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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 you 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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and And it’s one that you’ve heard, but it’s just maybe a little different twist to it. Every one of us knows that once we trusted Christ as our Savior, that the Bible talks about you and I being a vessel fit for the Master’s use. A vessel fit for the Master’s use.

Fit for God to use. Prepared under every good work. So the vessel that God wants to use, he wants a clean vessel. He wants a vessel that’s fit, vessel that’s prepared. So you see, some of those things, once you trust Christ’s Savior, is your responsibility. It’s my responsibility. How prepared we get depends on us. How fit you are for the Lord’s work depends on you. So you and I are supposed to prepare for God to use us. If you want God to use it, you don’t sit back and do absolutely nothing.

And I’m just waiting on God. God says, what do you mean? I’m waiting on you. God will use every vessel that makes themselves available. So that’s why it’s such an important thing. So turn in your Bible to the book of 2 Timothy and chapter 1. 2 Timothy, chapter 1, and look in verse 13. A vessel is for the purpose of holding something. Holding something. You can get a glass and it can be a vessel for holding some water and get a gas tank and hold gasoline, but a vessel is to hold something.

There’s something God wants to put into the vessel. Otherwise, the vessel is no good. There’s scripture that talks about a vessel being cracked. A cracked vessel. So here in verse 13, it says, hold fast the form of sound words. That means you and I are to be a vessel where the word of God abides. You see we’re not just holding water, we’re not just holding food, we’re supposed to hold the word of God. Something that’s very precious. So the Bible teaches this.

So take your Bible and turn to the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah in chapter 18, all back there in the Old Testament to the book of Jeremiah in chapter 18. Jeremiah and chapter 18. Jeremiah chapter 18, this is on page 791 in the Church of Bible or the Old Schofar reference Bible. And there’s a little story here about the Potter’s house. I’ve read these verses before but let’s look at it one more time. And verse one, the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, say, and arise and go down to the potter’s house.

There I will cause thee to hear my words. That word here, my word, means I’m going to cause you to understand my word. Even in the book of John chapter 5 verse 24, he that heareth my word and believeth on him, It’s not just hearing it, it’s understanding. When he says, do you understand what you are reading? He says, how can I accept some man should guide me? And even in the book of Nehemiah where it talks about that they had the reading of the Word of God and he caused them to understand.

That’s mainly what preachers tried to do is cause the people to understand what God’s Word has to say. So he makes the statement in verse three, then I went down to the potter’s house and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hands of the potter. So he made it again, another vessel as seameth good to the potter to make it. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter?

Sayeth the Lord, behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hands. So are ye in mine hands, O house of Israel. And what instant I shall speak concerning a nation. and concerning the kingdom to pluck up, to pull down, to destroy. Remember, it was I, he says, the Lord that caused it to rise. God can cause it to rise, a kingdom, a nation, a family, an individual, and if you don’t do right, God can also put you down. God can uproot your whole life.

God can destroy this little life that we have, and it’s God that can rebuild us. There is a time to break the vessel. When the vard and God can’t use it, then he will break the vessel. and many times by sending to us problems and trials and tribulations that break us. You see, the will of man is a hard thing to break. And so God wants to break our will without breaking our spirit. So God wants you to serve him.

God wants you to love him. This is why he made the statement in the book of Hebrews in chapter 12 about, don’t faint when thou art rebuked of him. Nor faint when thou art rebuked. When God has to correct or chasten or maybe break the vessel. In other words, to humble a person. Because he God says one thing that harms a vessel from being used is pride. Pride hardens the heart. Pride causes the clay to get hard where God can’t shape it the way he wants.

So in order to God to work with it, he’s got to remake it and he’s got to break it. And then add some more water to it. those are the tears of the believer, and God can soften the clay and you become teachable and pliable in his hands, and God can use you again for his honor and glory. So just because you’ve messed up somewhere down the road doesn’t mean that God can’t use you in the future because he certainly can.

But he says in verse 8, If, if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them, and at what instant I shall speak concerning the nation and concerning the kingdom to build and to plan it. So God says, testimonials, I can tear it down and I can put it back. That was the lesson that, well Jeremiah was supposed to learn by watching the potter and the clay and how that it was marred in his hands and so he had to destroy it and start over again.

Now, if you are rebellious to the Lord because of a hard heart, do you think that God may have to break you in order to soften you? And sometimes there’s things God would allow to happen in your life to cause you to have to run to Him, that you need the Lord. You know, it’s hard to stop going down a sliding board half way. You generally go all the way to the bottom. And people who run from the Lord usually have to go all the way to the bottom until there’s nothing else.

Kind of like the what we call the prodigal son when the Bible says he came to himself funny Came to himself You know when the famines came and all of his money was gone and his riotous living was all over with and he was feeding the hogs finally God got his attention and he said I think I’m gonna go home to see my daddy And I’ll tell him who daddy I’ve sinned against you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son So he had humbled himself, but he had to be broken.

And so God is going to have to break up the ground in order to replant the seed. So God knows what he’s doing, and he will do that in our lives. If you know how God works, you’ll know what kind of a person you ought to be. Do not, under any circumstances, harden your heart toward God. Don’t you dare get bitter and mad and angry with God. God. Now you’ll do that toward people, but it’s God that you’re upset with.

People are only the recipients of your anger and explosion, but you’re not upset with the people. You’re upset with God because when you’re right with God, you can control all of that and you don’t have to respond the way that you think you’re doing. So take your Bible looking Psalms 31. A book of Psalms in chapter 31. Psalms 31, look in verse one. A couple interesting little verses that I wanna kinda go through here real quick. Look in verse one.

You This looks like it could be the sign of a very interesting yielded vessel. In verse one, in the O Lord, do I put my trust in thee? Do I put my trust? That sounds like a good idea. Look in verse three, for thou art my rock and my fortress, and you ought to underline this part of the verse in your Bible. Therefore, for thy names sake lead me and guide me. Have you ever heard people talk about God?

Lord, I want you to lead me to guide me. Lead me Lord, guide me. You see, if you want to be led by the Lord, you have to be doing something, going somewhere. You want the Lord to guide you. It is not within man that walk up to direct a step so everybody needs the Lord. Oh, look what he says in verse 5, into thy hands I commit my spirit. That is what makes you teachable. That’s what makes you pliable.

That’s why God is able to take you and mold you into the person that God wants you to be. Otherwise, you can grow up to be a mean, cantankerous, old woman or an old man. And that’s not what you want to be. Look down here in verse 9. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and you are on the line, these words, because the day will come when you’ll need this verse. For I am in trouble. Just because you know the Lord and just because you love the Lord doesn’t mean you’re not going to have trouble.

Trouble are like sparks that fly upward from the time you’re born. There’s always trouble. A look at what he says there in verse 10, for my life, my life is spent with grief. My years with sighing my strength faileth because of my iniquity my bones are consumed and the older you live the more you realize it. But anyway, we’ll move right along. Oh, look what he says there in verse 12. You ought to underline verse 12. I am forgotten as a dead man out of mine.

And look at the last part that verse 12, I am like a, and you are the line these two words, especially a broken vessel. Now God may have to take you at times and break the vessel. Break your heart. Have you ever had a broken heart? It can come in a lot of ways. It can come through your husband. It can come through your wife. It can come from the people that you work with. It can come from your children.

It can come from grandchildren. come from the people you work with. It can even come from people in the church. And you’d be surprised how many different ways you could have a broken heart. But do you think that God in heaven knows when you have that broken heart? God may know what it takes to make this clay, this vessel, in order to shape it into what he wants. It’s kind of like a woman who makes a cake depends on what kind of a cake she wants to make.

If she just wants to make a vanilla cake, I mean, where’s vanilla? Well, you don’t put a lot of chocolate in it. You can for me. I like chocolate. I like chocolate in everything. I just run like chocolate. But look what he says here. Look down in verse 14, but I trusted in the old Lord, I for thou art my God.” You know another good statement along his line? Look there in the first verse on the next page. In verse 15, my times are in thy hands.

You ought to underline that. You need to understand and believe it. There is a God in heaven who says, my times are in his hands. My life is in his hands. Do you believe it? Do you believe there’s a God in heaven that’s aware of life and he designed it. He made you, made me, knows everything that’s going to happen. We have a wonderful God. And believe it or not, he does have a plan. He does know what he wants from our lives.

Look there in verse 19. He’s, oh, how great is thy goodness. Ain’t that good? which thou hath laid up, get to for them that fear thee, which thou hath wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men. How great is thy goodness, which thou hath laid up for them that fear him. If you’ll learn to yield yourself to the Lord, to be whatever it is God wants you to be, you’re gonna find a lot of goodness.

Remember David made the statement. He says, Shirley, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And they will till he messed up. And then God says, I’m going to bring the sword against your home. Says four times it’s going to hit and buddy it did. And he had to pay a great price. Look down in verse 23. Oh love the Lord, all ye his saints. For the Lord, the Lord is the Lord. preserveth the faithful and plantifully rewardeth the proud doers.

Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart. All ye that hope in the Lord.” So is there a reason why we should hope in the Lord and put our trust in the Lord because of what he can do for us? And you and I are supposed to believe above all things. Not only is God a great God, is a good God. He is a good God. Take a Bible looking, Proverbs. Just turn to your right to the book of Proverbs.

And Proverbs chapter 25, Proverbs 25 and look there in verse 1 and just the first seven verses here I just want to throw a few things at you but verse 1. These are also Proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter. The heaven for height, the earth for death, and the heart of kings is unsearchable.

Verse 4 needs to be underlined, take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer. In other words, the draw is the things in your life God wants to clean out of you and he wants the silver to be pure silver. So whenever he gets through with you, you have been refined. So God is going to refine you and I like a refiner would do that with silver and with gold. Turn to the book of Acts in chapter 9, the book of Acts and chapter 9.

Remember a man by the name of Saul, not King Saul, the Saul in the New Testament, Saul before he became Paul. And the Lord had to really deal with this man, but I want you see what he says here in verse 13. Then Ananias answered and said, Lord, I have heard many things of this man. How much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem. So he said, Lord, I didn’t heard a lot about this man. This man is an evil man.

This man’s done a lot of bad things. and God is sending him to see this man, because he God had a plan. Can God take a man that was totally against him and then use him for him? Is it that what we’re doing and teaching that we can get a person who doesn’t know the Lord, love the Lord, get him to trust Christ as Savior and then try to teach people that God can use you, God can change you.

God can change your life. You know during the 2018 election, all the lives, hope and change, hope and change. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if America would hope in the Lord and see a change in the people’s lives? There’s the real hope and change, but it’s the spiritual thing. And so he says here in verse 14, and here he have authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on his name. Lord, do you know who this man is?

Do you know what this man has done? Do you know what he can do? He’s a powerful man. And the Lord said, and the Lord said, in verse 15, go thy way, for he is a, and you ought to underline these two words, chosen vessel. He’s a chosen vessel. Now you and I understand when we read the Gospel of John in chapter 15 where the Lord says, I have chosen you. I have chosen you. And that you should go.

So every one of us who know Christ is our Savior, you have been chosen by God, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. You see, every one of us are chosen vessels. He’s not as chosen as his people to do his work his way. And he didn’t ask the lost people to do it. He asked us to do it. But look what else he says here in this verse. He is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how great, wonderful, easy life he’s now going to have.

It didn’t say that. I’m going to show him how great things he must suffer for me. God is looking for me. for a vessel who is willing to suffer for Him. Are you ready? Remember I preached to a certain one night called, Are You Ready? Are You Ready? Are You Ready? Are you ready to be the vessel that God wants you to be? Well, I sure hope so. Take your Bible and turn to 2 Timothy in chapter 2. 2 Timothy and chapter 2.

Isn’t Timothy chapter 2? And look at verse 19. Verse 19. You know what he says in verse 15, he studied to show thyself approved unto God, he worked unto that need not to be ashamed, rightly divided in order to… That’s to the believer. If you want to be prepared, he says, study, study. See, a lot of people want to be used, but they don’t want to prepare themselves. So he says here in verse 19, Nevertheless, the foundation of God stand if sure, having this seal, the Lord know of them that are His.

Now it’s great to say, I know the Lord, but it’s also good that the Lord knows me and get the last part and let everyone that nameeth the name of Christ depart from iniquity, is Is it the will of God for his children to study the Word of God so that they’ll know how to discern right from wrong and depart from iniquity? To love the Lord is to hate evil. And if you don’t hate evil, you don’t love God.

If you love flowers, you have to hate weeds. Why? Because weeds kill flowers. And get what he says. verse 20, but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth. Some to honor, some to dishonor. If a man, get this now, we’re talking about a man being a vessel fit for God to use. If a man therefore purges himself. See, these are things that God wants you to do.

Sometimes we think, well God’s going to do this and God’s going to have God’s waiting on his people to clean up their lives. And well, there’s some things that God tells us to do, to be fit for the masters used, to be willing to do whatever it is God wants us to do. And he makes a statement, if therefore a man purrs himself, these are things you and I have to do in our own life. Nobody can do this for us.

And he says, he shall be, not might, he shall be. See, to be a vessel fit for the Lord to use, then you have to do the cleaning. You have to go to work and cut out of your life things that will hinder God from using you. But my mom used to have all these kerosene liners. Anybody used to have any of those things? That’ll be a big old wick in it, it goes on and thing. And that’s what we had at night.

And so sometimes the suck get inside of that thing and that little glass sleeve on it, we know it would get all set it up. And then the light wouldn’t be very bright. So my mom would take the thing off of it and she would clean out all of the sun inside of it, put it back in man alive. It’s like you just turned on 10 of them. Well, see, our lives get there. See, the Holy Spirit living inside of you is as bright as you’ll ever be.

He’s not the problem. We’re the vessel and we’re not letting the light shine through us. Let your light so shine that men may see your Father and glorify Him. So you and I are supposed to be light, but sometimes it gets dirty. And that’s where you have 1 John 1, 9. You go to the Lord and God will keep you clean. clean, stay close to the Lord, apply the water of the Word, and keep yourself clean from that which can ruin your testimony and cause the light not to shine as clearly.

And sometimes there’s others who keep themselves clean, they do right, they keep their mind clean, and God is able to use them in a greater way. But look what he says here. In verse 21, he shall be a vessel on the honor, sanctified, pure and holy, set apart, meet or fit for the master’s use. Now the master in case you don’t know who he is, is the Lord. If he’s the master, then I’m supposed to be the servant. Now if you get this out of sync, you’re going to have a big problem.

You and I do not depart from iniquity and make him the master of our life in order to be saved. That would be works for salvation. That’s what you call Lordship Salvation, making Christ the Lord and a master of your life to be saved. That isn’t true. But after you trust Christ as your Savior, should the Lord be the master of our life? Yes. And get what he says in verse 20 to him. Flea also youthful lust. Follow after righteousness and faith and love and peace and with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

So that’s why you’re supposed to meet with the people who are doing the same thing. Who are trying to live a good life, a clean life. Trying to keep their vessels clean. Trying to keep their minds clean. You help each other. And God said, I can use you and you’ll be a servant that the Lord can use, and I’m sure that that’s what you want. Look in 2 Corinthians in chapter 4, 2 Corinthians and chapter 4. The Bible says, if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them.

Well, where Where is this Gospel? Where is this light supposed to shine from? Well, see there in verse 6, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness have shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So the light shined into us and is to come from us. So it came to us so that we might give the light. But where is this most powerful message in all the world?

Look down in verse seven. He says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels. That he says, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. You see, there’s a power in this message that God has given to us. And we are the vessels that God wants to use. And if you wonder why God may not use you the way you want to be used, It might be, it’s just something you have to find out between you and the Lord.

Maybe you’re not a clean vessel. Maybe you’re not a fit vessel. Maybe you’re not prepared for God to use you. You’re just not ready yet. Nobody can make you get ready. Nobody can prepare you. That’s a personal thing. There may be things that you harbor in your mind or in your life that you do not deal with. You’re not going to deal with it. And so God just puts you on the shelf and when you’re ready, when you’re ready, and you might sit there for 10, 15, 20 years, when you’re ready, or wouldn’t it be great to be used by God all the days of your life?

Do you want to be set on the shelf? Do you want to be hit under a bushel? God says you’re a vessel and you have this treasure in earthen vessels, a body of earth, the body of clay, that the power might be from God and not of us. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tapp of 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 to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool 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 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.