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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.

Good to have you here tonight. I want to talk to you a little bit about something I believe very, very important. Everyone needs encouragement. Everyone. And as you study the world situation, study your home situation, church, state, individually, the greatest encourager in the whole world is the Lord. Did you know that the Lord is the one who tells us to encourage others for His sake? God knows we have problems. God knows we have a body, a flesh that we’re weak, we’re temporal, and that we’re going to die.

And as you read the Scriptures, it’s amazing how many times God uses the Word. H-O-P-E. Hope. The worst thing in the world is when a man has no hope. Before we get to the Colossians, I want you to look at this Scripture with me in the book of Ephesians in chapter 2. The book of Ephesians and chapter 2. We’ve seen similar statements about this and other scriptures, but I want you to see this. Ephesians chapter 2, look there in verse 11, this is on page 1251.

It says, wherefore remember that ye have been in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision, in the flesh made by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise, and those three little words, having no hope. If it wasn’t for the Lord, no man would have any hope. You see, man cannot save himself by his works. of the world only give false hope, not true hope, not real hope.

Sometimes we take the word hope and say, well, you know, I hope I’m going to heaven. I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope. But another way of looking at it, it means the joyful anticipation. I’m joyfully anticipating the day when I get to heaven because my hope is in the Lord. My hope doesn’t depend upon me. It doesn’t depend upon the church. It doesn’t depend upon any man that may fail me. My joyful anticipation is on the one that cannot fail, the Lord Himself.

Now it’s found in several scriptures about this word hope. It’s even found in the book of Romans in chapter 8 where it talks about we are looking for and expecting this hope. And that’s what faith is about. Faith is believing what God says to be true and joyfully anticipated as though it has already happened. Now that’s rough. But faith is taking God at His word, believing that what He hath promised, He is able to perform. As we study the book of Colossians, it makes this statement, reveal in something about the dispensation of grace.

And he’s talking about that in times past, they did not know nor understand about taking the believing Jew and the believing Gentile and putting them together and forming the Church, the body of Christ, over which he is the head. And a statement that is made is Christ in you, the hope of glory. The hope of glory means that joyful anticipation of the day when we’ll be as perfect as the Lord. Now in God’s eyes, I’m already perfect. When I believe that, I am too.

But in this world and in my life, I’m not even close. But see, God sees me in His Son, and it’s a done deal. But until then, I’ve got to live in this body. Now, when we studied the first chapter of the book of Colossians, and he makes the statement that you might be filled with all the wisdom and the knowledge of God. And then in verse 10, where he says that you may walk worthy, walk worthy, unto all pleasing and all things.

And then it seems like it kind of drifts into another subject, which we talked about this morning, about how that Jesus Christ is the Lord of the universe and the Lord of the church. And if he can be Lord of the universe And Lord of the church, can He be the Lord of your life? Can Christ, does He, has He earned the right to tell me what I can and cannot do? I have a will of my own. There’s things I wanna do, life is so short.

And I can tell at 70, I’m running out of time. It seems like there’s so many things to do, places to go. But I’ve learned over the years that, you know, I could say that I’m in Georgia and this would be Georgia. Well, I’m in Chicago and what do you got in Chicago? We got people. We got people here. We got buildings here. Land, they got land here. Water, even they got water up there too. just about regular, so where you go, it’s just like the place you just left.

I mean them, that heels are a little higher, a little flatter, or whether it’s a little warmer or a little colder. But once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. I used to think when I was in Colorado, I can’t wait to get home to see my mom and some of my sisters and a few of my relatives that hadn’t seen in years. There’s, enough about two days I’m ready to go home.

I saw him, okay, now what? The Lord tells us something that’s wonderful. And it deals with this subject of reconciliation. And then he talks about if, if. Turn in your Bible to the book of Colossians and look there in this portion of scripture. see there in verse 23, if ye continue in the face, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the get this in your underland this word, hope of the gospel, which you have heard, which was preached to every creature which is under heaven.

He says, where of I, have made a minister. It seems like verse 23 is a conditional verse. It’s conditional upon you continuing. So is he talking about me staying safe if I keep doing this? And so it causes some people a little problem. But what I want you to notice is in verse 9 when he talks about I want you to be filled with all the knowledge, see there in verse nine, of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

This is how God wants us to think, what he wants us to know, because there’s things he wants us to do. So in verse 10 when he makes a statement that you might walk worthy of the Lord under all pleasing, be and every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Now, if you went from there and straight over to verse 23, you can and you will. If you will continue. You see, these people were already in the faith.

See there in verse 23? If you continue in the faith. So that means you’re already there. It means you’ve already trust the Lord. You already believe on Christ. And He makes a statement in verse 4, it says, we heard of your faith. It means they have trusted Christ. They heard the gospel. They believed it. And now he wants them to mature, to grow in the Lord. And that’s why he makes a statement in verse 28, whom we preach, talking about Christ, the hope of glory.

Whom we preach in verse 28, warning every man. Now there is a question or whether or not this warning every man refers to the preaching of the gospel to everybody. And then teaching every man is to those who trust Christ’s Savior. It could be and I can’t disprove it. Teaching every man in all wisdom that we may get this present every man perfect or mature in Christ Jesus. So we have a job to do. It is a very important job.

It’s one thing to lead somebody to the Lord. It’s quite another to get that person from childhood to adulthood, to grow them in the faith. So they’ll be spiritually strong enough to reproduce after their own kind. So the book of Colossians deals with this subject of what God wants so that we will understand what we are to do. So as you read this and you find out that God says, I want you to continue. You see, he’s bragging upon them about what they’ve done and how that your faith has heard.

And since the day I heard about it, I’ve been praying for you that not only because of what you have done, but there’s so much more that can be done. I remember the first time I came down here. I was impressed with the people in this church. It wasn’t the buildings. It wasn’t the fellowship hall in the back. It wasn’t the location. It was the people because I saw that y’all had great faith in the Lord. You were clear on the gospel.

I believed you loved the Lord and you wanted to do something. And I believed that I could help you to continue on what you’ve already begun, that walk with the Lord and to help you to grow stronger in the Lord so that we can do more for the Lord. I don’t believe that my vision was wrong. I’ve seen a lot of things happen. I’ve seen a lot of growth in a lot of people, a lot of maturing, And along with all these wonderful, wonderful things that we have enjoyed, I’ve seen a lot of problems too.

I’ve seen people struggling. I’ve seen them hurt. I’ve seen disappointments. I’ve seen discouragement. I’ve seen hopelessness. I’ve seen families really struggling. And that hurts me because I want so much more. I want everybody to be strong in the Lord and to love the Lord and be happy in the things of the Lord. But you see, in all of these things, if we will continue in the faith, and it says these two words, grounded and settled. Look there in verse 23.

Grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, because see the gospel is not only getting the message out, it’s teaching others how to get the message out. It’s one thing to know the gospel and to be clear on the gospel and how we present the gospel, but we got to get other people to do the same. Have you reproduced after your own kind? You know what really blew my mind this last week? We had a lot of rain that fell about a week ago, And a lot of rain produced a lot of water.

And we have a couple of these year retention ponds around here, and there’s a lot of water in them. There was a little duck right up there by the sign, up about this high. The duck had got up there and laid a bunch of eggs. And it wasn’t long before these eggs begin to hatch. Well, mama got thirsty. Mama jumps down and go get some water. for the little biddies it has. They don’t think, they don’t look, they don’t care, they just follow the mama blindly, they just jump right off that concrete thing, right onto the asphalt and follow the mama right into the water.

They don’t even think of somebody sent me an email. Where this guy noticed that there was a duck way up high on about two or three stores up. And the duck came out and this country, it’s on the street. And here comes a little duck. And the little duck, he don’t care if mama went, he follows mama. And he just went right over the edge. And there was a man and he caught the little duck. Put the little duck down, but here comes another little duck, and caught that little duck, and put that duck down.

If you had to cut him, then it just hit the concrete. And about seven or eight of them came down, and he caught every one of them. And the people were lined up on both side of the street, and everybody was applauding every time he caught one of them. And when they all got down, the duck started across the highway. And all the ducks were in a row. That’s where you’re talking about get your ducks in a row. And these ducks could care less about the traffic.

All they did is just followed right behind Mama. Well, Mama got her water for the little duckies that already didn’t jump down. Mama got back up there because she still has some eggs on the nest. About eight of them. Well, the little duck couldn’t get back up. It wasn’t long before there was another duck that came up. Washed in the water for a while and it wasn’t long before that duck took off down the road and all four of the little duckies just follow right behind that duck.

He was mama setting on the eggs and she knows that if she gets up, a couple of the other ones that it had now had would just jump down and follow her. And then she’d have to get back up and she couldn’t get those back up. Mama was in a quandary, she didn’t know what to do and she didn’t want to duck her responsibility. James came down the road and they saw the duck going down the street with the four.

Great. And so here’s Mama, and she had to wait until these ducks were all done. Well, you know, we’ve got some wonderful people here, and they love to see souls saved. I’d come into the office, and lo and behold, there’s Mike. One litter duck couldn’t get out of a shell, and it looked like clogged a hair from a drain with a beak is the way that he described it.

And I came into the office and, lo and behold, in the kitchen, you know, where it’s clean. And there was Mike with a little box, a light, trying to get this little duck warm. And I looked at it and I thought, what are you doing? He says, I’m saving a life, a little duck. And I thought, I’ve told them to make sure that you save every soul that comes on this property. I wasn’t talking about ducks. I went out and I looked at the ducks and I came back in.

Now that box had been moved, it was at his desk, at his feet. And the light was on and he was trying to save the life of this little duck. I looked at the little scraggly, ugly duckling. It wasn’t long before Mike had kind of, I don’t know if he gave him mouth to mouth or not, I don’t know. It wasn’t long before that little duck was taken down there to the retention pond and he put it down there and mama saw the little ducklet come over there and next he knows he got in there and splashed around and he’s brought it off to mama.

Now she was floating around with about seven or eight little ducks. Do you know what I noticed about that? It was so natural for those little ducks. They could be hatched, jumped over the edge, followed mama straight into the water, and nobody had to teach those little ducks how to swim. I said to her and I thought, if a person believes in evolution, they’ve got to be nuts. This is a creation of God. How long would a duck have to live?

it taught itself how to reproduce after its own kind. The God did this. And what I also liked is the little ducchlets knew what to do and just followed Mom. Blind faith. They didn’t question. It didn’t matter if there were trucks coming, cars coming, nothing. They just follow right behind. Wherever Mom went, the little ducchlet was just right in in a row and just follow them. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if God’s children could learn how to follow their Heavenly Father without question?

You see, God knows all of the things that we have to go through, all of our heartaches and suffering. But look what he says here. In verse 24 Paul says, I have suffered, I have suffered for the body of Christ. When he was writing this, he was a prisoner. He says, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in verse 24, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake was at the church.

In other words, for somebody to love God’s people so much he was willing to suffer for them, to give up things. You know Paul, after he trusted the Lord, never again lived for himself. He says, for me to live is Christ, the die is gain. He says, I have a problem. I’m going to twist between two. He says, I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ, but to remain into flesh is more needful for you. When we think about serving the Lord, we need to understand.

God has already said that everybody in this world are alienated from Christ. They’re enemies of God. As we talked about earlier where he says, if you are in love with the world, you are not a friend of God. And the Bible says in the book of James chapter 2, Abraham was a friend of God. John chapter 15 says, I have called you my friends. I’ve told my friends what I want them to do. I want to be God’s friend.

means I don’t want to be his enemy. I want to be his friend. I don’t want there to be things in my life that would keep me from being what God wants me to be. That’s why in reading these scriptures and he’s talking about there in verse 21, look there in verse 21, and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. But did you know that you as a Christian, that if you don’t continue in the faith and growing in the knowledge of the Lord and doing what God wants you to do, you will fall in love with the world and you will love the things of the world.

And when you love the things of the world, you will become an enemy of God. Did you know that you can become in your mind alienated from the truth, spiritual knowledge of the Word of God, and there could become this enmity between you and God, that God didn’t put there, but you as a child of God did. Wouldn’t it be a shame for you not to love the Lord the way you should after all he’s done for us? And so he says, we have this hope Cheong and this joyful anticipation of one day being totally perth with Lord without this whole sinful nature, but we do have it.

And my old flesh is still hated by God. It has my sinful nature. It’s why I still do what I do. And when I walk in the flesh, I am rebelling against my Heavenly Father. And it will still put a block between me and him so that I cannot have the fellowship with them that I want, the peace that I want, the joy that I want, the happiness that I want. And you will forfeit all of those wonderful things that we could have had.

So he says, I love the Lord so much that I’m willing to suffer in this life, in this body, for his body. And the body that he’s talking about is the Lord’s body, which is the church. church. It’s for other believers. You see, there’s sometimes we go to camp. We’re going to get tired and weary and worn. And I can’t say you’re going for a vacation of the greatest, you know, time of relaxation. You’ll go to bed late, you’ll get up early and you’ll go all day long.

It’ll wear you out. Some of you may get hurt. Some of you may be drugged to the bud. Literally, we have a little competition with a rope tug tug of war. I love watching that. And there’s other things that we do, but there’s people that get hurt doing the things of God, and some things are not always pleasant. Did you know that you may not be able to go and you’ve given money for somebody else to go? And you maybe have been one that gave up an awful lot because you didn’t have it to give, give, but you sacrificed anyway.

There’s prices that people pay that nobody knows about but the Lord, and you hurt and you suffer because of it. There’s a stand that you may take for the Lord that others may not agree with you on. But Paul made this statement, he says in verse 25, where I am made a minister. I am made a minister. How would you see verse 29? Because he says, I was made a minister. Now we know salvation is free. Eternal light is the gift of God.

It’s not of works, lest any man should both. So does that mean that Paul didn’t have to do anything? A lot of times people think we’ll cause you to hit so hard on grace. You just don’t want people to do anything. You’re just giving people a license to sin, a permission to sin. Yeah, but we’re also giving them permission to serve the Lord and to do right. You see, serving the Lord has to be voluntary, something you do because you want to do it.

God doesn’t get out of bowl with now. He’ll let you suffer the consequences in a while when you didn’t do it, but He don’t make you do it. You just suffered consequences because you didn’t do it. But look what He says in verse 29, where unto I also, and notice these two words, labor striving. That’s effort. Let’s put an end to something that’s working. That’s doing something for somebody else because you see, you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to suffer for the Lord.

You can become an enemy of God, alienate yourself from the blessings of God. Now we can do this, but it’s not the will of God. You see, there was people that were always thinking about, you know, the mystics, you know, the Eastern religions that has all this so kind of funny worship and to mysteries. Paul says, let me tell you about a mystery they don’t know about. And whenever we talk about a mystery in the Bible, it’s not like a murder mystery, you know.

It’s a truth that has been hidden in times past but now revealed for the first time. And he says, let me tell you something that nobody knows about. Nobody’s ever heard this before. You see, we’ve already heard about the nations of the world and the nation of Israel. But God says, he’s making something brand new. It’s called the church. It’s taken and believing Jews and believing Gentiles and putting them together. It’s called in our period of time, the dispensation of grace.

From Pentecost onto the Rapture. 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 Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool 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 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.