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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 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.

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? do for us. And you and I are supposed to believe above all things. Not only is God a great God, 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 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 dross 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 to see what 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 2008 election, now a lot of 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 a spiritual thing. And so he says here in verse 14, and here he have authority from the chief priest who 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, going to all the world and preached the gospel to every creature. You see, every one of us are chosen vessels. God has chosen 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 has 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 a vessel who is willing to suffer for him. Are you ready?

Remember I preached to someone and I 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. 2 Timothy chapter 2. And look at verse 19. Verse 19. You know what he says in verse 15, he’s studied to show thyself approved unto God, he worked that needs 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’s stand if sure, having this seal, the Lord know of them that are his. Now it’s great to say, I know the 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 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. 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. In 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 purge 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 it makes a statement, if therefore for a man purge 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 of these.

seen the lanterns. Anybody used to have any of those things? That would be a big old wick in it, it goes on and thing. And that’s what we had at night. And so, sometimes the sun could 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 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.

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 under honor sanctified pure 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 lives? Yes. And get what he says in verse 20. 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 had blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them.

Well where is this gospel? Where’s 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 7. 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 settled in the shelf? Do you want to be hid under a bushel? God says you’re a vessel and you have this treasure in earthen vessels, a body of earth, a body of clay. The power might be from God and not of us. Oh, we’d like to take credit. That’s why I’ve told the Lord, give me a Superman body. So I could fly here, fly there, raise a dead, do all these things. Look how many people would just swarm around me.

You know what I did the other day. I was turning to the channels and I saw this thing about this, the Tea Party. I thought I wanted to see what this Tea Party’s doing. So I turned on and Sarah Palin was talking. And when it got over, you’d have thought she was a rock star or something. I mean, they were, it seemed like 100 deep. And she must have signed 200 or 300 signatures. She was putting her name on their caps, on their shirt, paper, anything.

And everybody was just jumping up there and trying to get their picture taken on her. And I thought, she’s just a woman. But she’s getting all this attention and so forth. I’m not against a woman getting all this attention and so forth. But she’s just a woman. What kind of a vessel is she though? What kind of a message does she have? I’m looking for somebody that’s got a good, deep spiritual message on the gospel. Wouldn’t it be great If all these candidates who have all these wonderful opportunities and they interview them, and they would get up there and say, I just want you to know that I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.

I know I have eternal life. He died on the cross, paid for all of my sins, and this is what you and I need. This is what America needs. America needs to know that when we trust Christ as our Savior, God gives us eternal life, and He’ll never cast us out and never lose us. And give the gospel. Why can’t they do that? Because that might cost them votes. And then the left would not like that at all. Me, you tell my God, go crazy.

But I believe somewhere along the line, God might be looking for a vessel that will give him all the honor and all the credit and all the glory. But what I watch is I see them just absorbing it and just getting all the on and all the credit Look at me look who I am. Am I somebody or what? Do you know who I am?

Well, I know who he is and I think it’s important for us to keep this in mind I’ll take your Bible looking Isaiah chapter 60 all the way back here to the book of Isaiah and chapter 60 you know in the Old Testament, the book of Daniel talks about Daniel saw this image of a beast. And remember this beast that had a head of gold, arms and silver of a silver, belly of brass and legs of iron and feet part of iron and part of clay.

So you had clay and iron and brass and silver and gold. And God says that he’s the one that raises them up and puts them down. God can determine the quality of a nation. God can determine the quality of an individual by the yieldingness to his power. Where you allow the Lord to mold you. And he says in every house, there’s vessels of honor and dishonor. And vessels of honor is those that he’s able to shape who yield to his will.

And there’s those who will not. And God says these are vessels of dishonor and God will use them to bestow his wrath upon. And others to bestow his grace upon. So look what he says here in the book of Isaiah because God can change things. God is a miracle working God. God can take a vessel of clay and make it into a vessel of gold. See what he says here in verse 17, for brass I will bring gold. Wouldn’t it be something that you could get some brass and make gold out of it?

Wouldn’t you like that? Look what else he says. Iron and brain force silver. Can you do that? Try it. You know what really amazes me and it’s hard to fathom. How about a cow? A cow can eat that green grass and eat nothing but green grass and be able to give white milk and yellow butter. You try it. But a cow can do that. Where did this manufacturing plant come from? Let our scientists try to figure out, hey, there’s grass out there.

Don’t you turn it into some milk and yellow butter. see how they do or steak. Eat grass and can make a tea bone steak. And we’re supposed to believe we’re the highest form of an evolutionary letter and we can’t do it but a dumb cow, a lot of brain can. Don’t I blow your mind and to think that you can get a brown cow and chocolate milk. But God says, I can take one vessel and if it yields himself to me, I can make it into a vessel of this.

Did you know God can take you, a child of God, an old broken down piece of nothing? And God can take you and if you’ll just yield yourself to the Lord, you’d be surprised how God can shape and mold your life. and turn you into something wonderful that you never dreamed of. You might look at yourself and say, I’m just a worthless piece of clay. And God can streamline you in such a way and filter out things out of your life and purge you and send you through the fire, and you can come out pure gold or pure silver.

Don’t underestimate the power of God in your life because you never know what God is going to do down the road because of who you are and what he can do. Now look at the last part, he said, and for wood, brass, and for stones, iron. Look what God can do. And God says that this is what he can do, I believe, in our life. Look now in the book of Job, chapter 23, the book of Job and chapter 23.

Now Job 23, oh, this is a good one. So much good stuff here. Job, chapter 23. And notice Job had, well, he woke up one day and he was having a nightmare. His life, his world was turned upside down, not for anything that he has done. And yet God broke the man, broken, to where he humbled himself to God and he cried out to God, because he couldn’t figure out why would God do this to a just man. It wasn’t because of how far Job had gone.

come, it was because God had so much further for him to go. It’s not because of all that he learned, it’s because of what he didn’t know and hadn’t learned yet. God knew what he was doing in his life, but looked there in verse 1 of Job, chapter 23, then Job answered and says, even today is my complaint bitter. My stroke is heavier than my groaning. All that I knew where I might find him. Have you ever sometimes had such a bad day and you wonder if God knows what’s going on?

If God only knew who I was and what I’m going through, nobody understands. You had to do. You realize a lot of people in this world that suffer just like you and hurt just like you, you’re not alone. And not only that God in heaven knows he understands, he feels, he knows every despair you have. And then he made the statement in verse 4, I would order my cause before him, feel my mouth with arguments. If I could only get five minutes with God, I’d like to tell him what I think.

I could argue with God. I’d like to present my cause. Well, I would know in verse five the words which he would answer me and understand what he would say to me. Oh, I love to know what he would say to me because I know, as Joe would say, I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve losing ten kids in one day. I don’t deserve losing my wealth. I don’t deserve losing my health. I didn’t do anything. I don’t deserve my wife turning against me and telling me, why don’t you curse God and die?

I don’t deserve the way people have treated me. I don’t deserve that. Okay, what do you deserve? Oh, sinner man. Anyway, looking verse 10, but he knoweth the way that I take. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as what? Oh, I’m not gonna be gold. I’m gonna come forth as gold. God’s doing it because he wants to purify me. He wants to make me better, not bitter. God doesn’t do anything to make you better. God doesn’t do things to us just to hurt us.

It’s because God wants to make us better. And he performs all the things. Look there in verse 14, for he performer the things that is appointed for me. That’s a powerful verse. Did you know that God has an appointment for you? There’s things that God wants you to know, God wants you to learn, God wants you to do, and maybe you’re right on schedule. Did you know that God has a day prepared for you tomorrow? If you should live, he might have all kind of things.

You don’t know what that day holds for you. But you’re supposed to believe that God has appointed certain things for me in every day. And with that, according to Lamentations chapter 3, the Lord is merciful. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is his goodness unto me. In the 103rd Psalm, He have loaded me with all kind of benefits. And then we wonder and we worry and we fret when God has been so good, so good to us. Look what He says in verse 11, my foot have held His steps, His way have I kept and not declined.

I want to serve the Lord. I want God’s will. I want to be a vessel that when God gets through purging me, I shall come forth as gold. I shall come forth as silver.” So God can take you that you might not think you’re worth very much. Just an old piece of clay or a hunk of coal and God can change you into a vessel of honor. Do you believe it? I believe it. I remember what God had to work with when I was saved and I was 18 years old.

Boy did he have his hands full. Boy did he have a lot of work to do. And evidently the reason he’s letting me live so long is because I got a long way to go. He might have a little bit more purging for me to do. You’re supposed to believe that God wants the best for you and there’s things in our life that might need to be purged out of our life. Look up here. Letting this hand represent you and me.

The wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. And the reason because, see, we have a sinful nature. You see, doing these bad things is not what makes me bad. Me being bad is why I do these bad things. You see, we do these bad things because we are a sinner. You can stop your drinking, smoking, dipping, chewing, and going to girls to do. girl to do, you’re still bad because he sins on the inside of you. It’s your nature.

You have a sinful nature. You are naturally rebellious to perfection. But God says that he loves us, and he hates our sin because our sins, he separates us from the Lord. So we have a payment that we have to make, and God loves us and wants us to go to heaven, but we have to be perfect nobody’s perfect. We’ve all sinned. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection. So the Bible says you cannot earn eternal life, you cannot work your way to heaven.

He says salvation is a gift. It’s not by your works. This hand represents Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from the Lord. So Jesus Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead and said if you and I, if we would believe He did it for us. He had put that payment to our account. We get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did.

Best news in all the world. Let’s pray, shall we? If you’re here tonight and you’ve never trusted Christ as Savior, remember this, God loves you. He knows everything in your life. He knows all the good, he knows all the bad. Still loves you. He sent his son into the world as the proof of his love. to let you know how much He loves you. He gave the most important, precious thing in all the world, His Son, to die on the cross for you, for me, for the whole world.

Said that anybody who’s so ever would believe it. He would give to them eternal life as a free gift. And you and I can know that we’re going to heaven by simply believing that He did that for us. I pray that your trust Christ is your Savior. If you have never done so before, but you’ll do it tonight. If you say, yes, that made sense to me, and I want to be certain of going to heaven when I die and preach our life for you to pray for me.

Would you just slip your hand very quickly and put a right back down? It won’t at all. If you’ve already trusted Christ to save it, you never have to do it again. But if you haven’t done so, smart as move you’ll ever make. Our Father, we thank You so much for the privilege we have of being your children. but also for the great privilege we have to be a vessel prepared, fit for the Master to use. We ask your blessings upon each one year.

In Christ name 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.