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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, 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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

And so you and I, after we trust the Lord, we have a choice. We can serve the Lord. And if we serve the Lord, He wants us to bear fruit. And because He wants you to bear fruit, He wants you to bear more fruit and much fruit. So you’re the one that determines how much fruit you bear by your yieldedness to the Lord. And some people are maybe a little fruit and some sixty and some a hundred full. But every one of us as a branch in the vine are supposed to abide in the vine.

Serve the purpose of abiding in the vine. Serve the purpose of the flow of the juices and the goods that produce the fruit. We don’t save anybody, but God uses us as we yield to Him. Now this is not talking about how to get to heaven. Many people read this and they say, well see there they took the branches and they throw them in the fire and that’s a sign that you’re lost. No if anybody has anything to do with a husband, tree or religion that if you want something good you got to prune off all this stuff.

You see when you trust the Christ is your Savior. You probably had a lot of bad habits in your life. Bad thoughts. You didn’t have control of every area. But as you begin to grow in the Lord and as the Holy Spirit that lives within you, reveals things to you that you need to cut off out of your life to cut this out and to cut this out. What’s the Lord doing to you? He’s pruning you. Why? So that you can have more fruit.

And there’s always things in our life that needs to be cut off out of our lives. So God wants to clip and cut and things like that. Well, these things that He cuts off, we don’t need those anymore. God prunes you for a reason, for a purpose. He says, now men, when they take a literal vine and they do this, men take those branches that doesn’t bear and men will take those and cast them into the firecough. they’re not used.

But for you and I, it means that you are set aside, you’re not used by God. You see, God wants every one of us to bear fruit, and a lot of God’s children don’t bear fruit. And so it’s like you’re not being used. God says, if any man served me, him will my father honor. And one day you’re going to get the praise, the honor, and the glory that God wants to give to every one of us when we get to heaven, but we’re not there yet.

And you only get that honor, that recognition, that praise, because we’ve served. And you serve in order to bear fruit. No fruit, no fruit, are you serving? Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Can I follow without fishing? Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. That’s why some people when they really understand this, they want God to use them to reach other people for the Lord. Why? Because that is the greatest sign of love.

You can ever be ever manifest from your life. life. Because God said, I want the world to know that I love my father. So I’m sending you out as my friends. I want you to serve. I want you to bear fruit. And those people are the ones that trust the Lord through you. So I believe God wants all of us to be soul owners, to tell people how to get to heaven when they die. Because you realize this, the devil don’t care how much you go to church, how much money you give, how much you do, everything else.

Just don’t talk about the Lord. And yet that takes more courage and more strength, more grace of God. They explained to somebody, look, I just want you to know God loves you. Jesus Christ paid for your sins. If I was the devil, that’s the one thing I don’t want you to do. I wouldn’t want you to do that for anything. And yet that’s the one thing Christ says to do. That’s more important than anything else that you do. Because see, nobody’s going to go to heaven because you go to church.

And they’re not going to heaven because you gave money. Now if it’s used for those reasons, it can be useful, but I’m talking about you can sing and not win a soul. But God saves because of using you for his honor and for his glory, abiding him, serve him for the purpose of reaching fruit, of bearing fruit. And the fruit is not something that you produce, that’s something God produces through you. And you don’t know whether or not it’s going to be a little fruit or a lot of fruit.

You never know. But does God have the freedom to use you? However he wants, wherever he wants. Can he trust you? God says he has entrusted us with the gospel, even so we speak. Not as pleasing men, but God which triath our heart. We speak with the mouth, the tongue. And sometimes it’s the most difficult thing in the world. You know the hardest part about witnessing is getting started. Just getting started. But once you get started, it’s amazing how easy some time it can flow.

Now some people will tell you to shut up mind your own business, leave you alone, and tell you where to go. I’ve had all of those. And I’ve had people get mad and get up and walk away and then throw for them. When I try to talk to my stepdad, my stepdad says, if I want to here preaching, I go to church and I shut your mouth and leave me alone. Don’t you come over here preaching to me every time I turn around?

And that used to just tear me up. I didn’t know how to do it a better way. But years later, my stepdad trusts the Lord. When I graduated from Florida Bible College, and I had to come over here and speak for Hank, but after I graduated, then I went up to Georgia and when I got to Georgia my stepdad was in the emergency room. He was an ICU and when I got to the door I’m just looking through this little glass and I could see my mom and there beside my stepdad and he was in with tubes and all that going all over me.

He had heart surgery and they didn’t know if he was going to live or not. And I remember watching my mom standing there and she was just crying and my stepdad saw and he saw me with my little face inside that little glass through the window, and he went like this. And my mom looked and she saw me, and she says, you want him Yankee to come and pray for you? So I got to go into the room, and I stood beside my stepdad.

And he had already trusted Christ as Savior, but he had never served the Lord. And he wanted me to have prayer for him. I had prayer for him. He lived a little longer. A couple months later he passed away. But I’ve seen God work, but he’s in heaven now. My mom used to get up and walk out of the house. But I love my mom. I didn’t want my mom to go to hell. My mom used to haul the liquor.

My dad made it. They had a liquor steal. My sister got real mad one time when they, that she heard the explosions. Somebody told on her and she lost about 1,000 gallons. They dynamited her. with any way that’s another story. But it’s, I led her to the Lord too. She’s in heaven now. And my mom, she’s in heaven now. I’m so glad that we don’t have to live good enough to go to heaven, cause none of us could. Salvation, that’s a gift to God, it’s by grace.

I’m so glad that we have a message that we can talk to anybody, anywhere. And we don’t have to try to get them to change their life, stop something, join something. I just want people to look, God loves you. We’re all sinners. Nobody’s even better than anybody else. Would you trust the Lord? Would you believe He died on that cross and paid for your sin? Do we trust Him to take you to heaven when you die? And as you go down through here, there’s something I want you to just look at real quick.

Because He said, I did this because of my love. Look what He says here in verse nine, looking verse nine. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue you in my love. Isn’t that precious? Look in verse 10, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love. The last part of that verse, even as I have kept my Father’s commandment and abide in his love. And then he says there in verse 12, this is my commandment that you love one another’s.

I have loved you. Verse 13, greater love has no man than this that a man laid down his life for his friends. Love, love, love, love. I wonder what he’s saying all that for? Cause he said, I want the world to know that I love him. Did you know when you go into all the world and you tell people now you’ve got to be good to go to heaven? You’re not talking about the love of God. You talk about how good they got to be.

You’re telling them how they got to love God enough to go to heaven because they’ll clean up their life. That’s not love. It’s not the truth. It’s not the gospel. But let me just kind of show you this. You see the world hates God. The world hates Christ. When Christ was here, he made just a, look down in verse 18. Look at verse 18. If the world, and here’s another word, hate, and I got news for you. Hate is not the same as love.

It’s just the opposite. God Christ said, I love the world. I want the world. No, I love my father. I want you to love, love, love, love, love. And the way you show love is by that message that you have, telling people what I did for them. You see, we have people that they love themselves, but they don’t love God. They don’t love Jesus Christ. They don’t love the gospel. They don’t care people go to heaven or hell But there’s always a few Arignment of God’s children That fall in love with the Lord and when they fall in love with the Lord They fall in love with that message and they want to tell people how to have eternal life and it changes their life You can’t make that happen because that’s a love between an individual and their heavenly Father.

You can’t manufacture, you can’t pretend it’s got to be real or it’s not real. And when Jesus Christ was here, did you realize that even his brothers and cisternals, the Bible said they wish not who it was. They wish not who it was. to have the living Son of God brought among them and not know what they had. Don’t realize what they’ve got. Look what he says here. He says, if the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.

You see, the first part of this chapter’s love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love. But the world hates, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Look up here, this old sinful nature that I have, it hates God. My old sinful nature, it loves the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. It loves everything about this world but not God. It’s rebellious to God. That old sinful nature you have, he hates you because he, it loves the world.

And if it loves the world, it can’t love God. And that’s why here you are as a child of God. Wouldn’t it be a shame for you to live your whole life? Loving that which hates God. Living for that which hates God. Living for the world that hates God. And not living. Put the Lord. Look here in verse 20. The last part of verse 19 says, but if I have chosen you out of the world, I’m going The world, therefore the world hates you, hate.

Look at verse 23, he that hated me, hated my father also, hate. Look at verse 24, if I had not done among them the works which none other man did. They had not had sinned, but now, have they both seen and hated both me and my father? And then the last part of verse 25, hated me without a cause, without a cause, to hate. And now I want you to go and let those people that hate me, hate my God.

I want you to go and show them how much you love them. I want them to know the other. So here you and I are, and we have a problem sometime because when somebody says or does something to us and they show any manifestations of hate, we want to hate them back. Get even. Get mad and angry back. Your wife, do you wrong, lover anyway? Your husband, do you wrong, love him anyway? Kids, do you wrong, love him anyway?

Because all that comes from that old sinful nature. Hatred doesn’t come from the new birth, comes from the old one. And there’s a lot of people that never have victory over the sins of the flesh. And they get all stirred up and become mean and ugly and hateful. cutting things, wicked things, imagining things. And yet, God says, I want you to love them. There’s a difference here. Look what he says here in verse 6, if a man abide not in me, or if a man doesn’t serve him, he is cast forth as a branch, as a branch, is withered and men, not God.

See, God doesn’t cast you in the hell, but men will trample you underfoot. Men will have no respect for you. Men will look at you, you’re a hypocrite, because you say you know God and you know Christ and you love the Lord and you go to church and outside the doors of this church be a total hypocrite. Never tell us so how to have eternal life. Never never talk about the Lord, because you’re either embarrassed or ashamed. Paul says, I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

We say that every Sunday, don’t we? Every Sunday we say that in this church. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. Don’t we say that every week? And then walk out those doors and never tell a soul, never carry a track. And don’t do anything of kindness to people. You know what Jesus did? Everywhere He went. He went about doing good. He did good. He wasn’t doing good to go to heaven.

He was the Son of God. We’re not doing good to go to heaven, but we should do good. We should be kind to one another. We should be loving to one another. Look at this. He says you’re in verse seven, if you abide in me, or if you serve me, my words abide in you. You shall ask what you will and shall be done unto you. I believe this is along the lines of a bearing fruit. What is the last time you asked the Lord to help you to win this person to the Lord or to get this individual?

What about the last time about either a mama or a dad or a brother or sister, some relative that you prayed for? And then you want God to use you to get the gospel to that person. Do you really care where they spend eternity? You really care. I mean, is it real? You really care or you really don’t care? You say you can be saved and have no compassion for anybody else. As long as you get your little pinkies inside the pearly gate, let the rest of the world go to hell.

And one day we’ll stand before God. And he says, if you serve me, any man serve me, him will my father honor. Now we’re not serving to get to heaven. Cause he already had my new birth. That’s why I’m going to heaven. It doesn’t have a sinful nature. It’s good enough to go. I’m good to go, but I’m not there yet. And there’s saying God wants to do with us in this life.

And we’re still here. Well, look what he says in verse eight. Here in is my father glorified. I’vemerga people say, well, what’s the purpose of life? Just glorify the Lord. And they think glorifying God, you just stand here with your hands. I’m just glorifying the Lord. That’s Gaalo what he says. Hearing as my father glorified, that you bear what? Much fruit. So shall you be my disciples. You see following Christ is to be after what he came after. He came to seek and to save that which was lost.

And most people could care less. It’s not just going to church and playing church. He says here, and this is an awesome verse. In verse 11, these things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you. PASSIONE Your joy might be full. See, we’re not talking about how to get to heaven. We’re talking about because you’re going to heaven. You want to have happiness. You want to have peace. You want to have joy? It’s going to be the people you lead to the Lord, or that you shared the gospel with, or you took your funds and you gave them because you wanted people to hear the gospel and you made it possible over the Bibleline, or because you gave to a Wanna program, or because you helped with the…

Reformers, unanimous. But whatever it is, what’s your motive of why you do what you do? I’m giving this because I want people to hear the gospel. You probably have been here all this time, and yet let’s just go back a few years, even when Hank Linson was on the radio. Did you help him? Did you help meet the expenses? Did you give him money? Or did you just classify them? Well, all they ever talk about is money. All they want’s money.

Do you ever think maybe sometimes people just want to reach people for the Lord? And it takes money to do it. And God has already told people to do it. But they won’t obey Him. They won’t obey. And they won’t give. And God may have told you to pass out tracks, but sow the seed. You won’t do it. to talk to individuals and you won’t do it. There’s a day coming when we’ll stand before the Lord, and every man has a master, and you’ll answer to the master.

You won’t answer to me, and I won’t answer to you. Every one of us has responsibilities. And he says here, in verse 13, you’re the underlying disperse. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man laid on his life for his friends, year my friends, I’ve laid down my life for you. What’s he asking them to do? They lay down their lives, they lay down your life, but this cause, live for this reason. Something greater than yourself. It’s bigger than us.

It’ll carry you through the darkest days, the darkest moments in your life. There’s another man that God says, he was my friend. Anybody know who that man was? Abraham. He was a friend of God. He served the Lord. You see what he says in verse 15, henceforth, I call you not servants, but the servant, know not what his Lord doeth. For I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard of my father, I’ve made known unto you.

known unto you. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit. Not to work for your salvation, not to work your way to heaven, but as a child of God to bring forth fruit. That your fruit should remain. You see, the fruit that we have is different than all the other kind of fruit. You can pick an orange-acted tree. He, it’ll die. You can pick an apple off a tree, leave it for a while.

But whenever you and I are used by God to bear fruit, this fruit lasts forever. Every person that ever trusts Christ’s Savior through you is an eternal fruit, but fruit that lasts, that remains. This is what God says. Or if you don’t serve the Lord, it’s because you fell in love with the world, the world that hates Him. And one day you’ll stand before the Lord. And that’s why He made the statement, my little children, abide in Him. That when He shall appear, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him and His coming, abide in him.

Serving why you can, life is short. You don’t have a lot of time. And I don’t, I’m not the greatest soul winner in the world, but I do get a few here and there. But I know that we’ll do more and reach more if we all work together because we can encourage one another. That’s why when you come to church, I love to see you bring lost people with you. hard to catch fish out of a bathtub. There’s no fish in the bathtub.

You always want people. We had a couple yesterday to trust the light. I love it whenever it gets improved. But you never know when. You don’t know how you’re serving. You’re serving. You’re making it possible for for something to happen. Look up here and be closing. You say, why do you do the same illustration all the time so that you’ll learn it? And when they do, you’re going to do it with somebody. You’re going to say, let me show you something.

This hand represents you and me, the wall of represents sin. We all have sin on us. Now God says he loves us. You see what I’m saying already? Every time I give the gospel, God loves you. He loves you. Christ said, I want the whole world to know it. God loves you. Now, He hates what we do wrong. And He says, the paper sent is eternal separation from God in hell. Now, to go to heaven, we have to be perfect as righteous as God and none of us are.

We’re all sinners. No man can save himself. It’s not by works of righteousness which we’ve done. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He is the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world. That little Colonel Cornyn died, came back from the dead. And God says that whosoever believes that I did it for them would not perish, but have everlasting life. We go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. It sounds like a pretty good thing to me.

If you hear this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, look, you can go to church all your life. If you never really trusted the Lord to take you to heaven when you’re not going and you’re not saved. You can be religious. Nicky Nemus was very religious. He was just lost. He’d never been born again. He never really trusted the Lord as his only hope of one to heaven. I pray that you will. There’s no strength to it.

No kidding. I don’t have to know your name. You don’t have to join the church. You don’t have to sign a card and you don’t have to raise your hand either. The reason I ask people to raise their hands because it lets me know that what I said made sense and I like to know. It’s your way of telling the preacher I trust that Christ is my Savior this morning. And I’d like to have prayer for you. That’s pretty shallow.

If you’re here this morning and you never trusted the Lord, maybe you’ve been religious all your life. But if you died right now, are you positive if you go to heaven? If you died 10 years from now, are you just as positive? about a hundred years from now. I don’t know if I lived that long. But whatever it is, are you sure you’re going to heaven? If you’ve never trusted Christ, would you trust Him right now? If you’ve already done it, you don’t have to do it again.

You see, yes, that made sense to me. In preacher, I want to trust Christ as my Savior, and I’ll let you know by raising my hand and putting it down. And when it all be closed, our Father, we thank Thank you so much for all you’ve done for us. We’re thankful for the free gift of eternal life. And thank you Lord for each person here, and I pray that you bless each one, Lord I want each one to abide in Christ.

And to bear much fruit, use each one, because Father, if they will serve you, you promised in your word, Him, will my Father honor. Thank you Lord so much for this church, these good people, and all of us at conference. In Christ name we pray. Amen. You’ve been listening to another great lesson from Pastor Arnold, and we hope that you’re growing in the knowledge of the Lord through this ministry. To help you continue your growth and maturing, we are going to give those who make a financial donation in any amount, the DVD teaching series, How to Witness to a Jewish Person.

You know, most Christians think Jews really know the Old Testament, but in reality, most know very little. Though most are familiar with some terms of the Bible, very few know any details about how Abraham, their patriarch, was saved. Most have never read Isaiah 53 and have no idea it’s all about Jesus. So for this month only, for a donation in any amount, we’ll send you this DVD teaching series on how to witness to the Jew. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634.

And don’t forget to include your mailing address as well. God bless you and thank you again for supporting Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. 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. 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, just keep looking up.