This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 1-800-5-7. You can reach us toll 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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

There’s a subject that I want to talk to you about tonight that I think it’ll help you. It’s got to help you. Can’t you hurt ya? But if you’re going to serve the Lord, you might as well understand not everybody is going to agree with the things that you do. There is a spiritual war going on all the time and we’re in the midst of it. When you said I’m gonna serve the Lord or I’m gonna dedicate my life to the Lord, you just expect God to interrupt your schedule and you can expect the devil to interrupt your plans and hopes and drained, he’s going to do everything he can to upset the apple cart.

So he’s busy. And you’ve ever heard this statement, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Now, I like to eat, so I hope everybody don’t leave the kitchen. We want to serve the Lord, but you need to understand what Christ went through in serving His Father, because there were lessons that were supposed to learn from it. And the Bible says in the book of Hebrews in chapter 12, when he talked about running the race that’s been set before us, it says, consider him who endured such contradiction of sinners against him.

That you might finish your course and so on. So it’s very important that you learn how to handle something called criticism. Have you ever heard of criticism? A majority of criticism is destructive, it’s not constructive. But generally when somebody, you know, wants your advice, they always ask your advice after they have already made their decision and they wanna know what you think about it. And I say, look, if you wanted my advice, ask me before you make the decision, not afterwards, because you already did committed yourself.

Now they’re looking for somebody to agree with them. And I say, you want my advice? If I give it and you didn’t ask for it, it comes across as criticism. So if you ask for it, that’s one thing. But make sure that whenever somebody asks you for advice or you wanna give somebody advice, it’s always with the understanding that you nor they have to take it. Do you understand that? Sometimes when people give you advice, it’s not advice, it’s a command.

Because you better take it or else. Well, I told you what to do. It means they gave you advice, but that means you don’t have the option. They’re dictating to you. You have to take their advice. Then it’s not advice. But anyway, I want you to take your Bible turn to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians and chapter 10, 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Now the things that we’re going to look at, maybe things you already have heard a hundred times, but I want you to follow my train of thought.

It’s designed with you in mind to help you because I’m a preacher. I am generally always criticized because I’m always stating something, saying something, preaching something. So I always have to go through the criticism part. And I learned a long time ago that not everybody’s going to agree with you on everything. But if you can’t take the heat, and don’t do anything, but if you’re going to serve the Lord, you’re going to be criticized. Not everybody’s going to love you.

I was sitting at a restaurant the other day, yeah, me and Dan, and this couple was sitting in front of us and they kept turning around looking at me and we was talking and they turned on that look at us. And so I stared back. And so finally the guy says, are you on radio? He said, yes, I am. He said, listen to you all the time. Boy, I really like your broadcast. So we had something nice to say.

Now that I can handle. That is a lot easier. Compliments are so much more enjoyable. Not everyone is going to love you. And I have gotten certain messages and emails where some people take me to task on certain things and I think you don’t really understand what I’m saying But I also know according to the Bible what the book says and that I’m going to be criticized not everybody’s going to agree I know that not everybody in this church going to always agree with everything that I say But I want you to look at this verse in 2 Corinthians and chapter 10 look there in verse 3 verse 3 For though we walk in the flesh in this body we do not war after the flesh For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal in other words We don’t use tanks and bazookas and guns and bullets and

AK-47. We don’t use that He says but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds now. Where’s these strongholds in a person’s mind? So we’ve got to have something that will break down these strongholds in people’s minds. So he says in verse 5, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. And get this and bring it into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

So the way you take revenge on disobedience is bio-obedience. So it doesn’t matter what people say and do to us, we defeat bio-baian and doing what God wants us to do. This is what the book says. So he says over there in verse 11, let’s such and one think this, that such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will be also indeed when we are present.” In other words, he said, I’ve written this letter to you, and some say, well, he’s waiting powerful in his letters, but his bodily presence is weak and temptable.

So, evidently, Paul was not an individual that if you saw him, you’d want to be him. Probably his physical appearance was nothing to brag about. His eyesight was bad. And as he says here, he had trouble speech-wise. See there in verse 10, for his letters say they are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak. His speech contemptible. I don’t believe he was the greatest speaker in the world. When you tie that in with the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 2 and you read down to there, he says how that, you know, all I wanted to know was Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And He says, I was with Him in fear and trembling. So He didn’t have all the confidence in the world in His ability, but He had all the confidence He needed in the Lord. And so He says in verse 12, He says, I’m coming to see you. He says, but when I come to see Him, my deeds will back up my words. words. What I say is going to be backed up by how I live. Now, these two things in that verse of 11 are important for every Christian to realize because you will be criticized for the words that you say and you will be criticized for the deeds that you do.

But your deeds, your walk and your words, your talk. So you pose a walk the talk and talk the walk. It’s supposed to be the same. You shouldn’t say one thing and live another. So he says in verse 12, but we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves, but they measured themselves by themselves. Hey, I’m just as good as you are. Look at that. I’m as good as you are. He says, they that do that are not wise.

So God says, don’t do this. Now you’re going to be criticized for your stand upon the scriptures and the way you live and the way you talk, the things you talk about. Criticism will come. People will not always understand. So take your Bible and turn there to the book of Mark chapter 2, the book of Mark and chapter 2.

Mark chapter 2 and looked at some of the things that Jesus Christ said. And as you’ll notice, there’s always somebody watching, looking. So here in the book of Mark and chapter 2, I want you to look down there in verse 6. And the Pharisees went forth and straightway took counsel with the Herodians. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. They don’t like each other. But whenever they have a common denominator, it’s amazing how certain people can become friends against you.

And there will be people that will join together against you. And look what he says. Straightway, he says here, and the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him. But now notice what did they want to do in the last part of that verse? How they might destroy him. So if this is Jesus Christ, this is the son of God. And if they’ll do this to him, well, then maybe, maybe they’ll do this to your, to me.

And so we need to keep this in mind and realize it. Look what he says in verse seven and you are to underline this part of the verse. What did Jesus do? But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples. You see, there is a separation. Your closest people should not be those that criticize others because if they’ll criticize you sooner or later. And you have to understand it, be wise. So you do not make people your closest friends who are angry people.

The Bible says angry people stay away from because they do not have control of all of their faculties. It means they’re not ruled by peace. They’re ruled by anger, which means that they become bitter individuals. And the root of bitterness brings up and causes other people to become bitter because they take somebody’s offense. In other words, you don’t have to offend them. It’s that they take it from somebody else. So you have to be careful. But it’s written here in the scriptures and you need to understand what Jesus did, what went on in his life and what you’re gonna have to face.

Take your Bible, look there in Mark chapter two and verse 23. Look in verse 23. In Mark chapter two, verse 23, let me make sure that they got the right scripture there. And he came to pass that he went through the cornfield on the Sabbath day and his disciples began as they went to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful? So there’s always somebody watching what they were doing, looking for an opportunity that they can jump on them for it.

Because sooner or later, people are going to judge what you’re doing and disagree with it. Now their perception may be wrong. Jesus was not doing something wrong. His disciples were not doing something wrong, but Jesus knew the book. He wrote the law. And he says, don’t you remember when David did this? And he went in there and he got the show bread and they ate it because they were hungry? He says, they did it. And he says, this is what they did.

And he says, the day, he says, was made for man. Man wasn’t made for the day. And so, but they were criticized. Jesus was criticized. His disciples were criticized. There’s always somebody who sets themselves up as authority over and always want to look down upon somebody else. See, whenever you criticize somebody, what you’re doing is that you’re exalting yourself above others and you need to be very careful that you don’t do that. Also look there in the book of Mark chapter 3 verse 2.

In this verse 2, and they watched him whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day. Now you ought to underline this statement that they might accuse him. They were looking for fault, looking for something that they can hit him with. They were trying to prove that he’s not as good as he thinks he is. He’s the Son of God, but they didn’t believe that. So they were looking for reasons to convince the people why they should not believe this person.

Now, you may not know it, but understand what he said over there in the book of 2 Corinthians in chapter 10. Our warfare is a spiritual warfare. Sometimes it’s not the person that’s totally at fault. Sometimes the devil has captured their minds and they don’t see nor understand what they’re doing. You remember when Jesus was on the cross and he made a statement similar to forgive them, father for they know not what they do. They don’t know what they’re doing it, but they don’t know what they’re doing.

This is where your love and patience and kindness and compassion all has to come into play. Because if not, you can become the same way without ever knowing it. Now be careful. Take your Bible and look in, let’s just go to the book of Hebrews, book of Hebrews. Hebrews in chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12 and look there in verse 1. I referred to this verse just a moment ago. But in chapter 12 verse 1 where it says, we’re for it seen, and we also encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.

Now this cloud of witnesses is the Old Testament Saints mentioned in chapter 11. Those who had lived by faith. And so God tells them in chapter 11 that you and I are to live by faith, to just shall live by faith. And then he explains in a whole chapter what living by faith means by showing you things that they did, but they hadn’t seen some of those things, like Enoch and like Noah who built an ark, but had never seen rain.

Or Abraham going to a place that he had never seen. And about Moses who esteemed the reproach of Christ, riches than the treasures of Egypt endured and moved and did what he did because he could see down into the future. And he saw things that most people don’t see because the chapter 11 is teaching seeing with the eye of faith where with your eye your spiritual eye you see further and better and clear that any man with 2020 vision can with two good eyes here.

And so people are not going to see what you see and understand what you understand. And so he says there in verse 1, 4, and here’s that word, seeing. Seeing we also are encompassed about what’s so great at cloud of witnesses. No, I didn’t see that cloud of witnesses, but I see them with the I have faith. It was put in the Word of God and I see people that served God. I see people who took God in his Word and I see what God told him to do and what the results were.

And because of that, my faith is increased. And so I can trust the Lord who would bore confidence and boldness because I got all these witnesses. I got all these witnesses. It’s not like, you know, this is the first time it’s ever happened. Nobody’s ever done before. Now I got a whole book here. So when I read the Old Testament, I’m reading stories and the Bible says the testimonies of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple. So you and I can be wise if we study the stories because we see how God moved in the lives of individuals.

So he says, we also are comes to bond with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight, The sin with just so easily be said us, let us run with patience, the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus by faith. Because see, you can’t see Him, but you’ve got to see Him. You’ve got to see Him for who He is and what He promised. Let’s see there in Hebrews in chapter 11. Look at this here.

You’ve got to see this. See there in verse 6 of chapter 11, but without faith, it is impossible to please Him. For he that comeeth to God must believe that he is, and that he is a re-water of them that diligently seek him, or diligently seek to please him. So you are supposed to believe that. And so God says, because we have this great cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience, the race that is set before us. Because see, we got a race to run too.

And there’s a course that we have to run. I didn’t design the course. I’m just to run it. There’s somebody who laid it out before me. And he says, I’ll be with you. I will not forsake you. And I will help you. You just run. And you have no idea all the obstacles they’re going to come. All the criticisms going to come. You don’t know about all the problems down the road. The trial, the test. You can’t say, But there’s a course.

And this is why Paul said that I may finish my course with joy. Not only do I want to finish it, I want to finish well. I want to finish it with joy. And look what he says there in verse two, looking under Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. In the words of beginning and the end. When I trusted Christ as my Savior and Boy, that began the greatest walk journey course. I think any man could ever experience.

But not only did I begin, but I want to finish my walk with the Lord with my compass, my faith in him. Now, you ought to understand that the devil’s goal is to use things or people for his honor and for his glory to try to get you and me not to have our faith in the Lord. He doesn’t want us to finish our course. He doesn’t want us to run the race. So he says here, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross?

Now I don’t believe he enjoyed the cross, but I do believe he endured the cross. As you live your Christian life, there’s so many things that’ll happen. You’re not going to enjoy, but you must endure. And there are blessings that God his promise in the book of James in chapter 1. Blessings that God is going to give to you when you endure the trials and tribulations. Look what else he said. Despies in the shame set down on the right hand of the throne of God.

In other words, he finished the job, he got to heaven and he sat down. Our work is not done. We’ve still got a race to run. And he says in verse 3, for consider him. Consider him. When you get tired where you want to just quit it ain’t worth it anymore because it’s just hard. You know, to me not to serve the Lord that would be hard to harden your heart against God. That would be bad news. And the Bible talks about a man who harden it to the neck, you’re suddenly cut off and that without remedy.

So you don’t want to fall into the trap, it’d be a lot easier me if I didn’t serve the Lord. Listen, it would be a lot. Did you serving the Lord is easier than not serving the Lord? He says, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. Then what do you think it is without him? It’s worse. So he made the statement here.hoe says endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest you be weird and faint in your own mind.

So that is going to take place. It’s going to happen. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of Matthew in chapter 10. I want you to see this. This is so very important. We covered a part of this the other nine, but not all of it. We just talked about how Jesus had talked to his disciples about fear, not fear, not fear, not there in chapter 10 of the book of Matthew. But a couple verses that I want you to see there is found in verse 23.

See in verse 23, but when they persecute you in this city, flee you into another. Wait a minute, you mean I’m going to serve you Lord and somebody might persecute me? What do I do? I do it again. Well what if they don’t? quit. Did you just quit? No, go to another place, do it again. Well, what did they know? Go to another one. See, the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. God and changes, bind to because they got rough.

But look what he says. In verse 24, the disciple and Yara Andalina, the disciple is not above, is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master. Now, what happened to him? Do you expect to be better or worse? And see, this is where I think the crux for the matter is. We sometimes have in the back of our mind, if I serve the Lord, everything is going to be fine.

Everything is going to be fine. It may not be fine. You can be persecuted. You can even be killed. He even talks about, be faithful unto death. You mean, here let me die? Yeah, he can let you die. You mean he can let people persecute you? Yeah, he can let people persecute. Yes, what he said. He said, all these things. It didn’t mean God’s not going to stop all these things from happening. He didn’t stop it from happening to Him.

He said, I’m not going to stop it from happening to you. He said, I’ll reward you when you get to heaven. It’ll be worth it. Ooh. You see, salvation is free. Decipalship costs you everything. Decipalship will cost you everything. Because you don’t know exactly what it’s going to come. cost you everything to be faithful to the Lord? When it seems like everything goes wrong? So he says there in verse 25, it is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant is his Lord.

If they have called the master of the house beelzebub, which is the Prince of Devas, how much more shall they call them of his household. If they treated my master like this, what do I expect? What do I expect? You know what’s wrong in our day and time. What’s wrong in our day and time is that Christians don’t live in such a way that nobody wants to kill them. Nobody wants to kill us.

When the disciples were here, everybody wanted to kill them. Why don’t they want to kill us? because we don’t offend anybody. We want to get along with everybody. We want everybody to like us. We got to show them how loving we are. So I was at a place the other day and I was getting a haircut. And the guy was telling me about how he just loves this guy called Joel Osteen. And I listened to him for a little bit.

And I says, you know that from what I heard, I said, I’ve never listened to the man preach. I’ve heard him about maybe five minutes total on a TV. I said, I don’t listen to him. I said, so I can’t speak from personal experience. I said, but what I heard is that he don’t like to speak on sin because that offends people. Oh, yeah, that’s right. He don’t like to make people feel bad. He makes everybody feel good. Oh, he does that.

He really makes you feel good. He says, right before I go to the Catholic Church, I love to listen to him. And I thought, I wonder if he knows and understands how to go to heaven though. Does the man ever talk about hell? I don’t know. Does he talk about sin? I don’t know. But everybody speaks so highly. And I think there’s something missing here. There’s something missing. Beware when everyone speaks timing of you. So, beware of men bringing gifts.

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 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 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 Bibleline and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold.

Friend, one day it will happen, the trumpet will sound. We will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.