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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- 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 1-800-5. at 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. Anyway, take your Bible and turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3, 2 Timothy and chapter 3. Timothy chapter three. And look there in verse 16. I want to share with you just a few words this morning on the work of the Lord, the work of the Lord.

The work of the Lord means just but it says it’s work. It’s not always a piece of cake but it’s work, it’s diligence. And the Bible says that once you and I trust Christ as our Savior we are His children. So God has given to us something to help us. And if you’ll see there in verse 15, 2 Timothy chapter 3, look in verse 15, and that from a child, from a child that has known the Holy Scriptures, I believe that it is the will of God for parents to see that their children learn the scripture at an early age.

The earlier the better. Because as you get older, it’s more difficult for us to be taught, to be trained. They say, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Well, I’m not referring to you as that. I’m just saying that the older we get, the harder it is for us to adjust to new truth, to learn other things. We become set in our ways. We become hard-headed. We don’t want anybody telling us what we can and cannot do. But while a child’s heart is soft and tender and pliable, teachable, that’s the time to reach them and to train them in what the Word of God says.

And get what he says here. And that from a child I have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make the wise unto salvation. You see, they need to be wise enough to understand and put their faith, their trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior, as early as possible. That’s one of the greatest responsibilities that a parent can ever have. And so that’s why the whole family that loves that little child is supposed to do whatever they can to help and challenge them.

And to make sure they say and do nothing in their testimony that would cause a little child to stumble. Because God says not to offend one of these little ones. And then he says here in verse 16, all scripture, Old Testament, New Testament is given by inspiration of God. That means it’s God-breed. That means that men wrote as the Holy Spirit guided them and moved them. them. A man didn’t sit down and said, I think I’ll write me a book.

They wrote what God told them to write. And so he says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is, and get what the scriptures are good for. This is why you come to Sunday school and Sunday morning or Sunday night, whenever you can study the scriptures, approach the scriptures as you understand, This is the Word of God. This is God’s mind on everything that I need to know about life. I will study this book and it is profitable for doctrine.

That’s to teach you what is right. That’s what’s right. It’s the basic Bible teachings found in the Word of God. For reproof, it means to help you to see, understand, to discern what’s wrong so that As you read the scriptures, there’s things that will rebuke you on as you study that you know you’re not right between you and God. The Word of God is like a mirror that you see yourself and without the Word of God, you really don’t see yourself.

So he says, it’s profitable for doctrines, profitable for reproof. It’s profitable for corrections. In other words, how it ought to be, how to correct a problem in your life. This is why you need to learn to study the Word of God. God created you and I, put us into this world. And God gave us His Word so that we know how to live in the world. And so how to make something right when you’ve done something wrong. And see, God says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanseOrigin from all unrighteousness.

Now this is what God wants to do with every believer. This is why though we study the Word of God so that we can know and understand. He says, for instruction in righteousness. In the word, it teaches us about things that are right. How to do the right thing. Did you know that by studying the Word of God you can understand that you have an old sinful nature and you know you have a new nature that’s born of God and that you have within you the elements of a battle that will never end this side of eternity.

You’re going to always be battling because you have an old sinful nature and you have a new one that came from the Lord when when you trust it, Christ is your Savior. And so the battle is on. And God’s Word gives us the instructions on how to be the man of God. Now, the only thing that lies between a child of God in verse 15 and the man of God in verse 17 is the word of God in between.

So from a child to an adult, a strong spiritual, spiritual, godly individual. The only way you can ever become that is with the Word of God. Take away the Word of God and you will be a babe in Christ or a child of God, yes, all your life. But you’ll never be the man of God or the woman of God that God intended. And it means that you’ll never be able to experience the things that can happen to a person who learns how to walk with God.

You’ll always hear about it, but it won’t be part of your life. If you eliminate the most powerful thing to change your life, the Word of God changes you. See, once you trust Christ to save you, yes, you’re born into His family, you have eternal life. But that doesn’t transform your life. It’s only imparting of spiritual life. It’s after you apply the Word of God and study in the Word of God that your life can be changed. And what it was to what God wants it to be.

So he says here in verse 17, that the man of God may be perfect or mature, complete, truly furnished unto all good works. So the Word of God is given to you and I so that we can do the work of the Lord. When you’re limited in knowledge, you’re limited in ministry. And you can always have the desire to do more, but because you lack the knowledge, you don’t know how to do it. For example, years ago, especially up there in Georgia and Alabama and Tennessee and Carolinas, the old time preachers used to think there was two kinds of preachers.

The kind it’s called? and they kind of said you can’t. If you’re a cold of God, you don’t need no education. You just get up there and you open your mouth and let her fly. And the Lord will speak through you. And then there’s the other kind that gets educated. Well this one old timer he says, I’m glad I’m ignorant. The other man says, bless him Lord. He has a lot to be thankful for. But believe it or not, a God called man can be educated.

God wants a man of God, every person, every child of God, to grow up, to be spiritually mature, able to handle adult responsibilities. Now look there in 2 Timothy chapter 2, look in verse 15. verse 15. And verse 15 says, study to show off. Now, excuse me, study to show thyself approved unto God. In other words, God is looking for somebody who has fit for the ministry, fit to serve, fit to teach, fit to be a deacon, fit to be an elder, fit to be a pastor or missionary, fit to be the right kind of a husband, fit to be the right kind of a wife.

Fit means you’re prepared, you’re able to do what God wants you to do. So he says, study to show thyself approved unto God, and your underlying this word, a workman that need if not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Now, when you know what the word of God says, with one swift move, you can be able to rightly discern the word of God. But when you don’t, you just hack it to death. And a lot of God’s people can hack it all over the place and never know what they really believe.

You don’t know the Bible because of how many times you’ve been through it. It’s, does the Bible, has it been through you? You don’t know the Bible until the Bible controls your life. It’s not because you can memorize a thousand verses, not because you can quote every book in the Bible. That’s not knowing the Bible. Those things are important and you need to know them. of them, it’s good. But until this book controls your life, you won’t know this book because you still haven’t experienced it by living it.

Well, I can say it becomes precious to you, real to you, because you know it’s true. Now, as a child of God, we know that we should go to church. Most people know we should go to church. But you know, there’s always different kind of churches. Well these fair feathered friends decided to get together and they were going to start them at church. So the duck says, I think we ought to baptize by immersion. The rooster says, I don’t think so, I think we ought to just sprinkle because you know that’s going to make a bunch of these chickens matters are wet in.

The parrot says, I think we just need a good program. The goose says, I think we need a 30 year old pastor with 20 years experience. The mockingbird says, I think we just need music. The sparrow says, I don’t think we need any music at all. The robin says, I think we need a budget. The crow says, I don’t, I think we just go on faith. The owl says, all we need is sincerity. So they did, they organized them a church that was strictly of the birds.

This is not to be a church for the birds. It’s God’s people, and they are to come together to study the Word of God. So when you come to church, you should have a Bible. Don’t you think a child of God ought to study the Bible? And when you have a Bible study, there should be a time for opening up the scriptures and looking at it and see what it says. So we try to teach, thus, say of the Lord.

Take your Bible and turn to the hundred and third Psalm. The hundred and third Psalm. The hundred and third Psalm is a very good Psalm. I love this Psalm. But the child of God should be a person with a purpose. And that purpose comes because of your understanding of what the Word of God says, what it teaches. And that is so very, very important. We are to be bold. We are supposed to trust the truth. We’re supposed to study the Word of God because we believe it’s truth.

Then we’re supposed to live by trusting this truth, applying the principles that are found in the Word of God. that it’s the will of God and that it will work. Do you trust God to do what God says He will do? Can you believe the promises of God? Or do you doubt and question Him? We worry, fret. Want to get even, binge. Oh, this in our heart. God says, trust Him. Trust the truth. And so as you study the Word of God, it’s not the size of the person.

It’s the size of the faith in the person, a man by the name of Lynn Brotton up in Atlanta, Georgia was going to have a debate with an atheist. So when they got there for the debate, he was a little fella, Lynn, and this atheist was a great big fella. And he got up to him and looked down at him and he says, I’m going to chew you up and swallow you whole. So he looked up at him and says, if you did, you’d have more brains in your stomach than you have in your head.

I like it when a little guy can get even, but the Bible says to be able to give an answer to anyone that asked a question. So why do you believe what you believe? How many of you know, don’t have to raise your hand, how many of you know positively that if you were to die, you’d go to heaven. I know it. If you know that you’re going to heaven, how do you know? How do you know? Because you’ve been good.

Because you were dunked in water. You signed a card. You joined the church. You gave some money. The only way that you can know that you’re going to heaven is that there had to be some time in your life. You trusted Jesus Christ as your only hope. of getting there. You believe that He died on that cross and paid for your sins and you know you’re going to heaven when you die. So you need to be able to defend your faith.

You do that by the studying of the Word of God. You don’t study it. You won’t witness much because you won’t have enough answers and you’ll be afraid to be put down and therefore you won’t have the confidence and therefore you won’t have the boldness but you’re to be bold. The boldness comes because of your for assuredness, the security that you have in the Word of God. Can you take verses from the Bible and show somebody how to be saved?

Have you ever walked up to somebody and said, sir, have you ever had anybody take the Bible and show you how to have eternal life? I’ve done that with so many. And then I said, no, I said, look, you mind if I take just a few minutes, let me just show you a few of the verses in the Bible. And I take my heaven track. And I said, first of all, I say, let’s see right here, these things have already written under you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal.

I said, did you know you could have eternal life? You can know it. I didn’t know that. I said, let me show you right here. This is another one of my favorite verses, two of my favorite verses in the Bible, Ephesians 2, 8, 9. For by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourself, it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast. But you’ve got to find the tool that works for you.

You’ve got to find a way that you can do it. There is a way. You just have to find it. And your concern and compassion will force you to find a way. But to say, well, I just don’t know what to say. That won’t hold up. You find a way, but you do it. Because God says every child of God is going to give an account to God someday. Well, this little period of time He gave us to live.

Now, it might be different if you was born in some other country and nobody ever talked to you or if you trusted Christ to save you, and you didn’t have a Bible, but we live in America where all of us can have a Bible. And if you don’t have one, still one out of the church pews in. I probably shouldn’t have said that. We’ll probably have to replace about 20 Bibles now. But you can have a Bible. But I want you to see the importance of doing this, serving the Lord.

I always remember, you know, God not only wants to be bold, but at the same time be humble. They’ll wait on God to see what God’ll do. No one, you got to depend on him. But like this little boy, he went with his mom to the grocery store and she was at the counter and the little boy was just staring at that great, big old bowl of cherries. All those cherries look so good. And he kind of licked his lips, looking at it, a bowl of cherries.

Finally the manager, the grocer said, son, why don’t you just go ahead and help yourself go a handful? The boy just kind of held his hand down, head down, he wouldn’t do anything. He said, go ahead son, just reach in there and get your hand full of him. Just put his head down, Just put the bed in the cheapest way, right? So find out the guy he just got a little sack and he reached and got a handful and put in the sack and on the way out the mom says Sun what why didn’t why didn’t go ahead and get you some?

Was his hands a lot bigger than mine? Studying the word of God can make you sharp. It can make you smart can make you wise make better decisions So you and I need to understand it his hand bigger than mine. You can’t out give God. Some Christian becomes so stingy and selfish. They’re afraid to give, because they’re afraid God ain’t gonna bless them down the road. Or if they give $100, they run to the mailbox and say, God, send them to.

You say, well, what? I thought, if I gave this year money and I gave that, that God would bless me. No, but He blessed the church. The church was blessed and the church won’t be blessed if you become stengy because then there will be no support of God’s work and there won’t be no missionaries and won’t be no radio broadcasts. Thank the Lord for those who do believe that they’re… Support of God’s work is worth it whether God sends him at checking the mail or he doesn’t.

I don’t believe in this the gospel of health and wealth philosophy. I believe that you can support God’s work in giving, sacrificing, lose everything you have. I don’t promise anybody God’s going to take care of this and take care of that. I just believe that if you do what you’re supposed to do, there’s a day coming when God will make it worthwhile. I can’t promise you anything here. You can suffer here and you can lose a lot of things.

You can lose your job and lose your health. You can lose your property. You lose everything in this life. Nothing down here secure. That’s why you do what you can, why you can with what you have or you are. And God will bless. Look here in the 103rd Psalm, the 103rd Psalm. He says, bless the Lord, O my soul. And all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

You know, as we get older, and sometimes we get any church policies, we’ll know what the benefits are, who’s the beneficiary. Or when you get old enough to become a, you know, on social security, what your benefits are, or Medicaid, or Medicare, or Medicare, you just try to study to find out what do you have, what’s your benefits? Well, if it gets too tight, they’ll cut them out. Oh, they don’t know, they don’t lower your payments. They just cut out the benefits.

But God says, you and I ought to be thankful to the Lord for all his benefits. You realize that serving God, there’s so many benefits that you can’t name them all. One day when we get to heaven and we see how God has so blessed us, been so good to us, just the ability to live this side of eternity. And for God to use us, to give us ministry whereby we can do what we can for the Lord. And the people that you lead to the Lord to see the results down the road.

It will be worth it all. Because God word says, so look what He says here in verse three, who forgive us all by any negative. That’s a big benefit. Do you realize that in the Old Testament says forgive us all by any negative or forgive us all by sin? That’s eternal security. See if God forgives you of all of your sins, that’s eternal security. All my sins forgiven. That’s taught in the old term, and just like it is in the New Testament, he told the disciples, going all where I’m preached the forgiveness of sins, or forgiveness of sins is salvation.

In other words, you’re not gonna go to hell and pay for any sin because they’ve forgiven. He said, I don’t have to pay for my sins. Why? Because they’ve been forgiven. I don’t have to pay for them. Oh, that’s good news. What a benefit. You know, I don’t have to live the rest of my life with guilt on my shoulders and in my mind and weighing me down because God forgave me. I don’t know what you’ve done. I don’t care what you’ve done, but I don’t wanna know.

But God says, if you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, you are accepting forgiveness of your sins. Because He was the payment for them. What a benefit and for God to make me his child. What a benefit. For God do all these wonderful things for me, giving me the free gift of eternal life. I’m going to have them when I die. Those are benefits. And then to be able to serve what a benefit. But he says here, and he left all by diseases.

One of these days, I’m going to get a new body. That new body will not be susceptible to any of the diseases of this world. I’m going to be totally cured. I won’t get old anymore either. You know, inside of this body, there’s a 17-year-old teenager struggling to get out. I look into the mirror and I expect to see this 17-year-old teenager. There’s this old man looking at me. Now, I finally figured out why that one lady came into the office that day and she looked at my picture on that little boat.

She says, who’s that? I said, that’s me. She says, no way. And then the war began. Look what he says here in verse four, who redeemeth, die life from destruction, who crown a thing with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfy a thigh mouth with good things. Look how good God has been. Gave me a new song, gave me a new birth, gave me a new life. God did all of these wonderful things. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget in all his benefits.

Look what he says in verse eight, and this is why we should be humble and depend upon Lord, because God’s been so good to us. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plantheous and mercy. He will not always chide. Neither will he keep his anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins. No rewarded us according to our iniquities, called if he had, would he gone to hell? For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that hear him.

As far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from a, like as a father, pityeth, or has compassion upon his children. So the Lord pityeth them that fear him, has compassion upon him. He knows in verse 14 our frame, he remembers that we’re just dust. We’re just a man, we’re going to pass away one of these days. But aren’t you glad that somebody came your way and explained the gospel and you heard it and you trusted Christ as your savior?

and God did that, God did that, and to be thankful to the Lord for all that He has done. Turn in your Bible to the book of Romans in chapter 12, the book of Romans and chapter 12. You see when you have tried, there’s a way of God bringing you down. And if you have humility, there’s a way of God bringing you up. And a friend of mine, Dr. Curtis Hudson, prayed to you one time. And he told the story of how that when he was preaching that he was talking about Jesus coming back again, Jesus was coming.

Come for all things already. But he couldn’t remember his next point. So he thought, I’ll just repeat the last one until it comes to me. Behold, I come!” Boy, it sounded good and people locked you know, hey man, hey man, all over again. But he still couldn’t remember his next point. So he says, behold, I come! Said it a little bit stronger, more forcefully. More amens. Third time he says, behold, I come! But he went too far over the pulpit and it knocked it down and he rolled over the top of it and he wound up in the lap of the ladies sitting on the front row.

And as he’s later he says, man, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry. She said, apologize for nothing. You told me three times you were coming, but there’s always something that can, you know, pull you down off your little perch if you think you get too big and heady and, you know, high-minded, but in the book of Romans and chapter 12, Romans chapter 12, you and I are supposed to have persistence with patience, persist in the will of God, the patient.

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 2 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’re not familiar with this video, please subscribe to our channel.

If you wish to hear today’s program again or would like to download a free MP3 If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 3363.4. 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 and the church’s office We begin at 10.30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Life broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, Calvary of Tampa.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. to live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.