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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 month… and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach which is toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bibleline website at calvaryoftampa.org. We pray that you’ll 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.

Take your Bible and turn to the book of Second Peter, chapter one, Second Peter, and chapter one. Some interesting scriptures here. But in the book of Peter, there is the danger of a Christian having life without growth. There’s a danger of the children being born without growth. If they don’t grow, you know there’s something wrong. Or what about Christians that won’t grow? say to have you turn like, but as far as their spiritual walk with the Lord, they never get strong enough to handle spiritual responsibility.

Children of God. And so these verses here from about verse three down to verse eight is talking about life without growth. And then there’s another danger from verse nine down to verse 14 about knowledge, but having a knowledge without practice, knowledge, but it doesn’t do you any good. Is it possible that you could go to church every week, never miss and never grow spiritually or never do anything with the knowledge? What’s interesting to me for years whenever I would preach, Eddie would always say that out there in the congregation.

And he got to where he was pretty good at taking notes down of what I preached. And he would show me after the service. He had wrote down every verse. Oh my point. He had better notes what I had, but he would sit down here right down the notes and he’d write down the scriptures. He got to where, you know, after a while he could tell where I’m going next. He says, no, he’s going to go to this verse.

Now he’s going to go to this verse. Now this is what he’s going to say. Now that’s reputation that you hear so often so on you know where a person’s going to go. He says, I could just about do that. He said, I know what you’re going to do next. And he’s going to hear me. He’s out listening to you on the radio this morning. He says, no, I know he’s going going to do this and he’s going to go to this verse and lo and behold that’s why that’s why they’ve heard me camps they come to ranch they come to church well after a while you start learning and the reason I say it over and over and over again is because that’s exactly what I want him to do now Eddie likes to speak and he preached for a little man a couple weeks ago and he loves this this

preach now but now he can he can remember he got a better memory now he can remember the sermons and he had all my notes and he could recall doing a super job doing that. But what about you? When you sit down and you read the Bible, do you realize that there’s things you’re supposed to be learning because you want to do? See, this is why I say the work we do with the teenagers or the kids in Sunday school, you don’t have any idea down the road what God’s going to do with those individuals.

But you keep telling them, keep teaching them. And because someday those things come back to your remembrance. person in here you can well I should say well you can remember when you were a child I can remember back when I was four years old I can remember all the way back before I was born non-just joking but look what he says in verse 10 wherefore the rather brethren give diligence to make your calling and election sure for if you do these things you shall never fall so it’s not the will of God for a child of God to fall, but we can stumble.

But falling, God said, I’ll uphold you with my right hand unless you just don’t want to walk with God. So we do a lot of stumbling in our life and sometimes we fall, but God says that all you got to do is just get up and keep on walking with the Lord. But some Christians, they don’t grow. They don’t put into practice the things that they’ve learned in their Christian life. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Ephesians chapter 4, the book of Ephesians and chapter 4.

This is what was written to the church at Ephesus, the church at Ephesus. So as this letter is written, remember he’s not just writing to preachers and missionaries, evangelists, you believe it or not have a high calling from Jesus Christ. Of all the phone calls you can get in this world, of all the people you could talk to and the people you can listen to, God called. And the only thing that’s going to make you different in this world is that you can listen to God.

this world than anybody else is if you’ll hear him and obey him then you’ll be different. Otherwise, you’ll be just like everybody else who’s ever lived. You can live your whole life and make no difference in the lives of other people. Nobody’s eternal destination has been altered. Nobody has been challenged to serve the Lord if you don’t let God change you. God must speak to you. And as you sit down and you’re home and you read the word of God, you must believe God is speaking to me.

God is telling me this. This is why, like in 1960, when Dr. Virgil Edwards would speak, I did not listen as though I’m listening to Dr. Virgil Edwards. Whenever he would refer to the Bible, I would always believe God is speaking to me. This is what God wants me to do, has not do with Virgil Edwards. because I listen to it from that point of view, it changed my life. You see, I don’t want you listening to the Bible as Yankee says, the preacher says, no, God said, and you have to believe, see the reason I go to church on Sunday morning, what, because God says to do so.

Yankee didn’t tell you to do that. I have no authority to tell you what to do. God does. So whenever God says, upon the first day of the week, okay, on the first day of the week, I wonder what day that is. That’s a Sunday. And then He said, do not have no forsaken of yourselves together. In other words, and even more so, as you see the day of fruit, in other words, the closer we get to the Lord coming, should I forsake the assembling of ourselves together?

Somebody would say, well, I can worship God, I don’t have to go to church. Well, you can, but you’re not gonna please God. Who’s the one who said to go to church? The preacher of God. The preacher’s only telling you what God said. Outside of the Bible, the man has no authority. Can’t do anything. But you must hear that. God is the one that told me to go to church on Sunday mornings. So that’s why I do it. And if God’s the one that tells me that I should give, well then why do I give?

Because God says so. And if the preacher says, no, no, no, I had not do it a preacher. The preacher’s not the power. The power is the word. You hear God. I do what I do because God says so. I don’t go to church because Leon wants me to. I don’t go to church because Tim wants me to. I go to church because God wants me to. Therefore, I don’t feel right when I disobey God, because I believe that’s what God wants me to do.

But if you don’t believe it’s what God wants, and God said it, well then if it’s just a man, well you can defy him anytime you want to. Who is he? I don’t have to give because Yankees wanna say that I should do this or this and that. I don’t have to obey him. Who’s the think he is? You’re right. But did you hear God? If God called you upon the telephone and told you this is what I want you to do, will you or will you not obey God?

That’s why you do what you do. Who’s the one that wants you to be conformed to the image of Christ? I want you to, but I don’t have to command to make you do it. God does. But you must hear God wants me to be conformed to the image of Christ. God wants me to have a good testimony. God wants me to do right. God wants me to do this and do that. So you must hear God call you.

Now here in the book of Ephesians in chapter 4, look in verse 1. I therefore, Paul said, the prisoner of the Lord, that word is do-loss in the Greek and it means a bond slave. He means he is a bond slave, a love slave of the Lord. So I am a free man. God save me, set me free and I have chosen voluntarily. I chose to be a bond slave of Jesus Christ. Lord, I’ll be your slave. Now am I doing that to get to heaven?

No. because God says, I am in this world for a reason. He is calling me to do something. So as I heard the thing about the gospel and going into all the world and preach the gospel and so forth, I became addicted to the gospel. I am a gospel addict. That’s why the copy of my book back there, the thing of the gospel driven men. It’s all about the gospel. Why? Because I’m addicted to it. I heard God say something about that and it has so changed and motivated my whole life.

Now get what he says, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord be seated that ye walk worthy of the vocation, wherewith ye are what? You are what? So you have a vocation. You ask something, what’s your thing? Well, I’m a doctor, I’m a lawyer, I’mCatalia, I’m this, I’m that or whatever the, but God gave you one too. You are a servant of the Lord. You are to be a bond slave of Jesus Christ. Therefore he says walk worthy, walk worthy of the vocation.

So have you been called on God? Yes. You have a calling just as much as a preacher, emissianary, or any vangelist. God calls. called you. You’re called of God. You’ve been called by God to meet together with God’s people. You’ve been called by God to support missions. You’ve been called by God to be that church. You’ve been called by God to study his word. You’ve been called by God to pray. You’ve been called by God and you go through the book and there’s many precious promises God’s given us in his word that are just as real for you as they are for me.

And some of you God has called to be a faithful husband and God called you to be a faithful wife and God called you to be faithful teenagers. It’s been called by God to be a good steward. A steward is required to be found. Have you been called? Have you been called? Have you answered a call? A faithful steward of God. Well, God called you. You see, the preacher is just a lead you to guide you. But outside it has no power.

Can’t make anybody do anything. I wish they could sometime. I give me a bull, but it won’t work. If I can’t get you to do what you do with truth, then you didn’t do it for the right reason. Because you and I are both answerable to God. We do what God wants us to do with our life. But He makes a statement that you are worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. Then get what He says here in verse four.

There is one body, one spirit, even as you get this, ye are called, and one hope of your calling. You have a calling. This is to the church. This isn the pastor. This is to the church, but he makes the statement there in verse 12. Look at verse 12, that God has called some pastors, prophets, apostles, evangelists, teachers, as I said in verse 11, and get verse 12. For the perfect thing of the saints, that means the equipping of the saints.

See, all I’m supposed to try to equip you to fulfill your calling. God has called you. That word perfect me to equip you with the tools necessary to answer the call. So if I am trying to teach you, but let’s just pretend you won’t come half the time. That really cuts back on my teaching you, isn’t it? And if you only come half the time, that really cuts down on your being equipped to do the work of the ministry, true.

But if you came all the time, as much as you can, the more you learn, the more you can do, the more you can answer the call of God. Is it important for the pastor to be faithful? Do you believe that when a man says that I have been called of God to be a pastor or a call of God to be a missionary, call of God to be an evangelist? Don’t you believe that that should be a requirement?

What about the pastor believing that about you? God called you. And you’re supposed to be able to look into the word of God that God called me to be part of the body of Christ. This is the body. Look in verse 4 again. There’s one body, one spirit even as you’re called and one hope of your call of. There is one true church. You are part of that. You have been called by God. And in the local assembly you’re called by God.

Are you supposed to be found faithful? You are to be found faithful. It is the will of God. Now of course you You can disobey it like we can and everything else. Nobody gonna make you. It’s just that you’ll lose out on what you could have done or what the church could have done or the people that we could have reached or the missionaries we could have supported or the lost goes on and on and on. What could be done if God’s people were faithful but the results is they don’t think down the road he says, what do you want to do?

Whatever pleases me if it’s con, now the Lord’s work has to be a priority in your life. Your high calling must be a priority. Take your Bible and look in the book, this is not in my notes, but I want you to see this verse in the book of Acts chapter 26. Look at Acts chapter 26. And look there in verse 15. 493 When the Apostle Paul had trusted Christ as Savior on the road to Damascus, bright light appeared and he has given his testimony several times and I mentioned this the other night.

He said in verse 50, and I said, who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecuted. But rise, stand upon thy feet. He’s rehearsing this now before you could say like a grand jury. He stand upon thy feet for I have appeared under the, for this purpose. To make thee a minister And a witness, both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee. Delivering thee from the people, from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee.

In other words, I am going to protect you, and you are virtually invincible until I’m ready to send you home. I want you to go, and I’m going to protect you, but I’m going to show this man what great things he must suffer for my name’s sake. He made others suffer and he put him in prison and jail and threatened and slaughtered and so forth. Then he says verse 18 To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and Inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

That was your calling God appeared to him and so this is what I want you to do God called Paul answered, spent the rest of his life, totally a changed man. Wouldn’t you think that if God called you and you answered the call of God, you ought to be a changed individual? How can you dare be the same kind of a person you was before he ever called you and said, I want you to do something for me. Shouldn’t it change your life?

There’s something about you that’s different than it used to be. But look what he says in verse 9, I love verse 9, these verses are the verses that I read the day that I graduated from Bible college and the night that I was ordained. I had to give a little speech and this is what I spoke on. You know what? It ain’t changed. But in verse 19 he says, we’re upon O King Agrippum and you ought to underlined this in your Bible.

I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, this heavenly calling. You see Paul made the statement of Aaron Philippians where we read just a moment ago where he says, I pressed toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. In other words, there’s a reason, a higher reason for living, a greater purpose. And I don’t want to be disobedient to that heavenly calling. Every one of you ought to say in your mind, I don’t want to live my whole life and disobey the heavenly calling of God that he has for me.

You have to hear it. You have to believe that what you heard was not what the preacher said. I heard it as it was the voice of God. I heard the voice of God speaking to me. This is what the Word of God says and I heard this from the book And that’s what changed my life. Otherwise, see, if it’s just the preachers or any preacher, you can wipe that out of your mind. That’s just a man. They know better, greater than you are.

You’re right. But if you hear it from this, now you’ve got a problem. You either have to obey it or disobey it. You can’t acknowledge. Obey or disobey. It cannot be any other way. You either answer the call or you hang up on God and refuse to hear. You see, whenever you have your Bible, and you never read the Bible, and you don’t study it, he’s like, it keeps ringing, the phone keeps ringing, but you will not answer because you’re afraid he’s gonna tell you to do something you don’t wanna do.

We don’t mind doing for God what we really wanna do. But what if God wants us to do something we don’t want to do? Do you realize that in my lifetime, I’ve had to forgive people that I really didn’t want to? I’ve had to be nice to some people, when I’d rather just give them a Hawaiian punch. But I know it was wrong. And you do something because it’s the will of God. It’s what God wants. What if your will clashes with the will of God?

Who wins? God says, do this. I will not. You clashed. You hung up on God and you refused to do it. I’ve listened to people give testimony when they were older. And they was sit there and they and that’s him cry. God called me to preach when I was a teenager and I rebelled and I would not do it. And now all these years later that call is still bugging them. And they said I refuse to obey the voice of God.

God called me and I would not answer. And now all these years later that still just tears them up. I remember listening to a man one day and he said, he saw, he cried, and his wife was walking around, he said, I want it to be a pastor. He said, and I knew that’s what God wanted me to do. And then after it because of what my wife rebioned, he says, I had to forfeit it because his wife would not be a good preacher’s wife.

And he had a constant ministry. Oh man. He saw like a child. But the day’s gonna come when we’re all gonna stand before the Lord. I want you to be able to say I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. One other verse I want you to look at. Look there in 1 Peter chapter 2, 1 Peter and chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2 and look in verse 21. The book of 1 Peter deals with a lot of suffering.

We suffer. And one of the callings of God in this life is that God has called us to suffer. And we’re going to suffer. We’re going to suffer in a lot of ways. You may suffer because of your husband, because your wife, because your kids. You may suffer because of bad health, losing a loved one, finances, physical problem. Now all of the health problem men that we can go through and you hurt, you suffer. One time I was suffering with my feet.

I didn’t know how that was going to come out. I see God has brought me through so many and is and I’m gonna keep bragging on him because he keeps pulling me through That doesn’t mean something ain’t gonna happen tomorrow But I do believe Romans 828 God can let it come but I believe God’ll bring me right through it and I just keep on trucking right on because I believe the Lord I don’t have all the answers, but I know God does and I don’t have to know them all I just kind of trust him and sometimes it gets rough But here in 1 Peter chapter 2, looking verse 21, for even here unto were ye, and there’s that word, you ought to un-the line it, called, called to do what?

Called to suffer. Because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow in his steps, follow his steps. And so did Christ suffer while he was here? Did he have people against him? Did people hurt him? Yes, all kind of thing. rejection. You name it. He went through it. Was he a rich man? No, he was a poor man. Bared in a bar in a rich man’s tomb. Didn’t have money. He couldn’t even buy his own.

But yet the Heavenly Father took care of him. And so you may be called upon to suffer. Those are things that will happen to us in John 524 when he made the statement. I want you to see this. John 5 and verse 25, verse 25, I quoted verse 24 to you, but I want you to see this other verse before we close here. John chapter 5, we’ll read verse 24. In verse 24, it says, Verily, verily I send to you, He that heareth, heareth my word, believeeth on Him that sent me, have everlasting life.

So if you hear, believe you have everlasting life. Now look in verse 25. Verily, verily I send to you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the God, son of God, shall hear the voice of the son of God, and they that hear shall live, that last line you ought on the day that hear shall live. See, we don’t have to worry about hearing the literal voice of God. When you hear the word of God, this is the voice of God.

If it’s his word, it’s his voice. If you heard my word, you heard my voice. So whenever you read the Bible and you hear the voice of God, and you’ll believe that God is speaking to me. God is talking to me. Now, I don’t believe some angels, they’re in your bed post them night and tell you some sweet dreams and so like a death. No, you might have had too many onions on your hamburgers. You be careful of that.

But the Word of God and the will have never lead you contrary to what’s right here in this book. It will always be with chapter and verse and to believe that. Look at her. This is you and me and this is sin. We all have sin upon us. God loves us but He hates our sin. For you and I to go to heaven, we have to be perfect. None of us are perfect. We’re all sinners. But the Bible says we committed the sin.

We ought to pay for it and the payment for that is eternal separation from God in help. But God doesn’t want us to go to hell. He wants us to go to heaven. They go to heaven. We have to be as righteous as God because heaven is perfect. God is perfect and we’re not. So we need a Savior. We cannot save ourselves. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the place. He came into the world because he loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from.

So Christ took the sin, paid from the cross, came back from the dead. And God said, if you knife. We’ll believe he did it for us. He would put that payment to our account and we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. When you believe that God saves you, gives you eternal life, you become His child. Now as a child of God, it is the will of God that all of God’s children, believe it or not, to partake of the Lord’s Supper.

Did you realize that this is not really so much is an option. This is a divine command. But in the midst of this command, for us to partake of the Lord’s Supper, He says, examine your own life. You don’t examine somebody else’s. Just your own. And if there’s anything in your life that is not right, you make it right. If there’s something that you need to confess to God, confess it, don’t hide things from you and God. God sees everything.

God just wants us to be honest with God. And so you’re looking back to what He did on the cross until He comes again. So you look back at the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and you’re looking forward to his coming again for us someday The Lord Supper does not save anybody It’s a divine command because it’s what God wants us to do to keep ourselves Examined and to do right and verse things in our life that are not right will make it right But it says not to partake of the Lord’s Supper Unworthy I want you to understand You’re important.

You’re important to God God needs you.” I have people say, well, you know, God doesn’t need you. Yes, he does. He said so. He created me because he needed me. You see, whenever I didn’t exist, I didn’t need God. I wasn’t there. But God has always been. He needed us. He wanted to bestow his love. He wanted to demonstrate us as the trophies of God’s grace in his mercy and what he can do for us. God wants to do a work in your life.

Do you really believe that? God has called you to Something that’s higher that anything else in this world and he loves you that much And he wants to do something with you and for you and through you Let the Lord be more real to you than anything else in the world And God will bless you for that. Let’s pray shower Our father would you thank you for loving us for giving us is a free gift eternal life and And Father, I pray that each person here, if they haven’t trusted your Savior, that they would, because we know that eternal life is free, not something we aren’t going to work for.

When He heads bowed and the eyes closed, no one looking around. If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you trust Him right now? Say something like this, Lord, I know I’m in the center, I believe Christ died, paid for my sin, and I’ll trust Him right now to take me to heaven when I die. You’ve never done it. Would you do it right now? If you have trusted Christ to save it, you’re God’s child. And also at this very moment, do you understand you have been called by God?

If you’re a housewife, a mother, that’s a calling. Do your calling, your vocation, whatever God has given to you as unto God. And whatever you do, wherever you work, that’s a calling of God. God has called you to be found faithful. I don’t get where it is, what you’re doing, be faithful to the Lord. I follow we ask the blessings upon each person here, that each person would understand they are called. They’ve been called by God Himself, a higher calling.

And that one day when we leave this world, we don’t want it to be said that I was disobeying to this heavenly vision. So bless us in Christ’s name 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 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 toll-free 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. If you wish to hear today’s program again or would like to download a free MP3 of today’s or any previous Bibleline program, go to BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the spinning globe in the upper right corner of our homepage. If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, Calvary of Tampa.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. 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.