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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the regular and the Internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. which is toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bibleline website at calbryoftampa.org. 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.

Turn over to your Bible to the book of Hebrews chapter 11 Hebrews and chapter 11. Several things that I have mentioned to you before but repetition is like theological mucilage. It’s like throwing mud on the wall. You throw the moor’s gonna stick and you repeat and then add a little bit and repeat add a little bit and that’s how people learn the Bible. The Bible says here a little there a little that’s why too much like the Bible says blinds a person You can’t give a person too much truth at one time or blinds if they don’t see anything So little by little I want you look there in verse one of Hebrews chapter 11 Says now faith is the substance of things hoped for in other words That’s all you have in this world that you believe God is your faith But faith is not something that’s not real

Faith is as real as this Bible. It’s as real as this microphone. This is real as that fan. Faith is a substance that only God can see, but that faith that you have can produce something. Faith in Christ got you eternal life, so it’s not blind faith. It’s faith in facts. If God says something and you believe it, that’s faith in the facts, not blind faith. That’s truth. It’s whenever you believe something that there is no basis for the belief.

That’s blind faith. So those who believe the Bible is not like, well, we got blind faith. No, it’s not blind. I’m not trusting God blindly. I’ve got evidence. I’ve got some proof, something to build upon. So he says, the evidence of things not saying, the evidence that I’ve got or not things that you can see, but there’s still evidence. I could use the things of the world to say, I believe there’s a God. And the world that I do see is the evidence for my belief in that which I cannot see.

But there’s many things that I cannot see, but it’s the evidences of my faith. and why I have done what I’ve done with my life and why I want to serve a Lord and why I want to go to church, why I want to read the Bible, why I want to be faithful. And so the knowledge of the Word of God is what causes a person to be faithful down to time. And the Bible says this in the book of Matthew.

It says that when Christ returned, will he find faith? Will there be faith upon the year? Will people still be trusting the Lord and living by faith? Evidently he says it’s going to get so bad that majority of people are not going to really live by faith. Many people, they go to church, but just out of duty. They don’t go because they’re strong, calmness in the Lord that is the right in the doing. I do it because it’s right.

They just do things out of habit or because it’s a social thing in society or they go to make contacts for business dealings and whatever or to be looking good in society, the community that they’re a church going individual, but has nothing to do with their love of God. And so when Christ returns in the air for us and we’re caught up to meet the Lord, The Bible says, well there will be faith yet upon the earth. So there must be a time where it seems like that nobody wants to serve God, nobody really cared.

And today just because you can have a church of 20 people or 20,000 people and you never know where the individuals are in that church spiritually. So I want to kind of give a couple things to you. Look what it says here in verse 3. through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. Now we say worlds were not actually talking so much about the planets out there in the universe and so forth. We’re talking about the periods of time in history because then he gets right into here in chapter 11 and breaks it down in the time of Abel, in the time of Enoch, in the time of the Flood, in the time of Sarah.

This is really almost like a breakdown of various dispensational teaching that we also have up here. We got the time of back here in Abel and the flood and Abraham and so forth and the law of Moses. So it’s already broke down the same way. And seven is the number of perfection. So you’ve got number one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven. Is the number of completion and this is the kingdom upon the earth. When he makes a statement in Book of Ephesians where he says in all things and all time shall be brought together.

It means the people from all the various periods of time will be brought together at this one particular time. And these are various ways in which God dealt with man concerning a responsibility. And at the end of each dispensation, there’s always failure because man fails God. And every person who is in the The book of Ephesians where he says, and all things and all time shall be brought together. It means the people from all the various periods of time will be brought together at this one particular time.

And these are various ways in which God dealt with man concerning a responsibility. And at the end of each dispensation, there’s always failure because man fails God in every period. period of time. So he makes the statement, he had through faith we understand that the ages were framed by the Word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. So we live by faith believing that what God says it is true. One fourth of the Bible is pre-written history.

Means God wrote it, telling the future before it took place so that we could know that the Word of God it is true. Now take your Bible and turn over there to the book of Colossians, the book of Colossians and chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1, he’s talking to us about something else that he made and things that are invisible and how things are held together, but look there in verse 17. The Bible says in the last part of verse 16, all things were created and get this by him for Him.

So if you ever wondered why did God create the heavens and the earth, well He created it for Him. And in the book of Revelation in chapter 5, excuse me, chapter 5, it also makes a statement that we are created for His pleasure by thy pleasure, by art and were created. But He says here in verse 17, He is before all things. By Him all things consist. Everything came from Him. He He was before everything and everything came from Him.

So whenever you say, well, who was in the beginning? Well, God says He was before everything. There was nothing before Him and everything that there is came from Him. Isn’t that a simple verse? That’s a good verse to know and to use in the Bible. Then He talks about verse 18. He is the head of the body, the church. That’s the period of time right here. This is known as the church age from Pentecost, the day of the birth of the church.

until the rapture, that is the church age. We call it the day of grace, but it’s the church age. This is the day, this is a night, and this is a day. What separates two days a night? So this is the tribulation, the dark period of time upon the earth. So this is the day, this is the day, and this is the night separated by the night. The other thing, keep in mind He says in the last part of verse 18, he says, Who is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.

In other words, he is over everything. Not only did he create everything, everything came from him. He also came into the world and he came back from the dead. And when he says he is the first from the dead, you say, well, there’s other ones that he raised from the dead before he died. Yes, but not by their own power. See, he’s the only one who could come back from the dead by his own power. Nobody else ever did.

Did other people come back from the dead? Yes, but not by their power, by his power. So he’s able to raise people from the dead and he came back that in all things he may have the preeminence. In verse 18, for it pleased the Father that in him should all fill this dwell. Now this is also mentioned here. If you’ll see there in verse 9, for in him, talking about Christ of chapter 2, develop all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

So whatever entails God, whatever is about God, it was embodied in that person of Christ. Jesus Christ, when he was here, was everything that there is to know and to do about God. He was the fullness of the Godhead. And we talk about the Godhead, we’re talking about God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They’re all present right here. He says, he are complete in him. Now, what I want you to see there Colossians in chapter 1.

He also makes another statement, something that is very important, look in verse 23, because since he has and wants to have the preeminence gif togethe he wants it in our own individual life. In other words, God wants us to give him preeminence. He’s first. Down here we have many choices to make, multitude of decisions. But in everything, If Christ has the preeminence in our life, that means number one position, priority, everything is to honor Him, then you seek His will in everything that you do because…

He has earned the right because of who he is and what he has done for us, and I get this. If he continues the faith, get this grounded, settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, where of I, Paul, and made a minister. See, there’s many people in the world that know Christ is their Savior. And the only reason they know the Lord is because somebody, somewhere, explained to gospel, they heard, they read a tract, they read the Bible, but they got saved.

And that became the most important thing in their whole life. Now, our purpose in this world, why we live here, it says is the preeminence of Christ is the preeminence of the gospel, that you be not moved away from this, because you can be rooted and grounded in many things, many doctrinal positions. And there’s a lot of people that are very well grounded in many teachings of the Bible, but they’re not rooted and grounded in the gospel, even though they trust the Christ of Savior, because they cannot defend it and they cannot stay there because they’re not grounded and settled there.

And they get moved away from it as the purpose of our life. When you get right down to it, you cannot find another worthy purpose for an individual to live than to keep people out of hell. That is our main thing that God has given to us in every dispensation. Now, the thing is now, when Christ comes, are there people that still believe with all the heart that that’s the most important thing. If it is, the gospel becomes important.

If it’s not, then it’s not important. It’s just a fringe benefit. It’s just something out there. And the most important thing is just living a good old Christian life. Just staying out of trouble and doing right and going to church. And that’s it. Well, church is a full of people that’s doing that and nobody else gets saved. Once in a while somebody will come along and they’ll lead somebody to the Lord, but then they’ll filter into some church. And but then they don’t fall in love with this.

I get what he says here. be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature which is done to heaven. Now he says in verse 24, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you. Fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for my body’s sake, which is the church. Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God, the stewardship, which is given to me for you to fulfill the Word of God.

Even the mystery which had been hit from ages and from generations but now has made manifest to his saints. In other words this truth about Jews and Gentiles, believers from all walks of life, all races, all nations, anyone who believes in Christ form a body of Christ. This was hidden in times past. Nobody in the Old Testament knew about this. This was a secret. It’s a mystery. It means it is a truth that is now revealed for the first time.

When you see the word mystery, it means it’s a truth that has been hidden in times past but now revealed for the first time. So this is a great, tremendous truth. Because see, if they had accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, there would not have been church age. This would have went straight into here and this would not have been. So whenever the rapture takes place, we are going to be taken out of the world. This will go right back against this like it never missed a lick and the 69 weeks to Daniel will go right into the 70th week of Daniel and the rest of it is fulfilled.

This is in the Old Testament. This is all in the Old Testament. This is not in the Old Testament. This is a new thing. That’s why he said this is a dispensation of the grace of God that Paul says has been given unto me something new, mysterious, a great thing. So in verse 26 even the mystery which had been hid from ages and from generations but now has made manifest to his saints. And you they say, well, what is that in the last verse of 27, let’s say, which is Christ in you the hope of glory.

So you and I had something that they never had. I have the presence of the Holy Spirit living inside of me, which David never had, Daniel never had, Isaiah never had. Those Old Testament saints never had some of the things that we’re able to enjoy. Did you know that we have, we have all the books? They were written after them. They didn’t have what we have. They didn’t have the knowledge that we had. And yet they were able to maintain throughout their life a steadfastness and serving the Lord with less knowledge than what we have.

You see the Bible says in Hebrews in chapter 12 when he talks about we’re seeing that we have such a great cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside the weight that so easily be set us and let us run the race which has been set before up. See, they didn’t have this great cloud of witnesses. They were the ones there. But here we are, we’re over here and we’ve got 4,000 years of history. We’ve got the complete Word of God and we have Christ in you, the hope of glory, living inside of us to know more, to do more, to be more faithful.

And he says, will there be faith on the earth when I come? There’s a reason because when love waxes coal, iniquity abounds, the world is getting not better. It’s going to get worse. The worst part of time and all the face of the earth is the period of time that follows the greatest light in all the world. There’s never been a greater outporn manifestation of the Spirit of God, Christian soul-winning, church has been built all over the world and the world is getting worse, not better.

We’re not a stabilizing force. Look around you, see how many people we have? Where’s the people? And now a lot of churches are not doing much better. There’s a lot of them struggling. But even though they had three thousand or four thousand or five thousand based upon how many people are in America, all of them going to church and love God and supporting missions and doing things, no. It’s not. Just like they failed and they failed and they failed and they failed and we’re failing.

We’re failing. Thank God says this is the way it’s going to be and the whisper to time is right after it should have been the best. God has given us that which we should have been able to shake the world. And we haven’t done a thing. The reason because majority of most Christians are playing cold. They’re not hot. They’re not loot warm. They’re dead. Most Christians are just dead. There’s no life. They’re not positive. They have no concern. They seem like I really don’t care when he makes the statement here in verse 28 whom we preach Warning every man teaching every man and all wisdom that we may present every man maturing Jesus Christ So it’s not just a matter of winning somebody to the Lord It’s getting a person to where we can present every person maturing Christ and you know what and you can’t make anybody mature

You can’t make them grow strong in the Lord You can’t do it. So anyway, these are some tremendous verses now in the book of Ephesians turn to your left the book of Ephesians in chapter 3. In Ephesians chapter 3 the apostle Paul explaining to the church there because he says there’s Christ is the head of the church and there’s the body. We’re here we have an awful lot about the body of believers in the Ephesians. In the book of Colossians we have a lot about the head.

That’s Christ, head of the body. So Colossians you study about the head and look of Ephesians you study about the body and the body can do nothing without the head and most times we’re like people run around with a body without a head on. There’s nobody to tell us what to do because we don’t listen. And Ephesians chapter 3, look in verse 2, if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God. This is the dispensation. This period of time right here.

This is the stewardship of revealing certain new truths to the body of believers and our mission is totally different than what God gave to Israel or to gave to Noah back in Adam’s time. God never told Adam to build a boat. He didn’t tell them to go down into Egypt and tell Moses, I mean, to that wasn’t his job. God has given us a particular job, a special job, an awesome job. We have the glorious gospel, the greatest message in all the world.

And our job is to succeed that people come to know Christ, support and missionary, build in a strong body of believers so people will stay strong, steadfast. Sometimes I wonder, don’t people want, or maybe it’s because there’s just simply too many churches around. And if anybody gets ticked off in one thing because of one part, they just go to this church, you go to that church, you go to that. It doesn’t matter because there’s thousands of churches. Do you know there’s some places in this world that don’t even have a preacher, don’t even have a missionary?

I remember reading one time about David Livingston and he says when he went down into Africa, He says there’s a thousand campfires. Without a witness. He says, I stood on one hill and saw a thousand campfires and not one missionary. All these campfires represented little tribes of people. And he says they have no missionary and he gave himself as a missionary to go and reach those people. I read about William Carey as a missionary that went down into India because the same thing and and how that Hudson Taylor, he went to China and started the inland China missions.

and people that just gave their lives because they saw things differently. They didn’t have a witness. Today there’s so many churches. Nobody cares. You can go anywhere, do anything, believe whatever you want to believe. Find a church that believes what you believe and that’s where you go. Instead of finding a church that teaches the book, stands for the book and don’t bend on it. It’s like it doesn’t matter anymore. I believe everything matters. But here in Ephesians in chapter 3, look what he says, If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which is given to me toward you, how that by revelation he hath made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote it for in a few words, whereby when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.

Which, and get this now, same thing we read over in the cause, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men. As it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit that the Gentile now here’s the secret this truth that the Gentiles might be fellow heirs with the Jews and of the same body in partakers of his promise in Christ by the what? By the gospel. You notice in every one of these days there’s always the gospel because that’s the key to everything and this is why some people if the devil can get working on somebody’s mind they always hear that I get sick and tired of hearing that gospel.

I get sick and tired of hearing that, seeing that hand illustration or hit John through 16. I want more. You see, it’s not that you want more. Is it you’re supposed to be doing more with that simple little thing that you already know. But if you don’t do something with what you already know, you don’t need nothing else. You’re not doing this with what you’re supposed to be doing. You’ve got this, the greatest message. And then sometimes we never give never share it.

And yet we expect everything else, just make me big in fact Christian. They won’t come that way. It always comes back to this. And he makes a statement here in verse seven, whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power unto me who am blessed in the least of all saints. Is this grace given. In other words, I don’t deserve what God has done for me.

He says, I am an example of how that God can save a man after everything that I’ve done. If God can save me, God can save anybody. This is why he says in Timothy that I am the chief of sinners because if God can save the apostle Paul and everything that Paul was guilty of, even murder, and God saved him and used him as an example, look what God can do for anybody else. And so he says, God did this for me.

I don’t deserve this on the least of all the saints that I should preach among the Gentiles the Unsearchable riches of Christ truth that the world cannot know if they don’t come from this book I know knowledge. I’ve got truth and there’s power in knowledge true knowledge. They can change a man’s destiny Revolutionize a person’s life this truth I know it and you know it and And we’re supposed to let this thing so motivate us and challenge us that we want to reach other people with the same knowledge.

And if you go down there to verse 11, and he says, according to the eternal purpose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. So if God had, now look up here, if God did all of this, and God has this in here, and this is where we are, is this part of God’s eternal purpose? Does God have something special for us, evidently so? And we’re part of this eternal plan. And you may not see it and understand all of it, but while we’re here we have a responsibility.

Now what I want you to do is turn over there in your Bible to the book of Revelation. Revelation, and chapter 1, always told to draw the hat. If you can draw a hat, you can teach prophecy. How many of you in here can draw that? You can teach prophecy. See, all you’ve got to do is put the cross there, see anything else? Where’s the Rapture? Where’s the Revelation of Christ coming back to the earth? Where’s the seven-year tribulation?

Judgment’s seed of Christ, marriage’s supper of the Lamb, kingdom upon the earth. See how easy that was? All you gotta do is draw a hat. You draw a hat, you can teach prophecy. See how difficult it is to understand the Bible. It’s so hard. It is not hard. Now, what I wanted to show you is that the book of Revelation, here we go. There’s the rapture, there’s that seven years. I spread this out a little bit in here, but in chapter one and two you’ve got in here, chapter one I should say.

And then you’ve got the other verses that go in here, 2 and 3. You’ve got chapter 4 of Revelation right there. And then you’ve got all the way from chapter 5 through chapter 19 right here. Christ comes back. And chapter 20 to the end of the book. So is Revelation laid out in the Bible? Totally laid out. Piece of cake. you read the book of Revelation you know that chapter one is what thou hast seen. Chapter two and three deals with the church age.

This is where we are. Now some believe this and it may be true and there’s a good possibility it may be. But in this period of time which has lasted almost two thousand years. In these two 2000 years if we was to say break it down like this You’d have one two three four five six Seven Now simple like this when you read in there about the The seven churches the seven churches evidently would be doing the what period of time?

the church age right If you’re doing the church age Because he says right to things without has seen the things which are and then the things which shall be here after after the church age so when you read these it’s breaking down the history of the last 2000 years and The different church the church at Laodicea the church is Smyrna Thyra Hergamaz and so forth in Philadelphia right on down the line line. Let us see you. And we have ourselves the seven churches in order, bringing it all the way down.

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. 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 home page.

If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.org. Thanks for joining us on Bible Live, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold.

Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. We will be changed. Hot 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.