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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 message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians 1, 1 Corinthians 1. Verse 18 says for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish Foolishness But unto us which are saved the power of God We are saved By the power of God The Holy Spirit is the power of God That’s why Jesus says you must be born again born by the Spirit of God born by the power of God. You’re not born again by the power of man, by the will of man, by the will of the flesh, not by your own power, not by your work.

You’re born again by the power of God. It’s a spiritual birth. But he says in verse 19, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. In other words, the wise men of the world, the prudent men of the where we cannot see, they cannot touch, they cannot understand this new birth because it’s of God. And the things that are of God, the natural man cannot understand. It is the message of the gospel that is the light, the illumination of a man’s mind so he can perceive divine truths.

The gospel is the lens by which we see the face of God. That’s why it says in the book of Corinthians in chapter 4, it says, the glorious light of the gospel is what causes us to see the face of God, who God is, what He has done. This is why He didn’t say, go into all the world and preach the book of Daniel or preach the book of Revelation, though I love prophecy. But he says, going nowhere and preach the gospel.

The gospel is the story by which God uses to pierce into the heart of a lost man. That is the light which illuminates his mind. It helps him to see. Look in verse 21, for after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. You will not find God in the laboratory. You’re not going to find him in a test tube. Man by his wisdom cannot search and find God. And yet we can have the 200 inch hell refractor of Mount Palomar and they can scan the heavens and they got the Hubble telescope now, but they’re not going to find God.

They can’t zero in on heaven. But he makes the statement, the Jews seek after a sign, but the Greeks seek after wisdom. As far as the people upon the earth, the Jews when they came to Christ in Matthew chapter 12 says, show us a sign. Give us a sign. He says, an evil and a daughter’s generation seeketh after a sign, but there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah. For Jonah was three days and three nights in the will, but even social, the son of maybe three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The only sign you’re going to get is my resurrection. When I come back from the dead, the Greeks seek after wisdom. And that’s why you have a lot of your philosophers, the lover of wisdom that comes from the Greeks. So Christ, the wisdom of God for the Gentiles, the power of God for the Jews. So whether it’s Jews or Gentiles, Jesus Christ is the answer. And He makes the statement here in verse 26, for you see your calling brethren.

He says, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble or called. But God had chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God had chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty, base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen. Yay and things which are not to bring to not things that are, that no flesh or glory in his presence.

When you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, Christ became your righteousness. Christ became your power. Christ became your wisdom because God doesn’t use the wisdom of the world to accomplish His purpose. God has a different set of wisdom by which He wants to impart into the mind of a man by the person of the Holy Spirit so that you can understand the things that the natural man cannot understand. So He says here so that no flesh or glory into His presence by the power of the Holy Spirit, He gives you a new birth.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, He quickens you and gives you His wisdom, which comes from His Word, because He was to accomplish things in His power and not for the flesh. Even after your sate is not the flesh that God wants to glorify. God said He wants to give you His wisdom, His power to do His work His way, so that He gets all the honor and all the glory for what is done. You can do some of the things that God wants us to do in the energy of the flesh for your own personal honor and glory.

And when you do, God says you have received your reward. Paul says that when I came to you, I did not come in great words of wisdom, man’s wisdom. He says here in chapter two, he says, and I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech, my great oratory, my ability, or of my wisdom. He says, came not with excellency of speech of wisdom, declared unto you the testimony of God. You see, you and I, when we serve the Lord, we are testifying what God hath done.

It’s not your wonderful testament of how good you are, or how great you are, and great talents and abilities that you have, because once you trust Christ as your Savior, you’re not limited as you were before because of your physical body. Because the Holy Spirit living within you can quicken your mind, and the mind is that which can control the body, and you can find yourself with a whole new set of abilities, talents, gifts that you did not have before.

It’s a new birth. God is simply using the same body that you had. And you can find that you can do things you thought never possible. You can be able to speak like you thought you could never speak before. But many Christians have destroyed their effectiveness for the Lord because they have limited themselves, because they have limited the Holy One of Israel, the Holy Spirit working in their life. He says in verse 2, I determine not to know anything among you, say Jesus Christ and Him crucified because this is the only important thing that there is in the life of a lost man.

It’s the gospel that must enlighten their mind because trying to get people to live the Christian life without trusting Christ’s Savior is a total waste of time. He says, my speech in verse four and my preaching was not within Tyson words of man’s wisdom. He says that your faith in verse five should not stand in the wisdom of man but in the power of God. Then he makes a statement in verse 7, he said, if the princes of this world, the leaders of this world, the kings of this world were so smart, if they were so wise, then why did they crucify the Lord of glory?

If the leaders of the world, when Christ was here, were so smart, so good, why did they crucify Christ? Because it shows the the limitations of the human mind. Man’s wisdom cannot see and understand, cannot perceive the things that are of God. So they’re in chapter two, look in verse nine. But he makes a statement, but as it is written, I hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither has entered into the heart of man to think which God has prepared for them that love him.

Now you and I once we trust Christ as our savior. We have within us the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit living within us is to reveal to us things that God can do for us and through us that we never dream possible. You are not to limit yourself. You’re not to go through life, I can’t, I can’t. Every Christian can do what God wants him to do with their life. You’re the one who says, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

God says, you can, you can, you can. Because He says, I will help you. There is power in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells us for a reason. The Holy Spirit is God. He’s God. I have God living inside of me. When He makes a statement in verse 9, the last part of it, He says, God has prepared for them, and you ought to underline these three words, that love him. You remember Romans 828, for all things work together for good to them that love the Lord, then that love him.

All things work together for good to them that love him. To those who are called according to His purpose, those who love God, all things work together for your advantage, for good. If you love him, if you love him, the Holy Spirit that lives within you is going to teach you things that he cannot and will not teach others, even though they’re his children. Many of God’s children will not learn many things that God has for them. But he says in verse 10, to those who love him, but God has to appeal them unto us Spirit gave the Spirit search of all things, the deep things of God.

Everybody wants to know the things of God. If I could have your spirit that lives inside of you, dwell inside of me, then I could know why you think the way you, I could know how you think. I could know everything about you. But he said, for what man know of the things of a man? Say the spirit of man, which is in him, even so the things of God know of no man. Get this. The things of God know of no man.

He cannot know them, but the Spirit of God. But what if God took his Holy Spirit and gave it to you, then you could know the mind of God. You would know things and no man can judge what you know because he can’t understand that the lost man. But we have the mind of Christ. Look at the last verse, Look in verse 15. But he that is spiritual, judgeeth all things, spiritual things, godly things, can understand and see things and understand things that you cannot see with the eye and hear with the ear.

But he says, but he that is spiritual, judgeeth all things that he himself a judged of no man, no lost man, because he cannot understand. It’s a different world altogether. In the last part of verse 16, he said, but we have the mind of Christ. Now look there in verse 13. Remember when it says that when we accept Christ as our Savior, we are a new creature, new creation, and it says all things are passed away, behold all things are become new.

All divine things, godly things, not everything changed, but talking about all these things that comes from God. These are all new. My birth is new. the indwelling Holy Spirit inside of me, being able to be used as a whole wealth of wisdom and knowledge and treasure that I never had before, never knew before, talents and abilities that I didn’t have before that God can give to you and I. And he says in verse 13, which things also we speak.

He says, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches. And you’re the underline that word teach. This is one of the primary goals of the Holy Spirit. It is to teach us when you study the Bible, the author of this book that moved and motivated men to write what God told them to write is the author who lives inside of you. So every time you sit down to read the Bible, the author of the book is right there to help you understand what he said.

What they want to do is determine their morality, how they want to live, then they approach the Bible to justify what they want to do. Instead of coming to the Bible and saying, this is God’s Word, I want the Holy Spirit to teach me what it says, and then the Holy Spirit is to give you the power to fulfill what it says. And God says, I will do things and reveal things to those who love me that he will not do for those who don’t love him.

See, God will not make you love him. If you don’t love him, then God says there’s things he won’t tell you. He won’t teach you. You’ll be saved. You’ll go to heaven when you die. He says here in the last part of verse 13, but which the Holy Spirit teaches? Comparing spiritual things with spiritual or by spiritual means. So we have to understand spiritual things that are God by a spiritual means, the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit that in dwells me and you is to teach us things that no man can know.

He cannot understand. It’s the same thing with the studying of the Word of God. If you don’t love God, you don’t love the Word of God. Then you’ll read, but you won’t understand because God says he will not allow you to understand it. That’s why he says, and we will go into perfection or maturity if God permits and God’s the one that will permit it or not permit it, based upon the motive that you have. Then he says in verse 14, for the natural man, the naturalist is the lost man, receive if not the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are a Christian.

spiritually discerned. These are things that God says they have to be discerned spiritually to understand them and the lost man doesn’t have that and that’s why the lost man can never understand the things of God until first of all he understands the gospel. That’s the doorway into this new world because it’s by a new birth that God will give. John chapter 14 and notice there in verse 16, who is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is God. He says in verse 16, I will pray the Father and He shall give you another comfort that He may abide with you forever.

Even the Spirit of truth, Spirit of truth is the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 26, but the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send. So He, He, He, all the way through here, we know that the Holy Spirit is a person. He is a comforter. He is the Spirit of truth and He indwells you. Verse 21 says, He that hath my commandments and keep of them, he it is that loveth me. In other words, if you don’t serve God, you don’t love God.

I’ve had love people say, oh, I love God, but they don’t serve God. You don’t serve God, God says you don’t love him. I didn’t say that, God said that. You may be his child, you’ll go to heaven whenever you die, but if you don’t serve him his way, you don’t love him. Period, that’s what God says. Then he makes his statement. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my father. And this means in a special way.

Because God loves us all. But he said, I’m talking about in a special way. Look what he said. And I will love him and will manifest myself to him, manifest myself to him. God says, if you love me, I’ll reveal myself to you. Or what about the person who doesn’t love him? It doesn’t say he will do that. It’s to those who love him. So can you make somebody love God? You can’t make anybody love God. You see, the ones who grow to maturity are those who love the Lord.

Those who become used by God are those who love the Lord. There’s many people who don’t mind getting things from God, but they’re not willing to give to God of their life, other time, or their talents, their treasures. They don’t give to God for God’s glory. They just want to receive. We love Him because He first loved us. You receive love from God and then you give love back. And many people have never learned the secret of this powerful motivation.

First Corinthians in chapter 6, the very moment that you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. And whenever you accept Christ as your Savior, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit, a promise, that very moment, that very moment. So He He says here in 1 Corinthians 6, he says in verse 19, what? No ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, which is in you which you have of God and ye are, ye are not your own.

You don’t belong to your son. He owns you, he bought you, he paid for you. My body belongs to God. That’s why I can’t do with my body whatever I want to do with it. It’s not mine. This is his body. Your body belongs to God. Therefore you and I are to honor this house in verse 24, year bought with the price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are gods. Now I want you to look there in the book of John chapter 7, the Gospel of John and chapter 7.

We know the woman at the well was told that if you drink this water and this well, you will thirst again. But he says, I have water that if you drink it, it shall be a well of water, springing up in the everlasting life. And John chapter 7 and verse 37, it says, in the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, sin if any man thirst, let him come in to me and drink. He that believeth on me as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

When you trusted Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit indwells you to flow through you.” And He says in verse 39, But this spake ye of the Spirit that they which believe on Him should receive. But as yet, see Christ has not yet been glorified. He said, But when I ascend, He will descend. Acts chapter one and verse eight, look at it very quickly. When you say, I just don’t have power to live for the Lord. I don’t have the strength.

Yes, you do. You won’t use it. You won’t allow the Lord to help you. The Holy Spirit lives within you to give you the power that you need to do what God wants you to do with your life. But in verse eight, he says, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the othermost parts of the earth to the person who wants to serve the Lord.

Yes, he can be a witness, but many people will not be a witness around the world because they’re not even a witness at home. Isn’t because they can’t, no, because they won’t. You’re not a soul winner because you choose not to be a soul winner. It’s not that you can’t win souls, it’s that you won’t win souls. It’s not that you can’t talk to people about the Lord, It’s that you won’t talk to people about the Lord. It’s the Holy Spirit that can help you.

And the Holy Spirit wants to teach you. And the reason he teaches you is because he wants to guide you by what he taught you. And he says, the Holy Spirit will bring things to your remembrance of what he said. Don’t wait until some night, you expect some little angel to stand on your bedpost and whisper some little sweet dreams in your ear and that’s gonna be, oh God spoke to me last night. The Holy Spirit leads you according to truth.

In the book of Romans in chapter 8, it makes the statement, being led by the Holy Spirit. You’ll either be driven by the devil or led by the Lord. Always remember the Holy Spirit will always lead you according to truth. And I believe the Holy Spirit can make you sensitive to things that you would normally not be. I honestly believe at critical times in my life that the Holy Spirit has revealed things to me or caused me to be sensitive to certain things that has caused me to make decisions that has altered my life.

I believe God can make you sensitive to things that you never thought about before. I’ve had opportunities where I would witness to people because I am to obey a command. I don’t depend upon the Holy Spirit to lead me to witness, but that doesn’t mean he can’t lead me to witness. I am commanded to witness, but I believe there’s special times when God on principle in my my mind, certain people I need to talk to. And I will do that.

I was a student at Tennessee Temple. And one day out of the clear blue sky, I told Betty, I said, Betty, I felt like I’ve got to go down and talk to your granddad. I got in the car, we drove all the way to Athens, Georgia. Went down here and talked to her granddad. And I told her, I said, you get your mom and him and get your grandma and y’all get out of the way. Keep him away from him.

And I went up there and I talked to him and next thing you know he just started to squall him. He slid off the couch and got him to eat. I didn’t tell him to do anything and I got down beside him and I talked to him about the Lord. He trusted Christ as a Savior and I got my car and I left but I got there just down. Monk lady was dead. How close to the Lord you want to be?

Do you believe God literally leads you, guides you, impresses upon you, speaks to you through the Word of God. things that he wants you to do are not to do. Some people, their life is so noisy, so busy, they don’t have time to stop because sometimes God is not speaking through the tornado or the hurricane, but speaking through a what? They have small voice and some people ain’t quiet enough to hear. When you read the book of Galatians in chapter 5, it talks about walking in this spirit.

Walking in the spirit is a direction. Walking in the spirit is obeying the Word of God. And you see, you don’t ignore the Bible. And so I’m just going to depend upon the Holy Spirit to lead guide me. You dummy, don’t you understand that he don’t do it that way. He leads and guides you according to the truth of this book. And he never leads you contrary to the book. The Holy Spirit will always He’s lead you to do right.

He never leads you to do wrong. I had people do you tell me and they’re going to do something. I said, you know, I don’t believe that’s the will of God. Well, I prayed about it and I believe this is what God wants me to do. I prayed about it. A lot of sin has been committed because they said I prayed about it. It means they already have made up their mind what they’re going to do, even if it conflicts with the book and then blame it.

Well, I believe it’s God’s will for me. Well, if it’s God’s will for you, it’ll be right. doesn’t lead you to do wrong. It’ll always be right. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 says that the truths that are in this book, where you really understand them, cannot be understood by the eye or the ear. First of all, they have to be saved. But he makes that statement, I have not seen ear, have not heard, and neither have entered to the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him.

You can trust Christ’s Savior except that free gift of eternal life. You become God’s child, you go to heaven whenever you die and God will never cast you out and never lose you. That’s free. But there’s another world growing to maturity, getting old enough where you can accept spiritual responsibilities. You see like in the world, there’s people who are born, but they never mature. They can never, as an adult, take care of themselves. And many people like that in the Lawrence realm.

It’s so important. That’s why you need to have a time where you read God’s Word. Don’t depend upon what you get at church. Even if you come on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, whatever. That’s fine. But you need a personal walk with God. A personal strength and time that you spend alone just between you and God. And don’t let nobody take that away from you. Don’t get too busy that you don’t have time for it, because this is life.

This is where you get the strength, and this is where you get the power from. To do the things that God wants you to do, be faithful. Look up here, this is you and me, and this is sin. We all have sin upon us. God says that He loves us, but He hates our sin. We’re all born into this world with a sinful nature, and we’d always do these things that are wrong. And God says, the pay for the sin is eternal separation from God.

To go to heaven we have to be perfect as righteous as God and God says, by the flesh you will never be perfect because you can’t change what you are. We cannot save ourselves. This end represents Jesus Christ, He’s the Lord, He’s God in the flesh. He came into this world. He loves us but He hates our sin but our sin separates us from. See without the knowledge of the Bible we wouldn’t know this. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross and without the Bible we wouldn’t know that.

Came back from the dead and all the sins of the world have already been paid and without knowing the Bible say we wouldn’t know this These are things that are revealed to us how much God loves us and this is how he showed it and God said if we’ll believe he did it for us He would give us as a free gift eternal life So we wouldn’t know we could have eternal life and know that we’re going to heaven and we don’t have to earn it We don’t have to work for if it wasn’t for the truth found in this book So when we trust Christ as our Savior we become his child and we’ll go to heaven whenever we die So it without the Bible say you would know you were his child You wouldn’t know that you’re going to heaven and know it before you die.

You wouldn’t understand none of this stuff You would even know there was a heaven or there was a hell if it wasn’t for the truth found in this book So God says once you trust Christ to save you become his child as his child You’ll go to heaven whenever you die now because of what Christ has done for you what he’s done for me It is your choice You can love him or not love him, but he says if you love me He says I will reveal and manifest myself to you You see a lot of people want to see the will of God so they can decide whether they want to do it or not See, God will reveal things to you just like He tells us in the Book of Timothy.

Teach things to those who are faithful that they may teach others. Those who are faithful will learn things that people who are not faithful won’t learn, and they’ll be able to teach others things that they learn that others who didn’t learn can’t teach. I know you understand all of that. Let’s pray, shall we? Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr.

Arnold’s book, The Gospel Driven Man. Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones. This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics, and we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy. There’s no obligation, no donation necessary, simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of the Gospel-Driven Man.

Mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address, and God bless you 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. 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.