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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 sacrificingly 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. If you say you love the Lord, but you don’t live like you love the Lord, then we shouldn’t believe you love the Lord. That doesn’t mean you’re not saved, you may be saved, but you don’t love him. So he also makes a statement here in verse 5, but who so keepeth his word or obeys his word and him verily is the love of God being perfected.

In other words, you’re maturing, you’re growing in the Lord. See growing in the Lord doesn’t mean you don’t stumble and fall. It just means you should stumble and fall less and get up quicker. You see years ago you probably fell a lot of time but you got up slower. Maturing the Lord is not you don’t stumble. It’s that you respond faster. And so you’re learning how to walk with the Lord. And so he says here, here by know we are in him or you’re abiding in him.

you have to take what he’s saying here and the purpose of the book, talking to believers about loving the Lord. And nobody can make you love him. But does God want you and I to love him? You know it’s true. And so he says, if you do love me, lift for me. And like he says in John chapter 12, if any man will serve me, him will my Father honor. But he’s He’s talking about serving the Lord. And he says, my Father will honor you.

And so you see there in verse six, he that saith, so you can say a lot of things, all the way down to him. He that saith in verse four, he that saith in verse six. You can say it, not in verse nine, he that saith, you can say it, but it not be true. And this is what he’s talking about from the first chapter. Say in something, but it’s not true. If I was to ask you, is the Lord precious to you?

Oh yes, he’s so precious to me. Is the Word of God precious to you? Oh yes. When’s the last time you read it? I think it was about four years ago. See, if you say it, it should be true. But if you say it and you’re not walking the walk, then people shouldn’t believe you. And you should not be deceiving yourself. That’s why he says in the first chapter up there, talking about if we say that we have no sin and we don’t walk in the light, He says, you’re not being honest.

The truth is not in you. You’re lying to you. You’re deceiving yourself. Do you really think that Christians would deceive themselves? Is it possible? I think it might be. So you’ll notice as he goes through here, he tells him who we ought to love and why we ought to love him. But notice he also tells us that, you know, if you love flowers, you’ve got to hate the what? If you love flowers, you hate what? weeds. See college kid down here knows the answer.

He must have learned that in college. If you love flowers you hate the weeds. So God says if you love me and remember in John 15 when he talks about love, love, love, the last half of that chapter he says the world hates me. The world hates me and the world hates me. The world is going to hate you. So why would you want to love the world and the world hates him. As it says in Amos, how can two walk together unless they be agreed?

So he says in verse 15, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world and the world hates Christ, then there’s something wrong with your love. You’re loving the wrong things. So you can say you love God, but you really love the world. And that’s why it’s so hard for some of God’s people to walk with the Lord. See, walking with the Lord is not hard. Not if you love him, but if you love the world and you want to fame, honor, glory, the majesty of the world, the things of the world, if that’s what you want, you can’t love God with all your heart.

You can’t love both. They’re opposites and you can’t serve them the way you ought to. And so he says, if any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. But you know how many times you see the word love, love, and how it affects your walk, it affects your talk, it affects your whole life. And then he says in verse 16, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

In other words, the lust of the world, the lust of the flesh. Do you love the lust of the flesh? That’s why you want to fulfill them. Or the lust of the eyes, the things that you see, the pride of life, the things you could be. You see, all those are things that are the love of the world. He’s not talking about do you love the grass outside or do you love that telephone pole or do you know you love that rock or you love that tree?

No he’s talking about these things, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. But God says, if we would serve Him, He says, when you get to heaven, every man will receive praise, honor, and glory. See, we would love to have it down here. But if you have it down here from people and you do it just to be seen of people or heard of people or appreciated by people, you’re going to compromise.

And then whenever you do it for that reason and you get it for that reason, God says, you have received your reward. got it from man. And did you know that the praise, honor, and glory that comes from man doesn’t last very long? Doesn’t last long. Or if you can be patient and do what you do because of Lord and sacrifice for Him when you get to heaven, praise, honor, and glory will never fade away. You’ll have that for all eternity.

So right now, see, we’re making investments. You ought to hear about Obama makes tells us about always making these investments. All his investments as tax increases. But we’re talking about investments for eternity and the small little bit you give to the Lord down here, it will be for all eternity. Will it be worth it? It’ll be worth it all. Now look in verse 28 of chapter 2. My little children abide abide in Him. That when He shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.

So He’s talking to God’s children, talking about us abiding in Him, abiding in His love. In other words, the love that He had for the lost, we let that love motivate us to love the lost the same way. The love that He had for his children is the love you and I are supposed to have for his children. The same that he had were supposed to have. And what he didn’t love were not supposed to love. So he tells us what to love, what not to love.

Did you know if you understand this it can truly help you in your Christian life to be able to distinguish, to discern things that are good and things or not. Now look in chapter 3. In chapter 3 the very first word there, behold, what manner of what? Love, love. The Father hath bestowed upon us.” Now, the love he bestowed upon us, living for the Lord, is revealed by the love that we bestow upon others. Won’t it make sense? So God wants us to love him the way he loved us, and then he wants us to love others the way he loves others.

And He has bestowed love upon us, but we’re to shed that love abroad. You don’t keep it. You become a channel. This is why you sacrifice and you go to all the things that you do. Now, let me just mention this because I’m not saying this because of pride or lift myself out because they don’t matter. I know the truth and God is my witness. I don’t mind giving up a lot of good sleep that I wouldn’t mind getting at times.

teach these college kids in class. And this doesn’t make any difference if it’s two kids or four kids or ten kids or all the things that we have. It’s not so much as how many. The key is I get to tell people about the Lord. And I’m willing to teach people who will listen. If they will listen, I love to teach the Bible. So I don’t mind giving up some of my days or Tuesday nights. We give up our Tuesday nights now.

Why? Because we get to teach people on the internet and people here some more about the Word of God. You see, love causes you to sacrifice and do things that couldn’t make you do it. If I didn’t love doing it, I wouldn’t be doing it, but I love it. Now look what else he says here. See there in verse 2? See that word, be leathered. Be loved. That’s how you got to be one of those is you allowed God to love you.

Now God is beseeching you and I love others. And that’s why he makes this statement all the way down here by love, love, love, love. love love. Look at the verse 11, where it says, for this is the message that you heard from the beginning that we should love one another. Now you can go back to the gospel of John and you’ll find these same words mentioned about greater love have no man than this, that a man laid down his life for his friends.

So what you’re doing is you’re laying down your life just like a martyr would so that somebody else can live. You’re giving up some of your valuable time and time is what life is made out of. You give up time in order to restore your life into somebody else. You’re giving them your time. You’re giving them your life. Somebody just told me this the other day about Dr. Ray Stanford. They came to see me and they mentioned this about Ray Stanford.

Let’s see, Ray had that big old college down there, that big old church and all those kids. And yet whenever anybody came, Ray always He’s had time to talk to you. He would talk to anybody. You could always talk to Ray. You can walk in there and talk to him. And he didn’t act like he was some big shot. He was just a little shot. But people noticed that Ray gave you his time. When he’s giving you his life.

And you only got so much of it. Some people think to themselves, you know, I am so important that, you know, you don’t deserve my time. But we really have to be careful. Just serve the Lord where you are with what you have, whomever God brings into your life. But look at something else he says here. In verse 12 he says, not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his brother. Then he makes a statement here.

In verse 14, we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. You see, See, whenever God says in John chapter 5 and verse 24, He that hereth my word and believe it on him that sent me hath everlasting life and his past from death and the life. Now, you can know that you passed from death and the life in the sense that you’re living for the Lord. You are abiding in Christ and his love is living through you.

And it should do something for you. See, this is the proof that I know I’m saved, but it is the proof that I love the Lord. And you ought to know that do you or do you not love Him? And if you love Him, that does away with envy. Because see, and it does away with jealousy because you want the best for somebody else. You become so thrilled that God gets to use somebody else, not just me. You know, I love it when I don’t have to do all this thing.

I just love it, I can walk around here and I have no feeling of jealousy at all. I mean, Jesse can go and speak in ranch and you don’t have a clue how much I used to love speaking in ranch. But now I can, not even, I’m just still, he’s doing it. I don’t have to speak in Reformers, unanimous, because I know James is doing it, you know, I just thrills my little peeping heart to see people loving God and growing in the Lord.

Did you know that it’s causing them to grow? It’s not just what they do in the lives of somebody else, it’s what it does to them. That’s whenever you find out what you know you don’t know is how much are you willing to sacrifice to take the time to study to prepare and give that night. You realize that they give up every Thursday night to be able to have ranch. Lot of people won’t do that. And there’s a lot of people wouldn’t give up on a Friday night, but they have to do that.

But they do it. And then those that go on Friday night, so in them. See they don’t have to do that There’s no law that says they have to do it, but they do it See that’s because there’s something that’s happened to them They fell in love with the Lord and when you fall in love with the Lord. It does something to you You’ve got to have an outlet. You got to have an object somebody to love and Those teenagers is just an object for Jesse to love Those that come on this night Friday night those are just those are objects For James to bestow his love.

The kids in college or in the night school, they’re just people to love. You’re loving them because you’re giving them part of your life. You’re sacrificing for them. But you know there’s some people that can live their whole life and they never live their life for anybody. It’s always me, me, me, me, me. It’s whatever I want. Whatever makes me happy. It’s all about me. I remember one time I was with males and males just talking about himself and talking about himself and talking about himself.

He said, I shouldn’t be talking about himself. He says, why don’t you talk about me for a while? He was saying it and he was just being funny. I told Mel’s the other day, I said, Mel’s, I was gonna say that about you. But I do, I love the guy, I really do. So anyway, but something else that I want you to see, you see there in verse 15 when he says, who so ever hated his brother is a murderer.

And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. So how do you know, where do you explain that? I’m saved. And there’s a few people that I hate, or I have hate it since I’ve been saved. Well, according to that, that’s a sign you must not really be saved. No, look up here. This is your first birth, flesh birth. This is your second birth. Second birth, spirit birth. This one is born of God, so it doesn’t have a sinful nature.

No sinful nature. It doesn’t sin. It doesn’t sin. It can’t die. This one has eternal life. This is my first birth. It’s the flesh. It’s got no sinful nature. It’s sin. It’s going to die. It doesn’t have eternal life abiding in him. But my second birth does. So when I hate which of these births does hate come from? This guy would end. So that means that if I’m hating my brother, and jealous of my brother, and envious of my brother, then I know I’m walking in the what?

In the flesh. simple and yet there’s preachers that don’t understand the simple little illustration and yet it’s right there in the book. Now look what he says here in verse 17 verse 17 says, but who so hath this world’s goods see it his brother have need and shut it up his bowels of compassion from him. How dwelt the love of God in Him. How does the love of God dwell in Him? Do you really care? Do we care about one another?

Do we do for others? Or we’re afraid, well, let somebody else do it. You know, we’ve just about destroyed the generosity of a church because we didn’t take care of our civic responsibilities by electing good people in place of office, that they have tax us to death and we have to give them the money to take care of the poor, the downtrodden, those that need help and the church is dirt poor because they’ve given the government all their money.

So we rejected our responsibility and told the government to do it and we pay more in taxes for them to do it. We would have been better off would have more money and more people would have been better off because then they needed the church and they came to church because they needed each other and people watched after each other and you had problems with your home, people would come together and they would help you. Your house burnt down, they all pitched in and helped build you another home.

So we wouldn’t help each other, we don’t love each other, so therefore we have to pay higher insurance. Are you listening to what I’m saying? This health insurance thing is all because we as God’s people got stingy. We didn’t want the responsibility of loving one another and taking care of one another. Give our money to Uncle Sam and let government take. So now anything that happens, we just look to the White House. Isn’t it such comfort to know that they’re looking out for us?

Because we know they love us. They love us up there. Do you really believe they really love you? And most of the decisions they make is for the children, right? Look what he says in verse 21, B11, If our heart can dim us not, then have we confidence toward God. B11, if our, see, the Holy Spirit lives within us. And it’s okay to have your conscience be your guide. If your conscience has been educated by the Holy Spirit. Otherwise your conscience is not a good guide unless you’ve been properly educated.

And therefore the Bible talks about a defile conscience, a pure conscience, a good conscience, a weak conscience. But you see, when you condemn yourself… For that would you allow yourself to do God says it is sin. Because whatsoever you do, that’s not a faith God says it’s of sin. It means that what you do, you should believe this is what God wants going to do. This is right. This is right. And you do what’s right. Look in verse 23, this is his commandment that we should believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another and love.

Love. In chapter four, the first word is believe. love it. Believe not every spirit, everything that comes down the pipe and greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. You know that. Look in verse seven, beloved. Let us love one another for love is of God and everyone that love it is born of God and know of God. That means that you love because you see you have to be born of God to love the way God wants you to love.

And he says and know of God or means a love of God. So if You really love people with that divine love that God wants us to is because you love God. And God loves us. And you look there in verse 19, we love him. We love him. Why? Because he first loved us. Look there again in verse 10. In verse 10 he says, here in his love, not that we love God. He’s still talking to Christians. Not that we love God.

that He loved us and sent His Son to be the satisfaction, the payment for our sins. Beloved in verse 11, if God so loved us, we ought also to do what? Love one another. So this is why did God forgive us of all of our sins? Yeah? Can we forgive others? Now He didn’t start at Medlin. God can forgive us, we can forgive others. And so he says here in verse 12, no men have seen God at any time, but they can see the love of God through us.

If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and His love is perfected in us. So God didn’t take you home after He saved you. He left you here to manifest His love to others. And if you don’t love, you’re not serving the purpose for what God intended because God so loved the world, sent His Son into the world. And that was the way God proved to the world that He loves us. And He left us hereBBC to keep manifesting that love so that we can have more people trust Christ to This is why it’s hard for me to understand how people can say they love God and never witness.

You love God, and there’s people that have never heard the gospel, and some people just don’t care. Never talk to anybody about the Lord. It’s possible they do it, but sometimes it’s because they’re afraid of whatever the reasons are, but think about it. Does it mean that you maybe you really don’t love him? You’re thankful, you’re gracious, grateful, but you know you don’t love him like you should. That’s only between you and God. Nobody can tell you how much.

So he makes a statement here also in verse 16 and we have known and believed the love that God have to us God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. This is That’s how God lives in you and through you, is when love is manifested in your life. You see, when those kids go out on Friday night, so when there are others they witnessed and so forth, they’re demonstrating, look, let me tell you, I want you to know God loves you.

And I’ve ventured to say that some of them tell people, God loves you, God loves you. Whenever I do the hand gesture, sometimes I’ll say it three or four times, God loves you. Hate your sin, but He loves you. He loves you. Because see, you’re telling something about what God does. You’re not ashamed of the testimony of God. Let me tell you what He did for you. It’s between them and God, but you’re just telling them what God did for them.

And it makes sense that way. So it makes the statement there in verse 19, we 11, verse 20, if, if, if a man say, I love God and hate it his brother, what is he? He’s lying. Doesn’t say he’s not saved. He’s not sick. No, he didn’t say that. He’s just no, he’s lying. Because he’s saying something not true. Because if you hate him, you don’t love him. If you know, love him, it means that his love is not abiding in you.

You’re not abiding in his love. It doesn’t mean that Christ isn’t dwelling inside of you and you’re saved and all that. It’s talking about your obedience to the Lord, how you live your Christian life, and that is what is so important. And of course, if you get down into the other parts of the chapter 5, you’ll find the word love mentioned over and over again. Look up here. The greatest story in all the world and not a soul can make anyone accept the love of God and nobody can make you love Him.

But if you do love Him, it’ll all be manifested in your life. This isn’t represent you and me. The wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. The Bible says that God, He loves us. He hates our sin, but He loves us. For us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God. But God, because He loves us wants us to go to heaven. To go to heaven we’d have to be perfect, but we’re not perfect. And because of sin we can’t get in and so God says you cannot save yourself.

There’s no amount of good work we could ever do to earn our way to heaven. We have no hope. No amount of good work we could ever do will ever pay for one sin. men has no hope. This end represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord. God in the flesh. Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God’s love. Christ came into the world. He had no sin. He didn’t have to die. But because of his love for us, he took our sins and paid for them on the cross.

Now why did he do that? Because the Bible says he loved his father. And what did he come to me because the father loves us? He made a payment for the sins of the world and came back from the dead. And God said that if you and I, if we simply would believe that he did it for us, he would put this payment to our account and we would have the free gift of everlasting life. We would get to go to heaven whenever we die.

If you believe it, you can know that you’re going to heaven. That is the best news in all the world. And you can’t say, well, everybody’s heard that. No, they haven’t heard that. There’s a lot of people that’s never heard about the love of God. We are all that God has to manifest His love, to tell about His love, because if His children don’t do it, there isn’t anybody else to do it. We cannot expect the lost man to do it.

Therefore, we have to love enough that it changes our life. Let’s pray, shall we? Our Father, we thank You again for Your blessings. Thank You so much for loving us, for giving us that free gift of eternal life. We’re thankful for the privilege, this side of eternity, to be able to have a part in serving, to build with You, to labor with You, to abide with You, to love with You, Because Father, we know that you love the world.

You love us. And I pray, Lord, that we would love you and not to love the world. Bless each one here. Christ, name we pray. 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. If you have enjoyed our commitment 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.