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 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.

But anyway, I want to have you take your Bible and turn to the 1 Corinthians in chapter 2 Now I’ve been to these scriptures many, many times and you’ve heard them a lot of times yourself. But I was thinking the other day, what would you believe about God if there was no Bible? If you didn’t have a Bible, what would you believe if there was no Bible? Nobody would ever say anything about heaven or hell or the apostles, you wouldn’t heard about the prophecies.

There’s no Israel, let’s just, you were born and you lived, what would you believe? What would you think? The Bible kind of gives you a description of that in the book of Ephesians in chapter 2, you were without hope. But you didn’t know there was such thing as hope. What would you know? Did you realize that the only thing that makes a difference is what God has revealed? God has manifested certain things so that we could know. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know.

So you say, do you believe in God? Yes, I do. All right, why would you believe in God? There was no Bible, no nothing. Why would you believe in God? And you say, well, because what I see, what would you know about God because of what you see? Would you know that God loves you or anything like that? How would you know? And what if you asked a question, God, why did you make me? If there was no Bible, you know, you’re just left to your own imagination and but it can run wild.

Or you might even come to the place that you don’t even believe that there is a God. You hear about this atheist? He says, I don’t believe in God. I hadn’t told me that. I don’t believe in God. I said, well, have you heard the newest? I said, what’s that? God don’t believe in atheist. God don’t believe in atheist. God don’t believe that there’s such thing as an atheist. God believes everybody believes that there’s a God. You have to teach yourself to not believe in God.

So anyway, I like my answer better. I don’t believe in God. Well, God don’t believe in you either. Really, anyway, as we move in right along. In the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 2, notice there. In verse 9 where it makes a statement, but as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. So you haven’t seen it, you haven’t heard all the things that God has for us, but the Bible does tell us that he has revealed them unto us.

See there in verse 10, but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. Now so if it’s revealed then that’s revelation. So we have revelation from God and telling us the deep things of God, the hidden things of God, things that man cannot know, man can’t find on his own. So God revealed them. And then he also makes a statement here in verse 12. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit of which is of God.

And that is we’ve called before it. That’s illumination where God can reveal things, but you can’t discern it. But with the Holy Spirit, you have discernment given to you and it illuminates your mind. And then down there in verse 13 where he says, which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things by spiritual means or with spiritual. So that’s inspiration where God has inspired his word and we have the word of God.

So we have, yes, an advantage and we can know some of these things that God has done for us. Ephesians chapter 4, look there in Ephesians chapter 4, how would you be thinking today if there was no revelation, no inspiration, no illumination? God didn’t do anything. You just created and here you are. And maybe you just think, well, I’m just a blob of protoplasm floating around in the ooze of an isle. After millions and millions of years, here I am.

Well, aren’t you glad you’re more than that? I’m so glad that God had a reason. He had a purpose and he told us about it. What would we do if we didn’t have a Bible? Then you stop and think about this. Since God has given us all of this, don’t you think it’d be a shame for people never to have read it? You can’t know about God except through this book and then people don’t read it. I don’t want to know my God.

And so they don’t have any idea what this book says. And they just let them on in their imagines like it never happened. And yet we have in our hands the greatest treasure we could ever have, the Word of God. And then on top of that, a lot of people who trust Christ as Savior, they don’t read the Bible to study it. But what I want you to see here in Ephesians in chapter 4, you’re in those in verse 17, verse 17 down to verse 24, very interesting.

This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth from now on, walk not as other Gentiles walked in the vanity of their mind. So that’s the way you were. That’s the way you walked. That’s the way you thought. That’s the way you lived. So in the next verse, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. So when you’re ignorant, you blind yourself even more.

You realize there’s so many people that are ignorant of what God has revealed. Think of how many people don’t know how to get to heaven yet. There it is. Don’t even know God. but there it is, the understanding of how we can know all of these things. Just look there in Ephesians chapter two, look what he says in verse 12, I 11, and look what he says as he relates back to the way you were, when you didn’t know, when you didn’t know, and verse 11, wherefore remember, remember that you’ve been in time packed Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that, which is called the circumcision in the flesh, made by hand that at that time, you know, before, remember, you were without Christ.

Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world. You’re in the world, but you’re without God. You’re without hope. How empty everything would be. In the vanity of your mind you’re left to your own devices and you can only know what man can tell you because you can’t get that knowledge from any other source. If there is no God, if there is no Bible, you’re limited to only knowing what previous people have learned and you study their thoughts and then life is over when you finally figured out what’s going on maybe you die and we’re all going to die and yet at the same time is there’s things that live longer than we know humans why in the process of evolution we didn’t take all the best attributes of all the creation that there

is and keep it all in one person when you love to have the eye of an eagle the speed of a jaguar or what’s the fastest one? A cheetah? Wouldn’t you like to be able to run that fast? Be able to see that good and jump as high as a… Well, I don’t know. Kangaroo, take the best of everything, wouldn’t you? Love to be that. Fly? But yet these little old bitty things that came from nothing developed wings to fly with, and you didn’t do it.

Why didn’t you do it? If it was left up to us, why did all of it pick and choose and just certain things have it? Why couldn’t it have all been in one?elvet? That’s how I would have done it if I could have done it. Anyway, you look back here and you see all this. In verse 19 again, who being past feelings have given themselves over to less civiousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. That’s what we would have done.

Every man would do exactly what he wants to do in his own eyes. There would be no such thing as morality. There’s no right and there’s no wrong. Because who’s to say what’s right and wrong? How do you know what’s right and how do you know what’s wrong? Take the Bible away. Well, see, this is where people are in America. They don’t believe in God and they don’t believe in the Bible, then they don’t have a source of truth.

Then what is morality? This is why when you start opening that door, okay, we’ll let two men get married. Okay, now you got to let two women get married. And then you open that door, now we got to have it to where, well, now they got to be acceptable. So now you got to discriminate, where you can’t discriminate, can’t unerase and, you know, sex and so forth. Now it’s going to get down to, well, that means that you have to hire them, whatever.

You can’t block anything anymore. And they take it away the rights of everybody else trying to preserve the, well, they’re a minority. You know, we’ve got to protect the rights of the minority. So while we’re protecting the rights of the minority of the homosexuals, now we’re going to have to to protect the rights of the thieves and the rights of the murderers. See, I see homosexuality as wicked as a sin, as murder, adultery, you know, stealing. It’s a sin, so therefore it should be a crime.

But anyway, those are my humble opinions. Sometimes we have people that say, you ought to keep your opinions to yourself. Okay, I just told you what the Bible says. I just happened to agree with God. And anyway, he says here in verse 20, but ye have not so learned Christ. Now all of this, what you learn from Christ is knowledge that’s been revealed. It’s different stuff than the human perspective. This is from a divine point of view. Let me ask you a question.

Is the church a divine institution? Is marriage a divine institution? It was started by God. So marriage ought to be a holy thing. And a man and a woman should love each other and be faithful to each other. And what about a church? The church is a divine institution. It was founded by Christ upon his word. Therefore, what we say and what we do bring honor and glory to the one that started it and founded it. And He gave us a constitution of how we’re supposed to function.

In every individual, well, we have certain responsibilities, spiritual responsibilities. We’re to listen, to learn, to grow, challenge, motivate, exhort, rebuke, if necessary, but don’t all these things. So He says in verse 21, if so be that you have heard Him and have been taught by Him. Have you been taught by the Lord? If you have, then it should make a difference. Take your Bible and turn to 1 John chapter 1, 1 John chapter 1, 1 John in chapter 1.

And you’ll find out that this is talking about God manifesting something. We would never have known if God had not taken the initiative. In verse one that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life. Jesus Christ came in the flesh. We saw Him. We heard Him. We handled Him. We saw Him. He was right there and they watched a manifestation of God.

And so he says in verse two, for the life eternal life was manifested. So that means if it had not been manifested, you could not know something that God has revealed. You’d have never known it unless God intervened. So he has and blessed us by giving us his word. And he makes a statement here. And bear witness and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father. with the Father was manifested unto us. So if God had not manifested, made it known, revealed it, you and I would not know.

We would not have this revelation. Now, in the book of John in chapter one, I want you to go back to the gospel of John, and I might come back to the book of John, I mean the first John in just a minute, but look there in the book of John in chapter one, John chapter 1. In look in verse 9, that was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Every man is born in darkness without the knowledge of God, without understanding.

And it is God who takes initiative and reveals things to us. And you know according to the book of Romans in chapter 1 that the invisible things of him are clearly seen because God has revealed them, talking about his eternal power and God had so that they are without excuse. But mankind, when he knew God, he glorified him not as God, became vain in their own imagination and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the corruptible beast.

So changing things because they can’t believe the truth. So they change the truth into a lie. So in verse 90 says that light of every man that cometh into the world, then every man is in darkness unless the light comes to them. And God says, go into all the world and preach the gospel so that every man can have light. Now every man has a certain amount of light are within him. Even the law of conscience, which is talked about in the biblical Romans in chapter 2, where even though they had not the law, they still had reason.

And God says they could see and they could understand that of his eternal power. And so he had two things that he gave. One is the word, one is the world. So the world we use reason and with the word we use a revelation. So man is accountable to God. He’s responsible and he says here light of every man that cometh into the world but what if God never gave any truth, any light, how dark, how dark our world would be.

And so this is why when Christ takes the church out of here how dark the world is going to be. Now we’re not talking about the lights aren’t shining or there’s no sun and there’s no moon at the end of the tribulation period, yes, but it’s talking about because there’s no light, there’s no truth. And in the book of Isaiah talks about if somebody speaks blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, he says if it’s not according to truth because there’s no light in it, there’s no truth in there.

Truth in light is pretty much the same thing. So it’s important. 1 John chapter 4, 1 John chapter 4, 1 John chapter 4, and look in verse 9, verse 9. It makes the statement, in this was manifested. The love of God toward us. Now, you would not even know anything about God or the power of God if God had not revealed these things to us. But now he’s talking about the love of God is manifested. God manifests His love.

How do you know God loves us? How do you know God loves us? You see, if you didn’t have the Bible and you believed that there was a God and when few looked upon the world and you saw all the bad stuff, you can’t find a a person really that good that you could say, there is the righteous individual because they wouldn’t have the power of the Holy Spirit. And they all do things wrong. And look at all the wars, there’s rape, murder, you name it, and there it is.

All the sickness, all the things going on all over the world. And if you had to come to a conclusion about what is God like? Well, if God made this… You would say, I’m not impressed. Or if you looked into the mirror, say, God made this, you said, well, if I was God, I could have done a better job than this. And then if you look at yourself when you were young, yeah, that’s one thing. But if you look in the mirror today, remember, you are looking the best that you will ever be in the future.

Doesn’t that make you feel a little bit better? From this day forward, chances are you are not going to improve. Think about that, Angel. From this point on, you’re never going to look any better than you look right now. Isn’t that enough to kind of, you know, he said, I shouldn’t have come to church today. And we’re getting older and then we see death everywhere. So if you had to conclude, what is God like? Is he a good God or a bad God?

And so people think, well, if there is a God and he is in charge, look what he did. And without understanding about how we got the sinful nature. See, this isn’t what man did because he rebelled against light, rebelled against the Lord. consequences, yes, but how would you say that I know God loves me? So God manifested his love in such a way that you and I could really understand. Number one, you had to let you see just how bad you are, how bad things are, and that you are going to die.

If you could live here forever, why should I worry about going to heaven forever? I’m want to be here forever. So God lets you see, hey, where’s your mother and father? Oh, they died. Your grandparent, well, they died. Hey, you’re next. You’re next on the list. You’re going to die. So without understanding something, so you and I would not make wise decision. God doesn’t want robots, but He has designed life in such a way that you want something better.

And you want to live long and you want to have a nice happy healthy life, but you wouldn’t know what a happy life would be if you didn’t have some misery in your life. If you didn’t have some pain, you would know that heaven is going to be without pain. Say, what pain? God says, I’ll give you a touch of it and let you see so you’ll know what pain is. I’ll let you have some experiences in sorrow and grief so that when Yav’ah tell you you want to go to a place where you don’t have none of that?

Yes, I do. Hey, the desire has already been created. Isn’t God good? That we want something better. Then he tells us there’s only one way to get it and that was through Christ. So here in verse 8, he that love of not, know of not God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us.

And how do you know? He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That big old word propitiation simply means He became the payment for our sins. God was satisfied with the payment Christ made for our sins. So God is willing to accept that payment He made for you. And all you have to do is believe it. So He put it on the level that anybody can have it so we could know all of this and have this confidence and this great assurance.

So this is why it’s manifested in the Word of God and God is told us these things. Look in 1 John chapter 3, look in verse 8. We know that the devil is real, we know sin is real, and we know that God is real, and we know Christ is real. So what do we have to do to eliminate and to destroy the works of the devil? either in verse 8, he that commiteth sin is of the devil. For the devil sineth from the beginning.

For this purpose, see that word purpose? This purpose. The Son of God was manifested. Why did Christ come into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil? He is a liar. He’s a sinner, he has influenced the world, and all those who are born in the world have an old sinful nature, just like the devil. So Christ came into the world to destroy the works of the devil. So what Christ did is He died on that cross, paid for the sins of the whole world, and by giving you and I the new birth, were able to let the first birth die and get a new birth that has no sinful nature.

The new birth, the new nature cannot sin. And therefore, whenever we all leave this world, those who have trusted Christ as Savior, we’re going to a place and the works of the devil has been destroyed. Now see, He’s already lost. It’s just that He hasn’t been put away yet. He’s still free to do certain things. You and I have already received our new birth in Christ when you trusted Christ as your Savior. But let’s like you can take a flower and you can cut it.

And it’s dead because it’s separated from the source of life. But it still looks good and we can put it in some water and it’s great. But you know it’s only a matter of time before it’s going to wither, right? You and I trusted Christ as our Savior. We were cut off. That old man has been cut off, crucified. We have been given a new birth. But since that day, I’ve still got this old withering body and it’s getting older and older and it’s just fading away.

That’s why they talk about postman. They never die, they just lose their zip. Oh well, it’s gonna be a long day. But the work that the devil has done is going to be destroyed. When Christ came, see, he had victory over sin and over death and over the devil. He had victory. Well, he gave us his victory and this old man one day is gonna be put into the ground and the body’s dead, gone. But my new birth I’ll live with the Lord for all eternity.

But the work, remember Christ wanted to destroy it, the work. He was manifested to destroy the work of the, this is why in your Christian life God gave to you the Holy Spirit, not on Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit. And so the the Holy Spirit lives within us. And as you yield to what God says to do, you are little by little, destroying the power that the devil has in your life. When you grow strong in the Lord and you walk with the Lord, then you’re not walking in the flesh, you’re walking in the Spirit.

So you’re destroying the work that Satan wants to do in your life. Christians, they haven’t learned it yet and they still are manifesting the works of the devil. Know anybody like that? Glad there’s nobody here like that. So if you don’t walk with the Lord and stay strong in the Lord, there’s going to be the works of the devil. Can a Christian do the work of the devil? I hate to say it but yes they can. Well it’s almost Christmas and we’d like to give every listener a Christmas gift.

Just for listening, we’d like to send Dr. Arnold CD on understanding difficult passages of the Bible. No donation is required. We’ve compiled on CD Dr. Arnold’s teachings on difficult passages. For example, does James chapter 2 teach that true faith will produce works? Does 2 Corinthians 5, 17 mean that a true believer will no longer desire to sin? These and many other verses are explained in their biblical context so that You can have confidence in the agreement of all the Word of God.

Call us today toll free at 1-800-576-3771 or you can write us at 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again no donation is necessary, just your address so that we can send to you this important teaching. God bless you and Merry Christmas and thank you for listening to 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. Cut up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.