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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 first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Turn in your Bible to the book of John, the gospel of John chapter 6. I want to share with you a few thoughts along the lines of now I know. Now I know. There was a time when I didn’t know the way to heaven, but now I know. And I was amazed to find out that that’s also found in the Bible. Now I know. Now I know. Did you all think that that person that you married was totally perfect?

And now I know. You didn’t know how to walk with the Lord. And now you know how to walk with the Lord. You didn’t know the value of the Word of God. Now you know the value of the Word of God. Now you know. You see, we’re learning or progressing as we go through life. Some people live and learn and some people live and never learn. But here in the Gospel of John in chapter 6, there’s a verse that I want you to see.

And it says there in verse 64, this is on page 1124 in one of the church Bibles. So they’re in verse 64 where it makes a statement. Chapter six. But there are some of you that believe not. So here’s a multitude of people that he’s talking to, that he’s addressing. And it’s just some of y’all don’t believe. Remember that Jesus knows who believes and he knows who doesn’t believe. Do you believe that God would need you to prove that you really believe by having some evidence in your life?

Think about it. If I believe, when does He give me the eternal life? Don’t I have to wait until I have the proof of the evidence that I really believe? Because it would be a shame for Him to give it to me when I believed, and then I didn’t really do anything to show that I really believed. So there He had to take it away. Look what He said in verse 64. for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him.

So He knew those that believe, He knows those that don’t believe, and He knew who was going to betray Him. He sounds like He knows what’s going on. So if He knows why would I have to have the evidence in my life to prove to Him that I really believe? Or can He go ahead and give me the free gift of eternal life when I believe it because he knows that I believe. So I believe that you can really know that you have eternal life and know that you’re going to heaven when you die.

We may come back to this verse, a good possibility. We’ll come back to this verse. But I want you to take your Bible and look in the book Luke, the Gospel of Luke and chapter 4. Luke chapter 4 and verse 25. When Jesus began, He went into the temple and He opened up the scroll and began to read from the book of Isaiah. After He had read, He said to them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears, they all gave Him a standing ovation.

Not exactly. They said, isn’t this the Son of Joseph? I mean, who does he think he is? I mean, we know his mom and dad. Then he says they’re in verse 23, and he said unto them, you will surely say unto me this proverb, physician heal thyself whatsoever we have done in Capernaum do also hear in this country, in thy country. In other words, hey, you’ve performed, you’ve done some miracles. We want you to do a few tricks for us.

You know, to prove it to us. Jesus knows who believes and who does not believe. I believe he also knows those who will believe and those who will never believe. He knows. But he doesn’t determine. Our belief is because we are unbelieving. We refuse to believe the truth. There are some people who want to know truth and there’s people who don’t want to know the truth. They don’t really care what the Bible says. They don’t care what God says.

Their mind is made up. They’re setting their ways and you’ve ever heard that statement, you can’t teach an old dog new trick. Some people don’t want to learn anything new because it means that they would contradict their present position of what they believe or how they’re living. though it doesn’t have to affect how they live, but sometimes it does. Look in verse 24, and he said, “‘Verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country, but I tell you of a truth.

Many widows was in Israel in the days of Elijah. When the heaven was shut up three years and six months, we’re in great famine and throughout all the land.” So Jesus is telling them if we read the Old Testament, we don’t know how many widows there were. We might think there was this only one because the Bible doesn’t say. But Jesus is saying, hey, there was a lot of them. So He knew there were a lot. But He says, Elijah only went to the house of one widow woman, only one.

And you think, well, why did He just go to one? It’s so different by just one. Now we know that God is able to do whatever He wants to do, but God also has principles. He has character. He knows what’s right and what’s wrong. He knows what He can do. He knows what He cannot do. You see, we sometimes try to say what God has to do. The more you read and study the Bible you’ll find out, there are limitations that He has put upon Himself.

You say, can God do anything? Well, God can do a lot of things, but God doesn’t do everything. isSpecial that one question, one time with two little kids, my first Bible study in Colorado, two junior high kids. I opened up for questions, he says, can God do anything? I said, yes, God can do anything. He can do anything. He says, can God make a rock? I said, yeah, God can make a rock. He says, can God make a big rock?

Yes, God can make a big rock. He says, can God make a rock so big he can’t lift it? You’re a little smarty. I wanted to slap his jaws. He humiliated me and the eyes of that other kid sat beside him. Anyway, they did trust the Lord. But I learned the answer now. Now when somebody asked me, says, can God do anything? I said, no, there’s a lot of things God can’t do.lehem God can’t lie. He can’t steal. He can’t send me to hell.

And he ain’t stupid enough to try to make a rock so big he can’t lift it because it wouldn’t be any place to put it. But I haven’t found that kid yet. I’m going to slap his jaws when I get to heaven. But now notice something else he says here in verse 26. And unto none of them was Elijah’s cent or Elijah. He says here, save unto seraphtha. He says a city of sight on who is a woman unto a woman that was a widow.

And in verse 27, many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elijah and the prophet and none of them was cleansed, except name of this area. So he knew everyone that was a widow. He knew everyone that was a leper. But he didn’t heal everyone and he didn’t do the same miracles for everybody. So sometimes you wonder why did he do it for anybody at all? You see, God doesn’t have to experiment with the whole human race. All He has to do with just experiment with just a few people.

You see, He could prove that all mankind are sinful just by having the law given to the nation of Israel. They didn’t keep it. They all failed. Those without it all failed. All have sinned and comes short of God’s perfection. Everybody didn’t have to be of the nation of Israel. God has ways and means of doing what He does. But I want to show you this here. Look there in the book of 1 Kings, the book of 1 Kings, all the way back there in the Old Testament to the book of 1 Kings, right after the Samuels, 1 Kings 17, 1 Kings 17, and look there in verse 9.

And verse 9. Because he said, the word of the Lord came unto Him and said, I want you to go somewhere. In verse 9, arise and get thee to serapha. He says, which belong to Sidon and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. Of course, the widow woman didn’t know that she was commanded. It’s just that it worked out that way. But he went with the man of God and told him to go see this woman.

And when he did, the woman says, oh, I got his just a little bit of oil. He says, we’re going to eat something in there and we’re going to die. Things were bad. way it worked out the way she had some oil and all that she wanted that last the whole time. So kept her son alive and kept her alive and then the whole son dies. So now the question is why did you keep us alive for a moment only for my son to die a little later?

And so Elijah goes to the Lord and cries out to God. Look what he says there in verse 21. And he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried unto the Lord and said, Oh, Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come back into him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah. And the soul of the child came into him again and he revived. Now I didn’t do this for everybody, but just certain people.

And then I went in verse 24, it says, and the woman said to Elijah, and see these five words here, by this I know. Now I know. When she says, now I know, is that because there was a time when she wanted to know the truth? She wanted to believe? But she needed just the right thing. And out of all of them, I don’t know. I’m not God. That God knows who doesn’t really want to know truth. I honestly believe because in my heart burned a great desire to want to know God.

And I wanted to know truth. I would get out and I’d walk on the beach and I would get into the life-tower stand and I would sit and I’d pray. And I’d pray for hours to a God that I did not know. And I wanted to know I was 17 years old. And for many years I would wonder and think and dream. I want to know God. But I didn’t know anybody that knew God. But one day after I had taken this beautiful little woman and ran off to Anderson, South Carolina and her dad came looking for me.

He was going to part my soul in eternity. He had mercy. And I didn’t know that he had been a Sunday school teacher in the Baptist Church for 20 years. And he knew all about soul winning. And he made plans and he laid a trap and he caught me. One night I understood, I trusted Christ as my Savior, and I knew that I had eternal life. And I knew I was looking for something. And when I saw it, I knew this is it.

But I didn’t know that that was the beginning of something, the most wonderful thing that can ever happen to any man in this whole world is now I know. Now I know the Lord. Now I know I have eternal life. Now I know the truth, but there could have been this one woman out of a multitude of women that has this desire. I want to know the truth. Remember there’s a lot of people that were crowded around Christ as He walked and they were touching Him and pushing up against Him and Elvah said, and this one woman said, if I can just touch the hymn of His garment.

And Jesus says, who touched me? The disciple says, what are you talking about? Everybody’s He’s touching you. He says, no, there’s somebody who’s got faith. See, there’s a certain thing inside of somebody that God is looking for. Those that want to know the truth. You even take those that know Christ is their Savior. A lot of people have trusted Christ as Savior. But some of those people want to know more about the Lord. They want to walk with God.

They want to be used by God. Some of God’s children don’t. They just fall in love with the world. They go their own direction. And God will chase them, yes. Make them wish they had of, but there’s still a few. The Bible says the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, looking for a man that God can show himself strong on his behalf. So God says he’s looking. And he’s looking for this thing called faith inside of a person or that hunger, that desire.

Why do you think he says over and again, If any man thirst, any man hunger, if you’re looking for something God wants to give you the answer, then I believe it’s awesome. Take your Bible while you’re right here and look in Second Kings. Second Kings in chapter five. Second Kings in chapter 5. There’s a little story here about a man by the name of Naaman. Christ refers to this guy, but he says there was, you know, others that had leprosy, but they didn’t get healed.

But this one man who happens to be in Syria, Damascus, how Syria doing today? Isn’t that a good godly country today? But there was a man, And they’re looking verse one, now, name and captain of the host of the king of Syria was a great man with his master and honorable and because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. Hey, we got something wrong with him.

He’s great and all of the, but he’s just got leprosy. And you look at this and you think, well, here is a man in a different country. Does God know who’s there? And that the Bible says God gave him deliverance. God gave him victory. God used him. A man in another country. And while they were over there, they got this little Jewish girl and took her into captivity. And this little Jewish girl happened to make the statement if he only knew the man of God in Israel, if he only knew.

And lo and behold, it wasn’t long before, you know, naming God, everybody together. And lo and behold, they’re going down to Israel. And when they got there, all they did was ask the king, hey, we come to get healed. He says, you’re trying to start a war. I don’t have any power. So anyway, he goes to the man of God and name him who was thinking, do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? I did this the other day with somebody.

It came off pretty funny. Sometimes things don’t work. And so I said, do you know who I am? What do you call the security guard? There’s a man down here that don’t know who he is. But here he is standing outside the man of God. And he thought he would get up and come outside and, you know, after all, look who I am. But he wasn’t impressed. And so he says, well, what do I have to do? He says, go up here into the river of Jordan and just dunk in the water seven times.

And this is where they got dunked honesty from. He went and dunked himself into water seven times. But he didn’t want to do it. He says, the river’s over in Syria, clean of the Niss River? This is an old muddy river. I’ve been here, there it is. He says, Master, if you had asked something hard, If he just said, do this really hard, you would have done it. But he said something so simple. All you have to just dunk yourself in the water seven times and he had the flesh of a baby.

There’s women still looking for this miracle anti-aging cream stuff. All you got to do is go to Israel and dunk yourself in the water seven times. See if that’ll work. It worked with this guy. Cute him of lefrycy. I bet he didn’t look as old. He says, the flesh of a little child. I mean, it was incredible. So he says, he was impressed. So you notice what he says there in verse 15. Excuse me, just as reading verse 14.

Then went he down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God and his flesh came again, like unto the flesh of a little child. And he was clean. He didn’t have leprosy anymore. And his skin, he looked probably younger. Wouldn’t you like to have the secret to this? Well, why wouldn’t God do that for everybody? Well, God doesn’t do certain things for everybody. Now, wouldn’t it have been a shame if Elijah told him, says, not only must you dip yourself in this water seven times, but you must keep dipping yourself in the water if you want to stay clean of leprosy.

There are people who say, well, you can believe on Christ, but you got to keep believing. Because if you start believing, he takes it away from you. So you’ve got to not only be dipped in the water, but you got to keep on a dip. Well, when does he get out of the water? He’d never get out of the water. You see, there’s some things people just don’t get. But I want you to see what he says here in verse 15.

And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company came and stood before him and he said, behold, now I know. If he’s now I know, than it must have been somewhere in the past he wanted to know. He wanted to know the true and living God. He wanted to know the truth. So he says in verse 15, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel. Now therefore I pray the take a blessing of thy servant.

Does God know everything? God knows. And he knows what it takes to work in people’s lives. Do you believe that God may be working in your life? Did you know because he wanted to know the truth? God may allow him to get leprosy. That God may allow him to take that little girl captive into his home so that she can make one little statement that went into his ears if you only knew the man of God. God. The man of God has something he can do about this.

Did you realize that there’s times when you may have questions about certain things in life and God is going to answer, but he doesn’t answer it the way you think? Did you know that that little woman, here she is with a child and she’s wondering how she’s going to get the next meal? And she doesn’t know how God works and all these matters. But lo and behold, down to the last thing, and the man of God says, do this.

She could have said, I will not. Why should I give you my last morsel of food? Well, that’s all we have. But she did. Some reason she believed she trusted God worked a miracle with her that maybe he didn’t do with somebody else because there might be a reason. I don’t know the reasons. I just know that every person in this room, God is working in your life, whether you see it or you don’t see it. You may be totally oblivious to the hand of God working in your life.

Remember, if you put everything into God’s hands, it won’t be long before you’ll see God’s hand in everything that you have. The longer I live, I can’t wait to the next day to see what God is going to do today and tomorrow because I have watched him in the past and it has convinced me that the God of the past is the God of today and of the God of tomorrow and he doesn’t change and he’s just looking for somebody he can bless.

God is looking for somebody that he can use. See God wants people to know truth but he will get you into a certain place when it might seem like this the worst thing of all. Think about the will woman. She had nothing by which she could deliver herself at her wits in. Naming, great man, great honor, but he’s a leper. Why would God have to use something so severe to get some people to listen? I’ve lived long enough to watch that some people don’t listen at all unless God hits them over the head with the two before.

till God breaks your heart over something and you’d be surprised what God can do. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Numbers, the book of Numbers in chapter 21. Numbers chapter 21, you know and I know that in the Gospel of John in chapter 3 in verse 14 where it talks about as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of God be lifted up. You ever heard that before? Now, I want you just to take a look at this in chapter 21.

Look there in verse 9. 21 and verse 9. You see, they had people that were murmuring and complaining because a murmuring complaint was a dead giveaway that their minds were not set upon the Lord, that they were not trusting in the Lord. So they complain and wine and pine and moan and groan and the Lord sent serpents among them. And the little serpents were poisonous serpents and they were biting the people and the people were dying. So he made the statement in verse 8.

And the Lord said in to Moses, make the fiery serpent set it upon a pole. And it shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten when he look at the ponnet shall live. Moses made a serpent a brass, put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man when he beheld the serpent a brass, he lived. When he beheld it, he lived. And the children of Israel set forward and pitched in O’bath.

Now, so they did what they said to do. And the people that look, now what if he had said, not only must you look at this brass pole, this serpent on this Paul, but the moment you look, you’re delivered, you’re healed. What if he said, you’ve got to look and keep looking? You’ve got to look and keep looking. But if you don’t keep looking, the snake’s sitting right there ready to take you down. He didn’t say that. One look…

It was the cure. Every one of us need to understand we’ve all been bitten by a serpent. We have his poison within us. Satan himself, the Bible says, we are children of wrath. It’s part of our nature. We are naturally rebellious. We want our own way. We don’t like somebody else telling us what we can and cannot do. By the way, you probably have heard this, but I’ve just mentioned to tell you. Now you heard us so Lancelot, you heard of King Arthur?

Yeah, most people have heard a little bit about that. But when King Arthur, see when he was young, he went too far away and got captured. And so the king of another country says, we’re going to kill you, but we’re going to give you an option. If you can tell me something that that nobody else has ever been able to tell me. He said, what’s that? Tell me what is it that women want. The real reason, the truth. He said, I’ve checked in my whole kingdom and nobody knows.

He said, I’ll let you go back. You find out. But on your word, you’ll come back in one year. So he goes throughout the kingdom. He tries to find does anybody know what a woman really wants? And nobody knew, not really. And so it came down, they only had a couple of days left. And so somebody told them, says, there is a witch that knows the answer. He said, well, I can’t do that. I can’t go to a witch.

But it came down to where he went to see this witch. And she says, I know the answer. But I want to marry Sir Lancelot. Now this witch was all bent over, hunched back. One tooth, you know, hag. It’s great stringly hair, like it’s been washed with motor oil. She smelled like a sewer. I mean, this is one of the ugliest women you’ve ever seen in your life. She said, I wanna marry Serlantzel a lot. He said, oh, I can’t do that.

One day left and Serlantzel a lot heard about it and says, look, for my king, I will do anything. So he went and told her, says, he’ll marry you. She said, then I’ll tell you what women want. He says, all right, what is it? He says, they want their own way. That’s it. A woman just wants her own way. So he went over to the next kingdom and told them and everything was wonderful. And so Lancelot has to marry this old witch.

So the wedding day came, they got home and he’s standing outside. He doesn’t want to go in the house, but he goes into the house and lo and behold, there stood before him, the most beautiful woman in the world. He says, what happened? She says, because you let me have my own way. And so I decided I’m just going to be beautiful. So the moral of the story is if you don’t let a woman have her own way, things are going going to get pretty ugly.

Everybody wants to go their own way. It’s part of our nature. Hello. Thank you for tuning in to today’s program. We hope that Bibleline is truly a blessing in your life. During this month to every person making a financial donation in any amount, we’re going to send to you the DVD series, The Poison of Bitterness. In this series on Bitterness, Dr. Arnold will explain how we poison ourselves, those around us, and especially our spouses with bitterness. Everyone can relate to the bitterness because it’s a human reaction to being hurt.

But bitterness is a poison that can ruin your life and this DVD series is yours this month with a donation of any amount. This is one of the most powerful teachings on the Christian life that Dr. Arnold has ever taught so contact us today for this valuable lesson series. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634 and don’t forget to include your mailing address. 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.