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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 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.

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 1, it says, you’re saved and been born again, the verse before in verse 3, chapter 1. It says, you’re saved to an inheritance that’s incorruptible and undefiled, that fate of not a weight reserved in heaven for you who are kept saved by the power of God. 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 to 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, then, 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 got to figure out what a policeman do, find out what a policeman does. Oh, 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 and 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, in 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 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 talk to them about serving the Lord.

And I believe it’s more important. The look what he says here in verse four, 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 believe there’s several things that could be mentioned from this. This is also mentioned in chapter two. But once you and I trust Christ the Savior, the new birth alone separates you from everybody else in the world that that doesn’t know the Lord.

All of God’s children are separate from the world of 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 were 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 week. Somebody that became a Christian, I hope they did. That’s what they’ve done, the Trust the Lord. And so there’s a great penalty and be put to death. But notice what he says here. In 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 and 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 and 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? 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 Freddie Colle and says, you’re not excited about this. Sorry, you’re not excited about this. I can tell you’re not excited about this. And so he kind of works the crowd and everything.

I like that a hollering and yelling and screaming and so forth, kind of like, you know, milking the cow and kind of get all you came out of it. I don’t know if I was a good analogy. I’m not a good analogy. Look 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. Given it all I’ve 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, along come the devil and whisper some new teaching in your ear. Take a look at that. Oh, don’t that feel good? Yeah, yeah. It’s because what you believe isn’t really the best and gets you to believe another teaching.

The Bible talks about try into 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? 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, his little tricks and how he baits us. And no, 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 patient, you can’t have what you want when you want it. You throw a tantrum. You know, there they go. And then you’ve, all right, all right, 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 comes before knowledge. Because knowledge can only just, it can puff 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 done been through the Bible a hundred times.

Don’t try to tell me what the Bible says. Yeah, but your life’s a mess. Your emotion is, you’re 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. Believe it or not, this is what he says right here. But he says here in verse seven and two, godliness, brotherly kindness, and two brotherly kindness, charity.

So you see, these are some important things that can help us. And in verse eight, if these things be in you and abound, then it means you are gonna 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. Listen, we’re too close to home, aren’t we? We’re too close to home.

Don’t blow it now. You sure I’ve been faithful for 20, 30 years. It’s time I had a little fun on my own. And some people think when they take a vacation, that means a vacation also from God, from their discipline, from responsibilities. I don’t hear where you go. Even if you’re on a vacation, you still have a responsibility. Missionaries don’t quit. They’re better than the postman. Rain or shine or whatever. No, they say the postman doesn’t die. They just lose their zip.

Oh, well, there’s a point there sometimes. I’ll just zip right along. where it is. But in verse 8, if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall need to be barren because evidently God doesn’t want you to be barren. And God doesn’t want you to be unfruthful. So God wants you to be very fruitful in your life. But to be fruitful and to maintain fruitfulness in your life and stability and all that, you have to add these other things.

So it’s one thing to be saved. Happy, turn a life and go to heaven, but it’s quite another thing to grow strong in the Lord. And this is why it is so important. Let me just see that one verse over here. Look there in 2 Peter chapter 3 and look in verse 17. And you’ll see once again, he kind of helps you to remember why this book was written. Yee therefore, beloved, so he’s talking to believers, not talking about how they save.

Seeing you know these things, you know them. Beware lest ye also, being led away with the air of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. So is it possible for a Christian who knew the truth, walked according to the truth, to fall from their steadfastness? Yes. Just because you were faithful yesterday doesn’t mean you’re going to be faithful tomorrow. It doesn’t mean that. Every day is a challenge. Every day has something that will try your faith. That’s why in the book of 1 Peter 1, it makes a statement, the trial of your faith, been much more precious than gold and silver, though it would be tried with fire.

He says, shall we found on the praise, honor and glory at the appearance of Jesus Christ. Christ. So God doesn’t give you praise, honor, and glory here. And now He said, I’m going to give it to you later. Well, that’s a long time away. And so you get tired of waiting for that praise because down here people don’t always praise you for what you do. They don’t always honor you because of what you’re worthy of. Some people don’t know how valuable you are and how important the work is that you do.

So because they don’t don’t see that, they don’t appreciate you like they should. And so you’re going to get down in the dumps. You know what a long-winger took his garbage? Doodododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododododod___ Oh well, we’ll write along. Look now in verse 18, and see these words? But grow in grace. That’s what he’s talking about in chapter 1, when he’s talking about add to your faith means to grow in grace. That means to be able to have the power that you need in your life to withstand all of the charges of the devil.

And that’s why he says in the book of Ephesians, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. So it’s where you learn how to believe the precious promises that God has given. And that’s what makes your faith in the Lord precious faith. So when he says here in verse 18, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, do him be glory for now and also down the road forever.

Now go back to chapter 1. So God does want us to grow, learn more, be disciplined, all these things. He wants us to be fruitful in verse 9, but he that lacketh these things, now is he talking to lost people now, saved. He’s talking to the saved people and he says, but he that lack of these things because these things that should be added to your life, you haven’t done this. You’re lacking something in your life. So the way I see people is you know sometimes they run like a broken down Volkswagen.

They’re Mercedes but they run like a broken down Volkswagen. Now you don’t have to you know junk the whole car, find out there might be just a little part missing, a little part that’s broken. Fix that and then they’ll run like a Mercedes. So you see people, there’s people who need to be fixed and they need some encouragement and you can fix this. If I can fix this one thing in this person, that person will run smooth. But just like in everything, you know, you have to keep maintenance.

In your Christian life is always maintenance because he says in the book of Titus, he said that you maintain good work. You can start them, but maintain. So you’re always doing maintenance on yourself, trying to find out what is bothering me, what’s causing me not to run the way I should run, what is my hang up, what’s my problem. And sometimes it’s just a little thing, just a little thing. Sometimes it just takes just a little word from somebody to really discourage you.

But you know somebody else can come along and say just the right word to encourage you. That’s why always be nice to people, always encouraging people because everybody has a rough time, everybody struggles, even you do. So unless you learn how to encourage yourself and the Lord you can be very, very discouraged. And so He makes a statement in verse 9, but He that lack of these things is blind cannot See you far off and half forgotten. He half forgotten.

That he was perched from his old sins or that old nature that you had that old man. God has done some great things for you because this is what he’s talking about with this divine nature having escaped the corruption and that is in the world through lust. And you forget what God has done for you. Now remember this. Add to your faith. And as he says this, he says, make your calling and election sure for if he do these things you shall never what?

You won’t fall. See over there in chapter 3 when we talked about in verse 17, be aware, lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked fall from your steadfastness. So he’s talking about God’s children fall from their steadfastness. You’re not faithful like you used to be. I talk to people all the time that, yeah, I used to go to church. I’d reach to read the Bible and I used to pray and I used to witness and I used to, yeah, you’re used to.

But they don’t do it anymore. So somewhere along the line, they have listened to air in their teaching. Somebody’s taught them something contrary to what God’s Word has to say. And you fall from that steadfastness. But it’s said, if you add to your faith, then you won’t have to fall. And not only now, the blessings of now and the people that you can influence now, but look what he talked about in the future, in the future. See what he says in verse 11, for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

That means somebody has to be watching what you do in order to determine whether or not, oh yeah, you got there. But what kind of an entrance you’re going to have. Hey, you don’t decide over here. Look at this. Here he comes. It’s Peter O’Mato. Let’s hear it for Peter Roboto. And next you know, wouldn’t it be good? Or are you the one, the one who ever says, oh here comes Bob Brooks.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Some little kid might be, well at least somebody like what I said. Thank you buddy. So you’re not just talking about, hey I’m going to heaven when I die. Yeah we’re going to heaven. But you want to hear the Lord say, well done, thou good and faithful servant and abundant interest. I don’t know what it all means. I just know it’s got to have to mean something. It has to be good.

It has to be worth it, wouldn’t you think? Don’t you think so? Just nod your head like this once in a while. Just let me know you’re not asleep. Okay. All right, good deal. Appreciate that. So that’s why he made this statement in verse 12, I will not be negligent in teaching you these things because it affects not only now, it affects eternity. Serving the Lord is worth it. So if I was gonna try to discourage you and I was not right with the Lord, then you would try to say and do things that would keep people from being faithful to the Lord.

Did you know that, for example, if you get your feelings heard about something and you quit coming to church, did you know that it wasn’t just you you heard? You hurt the people that might stop because of you. The people that got discouraged because, well, I thought they were stronger than me. And if they’re stronger than I am, and they couldn’t handle it, I might as well give up too”]=>. And you’d be surprised how we influence other people. You influence others, people influence you.

How many times have you come to church, or Sunday school or church? And you look around and say, I wonder where so and so is. I wonder what happened to them. I wonder why they don’t come anymore. Have you ever done that? And they didn’t actually know somebody else? Listen, where’d they go? Well, if they’re not coming, I’m not either. And people influence other people. What do you think, and this is how you got to think, what do you think God wants you to do?

You always ask, Lord, what do you want me to do? Do what other people do or do what you want me to do. Always seek the Lord’s will and everything that you do. All I want anybody to do is what you honestly sincerely believe. God wants you to do and do that and do it as honestly as you possibly can because you believe that it will be worth it all. And you believe that one of these days. You’re going to have a great interest into the kingdom of God.

We’re not there yet. We’re still here. And there’s a lot of negative teaching that doesn’t come from God, doesn’t come from the Word, but it’s in this world. And it can make a difference in your life and how you think and feel. It’s a good thing to know. Let me give you a couple things before we quit here. Looking verse 15, Moreover, I will endeavor that ye may be able after my disease to have these things always in remembrance.

And then he tells them this, For we have not followed cunningly be wise fables when we made known unto you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But were eyewitnesses of his majesty? Peter now goes all the way back to the time in Matthew 17 when they were taken upon the Mount of Transfiguration, and they saw the Lord because He says, there’s some of you standing here that will not taste of death until you see the Son of man in his kingdom.

And all of a sudden Christ is glorified right in front of them, and I’m talking about He is glowing and brighter than the Son, and a voice in my heaven says, this is my beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased. And He says, even though I was at eyewitness, and even though I was there, and I heard his voice and what he said. We have a more sure word of prophecy. We have the word of God. We have something better than that experience that I had.

Because that’s an experience that you can’t forget happened once, but you have the word of God that you can read over and over and over and over. And if you forget, you can go back and read it again and again and again. And so that’s why he says there in verse 19, we have a more sure word of prophecy. We’re unto ye do well that you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your heart.

Know in this verse that no prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation. It doesn’t stand alone. It’s all working together, all scripture. For the prophecy came not an old time by the will of man, But holy men of God spake as they were moved or guided along by the Holy Spirit. You have something that’s special, that’s better than what I heard and better than what I saw even when I was an eyewitness. But I want you to remember you have the sure word of God and believe it and don’t let anything deter you from doing what God wants you to do with your life.

Let’s pray, shall we? Our Father, we do thank you so much for your word that you’ve given to us. us to be encouraged. It does sometimes seem like we’re barren, there’s no fruit, efforts are all in vain, that there’s no results or consequences that we can see. And so Lord, it does take its toll. But bless each one of us. Encourage each one of us. We thank you for your word that you’ve given us in Christ and every prayer.

Amen. You have been listening to another great message from Dr. Arnold, and we hope that Bible 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.