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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 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 message will be a blessing to you and your family. your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Peter. There’s some thoughts there in the book of 1 Peter that I believe are very, very beneficial to us. As you know, we’ve talked about once you trusted Christ as your Savior, you have eternal life and you’re going to heaven when you die. In the first chapter, it talks about two things, the glory of man, the glory of God.

In other words, there’s praise, honor, and glory that everybody wants. If you seek it down here, then that’s all you’re going to get in its temporary. If you seek the honor, the glory and the praise of God is something you can have forever. Because once God gives you honor, praise your glory, it’s forever. It’s not temporary. And so if you understand that, didn’t need to understand why the opportunity of living in this world after you trust the Lord is such a great thing.

Because this period of time that you and I are in is called a time of suffering. And therefore, if you don’t understand it, you will greatly resent anyone who wrongs you or things in life that don’t go according to plan, things that interrupt your schedule. Because, you see, God says, the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold and silver that’s tried with fire, but that it might be found unto praise, honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

So your faith is on trial. And there’s something that God is working toward. What did God intend before man ever fail? You see, Christ coming into the world and down on the cross paying for sins is to redeem us back to the original purpose that God had already intended before man ever sinned against God. God wants you and I to walk with him in fellowship for all eternity. God wants you to be like his child and he wants to be like a father to you.

So God has arranged many things designed with you in mind. You are precious to God. And because you’re so precious to the Lord, the Lord tells us in the book of 1 Peter in chapter two that you are coming unto someone that is a precious stone. God says, my son Jesus, he is precious and he is. But he says also that you are also a precious stone. You are precious in the eyes of the Lord. So it doesn’t matter see how other people see you.

Cause some people don’t really appreciate you for what you are. They may not see and understand that you are an object of God’s love. And if there was nobody else in this world, God loves you. I have to see myself this way because I have to understand that not everybody in this world loves me. God loves me. I am a valuable piece of commodity in the eyes of God. God thought that I was worth the love of His Son, the death of His Son.

So yes, you and I are precious in this side of God. He also tells us in the book of 2 Peter. He talks about the precious… Faith, the precious faith that you have in him because faith in God is a precious thing. You see, you may not have a lot of gold and silver, but your confidence that you have in God can get you more than money can buy. My confidence in God because I believe in God so strongly, so much I can ask my heavenly Father to do things for me that money can’t do for me.

And so it’s a precious thing to be a child of God. Now look in verse seven, verse seven, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of goal that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found in the praise, honor, and glory at the period of Jesus Christ. So there’s a time coming where the Lord is going to reward you for what you have done for him. And so in this period of time upon the earth, you’re going to suffer.

But he uses an illustration. He refers to Jesus Christ and talks about how that the Old Testament saints didn’t understand everything that was going on. A part about the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. I want you to look at that verse in chapter 1, look there in verse 11. In a reference to the Old Testament saints when they wrote the Old Testament scriptures, they didn’t always understand what they wrote, but they wrote what God told them the right.

Then it says in verse 11, searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify when it testified beforehand these two important things, the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. Now we all know that Jesus came into the world. We all know that He suffered while He was here. We all know that He suffered on the cross, that He was crucified, He was killed, and He was buried and he came back from the dead.

And then the Bible says that when God raised him up from the dead, God says he exalted him and gave him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now he has been glorified. He has been honored. So here in the book of 1 Peter, it gives us the illustration. Look, Jesus suffered then glory.

You and I are supposed to keep it in mind. We suffer here, glory later. But you see, some of you may not suffer too much because you see, if you don’t serve a Lord very strongly with all your heart, you won’t suffer as much as somebody who does. Because you see, the more you want to serve the Lord, it means you have to give up something. You have to give up your own way, your own will. That means there’s things that you can’t do.

There’s places you can’t go. There’s a language you can’t use. That means you got to be faithful instead of doing whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it. You see, whenever you realize, I’m God’s child and I want to serve Him. And He says, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the knowing of your mind that you may prove or discover whether that good and acceptable and perfect will have gotten. Some people aren’t willing to pay that price because it’s a price to pay.

It’s going to cost you something. See salvation going to heaven, that’s free. The People ship following the Lord That’s very expensive. It’s gonna cost you you’re gonna have to give up something in this life of what you would like to do or be and have For the Lord and God says if you’ll do that for me when you get to heaven He says you suffer for me here, and I’m gonna give you glory when you get there see going to heaven That’s free.

That’s because of what Christ did for us that what gets us into heaven But now that you’re going to heaven, if you will serve the Lord and suffer from here, that means you’ve got to give up something. When people are mean and ugly and unkind to you, and you’re going to be sweet back. But if you argue and you’re mean and you’re unkind and you just carry grudges and bitterness in your heart toward people, that is costing you rewards.

It’s costing you honor. It’s costing you glory. You’re not getting away with it. You say, nobody’s going to talk to me like that. Well, pay the price. going to cost you something that you could have had for the Lord. So you can’t live as you please and get away with it. You can live as you please as you can. You’re a Christian. You can have eternal life go to heaven whenever you die and live as you please. You may live to please yourself.

You can live for the devil. If you’re his child you’re still going to heaven but it’s going to cost you dearly. What a price you’re going to pay. But it is so much better that you put God first and serve Him. Also look there in verse 21. Or in reference toward Jesus Christ, He says, who by Him do believe=> in God that raised Him up from the dead and gave Him glory. Why did God do that for His Son?

So that in the last part of the verse that your faith and hope might be in the Lord. So that as you live your life upon the earth. You’ll put your faith in God and you’ll believe it, that I’m going to be receiving honor, praise, and glory by suffering here. So I’m going to be faithful now because I believe what God said. But if you don’t believe what God says, you’re not going to be faithful here. You see, my goal is not to try to make you be faithful.

I’m supposed to teach you the word, and if you see this and you understand this, you will be as faithful as you choose to be. You will be as dedicated as you choose to be. Nobody can make you faithful. Nobody can make you dedicated. Nobody can make you really love God and serve God. I can only present the stuff, but here’s what God said. He said, well, I wasn’t there. I didn’t get to see all of this. I didn’t see Christ when He was walking with the disciples, and I didn’t see Him feed the 5,000 and all that.

Well, look what He says there in 1 Peter. Look now in verse eight. home having what not saying you haven’t seen him I haven’t seen him I wasn’t there whom not having not seen you love here you are asked to love someone you’ve never seen you can love them though you’ve never seen him Thomas says I believe because I’ve seen him and you can touch him the scripture says blessed are those who have never seen him yet believe. But what he says here, he says, though now you see him not yet believing you rejoice with joy and speakable and full of glory because you believe that it’s true.

You believe that the sacrifices you make now are going to be worth it because when you get to heaven you believe God is going to reward you for what you’ve done. You see that’s why you give. What you give the motive of why you give is a thermometer of your love for the Lord. You don’t don’t love God, then you won’t give right. But if you do love the Lord, you won’t mind sacrificing given to the Lord’s Word, because you want people to trust the Lord.

Money is a reflection of people’s love for the Lord. And people who don’t love the Lord don’t want to give. People who do want to. It’s a, like I said, a thermometer of where are you spiritually in your Christian life? But you see, you don’t mind doing certain things for God and sacrificing for God if you really believe that what God said is true and He’s going to reward you when you get to heaven. If you don’t believe that and you don’t think about that, out of sight, out of mind, you’ll do whatever you wanna do.

And it’ll seem right in your own eyes. See, it’s a personal thing. It’s what do you want to be done with that, which you work for, and this is an expression of your love. See, people should not give because, well, I got a responsibility, I got a tie. I’d rather you just keep money, give it because you want to. You’re motive of why you do it so important because God says you can give your body to be burned. And though if you do that, well, so what?

If you don’t love, he says you have nothing. It doesn’t profit you. Now what you give can profit for what have you do for, but it did profit you none. God’s word is so important. Look what he says in verse nine. He says receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Now those words that are in italics read this without the words in italic. What is the end result, or should be the end result of your faithful serving God, receiving the end or the result of your faith, the salvation of souls.

That’s why, because God left us in this world is for the salvation of souls. So we can try to reach other people. You see, there’s people that’ll be reached because we pay a price. These that work with the young people, they’re paying a price, they’re having a dedicate, they’re putting out their pockets and giving time and giving money to try to reach kids. And yet you don’t know the, all that’s gonna be accomplished because of this. you’re invested in people’s lives.

Receiving the end result, salvation of soul, that’s what it’s about. Now look what he’s talking about here, because it’s so important for you to see this. When it makes the statement in verse 11, beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, you understand this, look a bit me. If this is what happened to Christ, and he is our example, makes that statement over there in verse 21, sufferings and the glory. All right, where are we right now?

We’re here. We’re in a world where we suffer. You’re gonna get old. Things are gonna go wrong. You’re gonna get sick. You’re gonna have financial problems. You got all these things, but how strong is your faith? See, whether you have it or you don’t have it, good health, don’t have it. None of that is the issue. What is the issue then? Your faith. Your faith in God is precious to him. And so God allows all these things to happen in this world of suffering to prove to God you love God more than the world.

Do you love God more than your body? Do you love God more than your job? You love God more than money. Do you love him more than health? God wants to know you love him supremely. He is ultimate. Not just one of many things that you love. Because God doesn’t appreciate, the Bible says he is a jealous God. He doesn’t, jealousy is the fear of being replaced. God doesn’t want to be replaced by anyone or anything. And anything you can put between you and God, God has a tendency to remove that.

which you love the best. And that’s what causes you such heartache and sorrow because you lost something you really loved. And sometimes you can lose those things because you become so attached to things, not attached to something that you can’t lose. Set your affections on things above because if you don’t, you’re in for a life of a lot of sorrow. It’s bad enough as it is, but to add to it on purpose, it’s a little ridiculous. Look what he says in verse 13.

Wherefore, gird up the loins of your minds. In other words, they used to have these long robes, you know. But whenever they had their little girdle on and they had a sword and then when they’d get ready to fight, they would gird up the loins. They would pull up their skirt so they’d pull it up and they would tighten it around so that they wouldn’t trip on so they could fight, so they could run. They could do whatever they needed to do.

God says, gird up the loins of your mind. Some people are scatterbrained. They can’t focus upon one thing, not very long. Can’t think the way God wants them to think. These are a thousand things that come to the mind. And they don’t know how to think. They can’t control their mind. If you can’t control your mind, you can’t control the body. Can’t control the mind, you can’t control the tongue. You can’t control anything. Can’t control your actions, can’t control your emotions.

the devil=\” just do anything he wants with you and he does it through people or circumstances probably anything can happen and there you go. So he says, Gird of the Lord, if you mind be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you by the revelation or at the revelation of Jesus Christ. One day he’s coming back everything’s gonna be revealed what all the suffering you’ve gone through God is going to reward you when you get to heaven he’s coming.

Now I know what he says in verse 14. So we’re not talking on how to be a child of God. We’re talking about how to be an obedient child of God. See that in verse 14, as in you are the underlineness in your Bible, as obedient children. So we’re not talking to how to go to heaven. It’s because you’re already going to heaven. You have trusted Christ as your Savior. You have eternal life. You’re God’s child, but he didn’t take you to heaven.

The reason he left you here is for the salvation of souls. here to reach people. And so the longer we stay here, then we try to do what we can to reach people. Although it’s why pay out money for radio time, how much are people worth, and how many thousands upon thousands may have trusted Christ of Savior we don’t know anything about is a price to pay. But there’s a reason why we do it. You’ve got to have vision where there is no vision, the people perish.

Not only the people that weren’t reached, the people that didn’t have the vision. You perish as far as your purpose in life, it amounts to nothing. You accomplish nothing. If you ever visited some home where there’s a nice elderly couple, you walk into the house and everything is neat, everything is in place, there’s no loud noise, quiet, so homely, comfortable, so wonderful, peaceful. If you’ve gone to somebody who’s Mary and they got about four or five kids through the Rugrats.

They’re all kind of hollering and yelling and running all over the place and baby bottles and diapers here and baby cribs and it looks like a jungle in there. When you have kids it probably looks like it, sounds like it. We could have a church where we have ten people that are ready to die and say, well, we’ve got a real quiet little holy church here. We’re so thankful for all of our senior citizens and I am. Don’t misunderstand me.

But when you die, it’s over. If you don’t keep young kids coming to church, and teenagers coming to church, and getting young kids but people coming to church, your church will die. You have to have them coming up. And so we’re a family. And then the family, I like to see all of them. And yes, some kids, the other talk. And some of them are writing the song books. and some old right wall, thing little messages on the bathroom walls.

And they’ll mess up and they’ll dirty things up. And they’ll have to always be corrected. And they’ll run and they’ll yell and shout and call all kind of disturbance. I told the Censored Class this morning, I said, I can tell that I’m getting older. Little kids just drive me up a wall. I can take about five minutes of it, but that’s that I can’t handle it anymore. Teen natures I can bear just a little bit better, but not much.

I am now looking forward to settling in with those ten senior citizens and just sit there and just talk about the good old times. But anyway, I have my son’s good class and it was so quiet Well, nine of the ten were sleeping No, but we have different stages go through in life But we have a church. Yes, we got little children and we’ve got some teenagers And what we’re gonna have college age kids and young married couple But that’s what a church that church is not just one segment of the society and a church that only has the oldest folks eventually when they die and you don’t have no young people, what are you gonna do?

So you have to have new people coming in, but we’re not interested in robbing somebody else’s goldfish bowl Just trying to swap fish from one to another. We want to win people to learn. We want raw material We want people that we can win and train and bring them up from the inside Because I believe that’s what honors God and look in verse 14 as obedient children Not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust and your ignorance. In other words, when you didn’t know any better, that’s one thing.

When you were lost, and all you had was all sinful nature, and you did whatever you wanted to do with your life, well that’s one thing. You were naive. Now your God’s child. As a child of God, don’t fashion your lifestyle after the world. Don’t copy the world. Don’t be like the world wants you to be. I don’t like the direction that it’s going so I don’t care to follow them. I want to fashion myself and my life, my thoughts, after what the word of God says.

Because if I am a child of God, then I should live like a child of God. I should act like a child of God. I should talk like a child of God because that’s who I am. God says I am his child. I am his ambassador in this world. Then I should act like it and live like it. My biggest goal in life is this and I always try to remember start fires, start fires. Now don’t go out of here starting real literal fires.

That’s what I’m talking about. I’m talking about starting a fire within the hearts, the bosom of individuals where you win somebody Lord and you start a fire where if you’re not there it’ll keep on burning. I’ve got some fires that I started at Colorado. I got fires that I started in Minnesota. I started a fire up there in Alaska. I’ll be going back there next year. I want to go to Egypt and start more fires. I want to start a fire.

Fire, spiritual fires. Because see, you can’t start a fire unless you’re on fire. And many people have already died. The colds are dead. That burning that they used to have in their heart, it’s already gone. And sometimes the Bible is talking about them and he stirred up the gift that is in me. Have you ever seen a fire that you thought was dead and you’re getting to start poking around and there’s a few hot colds left. There’s a few hot colds left there and you put put some dry stuff on it and put some paper on it and next thing you know I got a blaze.

There was some hot coals left. I just had to get the fire burning and some of y’all have been saved for so long but you burned out. You didn’t got colds for the Lord. You can’t do anything. You won’t do anything. You won’t get involved. You won’t help. You won’t because as he cold. He got cold. Let the fire burn within you. I wrote a poem about Dr. Curtis Hudson when he died. He called the flame. Anybody remember it?

Flame in the wind. Talking about how Dr. Hudson went around starting fires. He was a flame in the wind. It means you don’t want to burn just in one place. You want to start little fires. I guess I’d better burn not been rust out. But it’s a shame if you know Christ is your saving, you’ve lived all these years and you have still never had any burning desire in you and you haven’t you haven’t led one soul to Christ.

You haven’t even lit a light enough for somebody else to see to come to the Savior. Isn’t that a shame? We are to be lights in this world. And God says if you shine and He’ll use you, be willing to burn for the Lord. As some people say, boy that person was on fire for the Lord. Start little fires. When people are the Lord challenge people to serve the Lord. That’s what I’m talking about. Why? Because I’m in this world and because the Bible teaches in not fashioning yourselves after the world for the salvation of soul.

For people can come to know Christ of their Savior. The reason we want to reach the little kids, because he those little kids, they’ll become teenagers someday and they’ll become adults someday. When’s the best time to reach an adult? When they’re a child, they’re a lot easier to win at that age than this age or older. And so when you win them here, next thing you know, we got save teenagers. And save teenagers is where you get saved adults from.

And the older you get the possibilities of an adult, trust the Lord, go down greatly. That’s why it’s so important for you why you know Christ is your Savior. Let God use you to stir somebody else. Motivate somebody who have you motivated to serve God? Who have you challenged to serve God? I mean, they’re serving God because of you you influenced them you motivated them God used you It’s a powerful thing when you Really get to understand it. Let me give you this to verse here before we close look there in verse 16 He says because it is written be holy for I am holy in other word God wants you as a child of God to live a holy life life.

And if you call on the Father who without respect to person judges, according to every man’s word, pass and you are on the line is past the time of your sojourning here in fear. Fear of what? In fear of missing the will of God for your life. The fear of living your whole life and it wasn’t for the salvation of souls. Invest in the Lord’s work. See that you do all that you possibly can. Be involved. Help. Participate. That’s what it’s all about.

Look up here. This hand represents you and me and the wallet represents sin. We all have sin upon us. The Bible says that God loves us and he does. He hates our sin and people need to understand this. See, a lot of people are told God hates them because they do this bad. You’re going to help because you’re bad. That is not true. God loves sinners. And the Bible says to go to heaven, we have to be perfect as righteous is God and no one’s perfect.

No one’s righteous because God said we got the sin. And the Lord says you cannot earn eternal life because you see good work doesn’t pay for sin. Death pays for sin. The sin represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord. He’s God in the flesh. He came into the world because he loves us and he hates our sin. It’s our sin separates us from them. So Christ took the sin. How much? All of it. What did he do with it? Paid for it.

Then what? He came back from the dead. Sin’s of the world has been paid. Only thing you have to do or I have to do is believe he did that for us. If I believe he did this for me, he would put that payment to my account and I would go to heaven on what Christ did for me. So when I trusted Christ as my Savior means, I believe that he did this for me. Nobody can do it for anybody else.

Everybody has to do it individually. It’s not you walking an hour. It’s not even you raising your hand. Raise your hand. He’ll say nobody. But I asked people to raise their hand for this reason because I want to know with what I said made sense. I wanna know if you trust your crisis your savior. I asked you to do that because you see, it lets me know that you understood and you trust your crisis your savior and it kinda cemented in your mind right now, right now.

This one, I will trust crisis my savior and you didn’t have to do anything. Other people can do a different method. I’m not against the method. I don’t wanna method that I don’t feel comfortable with. I don’t feel comfortable in putting people on the spot like that. That’s why I do it with heads bowed, nice clothes. I don’t put nobody on the spot because it’s not between me and them, it’s between them and God. And if I can get you to believe what God said, then God said, he will save you if you’ll trust him.

So it’s between you and him. I just actually raised your hand because I want in on it. And if you don’t raise your hand, you’ll still be saved. But I sure like it and I’ll share a rejoice with you. So if you hear this morning, you know your center, you believe Christ paid for your sins and you’ve never done it before, but you right now you’ll trust Christ as your Savior. And if you’ll do that, God said, we’ll save you, give you eternal life.

I want to know what you guys are showing up. 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 Bibleline 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 1030 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcasts 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.