbelievers. They are now coming out with today’s new international version and it’s being published in the face of tremendous opposition from prominent Christian leaders.

The primary focus of complaint is its gender neutral stance. Amazing that they are willing to just absolutely violate what the Bible says in its manuscripts that have come down to us and force on us a gender neutral Bible. the Lord’s Prayer, our Father and Mother, which are in heaven. Doesn’t that, doesn’t that, how can, you know, the Bible says we’re not to add to it, we’re not to take away from it, Revelation 22 verses 18 and 19 give a warning.

If any man add to the words of this book, or if any man take away from the words of this book, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book to him. Are people not afraid of God anymore? say in the book of Proverbs that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, I would think you’d be afraid to tamper with God’s Word and to alter it to promote your own agenda, whatever it might be.

And then on the other hand, the track we just gave totally disregards the Bible and gives its own plan of salvation after it comes on with some nice goodies about the American flag and about how Christ came and how that God wants us to be saved. And then it tells you their agenda for salvation, that you have to turn from your sins. God didn’t say that. Live wholeheartedly for God. God didn’t say that. God did say whosoever believeth in Christ should not perish but have everlasting life.

We’re going to clear water. We’re going to talk to Dale. Dale, welcome to Bibleline. Thank you. Yes, I had a question that you’ve probably heard a million times, but I’ve got the very best friend for the last 20 years who is not a born-again Christian, not saved. And so I’m concerned and I’m trying to find passages in the Bible because she thinks the Bible logistic cookie cutter storybook and you know I’ve even encouraged her to call you or investigate with somebody other than myself because.

I was just wondering if there was some passages that I could guide her to. About two years ago she did get down on her hands and knees with me one night and pray and ask Jesus into her life. But then as we went along she said nothing happened and I didn’t feel anything and she just sort of lost it. and she said, you know, I just don’t really think the Bible’s where it’s at. So what can I do for my very best friend?

Well, you know, of course if she was looking for a feeling, then obviously she was, you know, going to be disappointed because we’re never told in the Bible to look for a feeling that we’re saved when we trust Christ as our Savior. We’re to simply take out His Word, and it’s far better than a feeling because His Word doesn’t change and our feelings are up and down. I might feel I’m lost. You know, those I might feel saved. So if I went by my feelings, I would really be all over the world or up and down as far as whether I was saved or lost.

But it’s based upon what God promises in order to believe His promise. I like Isaiah 48. And this was written around 2700 years ago. And God says in verse 4, and I love this for people like maybe your friend, because I knew God said that you’re obstinate. it. Your neck is like an iron sinew and your brow is brass. Your brass had an iron neck hard to be convinced stubborn. And God says to prove to you that this book is mine.

He says in verse 5, I have even from the beginning declared it to the before it came to pass. I showed it the lest you should have say, well this religion or this idol or this group here. This graven image has commanded these things. It’s a wonderful verse because it really answers what about all these world religions? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? God says, I’m going to tell you, you know, she’s wondering about all the other religions and credibility and well, this is the passage and God says, look, I’m telling you things.

And then in the Bible, you have fulfilled prophecies. If you just talked about the life of Christ, you have his birth in Micah 5’2 that he’d be born in Bethlehem. Amazing, when you add up all these different prophecies, the probability of them being fulfilled is absolutely astronomical. And yet Christ fulfilled them all. The fact that he’d be crucified, Psalm 22 16 tells his hands and his feet would be pierced. Psalm 22 18 tells that they would gamble for his cloak at the foot of the cross, and they would part his garments.

Psalm 35 tells us that not a bone the Messiah’s body would be broken. John 19 tells us that they broke the legs of the thieves on either side of Christ, but they didn’t break a single bone in the body of Christ that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet. And they quote the verse from the Old Testament where not a bone in his body would be broken. Just amazing. I mean, here the soldiers are coming along, they’re breaking the legs of either the thieves on either side of Christ and they stop and they don’t break his bones.

That seems like, wow, it was a collision courses. It would seem to me that they just go ahead and break his legs. But they didn’t. And there are hundreds of these. And these are the things that convince me. And God says, look, I know you’re obstinate. I know you’re brass headed. I know you’re hard to be convinced. I’m going to give you proof. And I think these are the proofs. There’s an excellent book out by Josh McDowell called Evidence that Demands of Verdict.

I have found this very successful with people like attorneys who like to deal with evidence and that because it’s so well documented they get it he’s got a new one out i bought it i haven’t read it so much off in front of me here called new evidence the demands of her to which uh… i think is uh… and updating of the old book and new information but it’s well documented it’s for the person who really uh… likes to have the facts documented and shows the scriptures shows the fulfillment shows the documentation it’s extremely powerful i recommend that book if anyone who may be is having a little bit of a struggle as to is this bible really god’s word right now if she got down in her hands and need that evening and ask god to come into her heart do you think that she could be possibly saved and not know it

well if she trusted christ as her only hope of heaven yes she could be saved and not know it that’s true she you know you your our assurance comes from god’s word and she needs to see verses like john 1 John 5, 13, that says you can know that you have eternal life. God has written to those who believe to let them know that they have it. And then verses like John 6, 37 and 39 that tell us that the Lord is never going to lose us or let loose of us.

We’re forever His once we’ve become born into His family. And the new believer needs that kind of nourishment from God’s Word to grow and to be established. As we are established inkefen, we believe what he says and we become more solid as we continue to grow in the knowledge of Christ. But yeah, I would say go back and remind her of some of those verses. And if she did indeed trust Christ, her assurance needs to be based upon God’s promises in the Bible.

Okay. Well, I really appreciate this. This has been really helpful. Well Dale, that’s great and we’ll be praying for you and your friend. That’s wonderful if she really got jump started here with this information. I know she just never had the nourishment and even though I bought her a Bible, she just, you know, you really need to be fed. So maybe if I had to get her to a certain point, you know, they say that you can evaluate a Christian’s maturity by this little rule.

You know, babies have to be fed by their parents. So a brand new Christian needs feeding from others. And then adolescents are those who can finally learn to feed themselves. Thank God when your children can start feeding themselves at the table, you don’t have to spoon feed them. And then adults are those who can not only feed themselves but can feed others. Well, I’m an adolescent. All right. Well, you see, it’s a easy way to say, here’s where I’m at in my Christian life.

I’m still needing to make progress here to be an adult, to be able to feed myself from God’s Word and intake from what I’m learning and cleaning and feed someone else. So I love to point that out to people who may say, oops, I’ve got to go a little bit further here. Okay. Thanks, Dale. Thank you. Fun talking to you. Bye bye. That was Dale over in Clearwater. Every one of us are at a…and you will never by the way fully arrive.

There’s no Christian who can say, I’ve learned it all. I know it all. I have all the answers. If they say that, I know they’re wrong, because it’s not true. I’m still learning. Every time I get into the Bible, I learn new things. That’s the wonderful thing about the Bible being a living book, because it’s exciting. No matter how many times, even if you read a passage you’re familiar with, you can still glean new truth from God’s Word. Most other books I’ve read, I’ve read them and put them on the shelf and that’s the end of it for my lifetime.

I never go back to them. But the Bible is a book I can return to again and again and again on a daily basis and find every day something fresh, something new, something exciting. And that’s really the way it ought to be. And if you’re still needing to be fed by others, then you’re a baby in your Christian growth. If you’re able to feed yourself, then you’ve reached adolescence. But when you reach maturity, you’re able to get into the Bible on your own.

You’re able to take care of your own needs spiritually by reading it and you’re able then to take from what you’ve learned and share it with others. And that’s what an adult is. Just like in the physical realm, an adult is one who can have children and then feed them and raise them. We’re going to Largo and we’re going to talk to Bill. Bill, welcome to my blind. Well, thank you, Dr. I wanted to ask you a question. Where does it come?

I have a friend that’s charismatic. I’m not charismatic, but he says that whenever we have a problem or a problem, we’re going like a sin problem or a habit or anything along this line, we should just put our faith in God and expect that He’s going to do it for us. Where is the line that we do it saying that we’re going to do it on our own strength or is it God’s divinity or whatever that is going to do it for us?

Do you understand my question? Yeah, I think I do. You know, we can’t sit back and just say, well God’s going to do everything, you know, because we, here’s a story that’s not quite dealing with that issue, but I remember as a brand new believer living in the dormitory at the University of Florida and seeing all the guys in my dorm and knowing that pretty much 99% of them were lost, and I would say, Lord, please send somebody to evangelize these guys They need you desperately, they need to be saved.

Lord, please send somebody. And nothing ever happened. Finally, finally it dawned on me. Maybe I don’t know what it is to do something here. And so I began to witness, and you know, the Lord blessed, and I led most of those guys to Christ. And it was wonderful. And I would have missed out on the blessing if I hadn’t gotten up myself off my blessed assurance and gone to them and just explained how to be saved. But I think the believer has an obligation, you know, after we become safe works are necessary.

And that’s what James is talking about, that faith without works is dead. So we have to choose to obey the Lord. We have to choose to walk in obedience to His word. We have to choose to get up and do something. And James says the hearer of the word is not the one that is blessed, it’s the doer of the word. So as you. Here the word, he says, don’t be deceived and just be a here but be a doeritamin.

James 122 tells us nervy that’s the one that’s going to be blessed. I agree with you totally on that,… but now there’s a famous preacher, I think Smiley, who was talking about, he had a no reading problem. And he said that he tried and he worked and he struggled and he prayed and he struggled and he tried. nothing work finally just left it go and i got to take care of it the problem one away you know that’s well-directed you know what i think you know i think there are times when uh…

we we really can’t do anything in there we have to depend upon god but there are many times things that we can do it was like when uh… when it’s children of israel you know when they came uh… to the red sea and and they were trapped by the sea in the mountains and and then all of a sudden the Egyptian army is coming up on their heels and they’re scared to death. And Moses stands still and sees the salvation of God.

There God works in a way that we’re helpless and we can’t do anything. And then God has to do something beyond that. And I believe he does do those kinds of things. But I think many times if we just get lazy and sit back and say, well, I’m just going to wait for God to do something, it may never happen. So I think that I think there are certain time I think you have to be discerning as to What it is that you know when we have an opportunity when we can do something like we’re commanded to study the Bible So I know some people think that they can just Sit back and and and not study the Bible and yet God is going to tell them What to say or what to do and that’s not necessarily true We have to study do our part and then he can take what we’ve deposited in our brains and memorized and use it for the

Lord Thank you for that call Bill and we appreciate you listening to our show. I was Bill in Largo and I’ve absolutely believers need to get going and I think we err more on the side of sitting back and not doing what we ought to be doing. In other words, when we get up in the morning, what do we do with our day? Do we consciously say, Lord, what can I do that will be for your glory? What can I do that would be in line with being obedient to you today?

And if we start off our day planning to let our lives be used and then taking advantage of opportunities, you know, when you have idle time, do you pick up your Bible and do you read it? Do you memorize Scripture? Do you take advantage of opportunities to maybe share the gospel with those that are lost or maybe bring a conversation that’s going south back to the things of God and so on. I think we can take advantage of those things.

What is interesting is that we’ve been mentioning some of the newer translations and how they change the meaning. We were asked about the new King James. What is interesting is in Matthew seven, we have a verse where Jesus says, intergued the straight gate for white as the gate and brought us the way that leads to destruction. and many there be which go in there at because straight as the gate and narrow is the way which lead us under life and few there be that find it well guess what the new king james does and it’s not the only one that does this it says here narrow is the way they say difficult is the way that’s a totally different meaning isn’t it difficult is the way implying that salvation again is by works.

Isn’t that amazing? So the plan of salvation is really violated. Works for salvation is implied in that phrase, difficult is the way. Narrow is the way. What does that mean? It means that there’s only one way to heaven. The way is Jesus. Jesus says in John 14, 6, I am the way. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No man can come under the Father but by me. So, narrow is the way, refers to the fact that there is only one way to heaven where broad is the way that leads to destruction, refers to there are many options that will take you to hell.

Any religion you choose will take you to hell. Any cult you choose will take you to hell. You have all kinds of choices that will take you to hell. There is only one way to heaven, that’s Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the way. So the New King James, what does it do? It says in Matthew 714, difficult is the way. A little bit different meaning, isn’t it implies works for salvation. Well you know it’s a The New King James omits the word Lord 66 times.

The New King James omits the word God 51 times. The New King James omits the word heaven 50 times. The New King James omits the word repent 44 times. The New King James omits the word repent 44 times. The New King James omits the word blood 23 times. The New King James omits the word hell 22 times. The New King James omits the word Jehovah entirely. The New King James omits the word New Testament entirely. The New King James omits the word damnation entirely.

and the new king James omits the word devils entirely and the new king James obviously has ignored the Greek manuscript of Texas Receptus over 2,000 times by deleting or changing or leaving things out that are in the Texas Receptus. A little bit of word there about the New King James, and of course the New King James logo is the ancient symbol for the pagan trinity, not the Christian trinity. This symbol’s shape can be seen on satanic rock group albums like Led Zeppelin and others out there.

Unfortunately, it uses a pagan symbol at the get-go. We were all shocked. I was shocked. I was expecting the New King James would be really a nice thing to have just changing these and those and bringing it up to speed. But apparently that’s not the case. Alright, this is Bible and I’m Dr. Hank Lindstrom. Gotta run. I hope you’ll keep looking up and watching Jesus is coming and we believe He’s coming soon and we’ll look forward to being with you again tomorrow.

So tell your friends about Bible and join us tomorrow. Look it up, Jesus is coming. Our time together has ended for today. We’ve enjoyed being with you as always. If you have any questions or comments about today’s program, please call us at 1-800-576-3771. You can really grow in your Christian walk by spending time studying God’s Word while listening to Bibleline. If you missed any of today’s program or if you’d like to hear it again, visit our website at Bibleignministry.org.

Click on the audio online link and then click on Bibleline radio. You can also listen to other programs by selecting the past shows or audio archives link. It was Dr. Lindstrom’s ministry to spread the good news of salvation. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh who came to this world and shed His blood, died and was buried and then resurrected. He paid in full the sin debt that we all owe but cannot pay for ourselves. Don’t die without accepting God’s free gift of salvation by trusting Jesus Christ alone as your Savior.

Our thanks to you for being with us today on Bibleline and to our audio team for their work on this program. Until next time, this has been Tom Perry for Bibleline Ministries, and as Dr. Hank Lynch from Like to Say, and we know it to be true. Keep looking up. Jesus is coming, and we believe soon. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a presentation of Bibleline Ministries of Tampa, Florida. Your regular monthly donations to Bibleline make it possible for this ministry to continue in your area and on the Internet.

contact us today and lend your prayerful and financial support. Bibleline’s address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Or visit Bibleline online and BibleLineMinistries.org. Be sure to tune in to another edition of Bibleline from Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida.