This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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. SERVICE Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleignmenistries.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.

Take your Bible and turn to the book of 2nd Peter. 2nd Peter. I’m always trying to distinguish between salvation by grace and service which refers to works. What he did for us is one thing, and what we do for him is something else. So in every message you try to make that clear, sometimes if people come to a service, they may hear me talk about grace, grace, and grace. And then they think, well, maybe he doesn’t have anything to say about works and service, but I believe if you listen to me long enough, you hear it, but I don’t always try to put two together in the same message, unless I, at the end I would give the gospel with, and I’ve been talking to them, though they’re believers.

But just because we’re saved by grace, that must mean God doesn’t want us to do anything it all for the rest of our life. You know that’s not true, but you’d be surprised while I get accused of preaching. I believe that once you trust Christ as Savior, man serve the Lord with all your heart and go hold back and try to live as Godly as you possibly can. So I do teach it and I do believe it, but I know that there’s something that comes along after you’ve trusted Christ as Savior that kind of roinger, desire to do what God wants you to do.

You’d be surprised how easy and quickly we can get so discouraged in doing right. That’s why I think the Bible puts it in there, you know, be not weary in well doing. Why? Because you get weary of doing well. You do right and you can get tired. Where are you doing it? So you wish there was a Lord just stopped the earth, let me get off going to heaven and let everybody else take care of this because I’m I’m bored.

So I always say don’t be bored serve the Lord but in serving the Lord you can’t get bored sometimes because if you forget why you’re doing what you’re doing and then you just get to doing what you do because it’s just like wrote memory you just memorize something and you get in the habit of just doing certain things and they can take its toll upon you because we’re always living on the edge when you’re living by faith because God does not let us see everything that’s gonna happen.

As a result of all of our wonderful labor, I’m always concerned about, you know, okay, here I am. What’s gonna happen with camp coming up? Are we gonna have the kids we need? We’re gonna have all the workers we need. We’re gonna have this and so forth. So you’ve got that on your mind. Then you’re talking about college and then you’re gonna have the teachers that you need. You’re gonna have the students that you desire. You’re gonna have this, you’re gonna have that.

You’re gonna have the money, you know, all kinds of things. Then you get the ready of your broadcast and you wonder, okay, we’ve had a couple of low months. Now what are we gonna do? Do we keep the one in Tampa? Do we keep the one in Colorado? Do we keep them both? Do we go into debt? Do we borrow money? What do we do? And then you’re right on the edge sometimes. You realize how close it would be that if we made everything based upon our emotions, you make some bad decisions when you get down.

and you make better decisions when you’re up. So you always try to stay positive. How would you define yourself? Are you a positive thinking person or a negative thinking person? How would somebody else describe you? Passive, active. Dynamic, nothing, or anywhere in between. So when it comes to serving our Lord, there’s some things that God says in His Word to remember. Remember, remember, remember. And you notice in 2 Peter where you’re supposed to be turned to? It makes a statement, I stir up your mind by we have remembrance, causing you and I to remember because we often forget.

But he’s going to be passing off the scene soon, and so he makes this statement. Look what he says here in verse 12, Wherefore I will not be negligent. Isn’t that a good statement? I will not be negligent. Do you think there are those that no Christ is Savior? Even those who take a responsibility and they become negligent in fulfilling their responsibility because, well, things are a little rough. Things are a little hard. Things are tough. And you just think, I quit.

I’m tired of this burnout. Well, I’ve never come close to burnout yet, but I do hear it’s a terrible thing to go through. And what I try to do is, like David did, David encouraged himself in the Lord. David encouraged himself. All right David, let’s have a pep talk here and you often have to give yourself a pep talk. Sometimes nobody else really cares whether you do or you don’t know what you’re gonna do. If you’re always dependent on someone else you’ve got to learn how to be strong in the Lord for yourself so that if you had to and to fall back on it you can encourage yourself in the Lord because sometimes things that other people say can discourage you.

So he makes his statement and this is good. I really like it. I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth. Did you know we talked about the present truth? Did you know there’s things that God wants you to know more than just the present truth of what he was talking about at the time because in the verses right before they talked about add to your faith add more.

So there’s things you already know but have you become complacent think well I don’t need to read anymore studying more I’m just gonna coast from here on in just coast. That way I don’t have to really apply myself to anything. I don’t have to learn anything because if I learn something else it might cause me to have to change something in my life for what I’m doing. So you always got to stay at it. And he says here in this verse, 13, Yay, I think it meet or fit as long as I am in this tabernacle, as long as I’m in this tabernacle, I’m long as I’m in this body that we have.

He says to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that surely I must put off this by tabernacle, even as the Lord Jesus Christ had showed me. So in John chapter 21, he talks about, you know, somebody might just carry you where you don’t want to go and he was going to die. And we may live long enough to know that we’re going to die at a certain date, a certain way. You never know what’s going to happen in the country and who’s going to take us over.

All kinds of things that can happen. It would be nice to know that okay I got me another good 30 years to live or 40. Good health of course. Of course we always want that. Don’t we always want good help? We want to stay healthy. But you may not get it. We just got to serve the Lord faithfully with what we have, where we are and trust the Lord. But it does say this knowing that surely I must put off this mind-tibre of even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me, I got to do this.

Now turn over there also to chapter three, look in chapter three. And in verse one he says, this second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, and both which I, and here’s those words, again, I stir up your minds by way of remembrance. That you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandments and of us, the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the Lord and Savior. Knowing this verse that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lust.

And he says, these are the ones that I fear for you. False teachers, false preachers, coming along, teaching things that are not true. And you believe in it. And you slowly get away from what God has to say. You begin to drift. Did you know it was interesting as James in here right now? Okay, I don’t see James. But he was, I drove in the other day and he was out there looking at the little ducks. And I thought, he’s over there looking at them little ducks.

So I got in my car and I walked over there to look at those little ducks. I had to see the little ducks too. He says, pastor, he says, that mama duck right there, that mama duck got mad at one little duck and tried to shoot that little duck away. And then wound that little duck because it wasn’t her little duck. And so he kept wondering why he was trying to get rid of that little duck. And I thought, well, that mama duck knows her ducks.

And that’s not my duck. In my mind, I thought the Lord knoweth them that are His. And so here’s one little duck. And James says, that little duck either lost the mummy or the mummy lost the baby. In other words, somebody failed somewhere along the line. But I just kept thinking of my mind. I’m so glad the Lord knoweth them that are His. And I am a child of God. And whenever I see those little ducks a while ago, they were out here, and they weren’t in a row.

And I thought, I opened the door and I told the mama duck, I said, you’re supposed to get your ducks in a row. And I think that duck feels safer closer to the church because of hawks and so forth. And so I opened the door and I thought she’s going to come in and walk down the aisle with all the little ducks and come over here and have a seat. But the workers around here fall in love with these little ducks.

And they even count them. Every day they count and find out is all of them here. Because we know there’s all kinds of danger. And sometimes I think these little turtles will swim up there and get a hold of their little foot and just pull them underneath the water. Isn’t that a shame? And then sometimes there’s these big old hawks that will fly over and there’s come down there and just snatch them up. Cats around here. See, James knows everything that happens to these.

Now, as concerned as we are about even something so simple and so small. Did you know there’s a God in heaven is concerned about you and I getting away from his authority, drifting, getting lost in this whole world. And he says there’s false teachers. Now whenever you go to the book of Ephesians in chapter 4 when he talked about you and I are supposed to not be swayed by every wind of doctrine that comes along that we’re supposed to build each other up and encourage one another.

And this is what God really wants. So we look at it in 2 Peter chapter two. 2 Peter chapter two and we’re looking verse one. But there were false prophets then, and he says there’s false prophets now. And there were those false prophets and false teachers in the Old Testament and we’ve got them in the New Testament. And he says in verse two, and many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

The way of truth, he says, you’ve already believed the present truth. You know what you believe. So look there in chapter 1. I’m very seldom starting one verse at the first thing, go through. I always jump here and there and around the square. But here in Second Peter in chapter one. I want you to notice a couple things here in verse one. Simon Peter a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.

Faith that comes by hearing, and this is why he says here about this precious, precious faith. And this precious faith is precious because of believing something. See the verse 4? Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises. So when you have precious promises, your faith is precious because of what you’re trusting in. You’re believing what God said. So what we have done is we heard the promise that God would give us as a free gift everlasting life.

if we would simply trust Christ as our Savior. So we believe that. We believe that promise. And look what that little faith in that precious promise is God in force. We became a child of God. And because of the divine nature. There is the divine power. See there in verse three. According to his divine power, and then look down in verse four, divine nature. So our salvation was totally dependent upon his power, not ours. That’s why salvation is of the Lord, because man has no power to save himself.

And then when you read 1 Peter in chapter one, it says, you’re saved. You’re saved and been born again. The verse is saved. before in verse 3, chapter 1, he says, you’re saved to an inheritance that’s incorruptible and undefiled that fate of not a way reserved in heaven for you who are kept saved by the power of God. You’re saved by the power of God and you are kept saved by the power of God. So this is the divine power of God that gave us this new birth.

Something the world could not do, something that you could not make happen. So by trusting Christ, He gave you this wonderful, wonderful salvation. And then with that new salvation that He gave you and saved you, He gave you a divine nature and you are born of God, a child of God. But notice what He says here in verse 3. He says, according as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. So after you trust Christ to save you, do you believe that God wants you to live a godly life?

But we don’t do it to be saved, but because we are God’s children, you want to understand when you know who you are, then you should understand how you’re to live. Now if I was a fireman, I would think, Now what do firemen do? Well they put out firemen. Okay, now I know what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to put out fires. Well if I was a policeman, I was born as a policeman. Well, I gotta figure out what a policeman do.

Find out what a policeman does. No, no, I know what I’m supposed to do. But I’m a Christian. What do Christians do? Well, I need to find out from Christ what Christians are supposed to do. We find that in the Word of God. You don’t go to secular colleges and universities to find the will of God for your life. You go to the Word of God and you study what God’s Word says, okay, I am a Christian. This is who I am.

Now I know what I’m supposed to do. God wants me to build my life strong upon His Word and to add to my faith, add to my faith. So you notice why he says this. verse three, through the knowledge of him that have called us to glory and virtue, which means moral excellence, that in your life you’re not only a moral person, but you have moral excellence in your life, that you should and I should live as holy and godly as we possibly can.

Lost people should not live a more godly like life than what his own children should. Therefore, I believe that we should have high standards and do right, and I believe it’s the will of God. But I do not tell a lost man that you have to serve God and add to your faith that they don’t have it yet. I believe the most important thing is get people born and then after they’re born, then I talked to them about serving the Lord.

I believe it’s more important. Look what he says here in verse 4, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises. That by these precious promises you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. No I I believe there’s several things that could be mentioned from this. This is also mentioned in chapter 2. But once you and I trust Christ the Savior, the new birth alone separates you from everybody else in the world that doesn’t know the Lord.

All of God’s children are separate from the world children. There’s the devil’s kids, then there’s God’s kids. And God’s children are supposed to live like the Lord. And if you don’t, you could, as a child of God, live like the devil’s kids. And then the world doesn’t know who you are, but I believe that some Christians, they are secret service Christians. See, this is my bad. I’m a secret service Christian. Nobody knows. . Well, I believe the whole world ought to know.

Now, isn’t it something that if you was in some other foreign country and you knew that if they found out you were a Christian, they would kill you? That’s happening. It’s been on the news lately. Just this this week. Somebody that became a Christian, I hope they did. That’s what they’ve done. They trust the Lord. And so there’s a great penalty and be put to death. But notice what he says. here. And the last part of verse 4, escape the corruption that is in the world through the lust.

The lust of the flesh is of the old nature, your old man. He has the lust of the flesh and is very real. And God wants you to escape the power of the sinful nature. And the only way to escape the power of the sinful nature is through a new nature. You know, this is one of the things that the government cannot do. And if you listen to, you know, the news and you can hear Hannity and you can listen to Rush Limbaugh and you can listen to, well, O’Reilly and you listen to all of them.

And they always talking about how wicked wrong the government is. But I don’t think they understand. That’s the result of not being right spiritually. See America has a spiritual problem and government can’t fix the spiritual problem. Even in the Old Testament God had his kings but he had his prophets and today we have our leaders but we still have preachers. Preachers are supposed to teach the people that spiritual truth that gives the soul anchor so that you have some basis for your beliefs of.

Why do you do what you do? And we often say there’s two things you never argue about and that’s religion in politics. But that’s all there is. Religion is How you think and politics is how you live. So every man has a governmental system set up within him. Why do you do what you do? Well, because of what you believe. So we are to try to help form the manners of kids and their discipline and their temperament and all these things as part of education.

So you have to give them spiritual training by which true education cannot take place. unless there is spiritual basis. Why do you believe what you believe? And see, the government can’t teach that. It’s not even the role of government. So we’re supposed to add to our faith because if you don’t add to what you believe, even though you have present truth and you’re doing great and you’re strong as an ox, did you know it doesn’t take much to bring you down?

You can just have one bad day, one bad phone call, one bad person telling you something, and it can just drain all of the joy right out of you. And it’s true? And it doesn’t matter how high you were, it’s where are you and how high are you at your lowest moment? Did you know some people, their lowest moment is higher than most people ever get, because they never get up. They’re never excited. I remember listening to Freddy Colle and he says, you’re not excited about this.

I can tell you’re not excited about this. And so he kind of works the crowd and never saw that. I don’t know if that was a good analogy or not. there now in verse five and beside this, beside that giving all diligence add to your faith. You see these false teachers are going to trick you. They’re going to lie to you. They’re going to make merchandise of you. They’re going to buy you. They’re going to buy you. See that’s what false teaching does.

It buys you. Offers you something but it’s going to tell you how dissatisfied you are with what you have. In order for the principle of replacement to work, they’ve got to make sure you’re dissatisfied with what you have and with what God is doing for you and in you and through you so that they can offer you something up because you wouldn’t give it up if you know there’s nothing better. But sometimes you get to thinking, I haven’t seen God’s blessings yet.

I’ve been working like crazy, giving it all I got. I’m tired, weary, and worn, and it just doesn’t seem like there’s no fruit like I’d like to see. And so, a long come to devil and whisper some new teaching in your ear, take of that, oh, don’t that feel good? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s because what you believe isn’t really the best, and gets you to believe another teaching. The Bible talks about trying the spirits. So how do you try the spirits?

Well, you put a chair there and you put a spirit in the chair and you have a court. You tried the spirits by their teaching. What does the man teach? That false teacher, that prophet. Is he teaching what thus saith the Lord? And if he’s not teaching what the word of God says, should you believe him? them, go by the book. Don’t let your down moments, your days of discouragement, get you to the place where you want to just, you know, maybe I’m doing something wrong.

You begin to question yourself, doubt yourself. And it always gets you to the place where I quit. I’m not going to do it anymore. And you become weary and worn. You have to always be aware of the wiles of the devil. He still tricks and how he baits us. And that’s what he does. But look what he says here. Add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance. That means self-control and to temperance patience. Isn’t that the hardest thing to ever teach children?

Teaching them patience. You can’t have what you want when you want it. You throw a tantrum. There you go. And then you’ve, alright, alright, just stop that and then you give up. And you give in. And so you did that and so you trained them that when they don’t get their way with God, throw a tantrum. Have you ever seen adults, throw tantrums, spiritual tantrums? That’s when you find out what their character is really all about. This is why the word virtue come before knowledge because knowledge can only just it can pop you up.

But virtue is that moral excellence. That desire to want to be your best. That desire to want to achieve what God wants you to have. And because of that you need to know this and you need to know this. And so you have a reason for the knowledge. But you see if it’s just knowledge that you want. Well, I don’t vent through the Bible on our time. Don’t try to tell me what the Bible says. Yeah, but your life’s a mess.

Your emotion is, your shot. I mean, you’ve done blown your fuse. And it’s kind of like a nearsighted turtle fell in love with our helmet. You just can’t see, you’ve lost focus. And you can’t see a far off. And believe it or not, this is what he says right here. But it says here in verse 7 and 2, godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity. So you see, these are some important things that can help us. And in verse 8, if these things be in you and abound, then it means you are going to be strong enough to withstand the false teaching.

Because he says, you know some of these things, but I’ve got to stir up your mind. Lest you become weary and faint. And you want to just give up and quit. You have been listening to another great message from Dr. Arnold, and we hope that Bibleline is a blessing to you. In appreciation for your support of this ministry, we’d like to send to you a gift. During this month, for a gift in any amount, we’re going to send the Bible promise book.

It is a book that organizes verses of the Bible by topic. For example, if you wanted to know of verses that address humility, or forgiveness, or obedience, you would simply find that topic in the table of contents, go to the chapter listed, and there you would find the verses that address that topic. It’s a wonderful study guide and resource for your own devotions, as well as for lesson preparation, and we’ll send it to you for a gift in any amount for this month.

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.