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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.

Well, Gloria, I’m glad to see you out here. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Matthew, the book of Matthew. When we cover a portion of Scripture, do you approach the Bible as though, hey, this is true because it’s in the Bible? This is the Word of God. This is what God wants me to know. So it may not always seem to be exciting. Well life isn’t that way either, but I’d hate to take out all the unexciting parts out of my life.

It wouldn’t be too long. The same thing when it comes to the Word of God. You take it as a whole, you read it, you study it and see, now what can I learn from this portion of Scripture that can help me? Then what you have to understand is the Holy Spirit in each person knows what each person needs. One person may need this verse and another person needs another verse, another person needs a whole story, another person needs all the whole Bible.

So there’s just certain people who need certain things and that’s why you say, you know, I didn’t get nothing out of that. But boy, this really helped me. Somebody else says, well, just the opposite to me. So I just have to teach it and hope and pray that the Holy Spirit that lives within you will share a few things with you that I fail to do. I cannot cover everything and teach on every point. It’s just impossible. I personally don’t know all of your needs.

I only know that you have one and I also know that the Word of God can meet the need. So anyway, turn there to the book of Matthew chapter 21, look in verse 12, verse 12. We’re going to cover Lord willing to the end of this chapter, starting in verse 12. Jesus went into the temple of God, cast out all men that sold and bought in the temple, overthrew the tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold does, and She said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.

So evidently in changing the money from one form to another they were cheating the people, robbing the people. Overcharging, I doubt they ever undercharged. And so this made Jesus angry. When Jesus got angry, well, He took matters into His own hands. He says, this is my Father’s house. This is a house of prayer. You have made it into a den of thieves. I wonder what He thinks about the local assembly. Do you think that of all the churches throughout the world think of how many there are, all different kinds of names, different formulas for what they do and don’t do, you know, different doctrinal statements, different, you know, formats on how they conduct their services, all the different ways.

And I would wonder if Jesus walked into their church, if he would even be welcome. Or if the Apostle Paul walked into our church or somebody else’s church, if they’d even let him speak. Who do you think you are? Oh, the Apostle Paul. Wow. You’re not speaking here. You use the King James and we don’t believe in that. I know that. Never mind. Here in Matthew in chapter 21, there is a problem. They’d seen what he did. And they had a question about who do you think you are.

Where did you get this authority? Who gave it to you? Of course, they didn’t like somebody stealing the show. They were filled with things. pride. They had secure jobs. You know, all these ignorant people would come to the temple and just give them their money and they didn’t have to do anything. They weren’t disciplined themselves. They didn’t practice what they preached. And Jesus says, they were a bunch of hypocrites. No, I’m not making that up. That’s what Jesus said.

So in verse 14, he says, and the blind and the lame came to him in the temple. He healed them. And when the the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did. They praised the Lord. They were so excited. Oh, not, not, not exactly. And notice what I was saying. And the children crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna, to the son of David, they were sore, displeased. You would think they would have been excited.

They would have been happy. But see, Jesus was God in the flesh right there in their midst, and they whisked not who it was. They didn’t know who he was. But he told him who he was. He showed him by his works what he could do, and they ought to speak for themselves. But they were swordless pleas. Now look what he says in verse 16. And said unto him, Herest thou what these say? Do you hear what these kids are saying?

They said, It’s a G. Do you hear what these kids are saying? And Jesus said unto them, Yay, have you never read out of the mouth of babes and succulents, thou hast perfect praise? Or did you know that scripture in the Old Testament? In other words, sometimes children are more honest than adults. Oh, I’ve seen a few of them. I wouldn’t give you a nickel for it. But pretty much kids are supposed to have, they haven’t been, you know, in field traded with all the filth of the world, they haven’t learned how to lie and steal as good as their parents have.

You see, parents have become professionals. Kids are just learning by watching the parents. So he says here in verse 17, and he left them and went out of the city in the Bethany, and he lodged there. Now in the morning, so we know that the next day, in the morning as he returned into the city, he hung her. When he saw a fig tree in the way he came to it and found nothing there on, but leaves only and said unto it, let no fruit grow on the henceforth, he says forward, forever and presently the fig tree withered away.

And when the disciples saw it, they marveled sin how How soon is the fig tree wither to the way? Now they know in time it’s going to happen, but he said it and it did it. I’d be scared to say anything about anybody that could do that in front of me. They’d be like, look at me and says, I had a little Jordan one day and I said, Jordan, you know what this is? He says, no, I said, it’s an ugly finder and it’s working.

He didn’t think that was very funny. I hate doing that to the kids and then they go, they’d say, Daddy, let me show you something. I took Trina one day and her face was right there and I put my hand up to it and I popped my hand. Well, my little granddaughter sitting there in a little melody, she thought I was smack and doing his face and Trina was smiling laughing. And so I didn’t think no more about it.

Daddy came home from work and he got on his knees because she’d develop to him, she’d hug him. And she says, Papa, Papa. And I was in the kitchen and I came around the side of it. And there in the living room, there’s Daddy on his knees, ready to hug his little daughter. She says, Papa, watch, Papa, watch. Papa’s gonna watch, I didn’t know what she was gonna do. She put her hand upside his face over here. She hauled back like a and slapped him so hard.

It knocked his eyeballs and he was… He had just worked all night. He was tired. He said, what did she do that for? Little Melanie looked at Papa, and she knew something went wrong. Because he wasn’t laughing. Nobody was laughing. And she started to cry. I got it in the other room. I just went in the other room. I locked the door. I can’t believe some kids were left to leave. They copy you. They should only copy the good things.

And if I ever do anything good, they probably will copy it. But it says in verse 21, then Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I send you if you have faith and doubt not. You shall not only do this which is done to the victory, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. When’s the last time you tried something like that? like this woman, she had a dishpan and she had water and she’d wash her face and all that right.

And then when she got through with it, she just thought out to Linda, well, did he want to treat me at some of this splash back in on her. She read that verse and she said, Lord, I want that tree to be moved. In Jesus’ name, amen. So she didn’t even want to look, She’s gonna take it by faith She got that panel water and she just threw it out the window it hit the tree and splashed right back in on her She says just like I thought Just like I thought Well, he said be it under you according to your faith.

Did she really believe it? When she says just like I thought You’d be surprised a lot of people are just like that though They really don’t believe that God’s going to answer their prayer. They would be shocked if he did. But he says, you can ask this mountain and it would be moved. You see, do you really believe that? I could ask God to move that mountain and every mountain and he’d do it. I could ask the Lord to move all the water off the earth and he’d do it.

He said, how do you know? He’s already said, he’s going to destroy this world, and every island, every mountain is going to be shut and moved out of its place. I already know the answer from the beginning. So I can ask that. I know it’s going to happen. But I don’t think it’s going to happen because I asked it. He’s already said what he’s going to do. Lord, destroy this world. God says, okay, well, I’ll do that. But he may not do it just because I asked him.

I don’t know the answer to the total reverse. Look at the next verse. The next verse will knock your socks off. And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, Yoda on the line, believing ye shall receive. That’s scary, isn’t it? Isn’t it? When’s the last time you asked for something that was just so miraculous that it would have to take a miracle, but you believed it. And have you ever lived long enough to see that sometime it didn’t happen?

You believed it, but it didn’t happen. But there’s things about prayer that you and I have not touched upon like God’s talking about. There’s something to this that goes a lot further than probably what we touch. We say, Lord, bless the food. food, in Jesus’ name, amen. Give me a good night’s rest. But when’s the last time you really asked for something that would be miraculous? That would be awesome. And I know that during the millennium, there’s a lot of things that’s going to be done that can be done because Christ will be right here.

And if you believe that that mountain needs to be moved, maybe it’ll go to move that mountain. But I have to say, maybe I just don’t have and the faith. I just haven’t found a mountain that I even thought that needed to be moved. I thought God put it in the right place to start with. So I don’t have a problem with it. In verse 23, When he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching and says, who are you?

What are you doing? Who told you could do that. By what authority? By what authority do thou these things? Who gave thee this authority? Where do you get the right to do this? See, he wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t one of them. He was an outsider, but he could do things they couldn’t do. It had been a while since they walked on water. I tried and saw that sign again. I was talking about the other night. Need a lifeguard?

Hours walks on water. Need a lifeguard? Hours walks on water. I love that statement. But look what he says in verse 24, and Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing. Now, sometimes, you know, you ask a Jewish person the question they will usually answer with a question. Why do you do that? Why not? It’s always the other answer with a question. It’s always put back to you. They asked Jesus’ question. He said, I got a question for you.

He says, if you tell me, I, likewise, will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John. When was it? From heaven or of men? It was a set up question. was a set-up question. It was a good question. John the Baptist had come on the scene. He was the forerunner of Christ, but they didn’t believe him. But if John the Baptist was from heaven in the sense that God has messaged from heaven from the Lord, why don’t you believe him?

If he’s a man, well the people believed that he was from God. And so that would make them mad, so they didn’t want to go there. They said, oh, we can’t tell. He says, then neither will I tell you where I get my authority from. That might have been a little on the spiteful side, but he makes a statement here in verse 25, the baptism of John once was it from heaven or men. They reasoned with themselves saying, if we shall say from heaven, he will say unto us why did you not then believe him?

But if we shall say of men, we fear the people for all who John is a prophet, a prophet. And they answered Jesus and said, we cannot tell. And he said to them, neither tell I you by what authority I do these things. Now he’s going to tell them a parable. And there’s a couple of them down through here. And they are for a reason because of who he’s talking to, because they refuse to believe on him, so therefore he spoke in parables.

They hint that he was talking to them, but they don’t get the full brunt of it. But there’s like a story that penetrates and hits them right between the eyes. And Jesus was a master teacher. He was the best. Of course, if he’s the Lord, there couldn’t be a better teacher than Jesus Christ. So he says in verse 20, what thank ye? What do you think about this? A certain man had two sons. He came to the first and said, son, go work today in my vineyard.

He answered and says, I will not. But afterwards he repented and he went. He changed his mind and he went. And he says in verse 30, and he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and he says, I go, sir. And he went not. Which of the two did the will of his father? And they said, because he still talked to the same group, they said unto him the first, Jesus said unto them truthfully, you said the truth.

I’m going to tell you something else. He says, I say unto you that the publicans and the harlot go into the kingdom of God before you. Now isn’t it true that we often hear about good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell? Jesus is talking to the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious goody goodies. The good of two shoes, the religious people, the better than thou, the one that looked down their long fairsail connoes. I could say they were actually like a bunch of Pharisees.

They were real Pharisees. But Jesus said it’s those publicans, those tax collectors, the ones you despised, the harlots get to go in before you. Look what he says. He says, verily I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness. See, he’s still talking about John, down there in verse 26, about who is John? Who is John? Why didn’t you believe him?

You didn’t believe John. John was a forerunner of Christ. John told the people to believe on Him. They wouldn’t believe it. They didn’t believe John and they don’t believe Jesus. So there’s a story here that would penetrate them because Jesus is using this story to help them to understand that he knows, he understands, you and I can read this and we can see that. But how much did they see and they understand? Look what he said. He says, for John came unto you in the way of righteousness.

And ye, Y other on the line is, believed him not. But the publicans and the harlots believed him. And ye, when you had seen it, repented not. You did not change your mind afterwards. So it means they could have. They could have changed their mind. That you might believe him. See, there’s a lot of people that say, well, they can’t believe because they weren’t chosen in all that. This scripture nails. That is false teaching. Calvinism is false teaching. It is not truth.

And you’ll see that they could have believed, but they did not believe. Jesus expected them to change their mind and they would not change their mind. looking verse 33. Here another parable. He’s now going to tell him another story. There’s a see because Jesus I believe loves everybody. He wants everybody to have eternal life and he wants them to see. He wants them to understand but because of their hardness, their failure to believe the truth, he spoke in parables so that the ones that really wanted to know the truth could understand it, they’d get it.

The ones that didn’t want to know the truth, the one they couldn’t get the story. They just know there’s a story there. There’s a point there, but they couldn’t really see what the main purpose of the story was. So they perceived, hey he’s talking about us. I’m not sure what he said, but I think he’s talking about us. See that’s mentioned over there in verse 45. See looking at his verse, and when the chief priests and the Pharisees had heard his parables they perceived that he spake of them, well slap my mouth, he was.

Go back here to verse 33, here another parable. There was a certain householder which planted a vineyard. Heads then round about. Digged a winepress in it, built the tower, let it out the husband and went into a fire country. Hmm, there’s a story here somewhere. There’s something that’s going to relate to something that’s really true. And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husband that they might recede the fruit of it. That only makes sense.

And the husband took his servants, beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first, and they did unto them likewise. Now, He had sent all these servants and they killed them. So last of all, it says, verse 37, last of all, He sent unto them His Son, sent they will reverence My Son. They’ll reverence My Son. Hold your place right here and just look with there in chapter 23. Chapter 23, Luke there in verse 35, he says that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous able unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barakiah whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

Verlea say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation. And why was all that’s going to come up on them because of some of the decisions they made. Look down there in verse 34, wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, wise men, and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and crucify. Some of them shall you scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city. Do you know there’s other scripture so far? He said, you have killed all the prophets.

I sent them to you. I sent you word, but you didn’t believe the word that I sent. And then take your Bible and look there in Hebrews in chapter one. Hebrews in chapter one. Save your place there and Matthew will be coming back there. But in the book of Hebrews, In chapter 1, look at verse 1, says, God who at sundry times and in diverse manners, spake and time pass unto the fathers by the prophets. Half in these last days spoken unto us by his son.

Now go back there to the book of Matthew in chapter 21, and you’ll notice in verse 37, And last of all, He sent unto them His Son.” You think there’s any parallel here? That there’s a possibility that this could be talking about. God sent His Son. And He’s standing there in front of Him, and He’s telling them this story. And they’ll reverence My Son. Verse 38, But when the husband saw the Son, they said among themselves, this is the air.

Come, let us kill him and let us seize on his inheritance.” And they caught him, and they cast him out of the vineyard and slew him. When the Lord therefore of the vineyard come at what will he do unto those husband? And now so far they haven’t nailed all this down, this wonderful little story. He’s fixing to say, thou art guilty, like Nathan did David back in Samuel. But look what he says. In verse 40, When the Lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will He do unto those husbandmen?

They said unto Him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men with their own mouths, their condemning themselves, with their own mouths, their condemning themselves. He’s telling Jesus what ought to be done to those people that did that wicked thing. And you think they’d be smart enough to see what he’s saying. But do you know I believe that there’s people who can go to church and hear the word of God week after week after week and never really think that that’s talking about them.

Boy, if so and so was here, that would have been perfect for them. Boy, I’m glad that was just good for those people behind me. Oh, am I glad that all known sin is behind me? Oh, and they don’t never take it. You know, maybe this is talking to me. Do you ever realize that sometimes God may be speaking to you through what the word of God is saying and that there’s things that God knows about you and He can take a simple little message and all of a sudden he can give you flashbacks, things that’s in your life that’s not right and you won’t correct it.

And you know why? Most people won’t correct a problem. P-R-I-D-E, pride. They’d have to admit they’re wrong and some people won’t even do that before God. Let alone people. We never liked to admit it to people, but But I mean, God, especially when he knows. 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.

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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.