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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 Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Hear 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 the air. 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. there in Acts chapter eight, chapter eight. Look what he says in verse four, looking verse four.

And verse four says, therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere, and you ought to underline this preaching the word. And this is done. Now the disciples and so forth, they were still there. They hadn’t yet left yet. But look what he says up there in verse, I want to see the last part of verse 1 where it says, and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria get to accept the apostles. So that means whoever these people were, it had to be the ones that were reached by the apostles because now it’s other people that are leaving.

And this is only within a few years after Christ died. So you’re talking about young believers, their whole lives being uprooted and scattered. And the Bible says they went everywhere preaching the Word. And then you have the Apostle Paul who gets saved. But remember the story of the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip, how that he had a great revival going on there in chapter 8. And the next thing you know, he joins himself to this chariot and he says, understand what I’ll read it and he says, how can I accept some man should guide me unless somebody guide me?

There’s reasons why these verses are in the scriptures so that you and I would always remember somebody needs me. Somebody needs me. Somebody needs me to help guide them. See, you can’t save them, but you can guide them in the truth. And all he did was, this is Jesus. And so who’s he talking talking about Jesus and to help people to understand the Scriptures. It’s so good and it’s so simple and such a such a blessing. Then in chapter 9, so you have the Apostle Paul and how he trusts Christ as his Savior.

But see that experience on the road to Damascus, it’s another soul-winning experience because God saved this man, look how many other people were now reached. But not only was there a great persecution because of Stephen, now the apostle Paul was also greatly hated and nobody wanted anything to do with him. The disciples didn’t really trust him because they knew what he had done. So at the beginning of his ministry, it wasn’t a piece of cake for him. I mean, if he had been in Florida and they had taken a poll, like I think we’ve had a few polls taken lately, he would have probably been not on the bottom of the list.

And yet God had plans for him. But did you know it was about seven years, six or seven years later that opportunities began to open up for the Apostle Paul. Did you know that after he had been rejected and he’d spent some time on the backside of the Arabian desert and God dealing with him and teaching him some things and then when he finally goes to Jerusalem they don’t want anything to do with him. Barnabas has to try to get the people to accept him.

Why? Because they he had a testimony he persecuted the Christians. He has to overcome that. Have you ever heard some of these politicians that are running and they remind them of every word they’ve ever said. They’ve got videos of 15, 20, 30 years ago where they blew their nose or where they picked their nose or they blinked their eyes or they sneezed or it doesn’t matter. Whatever they’ve done, it’s almost like the Bible and God says, every idle word.

And some of those politicians sure wish they could go back and change what they’ve said and done. And it’s out there. Well, what Paul had done was out there. And he had already had a testimony, a reputation, and people were scared. They couldn’t trust this guy. And yet Paul was a a great individual because God used him to write the scriptures. But you see, he had gone back to Tarsus where he was born. And Tarsus is in the goth of the Mediterranean.

We up high, we up here. And then of course down through here you have Antioch. And then you have Caesarea Philippi. And then you’re going down the coast and so forth with Japha and all these places. And so they had already got the gospel to cypress, which is an island out there in the Mediterranean, and the Phoenicians, which was also way up high here. And so the Jews that had been scattered out and they called them the Grecians, but the Grecians were, well, they were Jews, but they weren’t living in Jerusalem or born in Jerusalem.

But like the Apostle Paul, he was a Jew, but he was a Roman citizen. And not everybody was a Roman citizen, but he was. So take your Bible now and turn there to the book of Acts in chapter 11. And look there in verse 19. Verse 19 of the book of Acts, in chapter 11, now they, which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, traveled as far as Venus and Cyprus and Antioch, preaching the word to none, but unto the, in your other underline it, Jews only, Jews only.

Because see, they didn’t know about Cornelius yet. The word hadn’t got out. Hey, the Gentiles can be saved too. But everybody went everywhere and all they reached was the Jews. It’s kind of like us. Let’s say for example, if I was a black man, and the Lord says, Yankee, going, oh, we’re a priest of the gospel. And in my mind, I’m thinking only do the black man, only do the black man. Or if I was an Indian, only do the Indians, only do the Indians.

Or if I was a white, only do the white, only do the white. But God’s Word says the whole world. I have been in two slums. I’ve been in Indian reservations. I’ve seen poor folks. I’ve been down in New Mexico. I’ve been in India. I’ve been in Egypt. I’ve seen all these poor folks. I’m so glad that God gave to us a message for everybody, everybody, anybody. And that’s why we should know that and believe that because it’s the most important thing.

And even the people who treat you wrong, mean and ugly and dirty, you’re supposed to remember this. Christ died for that person. The Lord loves that person. Now you may want to just send them to meet the maker early, but God wants you to reach that person because He loves that person. You say, well you don’t know how that person treated me. God doesn’t care how He treated you. God wants you to treat Him in a way God wants you to reach Him for Him.

God wants you to go out of your way for Him. God wants you to sacrifice what for Him. Why you do all of it for Him? But see if you don’t love Him, it doesn’t matter what you do. That’s why Christ asked Peter, He says, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? That’s the answer. But you’ll notice what he says here because of Stephen. The persecution began and you’ve seen that in chapter 8. But remember in the first part of the book, it’s divided where Jerusalem is the center.

And now they’re reaching only the Jews and it’s in Judea, Samaria, but not the othermost parts of the earth yet. So God had to do a work in the life of Peter and also the Apostle Paul to reach the Gentiles. But look what he says here in verse 20, and some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which when they were come to Antioch, speak unto the Grecian, that’s the Jewish believers, preaching the Lord Jesus and the hand of the Lord was with them.

And a great number believed, you ought to underline that, a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church, which was in Jerusalem, and they sent forth Barnabas that he should go as far as Antioch. So now the Word has gotten back to Jerusalem. Hey, there’s people all at these other places that have heard the Word and have believed on Christ. And so now they’re sending out the guy named Barnabas, who is an ex-sorter, somebody who could come alongside and comfort.

And God had used him before with Saul. And now they want to send him over there to Antioch. So you see there in verse 23, who when he came had seen the grace of God? How do you see the grace of God? It’s supposed to be invisible. Well, how can it be invisible? You see, when you look at me and the way I used to be and the way I am now, I can show you the grace of God.

You don’t know what I was like. I think I’m a lot better now. But after 51 years, my life has been because of the grace of God. The grace of God should not have been bestowed upon you in vain, like Paul says in the book Corinthians chapter 15. But you see, the way you live demonstrates the grace of God. We are God’s trophies of grace. When we accept Christ as our Savior, every one of us are little trophies of God’s grace.

Look what the grace of God hath done. And of course, if we can get individuals who not only trust Christ’s Savior, but to serve the Lord, then you can see the grace of God working in their life.” So he says, who when he came had seen the grace of God was glad, because he saw the people. He saw those individuals had trusted Christ at their Savior, and he says, he was glad, exhorted them all, part of his name. that with purpose of heart, they should cleave, or would cleave unto the Lord.

But where it has that word cleave? Have you ever heard that word cleave before? A man and woman should lay father and mother and cleave unto each other. You ever heard anything like that? When we’s talking about here, you should live in such a way as a child of God, cleave unto the Lord. In the words you have like forsaken the world, and anything the world may have to offer, because you’re so soul on what God wants you to have and to be and to do, that you cleave unto the purpose of God, as why he says here, the purpose of heart, they will cleave unto the Lord.

In verse 24, for he was a good man, and full of a Holy Spirit. means he was just an individual, as he talked about being filled with the Spirit, it means to be totally controlled by the Lord. God, I should say, had control of the life of Barnabas. And Barnabas was a good individual to come alongside and help these brethren in the Lord. These had been one to Christ. See, it’s one thing to win a person to the Lord.

But God needs people to come alongside and help and encourage them. For example, I’m one person in the church. You’re one person in the church. I can’t do everything. You can’t do everything. But there may be people that come to this church and they need a friend. They need a buddy. Did you know I’ve had a lot of people really comment about, Boy, this church is so friendly because we have a meat and Greek. It’s because people are friendly, but don’t let it be that you only are friendly doing that meet and greet time, and you have now served your, you know, I did my job.

So after the service, you can just pull it out of here, speak to nobody, run them over in the parking lot. It don’t matter. And when they get in the line to eat, it doesn’t matter. Push it back to the back of the line. You were here first anyway. This is your church and that’s your food or you can come alongside and be extra friendly. Don’t always just be with the same group. The same, no word, you’re a little click.

Have you noticed that whenever I go in there most times, I don’t even get my food until almost everybody’s through. You know what I’m usually doing? I’m walking up and down the line. Or haven’t you ever noticed? I’m talking to people. Hi, how you doing? And then after a while, I’m sorry. And I’ll go get in line, get me something or sometimes that it’ll get me some food. But because we want to meet with the people. And I like to just stand there just to be friendly.

You say, well, I’m not like that. I’m not either. I have to make myself doing it. You got to get out of your shell. You see, you don’t do these things for you. It’s for other people. I want you to be the friendliest people in town, not only doing meat and greek, but all the time. And they come alongside other individuals and see if you can help them in any way. Did you understand what the pastor said this morning?

Do you have any questions or anything I can help you with? Can I say where you’re from? How long you been coming here? Ten years, huh? I met people that’s never met other people in this church. I Met some that comes on Sunday nights But never came on Sunday morning and I meet a lot of people on Sunday morning never come on Sunday night or Wednesday And I put them together and they didn’t know that the other one had always been coming to their church and they’ve been coming to the same church for ten years But they never knew each other.

You need to try to meet people and be like a Barnabas. Do you know when Barnabas went and did this? It didn’t say that God said me to go get the Apostle Paul. But you know, he went looking for him. It’s like I need some help. And I don’t know what Paul is doing in his life right now, but I want to make sure that He stays in the ministry. Well, look what he says there in verse 25. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus.

And you ought to underline those words, for to seek Saul. He went looking for demand. Because you see, he had to get out of town over a wall in a basket and hadn’t seen him for a few years. And so he went looking for him. Aren’t you glad he found him? And then he says in verse 20, and when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass that a whole year, they assembled themselves with the church, taught much people and the other underlined us.

And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. So he went and he found the apostle Paul, and he got him involved in the church. You see, it’s one thing to win a person to the Lord. It’s another thing to get him involved. They get him to caring about other people and to doing something. I don’t know what went through the mind of Saul when he was so rejected because of what his past was and because of the people there in Jerusalem.

Barnabas had won him over for a little bit and he went in and out for a while And not everything always works out. And sometimes you have to be put on the backside of a desert. Now, when you read the book of Galatians in chapter one, it says that he did just that and he spent special time between him and the Lord. But you should always be looking for people that you can help and encourage. Everybody has a rough time to stand on top.

And everybody has to be motivated a little bit. But look what he says here in verse 27. And in those days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood up one of them named Agabus and signified by the Spirit that there should be a great dearth throughout all the earth, which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Now he was a emperor of Rome later. He had a physical disability at first and nobody thought much about him, but anyway.

In verse 29, Enniora on the line is, then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief onto the brethren which dwelt in Judea, which also they did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. So I don’t know how they felt about Saul all the time, but whenever he shows up with some money for them, I bet they liked that. It might have helped him to ease the pain. God uses all kinds of people.

And the Lord is looking for a way to use you and to use me. And he opens up doors for us. And sometimes we take advantage of him and sometimes we don’t because we don’t even sometimes know that was an opportunity. I was talking to James the other day and it seemed like sometimes God just brings people you know our way just at the right time and all that you know and it’s not just a coincidence. I don’t believe that.

But one of the things that bothers me is the Moses realizing how many of those opportunities I don’t take advantage of. I can talk about some of the ones that I do and most of them I forget about but we don’t reach all the ones that we should. I don’t know of anybody that does. I know that whenever Paul really got on the ball, he says, I have not shunned to declare all the counsel of God. He says, I am free from the blood of all men.

He must have been somebody. But because somebody else came alongside and encouraged the great Apostle Paul, and he became a great man. You see, I made a statement years ago. I may not shake the world, but I would like to shake the man that does. You may not be somebody great, but you might encourage somebody who will do wonderful things for God. And it might be some little kid that you’ll work with, some person that comes to Reformers Unanimous or somebody that comes to ranch or some little kid in Sunday School of Rwanda, or somebody that comes into this church and sits on there and listens, you know, and you never know what God’s going to do with that person.

So, hope that’ll help you a little bit. Look in verse 30 as we close, which also they did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. And they became great missionaries together. They really did. Chapter 13 when we get to it is a great missionary story. And there was about three of these missionary ventures that they went on. So now see the last half of the book, it deals mainly, not with Jerusalem, though Jerusalem still stayed a very powerful, you know, power house.

But now it’s the church. They’re in Antioch that’s helping the brethren and so forth in the other area. And you have the Apostle Paul. And so they’re going to begin now to go to the Gentiles. So it was the first part Peter the Jews. Now it’s going to be Paul and the Gentiles. And so they’re becoming a division here in the book, the Great Divide. And so that’s why as you read this, the things that happens to the Apostle Paul, he got in trouble.

reading about the Apostle Paul is like watching Indiana Jones. He was in one fix after another. What an exciting life. You stop and think how many times he said I was stoned. How many times was in the deep? People trying to kill him. 40 people that took vows, not to sleep until he’s dead. Indiana Jones was peanuts compared to this guy. And you read that whole list there in the book of Corinthians, chapter 11, it’ll blow your mind. All the things that happened to the apostle Paul, and he didn’t live that long.

I’m not convinced he lived longer than I’ve already lived. Who am I to have getting so much time to live? You realize him when Jesus Christ was here, he only lived about 33 and a half years. I’ve already lived upon this earth twice as long as the Son of God. Do I deserve more time? We’re going to have to give a count to the Lord for what we’ve done with our time. Look up here. This hand represents you and me, and this wall represents sin.

The Bible says that all of us have sinned. We’ve all done things wrong. And the Lord says that He loves us, but He hates our sin. And to pay for sin is death in hell. The wages of sin is death. We’ve earned the right to die and to be separated from God. So God says to go to heaven, we have to be perfect just as righteous as God and none of us are perfect, none of us are righteous. We have all done things wrong but God says that he loves us and he doesn’t want us to have to pay for our sins.

And he says our good works won’t pay for the sin given money won’t pay for sin. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world because he loves us. Hate what we do wrong because our sin separates us from him. Jesus Christ took all the sin, paid for it on the cross and came back from the dead and said that if we would be lead that he did it for us, he would put this payment that he made to our account and we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us.

There’s no tricks to it, no gimmicks to it, best news and all the world. I hope that you’ve accepted Christ as your Savior. I was talking to a guy today on the telephone and he from up somewhere in Tennessee, north of Nashville. And when I talked to him on the phone, he had ordered some of the CDs on a couple of books and so forth. And he talked to me on the phone because Mike had got him to talk to I said, how did you find out about us?

He says, I was talking to some lady at some church down here. And she told me about your website. And so he said, I went there and I hit some link from hers over because she had it on her website, a link to our church. I worked church page. Church page. And he found out about our church. He says, I watch you on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. He didn’t say all the time. He said, but most of the time he does.

Remember I told you not long ago that we had somebody that was putting our radio ministry or our videos on YouTube. And I went on there one day and lo and behold, there’s fifteen or 20 of my messages on YouTube. And I thought, who in the world did that? I was talking to this guy, he says, I hope you don’t mind, I’ve been putting your messages on the YouTube, on the YouTube where people have been watching the message and he’s ordering books and CDs and things like that now, all because of a woman that hears the radio broadcast and put that link on the heard thing.

You see how one thing a link, link, link, link. I think it’s awesome. It’s just awesome because you never know what’s going to happen next. So God, He is good. Let’s pray show Him. Our Father, we do thank You so much. We know You love us. You said so in Your Word, You don’t lie. And you know everything that we go through. And Father, we know we do have people that are hurting. Would you pray that you would be with them?

Calm their hearts. Put your arms around them and let them know that you love them. You know what’s important. We just commit our lives to you and thank you for all that you’ve done for us and all that you’re going to do. In Christ’s 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 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 Bibleign, 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. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.