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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. 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 a Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage.

We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family. And God says eternal life is a gift. And some preacher says that you have to do something to be saved. Do you think God’s pleased with somebody saying God had said? And God said I didn’t say that. So God is going to judge them. And you and I don’t have to worry too much about it, but you better be able to defend yourself.

And to say that what they’re saying is wrong, because he’s not to do so, he says rebuke them like Michael had to rebuke the devil over the body. You didn’t argue with him, he just said, the Lord rebuked thee, because the day is coming when he is going to deal with all of these people. But look what else he said. In verse 16, he says, they are murmurs, complainers, walking after their own lust, and their mouths speaking great swelling words, having men’s person in admiration because of advantage.

Did you know that whenever you study, for example, 2 Thessalonians, Second Peter, second Timothy. The seconds are always a book about the false teachers. The seconds. And so you have God warning the people about all these false teaching and that God’s gonna deal with them. So he told Timothy, he says, study the show thyself approved unto God. He also told him and says, in doing this thou shalt save thyself and them that hearer thee because there’s people with a false message and they try to teach and they’re influencing and people need to be delivered from that.

So you need to know the truth so you can protect yourself and those that you know and love. Because if you don’t know what’s wrong with what somebody else believes, you might believe it. The reason you need to know the Word of God is so that you can not only rightly divide the Word of God, but that you might be able to give an answer to those who ask you a reason why you have this hope. Why do you believe what you believe?

Because you see, when people ask questions and you can’t answer their question, their question, their doubts will become your questions and your doubts. And that’s why you’re supposed to read in the study, the word God. But he makes a statement here in verse 17, but they love it. Now see, there’s two groups of people we’re talking about here. This is written to those who do believe. Remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, and how they told us there should be mockers in the last time.

So is there any place where any of these guys told us anything like this? Well, I think so. Just look there in the book of 2 Peter, chapter three, 2 Peter chapter three. And look there in verse one. The second epistle, beleavened. I now write unto you in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of and your underline is worth. Remember, because you told them before telling them again. That’s why preachers don’t always try to teach you something new.

Most times they just need to go over the same thing you think you already know well and cover it again and again and again. They say theological, mousielege, well it’s kind of like throwing mud on the wall. the more that you throw in the wall, the more is going to stick. So here he makes the statement. In verse two, that you be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandments of us, the apostles, of the Lord and Savior.

So that’s almost like exactly what it said over there in the book of Jude, because he Jude was an apostle also. And he says, knowing this first, first, that there shall come in the last eight scoffers walking after their own lusts. In other words, they don’t really care about you. Every man who teaches works for salvation doesn’t really care about the person. Because it’s a damning message. It’s one that won’t save. They’re not helping anybody. Anybody who teaches works for salvation or that you can lose your salvation doesn’t help anybody because it’s a lie.

It’s a lie. So he says in verse four and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the Father’s fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of evolution. creation. He says he’s coming back. See, he ain’t come back yet. So people said, well, he must not be coming. I got news for you. He’s coming. He is definitely coming. But anyway, he says, this is what’s going to happen. There’s scoffers, mockers coming last days.

Did you know that today, whether or not it’s getting the Bible out of the schools, do you know that that’s mocking the Bible. Prayer out of the school. That’s mocking prayer. Don’t talk about God teach you evolution. That’s mocking God. Do we have people mocking what we believe today? Yes. And but is it getting better? Is it getting worse? It’s getting worse and worse. And it’s going to get worse. But the Lord has already told us all these things are going to take place.

And so just taking look there in the book of 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 3, he says this, no in verse 1, that in the last days perilous times shall come. Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous and boasters and proud and blasphemer, disobedient to parents, unthankful, ungodly, without natural affection. Boy is that going on or not. Truthbreakers, false accusers, traitors, Hitti, high-minded lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God. Check it out on Sunday morning and see how many people are at ball games and stuff instead of in church.

They’ve got a God. They’re worshiping their God. But anyway, having a form of Godliness but denying the power thereof. And it says here, from such, join them and participate with them. Be just like them. No, it says, turn away. is to be a separation from the people of the world and God’s children. There should be a difference in how we think and how we live. All of this is mentioned in the book of Jude, and this is why it’s so important.

And then look down there in verse 13, but evil men, evil men and seducer shall wax better and better, worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But thou continue thou in the things which thou hath learned and hath been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned them. In other words, contend for the faith. You contend for the faith. Don’t you stop, slow down, quit, don’t chase odd teachings and dreams and stuff like that. Just stay on course. Keep doing the right that you know to do.

And whenever you go over there to the book of 2 Thessalonians. And you’ll notice God talking about in the last days, in the last days. See there in verse 3, in the last days, letting no man deceive you in verse 3 of chapter 2, by any means. For that day shall not come, except there come a fallen away person that man of sin, the old antichrist, be revealed the son of predation, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worship, so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

Remember ye not? See, they had told them, and then they go back and they tell them again. So don’t you remember? Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember? Remember it says in the book of John chapter 14 that I will go to my Father, but I pray that He will send to you the Holy Spirit that He may abide with you forever, and that the the Holy Spirit will be in you and teach you all things which I have said to you and bring all things to your remembrance.

So see you study and you put the Word of God into your mind and then you can depend upon the Holy Spirit to bring those things to your remembrance. And so that’s why sometime when you teach in the Word of God it talks about stirring up your remembrance. Turn up your mind. Do you remember who you are? Do you realize you’re a child of God. Don’t you know what you’re supposed to be about? Don’t you know how you’re supposed to live?

Don’t you know you’re supposed to be looking for Christ to come back? Don’t worry about what the world says. Don’t worry about what the world does. I as one little old bitty individual, I probably will never be able to affect the stock market. Now some people can say a few words and it goes up or it goes down. I can speak for days and days and days and it won’t affect anything. So nobody here’s what I think. Except maybe God’s people that want to serve a Lord.

So I know there’s some people, I’ll never be able to influence them. But I’m going to do what I can and influence whatever I can do. But he says here look at him first time even him talking about the old devil and he said who’s coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders. With all deceivableness and unrighteousness in them that perish because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved.

For this cause God shall send him strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. You see the seconds books of the teas all pretty much talk about the same thing. And so go over there to the book of Jude again, the book of Jude. So a little bitty book, we’ve got a lot of things in it. And so he says here in verse 8 likewise, or likewise about the people who came out of Egypt and how that God dealt with the unbelievers, how he dealt with the angels, and how he dealt with those people in Sodom and Gomorrah.

And he also told us about those false teachers that he’s going to deal with. So if he’s right on all these other things that has happened, do you think God’s going to keep his word on the rest of it? He did everything else just like he said. So now in says in an illustration, And likewise, these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, speak evil of dignities. In other words, little respect for authority, little respect for what God has to say.

And he says, yet Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil. So if Michael contended with the devil, and we’re supposed to contend for the faith, you just might find yourself contending with the devil. few little demons alongside of it. Because remember, the devil is the father of the lie. It is the devil who have deceived the whole world. He has his own preachers, his own ministers, and they have their own doctrine. They got a doctrine on everything. There’s just a copycat of the truth, but enough of a lie to twist it just a little bit.

So that’s why they’ll have a false Jesus and a false gospel, a false spirit. They twist everything and they don’t know that the spin stops here. Not with O’Reilly, stops right here. This is anchored and there’s no spin here. And so he says in verse 10, but these speak evil of those things which they know not, but what they know naturally as brute beasts and those things which corrupt themselves. In the words they harmed themselves, but then harm others.

They don’t know the truth, and they don’t teach the truth. They can’t know the truth. They believe a lie, they teach a lie. They’re deceived, bein deceived, and deceiving others. And it says in verse 11, “…whoa unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and have ran greedily after the heir of Cain.” In other words, what was his bad deed, you know, this guy named Balaam? What did he do that’s so bad? He he was a prophet of the Lord and Be like wanted him to put a curse on the children of Israel.

He says I can’t do that and every time he said something It would be a blessing. I can’t curse the people He’s well, what can I do and he promised them all kind of you know, well He says all I got to do is get Israel to sin against God and God will deal with them so get those women to marry some of those people from the other nations there and you know, they’re wicked and and I’m gonna have to chase them.

Don’t that sound good? So teaching them to live in sin, to do the wrong, to the God’s people. And so they manipulated some God’s people, and God had to chase them. And God said, this is what they’re doing. They’re trying to get God’s people to do wrong. Did you know that there’s a devil that you can’t see? There are little demons that you can’t see. And they manipulate people to try to lure you, to seduce you, to try to get you to say and think and do things you ought not to do.

I always understand that the devil’s behind all of that. So you can’t see him, you just understand that. And so he says in the last part of verse 11, he says, for reward and perish in the gain, saying of course. Now there are several things that are mentioned here that goes into, there are three main things. And in your Sculpha reference notes are the three things that mentions this down there, verse 1 and 2 and 3. But it talks about three things that happen and you can read those things later on your own.

But let me just give you this, five dangers of an apostate. Number one, as you find in verse 12, they’re dangers as a sunken rock. It’s like there’s spots in your love feast. In other words, here you are. You love the Lord and you’re trying to demonstrate Lord and you all come together. And here comes these that don’t believe right. And they’re like a man in a white tuxedo and they got a big old black spot they just put on you.

And here you can be a church that loves the Lord and wants to do right. And lo and behold, here comes one person that just got to be that one little black spot. that causes everything to go sour. Good look down. It just robs it. Can a Christian even, can a Christian do the work of the devil? You bet your life they can. I’ve seen that happen a lot of times as he’s talking about right here. Now in verse 12 also, there is the deceptive as a hidden cloud.

And there’s just nothing but bags of wind. in verse 12, there are spots in your feast, or spots up on your white tuxedo, that kind of takes away from the love that you’re supposed to have. When they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear, clouds they are without water, clouds without water. It means you can’t quench your thirst. about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth. No life without fruit. Twice dead plucked up by the roots. This is God’s definition of what a false teacher is.

They can promise but they have, it’s all empty. Swelling words but there’s nothing there. It’s all vanity and vexation of spirit, I guess I could say along with Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes. clouds without water, wind that you can’t see or understand, and no purpose. Just blow hard, just bags of wind, that’s all most of them are. The other thing in verse 12, they’re dead as a fruitless tree. Verse 13, disturbed as a raging sea, no peace, that what you call a troublemaker.

See the verse 13, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wondering stars to whom has reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Now, do you think these are saved people? To whom has reserved the blackness of darkness forever? Can’t be believers. And so when he says over there in verse 19, And these be they who separate themselves sensual having not the Spirit. So that’s what I would probably go with. And also in verse 13, doomed like a wandering star.

No orbit, no purpose. And God says this is the way they are. And so there’s false teachers and God says, contend with them. In other words, a shepherd is not to allow these wolves among the flock. So when I see or sense anybody who teaches something contrary to what I believe this book teaches, should I deal with it or just let it go? I will deal with it. And it won’t matter to me who I see it coming from.

Because I know that it’s possible that even a Christian can get down out of shape and teach things that they shouldn’t teach and be doctrinal and incorrect. I will always try first of all to win the person to what I believe the word of God says, but it’s not always possible. Now look in verse 20, verse 20, but ye belevered, hah, we’re still talking about God’s children, building up yourselves. You see to contend for the faith, you have to be strong in the faith and you need to build up yourself.

You see, a preacher can’t make you strong. I can only give you the tools, the verses, but I can’t apply them. I can’t make you believe them. You will be as strong in the Lord as you choose to be. Building up yourselves on your, your most holy faith. So as you learn the word of God, build yourself strong to believe it. And when God says, stay away from something, you stay away from it. When God says, don’t love this, don’t love that.

And God says, love this, love this. God says fear that, fear that. Whatever God says, that’s just what you do. You don’t give God orders, you just report for duty. So he says in verse 21, keep yourselves in the love of God. Now this is not for salvation, this is service. This is for you growing strong. See, God loves you. But do you keep yourself in his love by the things that you say and do because you want God’s blessings upon you, you want to be strong.

Did you know that God also has a part of anger about him? Now his love’s always there, but he might have to beat the tar out of you. Now if God will do this to all of these wicked people, don’t you think he might chasten his own children? I believe so. And if you look at 2 Peter, you might find something like that. But look what he says here in verse 22, I covered this not long ago. And of some have compassion, that’s love, making a difference.

And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, keep you from falling. It goes all the way back over there to where it says in verse 3, that you should earnestly contend for the faith because if you earnestly contend for the faith it’ll keep you from falling but if you don’t earnestly contend for the faith it’s because you fell.

So I got a little line in my Bible and I draw it all the way across my page. See most of my teaching I don’t have notes. Sometimes I do. Sunday morning I had a whole bunch of them because I don’t trust my mind. I trust the book and when I got it in front of me I can read. I can read all right but But there’s some things that you just need to mark in your Bible. And don’t be afraid of marking your Bible.

It’s not an undoddly thing. It doesn’t mean that you’re adding to the Scriptures. We understand that. So mark your Bible. Did you ever see Dr. Hank Lindstrom’s Bible? You probably know the pages of disintegrating. Because you read it and study it so long that that’s the way it gets. So it’s nothing wrong with you studying your Bible and marking it and cross-reference it. So yes, mark your Bible. Especially at this church, nobody is going to thank your ad into the Word of God.

But it’s just to help you to remember what the Word of God says. And then he says in verse 24, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. You see the apostle Paul talks about this also that he wanted to present us faultless before the father In other words, it’s like I led you to the Lord and I’ve exposed you unto Christ and I want to present you to the Lord Now I don’t know whenever we get to heaven Do we get to present all those that we’ve led to Christ or?

These are the ones that I told them how to have eternal life and they trusted Christ as Savior and you want to present him to the I don’t know. There might be something to it, but I don’t know. I really don’t care. I just know that I want every person who listens to what I preach. I want it to make you more holy and more godly because when you get to heaven, I want God to richly bless you and I will be hurt if you robbed yourself while you were here and I didn’t say anything.

If I saw you doing something that’s gonna hurt that day, that moment, and I held back because well I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. It’s either I hurt your feelings now or you get hurt feelings there. So what do I want? It’s like not telling a lost man how to go to heaven because well after all, you know, I don’t want to hurt their feelings. So they go to hell and be in the flames of hell for eternity, but I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.

I think I’d rather run the risk of hurting their feelings here. So that I don’t hurt their feelings there. It says in verse 25 to the only wise God, our Savior. Wait a minute, are we talking about Christ? Is He God or is God the Savior? So Jesus Christ must be God. I mean that’s how I would see that. The glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever. So over here in this one verse in verse four and denying the only Lord God, that’s really a reference to God as master.

Lord as master, that’s who he is. And over here when he talks about now and forever, he is to be the master of my life now and he will be forever. So you and I as we continue for the faith, why? Because the master said to do this. So you and I are not supposed to run from our responsibility. You and I are to study the word of God so that we can know how to contend for the faith.

Look up here. This is more important than anything else I’ve said. I want you to know this. I want you to know how to have eternal life. This hand represents you and me and the wallet represents sin. We all have sin upon us. And the Bible says that God loves us. He hates our sin, but he loves us. So I want you to know, yes, we’ve all done things wrong, but I want you to know God, he loves you.

And to pay for this sin, we are condemned. We are all guilty. And because we’re all guilty, we have a debt payment that we owe. So it’s not a matter of you and I turning from our sins, boy, it’d be great if we could. We have to pay for it, and the wages is death. But God loves us who wants us to go to heaven and to go to heaven. We have to be perfect just as righteous as God.

And none of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. We have all sinned and come short of God’s perfection. And God says that you and I cannot save ourselves. We cannot work our way to heaven by our own. good deeds. No amount of good works will ever take away our sins. This end represents Jesus Christ. He is the Lord, He is God and the flesh. He came into the world without sin, lived a perfect life, never did anything wrong, didn’t have to die.

But because of His love for us, He took all of our sins and paid for them in my place. So if He paid for my sins, Then I don’t have to. All I have to do. And all that’s required is that I believe he did it for me. So God says, if I would believe he did it for me, he would give me as a free gift of a lasting life. And I get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for me.

And he says that these things have been written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. So I know I have eternal life. I know that I’m going to heaven when I die. And it’s not because of anything that I’ve done. It’s all because of what Christ did for me. So if you’re listening, why not right now in the quietness of this moment? Just believe this. In your own mind, you can’t make a mistake this way.

Only the true and living God knows what you’re thinking. And He says, if you would trust Him, He would save you. All you need to do is believe that when He died and paid for your sins, came back from the dead, he did it for you. Would you trust him? Let’s pray, shall we? Lord, we thank you so much for all you’ve done for us. We thank you for the free gift of eternal life. And we thank you, Lord, for those who have trusted you as Savior and had a desire to contend for the faith, to build themselves strong, to walk the way they should, to have compassion, to love you the way you want us to.

Father, you said in your word that you would be able to keep us from falling. And that’s all of those that lean upon you and do what you say. And so Father, we know that we can never lose our salvation because our salvation is not in our hands. It’s in yours. And you said you’d never cast us out, never lose us, that we can know that we are going to heaven because of what you did for us. And Father, I pray that you bless each one and help them to understand and see how simple it really is.

Eternal life is a gift. And you said in your word for bike grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. I thank you for all you’ve done for us. Bless us in Christ and then we pray. Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are blessed by today’s message.

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. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible Line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are 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 clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.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, and 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.