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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 monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us to all the 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 the stone free. free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bibleline website at calvaryoftampa.org. 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. God has given us that which we should have been able to shape the world. We haven’t done the 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 they 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. is 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 to the book of Ephesians in chapter 3. Ephesians 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. In the book of Ephesians you study about the body. And the body can do nothing without the head. And most times we’re like people running around with a body without a head on them. nobody to tell us what to do because we don’t listen. And if Egypt chapter three, look in verse two. 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 Gabe to Noah, back in Adam’s time. God never told Adam to build a boat. He didn’t tell him to go down into Egypt, tell him, Moses, I mean, to failure. 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 see that people come to know Christ, support and missionary, build them a strong body of believers so people will stay a 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 or go to that church or 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 care is 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 they didn’t have a witness.

Today there’s so many churches nobody cares you know 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 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 get this now, same thing we read over in the cross, which another 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 things it’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 in hand illustration or the, uh, uh, here John through 16. I want more. You see it’s not that you want more is that 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 it, never share it. And yet we expect everything else, just make me big in fact Christian. It won’t come that way. It always comes back to this. And he makes a statement here in verse 7, 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, he said, I don’t deserve what God’s done for me. He said, 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. And 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 of what God can do for anybody else.

And so he says, God did this for me. I don’t deserve this. I’m the least of all the saints that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Truths 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 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 here 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 here, see anything else? Where’s the Ratcher? 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 and 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, two and three. You got chapter 4 of Revelation. Right there. And then you got all the way from chapter five through chapter 19 right here. Christ comes back. In chapter 20 to the end of the book. So is Revelation laid out in the Bible? Totally laid out. Piece of cake. So 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 2,000 years. In these 2,000 years if we was to say break it down like this, you’d have 1, 2, 3, 4, Five, six, seven. Is that how simple it is? When you read in there about 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, write the things that thou 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 at Smyrna, the Tharathara, Pergamos and so forth, and Philadelphia right on down the line, Laodicea. And we have ourselves the seven churches in order, bringing it all the way down.

Now take your Bible and look there in Revelation, in chapter 1 and verse 4, where it says, John to the seven churches, which are in Asia. Grace be unto you and peace from him, which was, which is to come. And from the seven spirits which are before his throne. Now I want you to jump down there to verse 7. Behold, he cometh with clouds. Every eye shall see him. They also which pierced him and all kindred of the year shall wail because of him.

Even so, amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending saith the Lord, which was, which is to come the Almighty. So the one that is going to come is God Almighty. I was talking to a Jehovah’s Witness one time and he told me, says, you can’t show in the Bible where Jesus was the Almighty. He always referred to Jehovah. And so I got him committed to it and he said, yeah, that’s right. And I told him, and I showed him a verse where the Bible says, Jehovah, God is God, the mighty God.

And I showed him this verse where Jesus is all mighty God. Blue is little man. But here the Bible talks about these seven churches. So in chapter two, it talks about the church at Ephesus, first one. Down in verse 8 the church at Smyrna. Then it talks about in verse 12 the church at Pergamos. Verse 18 the church at Thyra-Thyra. Chapter 3 verse 1 the church at Sardis and then verse 7 the church at Philadelphia. And then in verse 14 the church at Laodicea.

Now this is the last one. This is the one I want to talk to you about because I believe in all of these different churches. This is where we are. And there’s a good possibility this is a description of the condition of the churches today, look at verse 14. And unto the angel or the messenger, pastor of the Church of the Laodicean’s right. These things say, if the Amen, the faithful and true witness. This is similar to what we read over in the book of Colossians just a while ago.

The beginning and of the creation of God, the beginning means he is the architect of creation. Remember he says, there was nothing before him and everything came after him and consist because of him. He is the architect of all the universe of heaven, of the earth, of people, and God planned the ages. Isn’t it amazing that you’re just happened to be seven churches? It wasn’t five, it wasn’t four, it’s always seven. Seven is the number of perfection. They had just happened to be seven dispensations, just happens to be coincident.

I don’t think so. God is very systematic in what He does. Now get what He says here from the creation of God, not evolution. Verse 15. He says, I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot, I would thou art cold or hot. So then because thou art a lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. What he’s talking about is these are examples of various churches down through time. And the candle is the light that that church gives forth.

And God says, I know thy works, but unless you repent and get things corrected, I’m going to remove the candlestick. It means I’m going to turn out the light. And I believe that there’s a possibility that God may write Ichabod over a church. And once it’s done, there’s nothing you’re going to do about it. It simply means the glory of the Lord is departed. This was what was said about the Shukonah glory in the Old Testament when they saw the cloud descending and leaving the tabernacle.

The glory of the Lord is departed. It means that God no longer had his presence there. So here it makes the statement, I would daward cold or hot. So in verse 16, so then because I would lukewarm and neither cold or hot, I will spew the out of my mouth. Let me ask you a question. Don’t think about it in light of just yourself. But as a whole, how would you view the church? Hot, cold, or lukewarm? If the church collectively represented one of these, is it hot?

Is it cold? Is it lukewarm? He says, in every one of these that I will remove thy candlestick out of its place. Now we know this. The church is that even the apostles started in the first century. They’re all gone. All these churches that actually existed in Asia Minor no longer exist. They’re all gone. But this church is gone. That church is gone. Now as we looked at our church today, does if you said hot, is that because you are?

Is it cold? Is it because you are? Is our church lukewarm? Is it because you are? Now forget the church which one represents you. Think about it. Are you hot? Cold lukewarm. And which is the one that makes God sick, nauseated at a stomach, being lukewarm. What is lukewarm? What is lukewarm? It’s like cold coffee to me. But every church in America has a picture in the eyes of God, is either hot, cold, or lukewarm. It makes a difference on why a church will thrive, thrive, I guess, or God will be turning out the lights.

I believe that this is a good possibility. In America, the church is that are growing. Most of them are simply growing because, for example, here’s a church. Here’s a church. Here’s a church. Here’s a church. There’s a church. There’s a church. There’s a church is everywhere. But if something sparks them right here, ten will leave here, ten will leave there, ten will leave here, ten will leave here, ten will leave here and ten will leave here. And all of a sudden, this church is really growing, boy it’s booming.

They must really be doing something right. Why? Because ten people left this church. They must be doing something wrong. 10 left this church. They didn’t win these people to the Lord. They just simply swapped them from somebody else’s goldfish bowls. That’s not growing the church. We’re not growing. If all of a sudden 50 people from us, some of the church came into our church, but we’re not growing. We’re growing when we read and catch our own fish. When we catch our fish and we get our fish in here and we can grow our own, then we’re growing a church.

But when you just switch around people from one church to another church, you haven’t done nothing. All you’ve done maybe is cut this church in half, that church in half, this church in half. And all of a sudden here’s all these people that went to all these different churches. And that’s why that one goes out, that one goes out, that one goes out, that one goes out. Now we got one huge, mongous church. And after all that will arrive because the people that kill these will kill that one.

about a time. I’ve been doing this a long time. I know what goes on. The key thing is individually because you cannot make somebody do anything. I have talked to the Lord. I’ve wondered why, why don’t people care about the things that I’m teaching? I know that what I teach is biblical truth. And if a person wants to know and understand the Bible, I can teach and clearly explain what the Bible says. Almost anything in it. But I want you to see.

He makes a statement here in verse 20. Verse 20 is not, I’m standing at your heart’s door and I want to come in and save you. This is many times misuse because people use it for salvation. You know Christ is knocking at your heart’s door and you got to open your heart so he can come in and save you. This has nothing to do with salvation. Look at verse 20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man here my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me.

See, this verse isn’t talking about salvation. This verse is talking about you and God in fellowship together. This verse has to deal with, I’ll just write this up here, zeal. Psalm 69 verse 9, it says, the zeal of the Lord had eaten me up. It’s a reference to when Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is going to come and he goes to the temple and he sees what the money changes that turned his house of prayer into and made it a benefit.

And he sees the meal of the Lord, eating me up, it’s eating at me so bad to see that which is holy, been so desecrated because people don’t understand what’s going on. And that’s when he got angry and he took the cords and he beat the people and turned over the tables and taste them all out of that. Remember the story? It’s mentioned also in the gospel of John in chapter 2, where it says, the zeal of the Lord.

The zeal of the Lord. That zeal is the fire of God. And do you as an individual have some fire left. Now, when he makes this statement here, behold, I stand at the door and not. It’s no longer so much as to the church. But to a hand pick individuals throughout the world that maybe the church will never do it, but God will have to pick some individual. And he says to those individuals in that church looking for some individual, some man, some woman, somewhere that maybe collectively the church it will never be, but an individual.

God said, I want to fellowship with you. Well, there be faith when the Lord returns. Well, people be doing that which God wants them to do when the Lord returns. Will you be found faithful? Now, I want you to see up there in verse 19. As many, it’s just verse 19, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasing. There’s a lot of times when I’ve arrived seeing people and because I love them, I chasing them. I rebuke. I say, no.

The guys that come out on the ball team, I rebuke them quickly and firmly, strongly sometimes. So what do I do? They call that love them because I care about them. If I know you’re supposed to be doing something and you don’t do it, I will tell you that I think this is what God wants you to do. You can do whatever you want to I’m gonna tell I want to warn I want to preach what I believe the Bible T Why because God says because I love you I do this to you and because I love people I will tell people what I believe is the truth for them and it doesn’t matter how they think about me it hurts But this means more to me because I want people to be right one of these days.

It’s all Over opportunities are gone. We’re gonna leave this world. We’re gonna be with the Lord it could happen at any moment moment. We’re not back there. We’re not back there. We’re not there. We’re not there. We’re right here. And I believe it’s a description of the church time in which we live. So he says in verse 19, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten be and hear that word zealous. And I want you to line it in your Bible and write the word be excited.

Hot. He said, I would that you were hot or cold, but Luke one makes me sick. But being on fire for God means being zealous for God. Having a zeal for the things of God. I’ve watched people that have been here for a while and they get a zeal for doing things for God. And I’ve watched that same zeal that was a fire burn out and they don’t wanna do that no more. So he says in verse 20, I stand at the door and I knock.

And I believe that God wants to have fellowship and with anybody that has some zeal that wants to do something. And individually God’s going to take a person and raise them up and God can do great and wonderful things for them. I believe that we’re living right here at the last period of time. And then when you look here in chapter 4, it says, after this I looked. Behold, a door was what? Opened in heaven. First voice which I heard was as it were a trumpet talking with me which says, do what?

Come up, hitter. And I’ll show you the thing which must be hereafter. So this ends a period of time. Now there’s something new that’s going to happen and we’re going to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. And this is where we are and we’ve gone through all of these seven different periods of time. God’s the one that lays all of this stuff out. I think it’s awesome. I really do. But what I want you to do is I want you to do like it says in the Psalms where he says, search me, O Lord, and see if there be any wicked way in me.

Is there something or reason why God is not going to bless me or our church? because I believe that there’s something that could keep us from really experiencing tremendous things. And the thing that bothered me is this, I can visit knock on doors, send out letters, make phone calls, everything that a preacher can then know to do, to know avail, to know avail. I’ve said it bus routes and lost them, started ranch and lose them, you name it, I’ve done it.

And for some reason, it’s like there’s something that I can’t put my hand on. If I knew how to be more godly, I’d do that. If I knew how to be more obedient, I’d do that. God knows my heart. I am willing to do or be anything that He wants. But there’s still something, and I don’t know what it is, but God does. God does. And I believe that sooner or later, something’s going to happen, all of a sudden we’re going to start being blessed, or God’s going to turn out our lights altogether.

Don’t you feel that way? Don’t you feel like God is fixing to just really bless us or close us down? But I believe we need to be found faithful to doing what’s right. Some things are out of our control. I can’t control some things. But I do believe that there’s a God behind the scenes that sees and works. It’s like God says, I know that works. I see thy people. But I have somewhat against you. I know what that is.

I believe there’s something that hasn’t been taken care of yet. And I hope that we find out what it is. But I want you to be praying about that. Let’s pray, shall we? We’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 Bible 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. 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 10 30 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. God 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.