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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 a 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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family. back there to the book of Colossians in chapter 1. And there’s a statement made here that I think is very good where he makes the statement visible and invisible whether there be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him. The last part of that verse you ought to underline this verse where he says all things were created by Him and for Him.

Why did God make you? Why did God make me? All things were created by Him and for Him. You were created by God for God. Now, you haven’t seen yet what God has for you. Sometimes you haven’t really seen the purpose that God has. What does He want to reveal? What’s behind all of this? And so he says, and I want you to understand that. You see, when you study evolution, evolution is things that happens over a period of time, millions and billions of years.

And if you have enough time, anything is possible. Or at least that’s what they say. So evolution is over a period of time. Creation is a point in time. There is a beginning, a beginning happens when God created, and God said, let there be light, and fifteen million years later, here comes a glimmer. No, God said, let there be light, and there was light. And one day, one revolutionary turn of the earth, morning and an evening, or even in morning one day and God says, let there be trees, let there be grass, and let there be this and let there be that.

And God said it and there it was. And it didn’t happen over billions of years. God can speak and it can happen. Now, I want you to take your Bible looking. Second Peter chapter three, Second Peter chapter three. Second Peter chapter three. There’s this comment made about those people in the last days that are going to laugh and scoff and says, where’s the promise of His coming? Well, if you look there in verse four, He says, and saying, where’s the promise of His coming?

For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were From the beginning of the evolution, no beginning of creation, creation, a point in time, something began. See, God doesn’t need all of that. God is a wordily God, he does everything decently and in order. God has things set in time, and there’s things that God says is going to take place, and he says he will come again, But he will come back when he’s ready to come back.

He will not be late. I don’t believe he’ll be late one second. He’ll be here on time as he said he would. But there’s things that God wants to do and what he wants to accomplish. Now, while we’re right here, just look there in Revelation chapter four and verse 11. Revelation four and verse 11, you’re so close to it. Just look at this verse. I like this verse because it also, And I preach on it many times, especially at camps when I want teenagers to understand a little bit more about what God wants, what they should do with their lives.

So many times all we want to do is just please ourselves, make ourselves happy. You know, we try to do all the things, get what we want in order to make me happy. I want to enjoy. Well, look what he says here in verse 11, and talking to the Lord, and it looks like it’s a scene that takes place in heaven. It looks like it’s something that takes place around the jagmancy to Christ. It looks like something where somebody has some rewards and some crowns and they cast him at his feet, and then he says they’re in And then he says there in verse 11, thou art worthy, oh Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.

Now in this life, every one of us, we want a little glory, honor, power. You know how people want money because money is power. I can buy what I want. I can get what I want. Therefore I need money. So people worship money. but in order to get all of that money to make you happy, because you don’t want just money, you want what money can buy you. And whenever you search and crave money and love money more than anything else in the world, then the Bible says you will be pierced through with arrows.

It means you’re gonna bring sorrow upon yourself and therefore you will lead to your own destruction. But he makes this statement, to receive glory and honor and power, for a vow hath created all things, and for a thy pleasure they are and were created. So we know who created everything, we know why God did, to please Him. So you see, God wasn’t created to please me, I was created to please God. In other words, God, He doesn’t revolve around me.

I revolve around Him. So I should find out what it is that pleases God. God says He has no pleasure in the wicked. So if I live a wicked life, then I don’t believe God is pleased. So I’m not bringing pleasure to God. You see, that’s why in life you have to know a little bit about what joy is, what honor is, what praises, What glory is, or you wouldn’t know or think God deserves anything like that. So you wouldn’t know what it means to grieve the Holy Spirit if you didn’t have grief in this life.

You wouldn’t understand what the pains of hell were going to be like if you had never been hurt in this life and had pain in this life. And boy, I’ve had some of that. Go back there now to the book of Colossians and look there in verse 16. the last part of it. You ought to underline that verse in your Bible. All things were created by Him and for Him. Now look at verse 17, verse 17, and He is before all things.

He is before all things. And by Him all things consist or held together. He’s the only thing, the only one that’s keeping things from flying apart. You were like one of these days, what’s going to happen to this whole world, everything’s going to explode. I’m gonna be safe with him. Now I don’t really know where you’re gonna be, but I’m gonna be with the Lord. Are you gonna be with the Lord? I figured you were. So that day is coming.

You know, it’s not far away. Just think it could happen in any moment. Next thing we could do, we could be sitting here talking, the next thing we know, we’re in heaven. We will disappear here and appear at the judgment’s seat of Christ. And when you stop and think, when he makes a statement, we’ll be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord, and realize how close we could be.

Do you realize how close you could be, even if the rapture don’t come? You’re only one heartbeat away. One heartbeat away. God can take you at any time. There’s people you know, and there’s people that I know, that God’s already taken them. It’s kind of like I guess up there, God, you know, He likes a big old flower of eggs and He comes every once in a while and picks some of the prettiest flowers. You think, well, why didn’t you get that old ugly one over there and then He gets some of the best flowers?

And one of the days He come and come and get you. And me. So the key thing is be ready, be ready. Look what he says in verse 18. He is. The head of the body, the church. Who is the beginning? The first born from the dead. Jesus Christ, he’s the head. He’s the first born from the dead. He came back from the dead on his own accord by his own power. And yet it says that the Holy Spirit quickened his body and then it talks about God the Father raised him from the dead and Jesus made this statement, no man takes my life from me.

I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again. You know, you could get confused if you didn’t believe in the Trinity. There’s the God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. And he makes this statement in the last part of it that in all things, all things, he might have the preeminence so that you don’t think that somebody is better than him. Do you know even when Christ was here, he says, you’ve heard of Solomon?

He says, there’s somebody here greater than Solomon. And you mentioned somebody else. He says I’m greater than him. There’s nobody greater. The temple, he compared himself to the temple. I’m better. He did not think that he was usurping something from anybody. Even when he declared who he was, when he made the statement that he was equal with the Father, but humbled himself. He did that. And the Bible says that he ought to have the preeminent. Now here’s the way I look at that.

You have a guy like Jack Nicklaus that plays golf and everybody wants to be all of his records. Oh, he’s the best. Muhammad Ali, or Cassius Clay, he was the number one, the greatest of all time. You know, look like a bee, something like that, kind of like I am, you know. But there’s different guys that accomplish different things, there’s people who can run fast. But you know, I don’t know if there’s anybody who’s ever been able to put it all together.

I guess maybe the closest one was a guy named Jim Thorpe, an Indian. like he could just do everything, beat everybody, it didn’t matter what it was. But regardless, Einstein has looked upon as the wisest, the smartest, the brightest, the brilliant man of all times. Well, I mean, what does that put me? So but whether it’s the smartest and then they have these who’s the best-lookingest and the strongest men in the world and they have contests to say who’s the biggest and the strongest, all these things.

But see, when you look at Christ, it doesn’t matter what area or what field. There’s nobody greater than Him. He is the greatest in every area. He is God and nobody higher. He was man and nobody greater. He has the preeminence, first place of all of all time. So when we talk about the Lord, we don’t have to apologize. We don’t have to take a back seat. We don’t have to be ashamed. Oh, you’re one of those Christians. Yes I am.

Yes I am. I am a Christian. And I don’t apologize for being a Christian because Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be. And by faith I believe that. So he says here that in all things he might have the pre-eminence. Now, if he does in everything, whether they’re visible or invisible, powers and principalities and whatever it is, all things were made by him and all things for him, that he might have the pre-eminence in all things. Oh, wait a minute.

What about you and me? Do you believe that of all the people in the world, should he have the pre-eminence over your life over your life in all things, not some things, all things, every area all the time. Since, you know, people watch a lot of TV and movies and they’ll get there, who’s your Hollywood star? I mean Hollywood star. Somebody you think, oh, there’s just the greatest. And there’s people that still are swoon over Elvis Presley. And sometimes they’ll show a little clip, they come on air, and some nuts are bare singing.

To me he got a voice like a potato grater. And there’s all these young girls that are, oh, just falling all over themselves. And I, it’s enough of that. And that turned, lo and behold, they’re showing a thing about the Beatles of 50 years ago and all these girls that are screaming. I think, what’s wrong with you? I wouldn’t scream one time. I wouldn’t even go to a… I wouldn’t even go to a concert. Has absolutely no appeal to me.

Zero. But then everybody’s not like me. But I think that’s the best you can have. That means more to you than anything else. What about the place that the Lord Jesus Christ has in your life? Well, you might hear in a lot of things you go through life, but there’s one voice you’re always listening to and somebody you want to be in step with. You know, maybe you’re out of step with the world, kind of like as mom was watching the parades that went by and the military was coming by and she said, look at that.

Everybody’s out of step, but my little Johnny, well, you may be out of step with the world. It’s okay. Well, you see, this world is going to pass away, and you can be right in step. He has the preeminence, and this is what it’s talking about. So you see there in verse 19, this is so that you don’t think you have to go someplace else, because everybody has the desire for wisdom. You want to learn more. There is no greater wisdom than the wisdom that comes out of God’s Word.

There’s things that you want to do, but there isn’t anything in the world worth doing more than what God wants you to do. Of all the things that you can do in life and what you can become, and all the businesses and titles and all that praise, honor and glory, there’s nothing better than being what God wants you to be or doing what God wants you to do. There isn’t. So learn the word of God in verse 19 for it.

Please God, the Father, that in him should all fullness dwell so that all we need is Christ. Have you ever heard that song Christ is all I need? Well, this is what he’s talking about. We sing a song every once in a while, you know, he is my all in all. Well, it should be. He should be our all in all. He’s all that I need in all areas of my life or all time in eternity. He is it.

And he ought to be precious to us. Now, I don’t I don’t know if I’ll get far with the next verse, but I’ll read it to you anyway and continue it later. But because he is writing to the church there at Colossae, he’s also dealing with certain problems that the church is having, and mainly because of legalism brought in, because of the Judaism, and because of new-agers that were back there, the old-agers, and dwelling and devinent to things dealing with angels and the mystics and the eastern religions and all these kind of things.

And so you have all of this, and then you have people that don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t. And a set of sism of denying your body and mortifying the body and all these things. There’s so much you can get into. He got to his way with, listen to me. I can clear all this stuff up. Because see, when you don’t know truth, you can’t discern air. And there’s a lot of religions in this world that just, well, they kind of like put you into a trap, they put you into a box.

And then you torture yourself. You’re afraid to move. You don’t know what to do. You don’t know where you’re going, who you are, what’s the Bible, what’s truth is. And if you just study the book, the Bible tells us that we’re the spirit of the Lord is. where the Lord is the Holy Spirit is the Lord. There is liberty. There’s liberty. He sets you free, free to serve the Lord the way you should serve the Lord. So there’s so much good that God has for us and wants us to happen to know.

In verse 20 and having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled. Reconciled is a word that we would use concerning those that are coming home. You know you’re away from God, you’re lost and you’ve been cut off from the life of God And in this whole world, we’ve been separated from the God that created the heavens and the earth.

And therefore, people are what we call lost. The Bible says you are alienated from God, strangers from God, enemies with God. And what you think, you’d be surprised the power that it has in separating you from God. And the more you see yourself, how terrible you are, the further you want to run from God and hide. But there’s something that need about the Lord. He says, all things were created by Him and for Him. That means He is going to take the initiative.

That’s why Christ went to the cross, as He says up there in verse 20. He made the payment, as He says in verse 14, redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin, so He will forgive you. And why does He doing all of this? Because there’s God, and there’s man. And we’re alienated to each other because I’m sinful, and he’s perfect. And the two cannot dwell together. So we couldn’t do anything about it. We couldn’t get closer to God.

So what God did was he took upon flesh and came into the world and lived as a man and paid for all of our sins so that he could reconcile us. In other words, bring us back to Him reconciled. In other words, like here’s a husband and here’s a wife. And they have a big fight. Now, that never happens to anybody here. There’s other people we know about. And so they have a big fight. And then they have to make peace.

Sometimes making peace can be wonderful. But somebody has to generally initiate. The spiritual one usually takes that step. It could be the man or the woman, but the spiritual one usually initiates and tries to find a common ground. Honey, I’m sorry that you were so wrong. I forgive you of all those bad things, and if I did anything wrong.

But there has to be a forgiving. Reconcile means to remove that which separated you. So God took the sin that separated us from him so that we could be reconciled to God. And there’s more I wanna say on that, but I’ll do that at a different time. I do wanna explain this to you. Nobody’s perfect. There’s only one that’s perfect and that’s God. Let me show you this. This hand represents you and me. This wallet represents everything we’ve done that’s wrong.

We’ve all sinned. So God says because of sin, and that’s the evidence, we got an old sinful nature. Why do I do all these bad things? Because you got a sinful nature. It’s your nature. Why does a dog bark? It’s the nature of the dog to bark. But wouldn’t it be a shame to tell the dog, dog? You stop acting like a dog, and I’ll make you a chicken. When can the dog stop acting like a dog? That’s why there’s preachers that tell people, stop your sin and turn from all of your sin.

Don’t sin anymore. You’re right. Nobody can do that. It’s impossible. You can’t turn from your sins. Right? It’s on the inside. That’s the nature that you have. That’s why you do all those bad things. You can pick the apples off the tree, but that doesn’t change it from being an apple tree. But God, so love the world. He loves you, He loves me. He hates what we do wrong. And for us to pay for this sin is eternal separation from God and Hell.

And Jesus said, He’s looking for the fruits of righteousness and there aren’t any. He’s looking for perfection. There aren’t any. So He says He’s going to lay the axe to the root of the tree. He means He cuts down every tree. That’s not perfect. That’s why the wages of sin is dead. That’s why we’re all going to die. And because of that, we’re all condemned to hell. So there is no hope for man by man. You can’t stop it.

You can’t change it. You can’t help it. You’re in a heap of trouble. And this is what God did for us. See, God says He wants us to go to heaven. But to go to heaven, you’ve got to be perfect. As righteous as God, none of us are perfect. We’ve all done things wrong. Nobody’s good enough. So God says, you cannot save yourself. People have heard about this all their life. Let this hand represent Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord, God in the flesh.

He came into the world because He loves us. He hates our sin because it separates us from him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. So he didn’t have to be cut down. So why did he die? Well, it’s very simple. He took our sins and died in our place. Paid for all of our sins came back from the dead and God said that if we would believe, he’d get it for us. Aren’t you glad he didn’t tell you to do something hard and complicated.

All he says, this is all you have to do to go to heaven is will you believe that I pay for your sins. You see if I believe he paid for my sins I’m not trying to pay for my sins. See I’m not going to church to try to pay for my sins. You know if I do enough good it’ll pay for the bad. I’m not giving money to pay for my sins. I’m not trying to pray to pay for my sins.

I’m not doing anything to pay for my sins. I’m not doing anything to try to earn my way to heaven. I’m going to heaven because of what Christ did. Christ paid for my sins. And if I believe He did it for me, He puts the payment to my account and I go to heaven on what Christ did. You got it? Let’s pray, shall we? If you hear this morning and perhaps you have never trusted Christ as your Savior. I want you to understand you don’t have to live the life.

You don’t have to promise to live a Christian life. You don’t have to promise God you’re going to stop anything or join anything. Friend, that would just make your religious hypocrite. Christ died for your sins. The only way you’ll ever get to heaven is believe he did it for you. You don’t have to join this church. You don’t have to give any money. I don’t want anything from you. I want you to receive something. You see, the Lord offers you eternal life as a gift.

And if you accepted, you would have it. Will you believe it? If you hear this morning and say, preach of that made sense to me, and I will trust Christ as my Savior right now. Friend, I’d love to know it. I’d love to have prayer for you. And I’m going to ask you in just a moment to slip your hand up. Raising your hand does not save He just lets me know that what I said made sense. And you said, that made sense to me.

And I’m going to trust Christ as my Savior. Is there anyone at all before we close? Just flip it up very quickly, but right back down, say, that made sense to me. Yes, God bless you, man. God bless you, sir. God bless you. I appreciate that. Anyone else, just flip it up very quickly. So that me, I’m not going to have you forward. I’m not going to embarrass you. Yes, God bless you. God bless you. Other others. Yes, God bless you, sir.

God bless you. Anyone else? See, if you trust Christ right now as your Savior, God said He would save you right now. He gave you eternal life and you can know that you’re going to heaven when you die, because He loves you so much. Anyone else before we close? Hi Father, we thank you so much for the free gift of eternal life. Your love is so much. And Lord, I thank you for each one of these that by an uplifted hand have indicated that they would trust Christ as their Savior.

You know that when they do so, you promised in your Word to give them eternal life and that they would become your child, that you never cast them out and never lose them. We thank you so much for all you’ve done for us and forgiven it to us in such a way that we can have it and understand it. It’s free and that you’ll never take and cast us out, never loses. And Father, we can know that we’re going to heaven.

Thank you so much. 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 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. 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.