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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 toll free at 1-800-800-800-800-800. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

I want to talk to you a little bit about a subject that most of you in here probably think that you really know and understand. here probably is an expert on what love really is. If you don’t know what it is, just ask any teenager. They know what love is. But there’s a lot of difference between love and lust. The strong desires that people may have. There’s different kinds of love. God explains it in His Word, what it is.

And so it’s always best to get a definition from what do you mean by that. So if you will, take your Bible and turn to the book of Mark. The book of Mark, Gospel of Mark, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And there’s a scripture here that Tanya gives us an idea. Now, there’s several things that I want to talk to you about, and that is, there’s eight things that love is greater than, and eight things that love does, and there’s eight things that love doesn’t do.

So you need to know these 24 things. Eight things that love is greater than. Eight things that love does, and eight things that love won’t do. Because we are told to love the Lord, and to love our wives, love our husbands, our love our children, love one another, to God’s love of the world. But there’s a set of rules that comes along with love. Christ made the statement that the world may know that I love my Father, even so I do.

So He did what He did in order to prove to the world that He loved His Father. So there was eight things that He did and eight things that He didn’t do. But here in the book of Mark in chapter 12, look in verse 28, and one of the scribes came and having heard them reasoning together and perceiving that he had gathered them well or answered them well, ask him which is the first commandment of all, Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments is, here O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart And with all thy mind, or soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, this is the first commandment. The second is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There’s none other commandment greater than these. So these are two of the great commandments in the Word of God. And everything deals about this. Even when God gave the 10 commandments, the first four was about them and God, and the last six was about them and man.

So it deals with your relationship to God and to man. Now I know that it’s easy to read a verse like John 3, 6, and God so loved the world. And it’s easy for God to love the world, right? We’re so lovable. Well, the next time you don’t think that God loves you, or you don’t think that God can use you, I want you to think again. Because love does things that, I guess sometimes the normal person wouldn’t think of to do, or how you think, or how you feel.

But remember, God used Noah. Everybody knows that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And God used him to be able to be able to be able to work and save the world at his time. But the Bible also says that Noah got drunk. So I guess God, he can use a drunk. He still loved the drunk. Anybody ever heard of the man named Abraham in the Bible? Well, you know God couldn’t use him. He was too old.

He was just an old man. I mean, God got to use some young people, right? He can’t use these old folks. You remember a man named Caleb? He was 80 years of age. When he crossed the river, he says, I want that mountain. I want that mountain. And there’s a little course that goes along with that little song. I want that mountain. I want that mountain. Where the milk and honey flow? Where are the grapes of escrow grow? I want that mountain.

I want that mountain. The mountain that my Lord has given me. Eight years old. How old was Moses when God used Moses? Yet God did use Moses. Now remember Moses was a man that, well he couldn’t talk very good. He had an impediment of speech. And he said, use my brother Aaron, but God wanted to use him. You see, whenever we look at ourselves, we may not see too much about what God can do with us, but God can.

You see, love changes things. Love gives people a second chance. Love even gives people a chance. God is looking for somebody that he can show himself strong on their behalf. Remember old Isaac, daydreamer, Jacob, he was a liar. Can God use liars? He says, every man is a liar. Let God be true every man a liar. Look at the kind of people that God’s had to use down through the centuries. And sometimes you think, well, I’m just not worthy to be used by God.

I’m not much at all. Did you know that God can take a crooked stick and hit a straight lick with it. And God can use you because of love, love overrides so much. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love is what causes us to forgive one another, be patient with one another, to be kind to one another. Leah, they didn’t think was as perdy as Rachel. It says Rachel was perdy. Maybe Leah was ugly. I don’t know. I never saw her.

But there’s something about the other one that he wanted. And yet he was deceived. He worked seven years to get Rachel and wind up with Leah, then he had to work another seven years to get the other one. More or a lot of crooked people back in those days. Aren’t you glad that that’s not like it today? We don’t have to have to have the like it going on. Well, you know, somebody wrongs you or defrods you, oh, it happened to him.

Joseph, what he was abused. I mean, his brothers didn’t like him, didn’t care about him. They wanted to put him to death, but they sold him instead and he goes out, goes down into Egypt. They could probably use a good man like Joseph right now. You remember it wasn’t a couple of weeks back that I told you, says, no, I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but sooner or later God is going to take and cause something to happen in this world with the Arab nations.

And you probably say, you didn’t say that. Yes, I did say that. I said it before this happened. And I said, it’s very close and something’s going to definitely take place. You see, the Bible has to be fulfilled because the Bible is true. All nations will have to turn against Israel. Something will have to happen by which Israel will have the right to exist as a nation, to exist as a people, to have their land, to build their temple.

And someone had told me this morning that it was in the Jerusalem post. this week that they’re buying a lot of Marvel in order to build their temple. I think it’s exciting just to get up in the morning and what’s going to happen next. But reading the Bible is more up to date than tomorrow’s newspaper. Well Gideon, remember Gideon? He was afraid. When he says that angel came up behind him and says, Dallamitey man of Gideon! He turned around ten times looking for him.

He said, you mean me? You mean me? He says, I’m the least in my father’s house. You can’t use me, but God could use him. He said, that’s what love does. Love sees people and potential in people. I used to have teenagers come to ranch. I used to think that God could only use the key kids. And a lot of times those key kids were always caught up in themselves. They thought he only bought themselves and their little happiness and what they wanted to do.

I’ve overlooked some little quiet kid sitting there. The kid that didn’t have all of his, maybe his marbles, well he maybe had a marble but a shooter was missing. There’s just something not there. And I’ve learned over the years of looking people a little bit different too, that, you know, when God looks at you, he sees a pearl. He sees a jewel. He sees a diamond. We see a hunk of coal. There’s people that we don’t like. There’s people we don’t want to be around.

There’s people that don’t measure up to our standards. But there’s a God in heaven that looks deeper into the heart of each individual. And to try the hearts to see who he can use and how he can use them. God is a magnificent God. He’s a God that works, but he works in the lives of people that you wouldn’t think that God could ever use or they couldn’t be of any profit. whatsoever. Remember somebody named Samson had long hair, went to a lady’s barber shop?

It wasn’t his hair. He was not that the spirit of the Lord had withdrew from him. You see, God still used him, but He could have used him in the greater ways. You see, sometimes we limit what God can do with us because of our lack of love for Him. We are supposed to believe above everything else. God loves me. God loves me. My dad may not have loved me. My mom may not have loved me. My brother and sister may not.

It doesn’t matter. God loves me. God loves you. It doesn’t matter about anybody. But God loves you. And the one that created the heavens and the earth and really knows you. Knows what you’ve done and what haven’t done. And God still loves you. That’s something to be thankful for it. God is love. Well, you know what love is, then you have to study about God. But you’ll learn more about God by seeing what did He do with people. So that’s what I am.

I’m a person. When God looked at the world and He saw all these people and yet He wanted to get a will done, He used different people from all walks of life and all the various different status in life. Rahab, she was a prostitute, but God used her. Naomi, she was a widow, but what a beautiful story about Ruth, that God used her. Now, a widow woman, she’d been in another country, her husband died, her sons died, she came back with nothing, But Ruth says, I’m going with you.

And your God’s going to be my God, and your people are going to be my people. What a testimony she must have had. She had something, and it was real. She guided that little girl to tell her what to do and what not to do, and she did it. And on down the line, here comes a guy named David. And on down the line, here comes Jesus Christ. What a God. And you think sometimes God doesn’t love me or God can’t use me?

Oh, yes, He can. They said, if we don’t listen, we don’t listen to what God has to say. You ever heard of a man named David? Man, after God’s own heart, boy, he’d never do anything wrong with he. The sweet psalmist of Israel sitting on the hillside, plucking on his harp, seeing into the sheep, sitting here every night, looking at the stars, and talking about how that the magnificent heavens and so forth He cleared the wonders of God. Talking about the sun and the moon, all these things didn’t talk about the Word of God, how it’s so pure and righteous.

And the testimonies of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple. Yeah, David. But I think he messed up too. I think he was a womanizer. I actually believe that he probably committed murder. came to him one day and says, Thou art the man! Thou art the man. And God had to judge him. Oh, yeah, he had a lot of wonderful things. You can say about David, but there was a lot of sorrow in his heart, too. And you read a 51st Psalm and see how it broke his heart because he broke God’s.

And God says, I’m not looking for sacrifice, but I’m a broken and contrite spirit. You see, God is still looking for people that it ain’t nobody here perfect. I’m not, you’re not, none of us are perfect. But believe it or not, if God didn’t use imperfect people, there wouldn’t be anybody to use. If God can’t use us, then who else can he use? So God is looking for somebody, but he does want you to love him with all your heart, of all your mind and all your soul.

In spite of that old sinful nature that you’ve got, and how unworthy we may be, and how lack of talent and ability and wisdom that we have, God is still God. And His love overrides so much, oversees so much, and gives us chance after chance after chance. He’s the one that can determine the next heartbeat. He’s the one that can take away your breath at any moment. You know whatever I read about Job and all that he went through.

It wasn’t when Joe blossed all of his assets, when he lost his wealth and all that stuff. He lost his kids. He still maintained his integrity, but he didn’t cry out until the devil got his body. When God got his body, when you get down physically, you can get down spiritually. And you’d be surprised how many times God will afflict your body and allow it to be afflicted because it’s the greatest test of your spirituality. Where are you with God?

Does he mean more than you than life itself, more than the body, more than the wealth that you have? God loves you so much, and he wants you to learn how to love him back. And you’ll learn how to love him by seeing how did God love? Is it only because there’s people who deserve to be loved because we’re supposed to be kind, or is it real, or hypocritical? You ever heard of a guy named Isaiah? Believe it or not, there was a time when he preached naked.

We won’t go into that. Jeremiah and Timothy were too young, but God used them. Elijah, he was suicidal. He was suicidal. The guy was always, it seemed like in a state of depression. Always depressed, always not discouraged. In spite of all the great things that God did for him, he could let one woman say something the hymn and he’d run for the rest of his life. Hide under a jeerable tree and says, I’m the only one left. Poor, poor me.

You know why I don’t have pity parties anymore? Nobody would come. But he wanted to die. Come on, I don’t want to live. All these things that are mentioned in God’s Word. You ever hear of a guy named Jonah? What did Jonah do? He ran from God. I know Christians have been running from God most of their life. Oh, they’re saved. They haven’t turned life. They’re going to go to heaven when they die. But they’ve been running from the Lord.

Not to the Lord, not with the Lord, but from the Lord. I’ll bet you there’s people sitting here right now. You have spent years of your life running from God because you will not do what God says to do. You can still be on your same job, same home, same church, but been running all your life, because you never yield to do what God wants you to do with your life. Maybe you’re afraid of being a failure. Maybe afraid God won’t come through.

Maybe you think God’s gonna leave you hanging out here in the limb and you were afraid to get out there. So by cause of fear, you won’t do anything for God. You won’t step out. You won’t live by faith. You know that’s a lack of love. That’s a lack of love. Because see, if you really believe God loved you, you would try anything. You’ll do anything. You’ll tempt anything for the Lord. Nothing could hold you back. Love can do that for a person.

There’s a lot of power in love. Because I know God loves me. I want to do as much as I can, while I can, as long as I can in the body that I have until God calls me home. John the Baptist? What a man. What a man. No man like this man. What Jesus said about him? He ate bugs. I mean, who wants to go around with a man who eats bugs? Locust? Live like a wild man? I mean, God can’t use a guy like that.

He’s looking for the guy in a three-piece suit who’s, you know, looked up to him with dignity and respect. I’ve lived long enough to see that there’s people that I would think, God, I can’t use that person because that person won’t clean up their life. And then I look at a person who’s got a clean life that God doesn’t use because of heart stuff there. Did you know that you can be all nice and clean and sweet and pretty?

And you can look all decked out this morning and you can really look sharp. You’re looking at mirror and you’re an epitome of help, but rotten on the inside because you hardly write. You do it to be seen of men. That can be hypocritical. It’s not because you love God or you love people. But sometimes I believe there’s people who just want to do enough to keep God off their back so that God doesn’t chase in them. But they live close to the edge.

And you never know what point. What is he going to take the key them off? What little word before they explode? You ever heard of somebody named Martha? Mary Martha. Martha worried about everything, didn’t she? Worry, worry, worry. I mean, God can’t use a worry word. And yet there’s a lot of people with nothing more than just a worry wart. Worry all the time, can’t sleep at night, can’t work during the day. They don’t love because they can’t trust.

You see, when you really love, you can trust. Do you trust your husband? Do you trust your wife? Can you trust your kids? Can you trust God? Who do you trust? You know, it’s a shame to go through life without anybody to love and no one to trust. To put everything that you have in yourself, look into yourself, trusting in yourself. What a terrible way to live. When your Bible says cursed is a man who put his confidence in flesh or trusting in himself, or to exalt himself.

Mary Magdalene, well, she was demon-possessed. Samaritan woman, she’d been married five times. I mean, God can’t use her. And yet he used that one little link to reach a whole city of men. Well, Zacchaeus, anybody heard the story of Zacchaeus? Zacchaeus was a wee wee man and a wee wee man was he? He climbed up into Sycamore tree to see what he could see. And as the Savior passed that way, I don’t forget the rest of it. He looked up in the tree and he said, Zacchaeus, you come down.

I’m going to your house for tea, whatever. But a whole story in the Bible because he was a little man, but not just that he was a little man, he was a tax collector and everybody loves them. Think of how you feel right now about the IRS. Don’t you just love them? But God used Zacchaeus. It didn’t matter who they were. When Christ was choosing his disciples, did He He even chose man that would fill with the devil, O Judas, who never trusted him.

But God gave him a chance. See, God loves us. Is that we don’t learn how to love. Look at the chances God gives and the forgiveness that He has to have. And the reason He doesn’t use perfect people, there aren’t any. There aren’t any. Neither are you. So just get the chips off your shoulders and stop exalting yourself yourself and stop looking down your long, fair, shieldful nose and thinking you’re like Kellogg’s cornflakes just a little bit better. You think we’re all the same in God’s eyes.

We’re sinners. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection. These disciples, well, you can always depend on those disciples. They just fell asleep when they asked them to pray. They just all fell asleep. They couldn’t stick with it. Peter, well, what did Peter do? Oh, he just denied the Lord. You’ve never done that, have you? Peter did. Did God still use Peter? Still used him. Paul, well, you know Paul, he was just too religious. He was taking all those Christians and putting them in the prison.

So God can’t use a man like that. But one day a lightning bolt struck him, hit him, knocked him to his knees. And he says, Lord, what will thou have me to do? God can use him, and God did use him. Use him in a great way. Timothy probably had an altar. And if God can use Lazarus, he can use anyway. He said, why? Well, see, he was a dead man. If God can use a dead man, he can use you.

Do you know in the Bible it talks about God using a jackass? And the old jackass was talking to Balaam. Well, never Jonah was out there on the hillside overlooking the city, so if God was going to destroy the city or not of Nineveh, And God used the gourd. It came up and put shade over him and he was so thankful for that gourd. God didn’t show it in from the sun. And then God made a worm. Put it in the gourd.

It killed it. Now Jonah was mad again. He says, you have more concern over that stupid gourd than those peopleasant there. Some people never get their priorities straight. Take your Bible and turn there to the book of 1 Corinthians, the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 13. 1 Corinthians chapter 13, I want to show you very quickly the eight things that love is greater than. So here in verse 1, 1 Corinthians chapter 13, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become of sounding brass and tingling.

Love is better than the ability to speak in any language. Some man wrote a book called Love in Five Languages. I’ve never read the books, so I have no idea what it’s about. But I know that, regardless of how many languages there are, love is better than all languages. And he says in verse two, and though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faces, I can remove mountains and have not love.

I am nothing. So the ability to speak in languages, the speak in the tongues of angels, the gift of prophecy, the knack of solving all mysteries, knowing everything. And then he says there, I can remove mountains. Love is greater than that. In the faith of move a mountain and have not love. So love is greater than all of those things. It’s greater. The resource to feed the world’s pre-opore. If you could, in verse three, and though I bestow all my goods, defeatable, if you could feed, not just one person, if you could feed the whole world and not have love.

Love is greater than that. See, there’s a lot of people who give to a lot of humanitarian things. You can look on the TV and they’ll show you some little puppy dog some little kitty cat tears in his eyes and you’ll get out your cheek but you’ll start writing out because the compassion is there. Now you can do all of that and I’m not against you helping anybody but love is more than that. Did you do that because of the dog of that cat or because it made you feel good?

What was the motive? It takes a relief off of you. It shows you. It shows that I’m kind. It shows that I love. And that’s why I did that. Check your motive of why you do what you do because God checks the motives. When they show that little kid on the TV screen about only 25 cents a day or only 50 cents a day or only a dollar a day or $20 a month and you can help somebody pull a child and compassion is there because there is a sense that we care about others.

And I think it’s wonderful that people do care Otherwise, there would nobody be given to anybody, and we ought to learn to give. But it doesn’t go deep enough. There’s more to it. It’s a temporary satisfaction because those animals you just kept alive, they’re still going to die. That little girl, she’s still going to grow up, and maybe she’s going to die, and she will die. The greatest love is trying to meet their greatest need. What is the greatest need?

You’ll have people talk about, there’s kids that are not going to have Christmas. Where’s the sin of the Bible? Everybody has to have Christmas. Every kid has to have a toy. Where’s the sin of the Bible? Or what about those people that are hungry? And every Thanksgiving, we’ve got to have this soup line so that we can give everybody a Thanksgiving day meal. What about all the other meals for the other 364 days? Do I feel good because I did this one deed at this one time?

Or do you look deeper? What does the greatest need? their greatest need is to know God. It’s good that we can do the others. Don’t misunderstand me. I say what I mean. But whenever you understand, there’s something greater to live for. And that is so that they know the love of God, that God has shed abroad in this whole world through the gospel of Jesus Christ, that people need to know the Lord. Because you see, eventually, all those people that got that meal of those little child, You’ve got that.

They’re still going to die. They’re still going to die. What was their greatest need? We need somebody to really love them. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area.

by Dye-Link 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.

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. Friends, 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, just keep looking up.