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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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Anyway, I want to talk to you about a little subject. Take your Bible and turn to the Gospel of John, the Gospel of John in chapter 19. As you read in the Scriptures you’ll find over and over again this phrase mentioned, the hour is not yet come, the hour is not yet come, the hour is near, the hour has come, and then it is finished. But that’s because He was here for a reason. There was a purpose in His life.

One ultimate goal, and that was to go to the cross, to die for the sins of the world. Everything in between, He was fulfilling many scriptures, but there was an ultimate goal in that He fulfilled. You and I are supposed to believe that we have a purpose in life. So as we live our life, you’ll find out as we look at a few of these scriptures, I always like to take scriptures that apply to Christ, or even to somebody else, but mainly to Christ, and see how he obeyed his Father.

And then I take his name out of there and I put my name in there. But if that ain’t convicting, you stop and think he did always those things that pleased his Father. That’s a hard one to put your name in your anor. But there are things in there that will help you to make application. Because otherwise, you can read the word of God and it make no effect in your life. I believe that the study of the word of God will change how you think.

And it changes how you think. It’ll change how you live. And the reason a lot of people’s lives don’t change It is because they don’t change the way they think. That’s why he says, be not conformed to this world, but be a transformed. Talkin’ about your life. By the renewing of your mind that you may consider and understand the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. So here in the book of John in chapter 19, John chapter 19, I just wanna show you a couple verses here.

One is in verse 30, where it says, when Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He says, it is finished. Bowed His head gave up the ghost. So you have the death of Christ. And then you have the burial of Christ from verse 38 down to verse 42 because of Joseph of Arimathea that came and took the body in verse 40, then took the body of Jesus, wound it in the linen cloth with the spices as the manner of the juices to bury.

And then they placed him in a seprechaun. So you have that. Then in chapter 20 you have the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So Christ came back again from the dead. So in chapter 20 I want you to look there in verse 27. Jesus has been crucified, buried and rose again. And here he talks about in verse 27, then said he to Thomas, reach hither thy finger and behold my hands, reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side.

And be not fateless but believing. Thomas answered and said unto him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou have seen me, thou hath believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. Many other signs truly did Jesus into presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that believing you might have life through his name.

A wonderful portion of scripture that talks about the death, the burial, and the resurrection. of Jesus Christ. What I want you to do is look there at your notes because I just took those two phrases. One is, the hour is come and it is finished because he came to complete to finish the work that God the Father gave him to do. Now if you took only those things and realized the hour is come means that time that God had designed for Him to fulfill God’s perfect will was upon Him.

If you believe that about Christ then you also mustn’t understand that as we live our life the hour is come for you and I. This is our time. It is our hour. We are supposed to fulfill that which God has for us at this time, at this moment. So in Daniel 3 6, just look here at your notes, you don’t have to turn to your scriptures on all of these because we will never get to all of these verses if we did.

But look at the first part up there in verse 6, and who so falleth not down and worship shall the same hour be cast into the mist of a burning fiery furnace. Now you and I know that there were three Hebrew children that were cast into the burning fiery furnace. That was their hour of testing. That was their moment. Sometimes you never know when that moment will come. But you should live in such a way that you know that well today may be your hour of testing for the fiery furnace.

We would love to go through life without any testing at all. Everything just wonderful. No problem whatsoever. But as the way it’s going to happen. And so God knows the hour of your testing. So therefore you and I are supposed to prepare for that moment. On hour of time, this moment that God says, this is your hour is another way of saying, this is your opportunity, your opportunity to prove your faithfulness to the Lord. So look at the next one.

Verse 13, and Jesus said unto the centurion, go thy way. And you ought to underline this part in your notes there, as thou have believed. As thou have believed, so be it done unto thee. Now I get an awful lot out of just that statement alone. In other words, he was going to get what he believed God would do for him. Be it unto you and you’ll find in other places, Christ says, be it unto you according to your faith.

Do you really believe? If there’s anything God’s looking for, he’s not looking for your talent and all your abilities and so he’s looking for your faith. Do you trust him? Do you look to him? Remember the other day I preached a sermon on God is looking for the man that’s looking for God. Y’all already forgot that sermon. God is looking for the man that is looking for God. God is wanting to bless the man, use the man, on the man that’s looking for God.

And that’s why he says, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth seeking for a man that he can make strong on his behalf. So God is looking for faith. Somebody that believes what he has to say. And so he says, as thou hath believed, so be it done unto thee. Do you believe that that is a possibility for your life? That you’re going to get out of life what you really believe in entrusting God for?

Well, that’s between you and the Lord. But you’ve got to have faith. F-A-I-T-H, for saking all I trust Him. Even when it doesn’t seem like it makes any sense whatsoever, but you trust Him because you’re not putting your confidence and trust in anything else. Just the Lord. Look down at the next one. Verse 36, but of that day and hour, no if no man nor nor the angels of heaven but my Father only. So we know from this verse, we’re supposed to believe in you way that no man knows the day of the hour.

I believe as a man here in this world, maybe Jesus did not know. I bet you He does now, but at that hour He may not have known. But I do believe this, you don’t know the extent of any trial. You do not know how bad it’s going to be. You don’t know the day and you don’t know the hour when you’re going to be tried to your limits. And you’ll think, I can’t take any more. That hour is coming.

That moment may be today, it may be tomorrow, but there are going to be moments. Things that you can’t change, you can’t alter, you just got to go through it. And you’ll think that God has forsaken you. True faithfulness to the Lord is remaining faithful when it appears God has failed you or left you, deserted you, let you down. And there will be time to when you will believe that. If it’s not today, there’s a testing coming down the road.

And if you listen to what I’m saying now, it might help you at that time because that time will come. We’re all men of like passion. We all have a sinful nature. We all have weaknesses. All the men in the Bible were not supermen. They were men just like us with problems, just like us. And they had all the difficulties and testing, just like we do. And so we’re going to have that. Look at the next verse. And verse 42, because you don’t know the day or the hour, therefore watch, watch therefore for you, no not.

Do you look for opportunity? There’s some people that are always looking for opportunities to serve the Lord and the Passout tracks, talk to somebody. And other people say, well, I never have any opportunities. I just never get any chances. I mean, I never get an opportunity like you do. Well, if you’re living, you have an opportunity. If you’ve got a pulse, you’ve got a purpose. If you get, suck air, you’ve got a reason for living. And God will take care of taking you home when he’s through with you.

Evidently he’s not through with you yet. So you’re getting chances and opportunities that God is allowing to come your way. So remember that. So look there at verse 40. And he cometh unto the disciples and findeth them asleep. And saith unto Peter, what? Could you not watch with me one hour? He was going to the cross. This was the night. This was the big moment. His hour is coming, so he asked his disciples, would you pray for me? Would you watch with me?

And what did they do? They went to sleep. They went to sleep. Over and over again, you’ll find out the script talking about awake out of sleep. And he’s not talking about us literally sleeping. He’s talking about your numb to the cause of Christ. You are asleep to the responsibility that God has given to us. And we don’t take advantage of, that’s why he says, redeeming the time. Redeem in the time because the days are evil. Redeem in the time he’s buying up all the opportunities you possibly can, serving the Lord with all you’ve got while you can.

Because there will come a day when no man can You will not have any more chances, no more opportunities, that’s all gone. Now, it doesn’t matter whether or not Christ says in that verse, could you not watch with me one hour? What if he’d have put in that verse, your name? What could you not witness for me one time? Could you not have prayed one time? Or whatever that might be in that verse? It’s whatever it is that you’re disobeying God in.

Wouldn’t it be great if we all serve the Lord with everything we had all the time, but we fail at times? Are you aware of your failures? Or do you take it seriously? Or not at all? Just things to think about. Look in verse 45, where he says, then cometh heed to his disciples and said unto them, sleep on now, take your rest. Opportunities are gone. The hour that I needed you, it’s gone. I wanted you to watch, I wanted you to pray, you didn’t do it.

Go ahead and sleep. Take your rest now. So as he goes to the garden, Peter was really sharp spiritually. So he took a sword and cut off a man’s ear. Jesus, you can count on me. Yeah, boy. I asked you to watch and you didn’t do it. I asked you to pray and you didn’t do it. And then you wonder why you’re not a spiritually strong. Do you know right after this? I think he denied the Lord a couple of times too, didn’t he?

I mean, three times. You know, maybe if he’d have done what God says to do, he might have been spiritually strong enough and that wouldn’t have happened. But remember, I’m just covering verses that I want you to think about because every one of us will have your hour is come. There may be some great testing that you have got to go through. And doing the mist of that testing, are you going to pass? Are you going to look to the Lord?

All I ever want any of you to do is what God wants you to do. You make sure that you do whatever it is God wants you to do. And if you don’t have that confidence that you slow down, just slow down. Maybe you’re going too fast. Maybe you make a decision, try to get you out of something instead of going through something that God has for you. Just something to think about. See you in that verse 35? And he went forward a little, fell on the ground and prayed if it were possible the hour might pass from him.

Later on he says, should I pray that this hour would pass from me? For this hour I came into the world. It looks like a contradiction. But there is a possibility when man brought out a long time ago. He says, while he was in the garden and he was sweating great sweat drops of blood and he needed the prayer that he believed that Satan was probably trying to have a premature death in the garden and That’s was what he was praying.

I Don’t want to drink this cup, but nevertheless thy will be done because he says a little bit later, for this cause came out into the world, should I ask God to remove this cup? It’s like, wait a minute, going to the cross was no question or doubt. That’s why he came, but a premature death in the garden possibility. I don’t know. And that’s why the Bible says in the book of Hebrews in chapter 5 that he prayed for he feared death and that he feared.

But now, not the cross, but something premature. We don’t know the battle that went on in his life when he was facing that greatest hour of his whole life. And that’s when he needed somebody to stand with him. You see, everybody needs a friend. Everybody needs somebody. And the best way to have a friend is to be a friend. You say, I don’t have any friends. Well, be a friend. Be a friend to somebody. And you’ll be surprised how that it kind of reciprocates.

Anyway, the next verse I wanted you to look at here, and that is in verse 41, He comeeth the third time instead of the hand, sleep on now and take a rest. It’s enough. The hour and here is come. The hour is come. Behold, the son of man is betrayed into the hand of sinners. He knew this moment was coming. You and I are supposed to know that we are going to face fiery trials down the road. And lo and behold, you’re not always able to pick and choose what trial you’re going to have.

You can go to school and choose this subject, that subject, that subject, and you know you’re going to have a test on that. And I’m not going to have a test on that. But when it comes to the Lord, you don’t know where the testing is going to come. You don’t know when it’s going to come. You don’t know how severe it’s going to be, but your hour of testing will come. Think it’s not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you.

It’s not strange things happen to you because it’s not strange. Everybody has them. And you’ll think nobody knows what I’m going through. Yes, they do. But at that time you may not think so. Now look in verse 53, when I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth, no hands against him, but this is, and you ought to underline this word, this is your hour. This is what you’re doing, because Christ, he knew that he would be turned over to wicked men.

He knew the Scriptures. He knew what was going to happen, but he also knew that this is what they were going to do. He knew that when he went to the cross that they were going to put a crown of thorns on him, he knew they were going to scourge him. He knew there’s going to pierce his hands in his feet. He knew all of that. But this was their moment to do what they’re going to do. They had a choice.

You and I have choices. You can either serve the Lord or not serve the Lord, but your hour is every moment that you and I live. This is that time, that moment. See hours is such a short period of time to live. much it needs to be done. Look down at the next verse, I wouldn’t just see this. Look in verse 30, verse 30, then they sought to take Him, but no man laid hands on Him because, here, see, it wasn’t ready yet.

His hour was not yet come. You see? The Lord knew at a certain time what was going to take place, and there were times when they tried to kill him, and he was able to kind of scoot out of their way, or he would be able to hide, get away from the crowd, because they wanted to kill him at many times, in many places. One of his first sermons in the book of Luke was when he went into the synagogue and he read the description, says, Because this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

Well right after that they wanted to kill them. They wanted to kill them from the very beginning. That wasn’t the end of its ministry. That was at the beginning. So there were times when they wanted to do away with Jesus Christ. There’s people who believe it or not will rise up against you. And sometimes like Jesus says in the house of your friends, sometimes it’ll be the closest people because they’ll hurt you the most. The ones you love the most can hurt you the most.

People that don’t love you and you don’t love them really, don’t hurt you as bad. It’s people that you know and you care about and they say things that’s so hurting, so cutting. Go so deep, last so long. And sometimes you wonder if you’ll ever heal from it. But the Lord has a, as it says, is a bombing gillion. There’s some medicine, there’s some healing that the Lord can help heal your mind. Look at the next one here. In verse 23, and Jesus answered them saying, The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified.

So Christ knew there was a time when all these scriptures had gone to be fulfilled and He came for a particular reason and He says, the hour is not yet, the hour is not yet, the hour has come. If you stop and think about it, if you knew, knew you had cancer and you had a couple of weeks to live, what would that do to you mentally, emotionally? Would it change how you lived or what you’re doing? I don’t know if it should change my life at all.

I just keep doing what I’m doing until that moment comes. But are you afraid? Are you afraid to die? You’re a Christian. You know the Lord. Lord, but are you still afraid? Now I’ve come close so close so many times that I thought I’m not going to make it this time. I actually laid in a hospital bed and I’m not going to make it. I have been in swimming situations, scared to death. I didn’t think I was going to get out of this.

I was down at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. We went down there with about five of us who were checking out a campground. the bottom of the Grand Canyon. We’re going to take a couple of our diesel buses we had, and we could take 80 kids on buses, two big diesels. We’d go down to the Grand Canyon. But we went down there exploratory committee, and we went down there, and we went down in there, and oh, just beautiful camp top for a couple of days.

They have two great big waterfalls. One was about 90 feet, one’s about 60 feet. And so we had gone down to the second waterfall and was down at the bottom and we decided to walk around behind the waterfall. Eddie was kind of small so he just stayed out there. So we all walked around it and I’m last. I was like the guys go first until they went around and I’m walking. We got behind the waterfall we’re looking out there and it was just beautiful, just gorgeous.

And so they decided to dive through the waterfall and go on the other side there. So each one of them dove through the waterfall and they went on them. I’m the last guy. Nobody’s back there with me. The old man. And so I didn’t die. That was my mistake. I didn’t die through the waterfall. I just got into the water and just went into the water and started going. And I kept thinking I should be through the waterfall. And I kept going.

I wasn’t through the waterfall. And I noticed it was getting dark and darker. I had gone under the water, but the waterfalls had been pushing me down. I hadn’t planned on staying long so I didn’t take a lot of air with me. And I started hurting. And I was trying everything I could to come back up and the water was pushing me down. And I thought, I’m going to drown. This is it. And it was getting darker and my lungs were hurting.

And I know if I took a breath of water, I was scared. And just so that you know, I didn’t die. I didn’t die. And so I had enough sense to start going this way and get away from the water. And then I started going up as fast as I could. Now I was pumping whatever they had. And when I got to the top, I took a deep breath. And I was hurting. And I looked over there and all four of the other guys and my son were looking down the hill where the waterfalls was going on.

And they had no clue what was happening to me. And I finally just swim over to him and acted like nothing had happened. And I come through. So since that time I have never taken a bath. But you can get scared. And you might say, well, I’m not scared. Wait to the moment. Wait to the time. If you could pick how you’re gonna die. So I just decided, and I talked to the Lord about this, I’m just gonna wait to the rapture.

Pull the hat in this afternoon, three o’clock. Don’t hold me to that, okay? But it wouldn’t bother me, none, if it did. But looking number 27, for this cause came I unto this hour, this time, this moment. Did you know there’s a lot of things that goes in your life, but God may have had you for one moment, one time, and all the other times is not as important as one time, one moment. When you read in the Old Testament, a lot of things happened to some of these guys, but they were there for one time, one moment, and that was it.

You don’t know which is that one great moment God needed you to stand and to do right. And you didn’t think it was that important. You see, faithfulness in little things is a great thing. Faithfulness in little things is a great thing. Look at the next statement. And verse one there, Now, behold the feasts of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour was come and what was it that he should depart out of this world? He knew he was going to die.

And he was 33, maybe 33 and a half years old, and he knew he was going to die. But did he know he was gonna come back from the dead? I think so. He knew he would come back from the dead, but he still had to go through it. And you and I know we’re gonna live with the Lord, but we still may have to die. We would love not to, but that might come. Look at the last line on this page where it has that thy son also may glorify thee.

The hour of testing, however it may come in your life or my life, is that we would glorify the Lord, that God would get glory out of it. And what that means is if you wine and pine and moan and groan about your sorry lot in life, that does not glorify God. It means that you think God made a mistake by letting that happen to you and you’re mad and bitter at God. See, you usually don’t really get mad and bitter toward people.

You’re just using them because you can see them and you can bless them out. But your real problem is a spiritual problem. You’re upset with God. You’re upset with God. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Part 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 by the line 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. 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.