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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 1 800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bible-lined website at calvaryoftampa.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Turning your Bible to the book of 2 Peter chapter 2. I’ve got a few complicated statements in here, and it’s hard to know, well, now, who is this talking to? And so I want you to look here first of all in verse 22. But as it happened unto them, according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sile that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. Now I wonder who that’s talking to.

Is that to the pastor, the elders, the deacons, the people in the church? Well, it’d be interesting and you might be surprised. 2 Peter 2 is talking about the believers, the Hebrew Christians mainly, but it can be applicable to all of us. Remember, He’s warning them about false teachers. He refers to the Old Testament how that there were false prophets among them, and those false prophets, those false teachers, well, it causes God’s people to go astray. Now, there’s no sense warning us about false teachers if false teachers don’t have some effect.

He’s warning us because it will make a difference. Look there in chapter 3. In chapter 3 and look there in verse 17, ye therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before. So he’s just reminding them. Beware, last ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked. In other words, you listen to the philosophy of today, you listen to the wisdom of the world, you listen to the false teachers, they’re going to lead you astray and so he says here, you’ll fall from your own steadfastness.

So there is an impact that can be made into a Christian’s life by listening to the wrong things. You say, well, it doesn’t really make any difference. Yes, it does. You will live what you really believe. And then he says in verse 18, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” All right, now go back there to chapter 2. And let’s start there in verse 9, when it says, the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation.

He can do it several ways. He can literally take you out of the world. He can take the evil away from you, like he did during the flood. But he also can deliver you from the air of wicked, the temptations of the world by the truth that is embedded in your mind, because God wants to lead you in the right way, and there is an evil way, the wrong way, the Balaam’s way. We’ll look at that in just a second.

But see in verse 9, he said, the Lord know of how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. So understand that the lost man is going to be punished. God knows how to do that. So I don’t try to figure out how to do God’s job. I have enough trying to figure out how to do mine. Let God do what God does and let me do what God wants me to do.

So he says They’re going to be punished, but look in verse 10, but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government. Presumptuous are they. Self will. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. In other words, they lose total respect for authority. And that authority sometimes comes out to be God. And if they have no respect for God, then they’re not going to have none for the pastor. They’re not going to have none for the Bible.

They’re not going to have none for you. And God describes them as brute beast, like an animal. And so the judgment is going to be very, very severe. And God knows how to do it. Now He didn’t do the same thing in every case. No more than He does with others. Whatever the lost people and the false prophets can do, and whatever they think, the philosophy of life. you listen to them, you’re going to do and act and be the same as the false teachers.

Now, does that affect your salvation? Now, once you trust the Christ of your Savior, you are his child. You are going to heaven when you die. But you see, God warns us about listening to false teachers, because false teachers affect how we live. You and I are supposed to be careful about what we believe what we listen to because false teachers will affect the way you think and if it’s fixed the way you think it’s going to affect the way you live.

So he says in verse 12, now get this, not in right this, but look how strong this is. He said, but these as a natural brute beast made to be taken and destroyed. Did you know that there is verses in the Bible in the Old Testament that if a A person was guilty of being a homosexual. Did you know that God says that they were supposed to be killed? No, I didn’t make that up. I mean, that’s what God said.

God says this is not going to be tolerated in the land. Isn’t it a shame that today we tolerate everything? Because we want to be politically correct. We don’t want to say anything that would offend anybody. Everybody’s got their rights. Always thought rights were right. Not wrong. If it’s wrong, it ain’t right, right? Don’t get that. But it says, in verse 12, these are natural beasts made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things they understand. I think there’s a whole bunch of people like that in government.

They ain’t got a clue what’s going on. If I didn’t know the Bible, I’d have been a politician. I’d have been one of those guys who probably would be trying to kick out of Washington. But I believe that there’s so much that a Christian has that makes him wiser than those that don’t know the Lord. I think you know more and can do more. But anyway, he says to understand what you are taught does make a difference on how you live.

You see, the reason that they’re doing all this crazy stuff like in Washington and all that, because they’re not educated, They don’t know the truth. They don’t even understand the principles of finances. They don’t understand education. They don’t know how to teach the kids to read and write. Do you know we got a lot of kids coming out of schools and they don’t know how to read. Because there’s teachers that don’t know how to teach. It’s more about trying to get everybody to group think.

It doesn’t teach them how to think. They tell them what to think. I’m for teaching the kid how to think, given them the tools where they can reason and relate and record this information that they’re able to gather. So anyway, I don’t want to get sidetracked, so I’m going to stick with this here. Look at verse 13, and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness. In other words, you do wrong, you earn something. In one place, he’ll talk about the wages of Balaam.

In other words, there’s wages that you get because of evil doing, and there’s rewards that you get on top of that. See, God wants us to serve him, but God also is going to reward us if we do right. But what about people who do wrong? God says, you’re going to get your reward too. And so he says here, and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness as they that counted pleasure to write in the daytime. You see, there was a time when they do it at night.

Now they’re bold and they’ll do it in our streets. And there’s people who don’t care what you think about it. They’re a very bold and blatant and could care less. About what you think? Because, see, they don’t got to the place where they have no fear of God. They don’t fear Christians. They don’t fear anything or anybody. They can do whatever they want to do and their conscience doesn’t bother them. Now, if you let people like that educate you, you’re going to think the way they think.

And if you think the way they think, you’re going to want to live the way they live. All this is written in here for a reason. so that you and I don’t fall, don’t stumble. See there in 2 Peter and chapter one, look what he says here, in verse 10, wherefore the rather brethren, brethren we’re talking to believers, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, you shall never fall, but he’s talking about the things that you add to your faith in the first chapter.

Add to your faith, become strong enough so that you don’t fall. And then what we just read over there in chapter three, that you’re going to fall into air if you listen to those people who tell you wrong. So he says, don’t do that. Remember, Paul made the statement in the book of Ephesians that he wants to present us to the Lord without spot and blemish. He said, this is how I wanna do it. In other words, he said, like, I want you not only to know the Lord as your Savior, but I want you to live like a virgin concerning the things of the world.

That you might be that Chase virgin that he presents to the Lord in Corinthians without spot, without blemish, without the filthiness of the world. I guess he wants God’s people to live a holy, godly life. Now we’ll go to heaven, but there might be some problems. Not with getting there, and not with staying there, but with the well done, thou good and faithful servant, and not getting the rewards that you would have liked ahead. Look what he says in the last part of verse 13, spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you.

In other words, they make merchandise of you, as it says over there in verse 3, the same chapter. In other words, they use you to give what they want. That’s why you have to watch the health and wealth preachers, the gospel of health and wealth. See, all they’re trying to do is they use the replacement theology of taking all the blessings that went to Israel and they’re trying to apply all of those to the church. And so they go back there to the Old Testament and say, well, see all these blessings, it’s about you do this and you’re going to prosper and get wealth and blah, blah, blah.

Well, wait a minute, that’s to Israel. The Lord says to the church, which is what we are, that He had blessed us with our spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. the Israel on the earth and you and I will get our blessings, spiritual blessings of heaven. So we are to have spiritual blessings, they’re to have the physical blessings and they’re too are not the same. And if you don’t understand it, then you’ll have some, hey, send me $10 and there’s $100 going to be in your mailbox tomorrow.

And if you’re living right and if If you’re a love the Lord, you don’t have to worry about getting sick. And then they have their healing line. Come on down here. Put the hand on your hand. Be healed. No. God’s will may be that you are sick. Go back and try to figure out Job with that philosophy. God took away all of his wealth and he hadn’t done anything wrong. God took away his help and he hadn’t done anything wrong.

that turkey won’t fly. Look what he says here in verse 14, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, cannot cease from sin, begowling and underland these two words, unstable souls. In other words, this is what false teachers do. They take those who are not stable, that are not strong the Lord and they want to make merchandise out of you. They want to use you, get you. You see, they can’t win you to the Lord. So they try to take those who have an interest in the things of God and get you sidetracked into whatever.

And next thing you know, you know, you’d get involved in false church, but they trusted Christ’s Savior because I heard a clear gospel message, but they didn’t get grounded because they didn’t keep listening or come out and get out of those things that they should have gotten out of. So he says here, they have a tasty bait, but a concealed hook. You know, that’s what you do when you go fishing. You have a tasty bait, but a concealed hook.

They try to lure you with something that you really desire. Study the word. You’ll have somebody like J.W. come to the door. And ma’am, do you have a fireplace? Yes, we do. Ma’am, would you take and throw your children in the fire? Do you really like your children? No. Neither would God. Can we come in and have a Bible study with you? with you, which would come right on it. See, they had a paste of little paper that’s got a hook to it.

They got another agenda. And so because they don’t believe in hell, it would be easy to how to convince people that there’s no hell. Whew, boy, I feel better already. There’s no hell. But there is a hell. And so you have people that would try to twist things, and you’ve got to be careful. Or if you’re sick, you must have done something wrong. You didn’t have enough faith. But now before we demonstrate how much faith you have, we’re gonna take up an offering.

And we gotta have some seed money. You know, seed money, seed faith. In other words, you gotta plant before you have anything grow. So how much faith do you have? How much money do you have? When I was at Florida Bible College, Me and a few students, decided to go to this healing meeting. So we went in, we sat back there in the back. We sat there and we watched the shenanigans going on. So we stood up there and we just kind of watched and observed, of course, everybody knows that we’re not part of the group because we look different, but we weren’t doing what they were doing.

So anyway, after a while, he says, we’re gonna have some healing here tonight and talks about all the different kind of people are gonna be healed. He says, first of all, if you have, he started at $100, if you get a $100 bill, I want you to, everybody had to stand. Come on down here, and so they came down. You don’t have $100, but you got 50, and he went down every increment. And finally got down, you don’t have any dollars at all, but all you got is a little change in your pocket.

But that’s all you want to do, it only takes a little bit of seed faith. Come on down. And so after a while, everybody was down there and gave it to the money, and everybody was down there, and says, if you believe that God’s gonna do America tonight, you’ll come on down here. So after all, everybody was down here, except about five people sitting back here in the back. We’re all sitting back here watching the show, or that’s all it was, it’s a show.

They’re entertaining. They were not concerned about where anybody spent eternity. It was about how can we get the money out of the people? And I felt sorry for all the people who don’t know the truth to recognize a shuster when he’s up there. So we sat back there and finally he got up here and says, if there’s no miracles done here tonight, just stop because of you, because there’s people back here because of the wrong belief. Now he’s and got their money.

But now he may not be able to do a miracle because five people back there who didn’t believe was doing and he blamed the lack of healing on five people that didn’t believe instead of all the people who gave the money and did believe. I wanted to go down there and just pop them up. Good one. I had my two kids one day. We’re in Colorado and on the top of this hill, they put up a gray, big old tent.

A healing line was going to be set up. So I I thought I’ll take my two kids so they can get a little of an education. So my kid got in the car with me and we drove up there and parked cars everywhere. People just going in and we got out of the car and right beside of us there was this other car. And the guy, he got up and got out of his car and he walked on the other side and he opened the door and he sat down and put on the cast a leg, a plaster thing on his leg.

And then he walked back to the middle. Well, I just saw him walk around the front of his car. My kid would watch him. And he goes in there, next thing you know, well, he’s in the healing line. Next thing you know, he goes up and he got healed. That thing offered to praise God. He was healed. How about that hippo crit? Staging the junk. But then everybody in there, whoo! I says, kids, let’s go home. Enough of an education on this.

And they got in smoother at it. Even they have a guide that comes on television. He sets them up there. And they come down to the front and he goes, swaying in the spirit. Oh! When they were slain in the spirit, they always fell forward. These nuts didn’t know that they fell backwards. And it probably blew his breath on me. I’d pass on too. But there’s people that swallowed this stuff and they’re false teachers. Now, there’s false teachers in the world.

You know this. And this is what they’re like. Looking for 17. They are wells without water. And he says, cloud. that are carried with a tempest. To whom, get to underline them. To whom is the mist of darkness is reserved forever. See, hell is not a place of light. It’s a place of darkness for all eternity. And there are wells without water. There’s preachers, but they don’t have the gospel. They don’t know how to explain the gospel where you can understand it and know you have eternal life and know that you’re going to have an only die.

and they don’t teach us by grace. See, the only reason you can say it’s eternal is because it’s by grace. If you say it’s by grace but you can lose it, they don’t believe it’s by grace. They believe it’s by works. And it can’t be both ways. But there’s smooth talking preachers and you have to be careful. That’s why even when you come here, you should check everything I say by the book. Go by the book. Learn the word of God.

Look what he says. In verse 15, he says, which half forsaken the right way? Now the right way is the Christ way, the Christian way, the way of life. He says, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam. Now in the Old Testament, a man by the name of Balaak, who was the king of Moab, he didn’t like the children of Israel. There ain’t a wilderness in there coming through here. And so he says, get the prophet. And he went up on top of the hill and says, I want you to curse those Jews, those Israelites, cursing.

And he said, I’ll give you this and this and this and this. I’ll give you silver and gold and so on. Three times, but it always turned out to be a blessing. And so he was riding his jackass. And all of a sudden it just stopped. So he started to beat me. And the donkey turned around and looked at him and says, why are you doing that for her? So that shows you that if God can use a jackass, God can use you.

How does that make you feel? God can use anybody. And he says, what are you doing that for? He says, you’re mad. What he couldn’t see, what there was an angel standing there with a sword. What a kill-boom. If that donkey hadn’t stopped it to kill both of them. And he told them, it says, you have perverse the way of the Lord. Puck into the baleom. You know you can’t do this. You are a prophet of the Lord, and you’re supposed to teach what God commanded.

And only that! You can’t put a curse upon the nation of Israel. You can only bless Israel. Well, that didn’t set too good with Belat. And you promise of some more stuff, he’s the king do it. But then you made a prophecy. And you can read all about this in Numbers in chapter 22, 22, 3, 24, up to 25. You can read all about this incident. But in chapter 24 it talks about a prophecy concerning Jesus Christ, the star of Jacob, and how he’s going to come.

And he says, you want to know what’s going to happen to Moab in the end time? He says Israel is going to rule over you. I don’t guess they like that. So much for that prophecy. But he said he was mad, looking verse 16. He says, but was rebuked for his iniquity, the dumbass speaking with man’s voice forbade the madness of the prophet. Look at verse 18, but when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, vanity, they, the false prophets, they allure through the lust of the flesh that alluring is, like I said, the tasty bait with a concealed hook.

See, they don’t want you to see the hook, but they want you to go after the bait and get you later. That’s what the devil does. He shows you, oh, this good looking woman shows you this, all this money of this fame, power, and popularity, whatever you can have. But there’s always, remember, there’s a hook inside of that to snare you. Be careful. So he says, in the last part of it, those that were clean, escaped from them who live in air.

While they promised them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption. This is why you got to be careful about even those that run for office. They talk about all this freedom and liberty. Even there’s the Patriots or the Tea Party and all this stuff. And a lot of things can be good. But you never really know where people are coming from. You don’t know their foundation in their teaching. So some people just want freedom so they can just live like they please.

And. You do have to have government. There’s a legitimate place for government. God set up government. Government has to have taxes. They have to have a means to support themselves. And there’s people who say, well, we need to have…we’re for less government and less taxes. Sounds good. How much less? But he talks about the freedom, the liberty. And they themselves are the servants of corruption. Now, whatever they teach, It’s going to make an effect upon our lives. And he says here in verse 24, if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome the latter in as worse with them than the beginning.

Now, it is a little difficult trying to figure out, now are we talking about the teachers here? Are we talking about the believers here? Well, it might be talking about both. Why? Well, because see, this is what happens to the false teachers. They promise, they promise, they promise. And so you have to be careful of who’s feeding you what? But anyway, look in verse 21, for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it, that turned from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

Now, first John chapter 3 and verse 23 says, and the commandment was that you believe on Him whom God have sent. Now, let’s look at this two ways. One, to the false teachers, look what it does to them when they claim that they know the book and they know what’s right, they know what’s wrong, and then they teach contrary to what God says and deny the Lord that bought them, as He said in our members too. But their teaching affects the Christian.

You’re supposed to be that unstable soul who is beguiled, and the false teaching has got you back into its entanglement. Here you are, you trust Christ as your Savior, you dedicate your life to the Lord, you begin to study the Word, and you begin to grow in the Lord, and you start cleaning up your life, and you start walking with God, and then you start listening to false teachers, He says, you’re just like a dog that turns back to its own vomit.

And you’re just like a pig that goes to wallowing in the mire. You see, if this is referring to the false teachers, well, why warn me about what happens to them? Why do I care what happens to the false teachers? Unless this can happen to me. And that’s why I need to be careful. I don’t want to be like I was before I trusted the Lord. I want to keep serving God and keep walking with the Lord. I don’t want the false teaching to get me to destroy me.

So therefore heed what he’s saying. Look there as we close here. Look at 1 verse again, verse 17. Yee, therefore, in chapter 3. Second Peter chapter 3 verse 17. Yee, therefore, be leavened. Seeing you know these things before them. Be aware. Less. Yee, what’s that next word? You also being led away with the air of the wicked Paul. 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.

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The address for Calvary Community Church 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030 and at six 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. 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.