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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. enment. 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.

Now, the lesson that I’m talking to you about tonight, this is very, very important. You have got to understand this. Now on your notes on the top of it, I have what is God able to do for me? Now years ago, a politician says, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Well, there are some things that, you know, I’d say, ask not what God can do for you. Yeah, but I do want God to do something for me.

And you need to know what is God able to do. What is He able to do? Because if you have the theology wrong, it’ll make a difference on how you pray or even if you do pray and the fervency by which you pray. So this is a great question but I want you to know that it’s what you have to look at the last line on the whole page. Look at the last line in your notes because as we go through it this last line is going to be over and over and over again.

God’s ability, what God is able to do, does not always override the will of man. There’s many thing God is able to do, but He does not override the will of man on everything. So you need to understand that. So look at that little paragraph, the opening statement, sir. We should always keep in mind what God says He is able to do for us. We may find ourselves resisting the will of God when we think we must perform without His help.

We may also find ourselves limiting the Lord when we fail to remember what He is capable of doing. Do you know the Lord? Now, you may know Him as your Savior, but do you know Him more than just a Savior? Now, what God says He is able to do, you can capitalize upon that. But if you don’t know, you won’t ask because you don’t know everything and you’ll limit what God can do in your life and you’ll read the Scriptures and see where they limited the Holy One of Israel.

They limited Him. In other words, they could have had so much more and they didn’t get it because they resisted God and many of God’s children do exactly the same thing. So you will not ask the Lord in fervent prayer for something you do not believe He is able to perform because you and I know we have problems in our life that God can’t help us solve, right? Is there any problem too big for God to help us solve?

Or that God can even solve himself? We limit God. And so we worry because we think that if God can’t do anything about it, then it’s all on me, poor little old me. And you think I don’t have the wisdom, the skills, the ability, the talent, I do it and you fall apart because you don’t know what God is able to do. Now every one of these verses is important to look at in your scripture. So look there in the book of Hebrews chapter 7, Hebrews chapter 7 and try to resist the temptation to go further in your notes than where I am.

Alright, in Hebrews in chapter 7 and verse 25 it makes a statement, Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveeth to make intercession for them to the uttermost. Now I’ve heard preachers say from the uttermost to the guttermost. Well that can be true I guess you know from the gutter to the uttermost. But what we’re talking about here and if you look there in the scripture reference that I put in your notes.

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that means totally, completely with nothing left to be done. That come unto God by Him, sin he ever lived to make intercession for them. Now, this verse says, wherefore he is able to save. Now, is God able to save everyone? But he can only save those that, believe him or trust him. So, what he is able to do, doesn’t mean that’s what he’s going to do, because what he is able to do in saving people will not override the will of man.

So you need to understand a person must trust Jesus Christ as his Savior. So in your notes there when it has intercession for the word them, I didn’t get it in there so you can write the word them to finish out that sentence, but if you want to be saved, he is able to save you. He can save anybody that will trust him. There are people that God cannot save. He cannot save anybody who’s trying to save themselves. He can’t save anybody that won’t trust Him.

Look at the next verse. 2 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 8. Go there to that scripture. 2 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 8. He makes a statement here in verse 8 and God is able. So when you see that word able, you know God is able to do something here and I want to find out what he’s able to do. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you. That ye having, always having all sufficiency and all things may abound to every good work.

But you’ll notice this is based upon your choices. What God is able to do, doesn’t mean he’s going to make everything abound toward you. He’s writing to a specific group of people that will do what God wants done. You see there in verse six, but I see in the U, he which so it’s sparingly shall reap also sparingly. God can control the crop that comes up. You may sow, but God can bless that which you sow. And if you sow little, he can only bless a little.

If you sow much, he can bless much. And he also says in verse seven, every man accorded as he purposes in his heart. So what God is able to do can be dependent upon what you purpose in your heart, that you’re willing to do for the Lord, the sacrifices you’re willing to make for him. So what God is able to do is affected by your choices, your decisions, and you need to know that. Because sometimes you just think, well, God just not because he didn’t do anything.

Well, did you do what he said do? Do you trust him? Did you fervently pray? Or do you live haphazard life and you’re not dependable? Remember we talked about the other day about a man who puts confidence in an unfaithful man is like a man that’s got a foot out of joint. You can’t put weight on it. You’re supposed to be a person that can be trusted and put weight on, dependent upon. Seek to be faithful. Look at the next one, look in Hebrews in chapter two, the book of Hebrews and chapter two.

Hebrews says an awful lot of wonderful things about the Lord. how that he says in past times he spoke unto the prophets and so forth and to us by the prophets and on. But he says in the last days he has spoken unto us by his son whom he has pointed air of all things. And he is before all things. God has used him and he by himself purged all our sins in his own body on the tree. That’s in Hebrews in chapter one.

But he makes a statement here in Hebrews in chapter 2 about not letting this message that we have slip through our fingers and not realize the importance that we need to present it to others. And so God is telling us that we need to be very very careful and there’s warnings throughout the book of Hebrews and that it says if you don’t heed these warnings there’s consequences you know to your decisions. So he makes a statement here in verse 9, but we see Jesus who has made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of God should taste death for almost everybody, for every man, every man.

So he died for every man, if he died for every man, that means every man can be saved. So there’s Calvinists that don’t believe this. And he said, well, that doesn’t mean that just means the ones that he wanted to be saved. No, no, no, no, no. Don’t twist the Bible and try to make it say something that doesn’t say. But he says that he goes through here and talks about the sufferings that he went through. You see what he says in verse 10, and it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things and bringing many sons into glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings so that he would know in this life, he knows what It’s like the sufferer.

This thing about that. Someone who never had to suffer chose to suffer. He chose to suffer. Now,requency we can’t keep from suffering. That’s the last thing we want. We don’t mind what happens to the Lord. Don’t suffer. But he chose to suffer. And then he says here, he’s not as chained in verse 11 to call us his children. He’s not ashamed of that. And then you’ll notice as he goes down through here, he makes some statements that is very important to remember.

Hebrews chapter two, look now in verse 18. For in that he himself hath suffered been tempted, he is able to sucker them that are tempted. Now look at in your notes there, I want you to look at this. Because this word is very, very important. There’s a lot of meaning to it. When he talks about here that he says that he is able to sucker them that are tempted. You and I live in a world where we have a sinful nature and we are tempted, not only to do things externally but thoughts internally, our attitudes, all these things.

When we yield to temptation and we face the trials and tribulations of life. So look what we have here. He is able in your notes to give aid, help, assistance and relieves and delivers from difficulties, wants, distresses, and temptations, but I also want you to finish out this little phrase for me. So write in your notes there, if you want it, ask for it. If you want aid, tellin’, you want help, tellin’, if you need whatever it is to be relieved of somethin’, or delivered from difficulties, wants or distresses or temptation.

God is able. But you see, just because God is able, will He allow you to yield to temptation. But if you yield to temptation, that’s because that is your choice. You see, you can’t blame everything on God. He was able to make a way of escape that that you may be able to bear it. And you can bear it, whatever it may be, God’s grace is sufficient like He says. So if that is true and you need assistance and you ask for none, you need help and you didn’t ask for it.

You need aid, you ask for nothing. So you go through life, depending upon your own strength and you’ll be surprised how quickly you can fall And your whole life can be ruined. Your testimony is shocked. I had a man break down in front of me one time and I mean he cried, he sobbed. He says, 25 years I spent building a platform and I lost it all because I yielded to temptation. It didn’t have to be that way. Well, wasn’t God able to keep his child from falling?

Yes, but he will not do it against your will. The only reason you fall is because you choose to fall. You choose to fail. You choose to yield. And that’s why you have to be careful in your testimony at all times. It’s so important. Look in their Bible to the book of Philippians in chapter three, the book of Philippians and chapter three. This is one you may not have to do too much about because God is gonna take care of this one.

And it says here in verse 20 of Philippians in chapter three three for our citizenship is in heaven. Why? Because you were born from above. So that’s where you were born. But God left you here because you are a stranger means you’re away from home. You’re a pilgrim because you’re going home. But that doesn’t mean you should act while you’re here like a strange pill. He says from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body.

Well, wait a minute, is he able to do that? Is he able to change these old vile bodies? Look at these bodies that we got. Hakes and pains, unknown and grown, wine and pine. I had a lady the other day. She, I was cutting up. I was just joking, but she must have took it seriously. She says, are you whining. I said, you got any crackers or some cheese. She says, what? I said, I need some of that there to go with my wine.

Anyway, so she didn’t think I was that funny. Some people just don’t appreciate good stuff in your telling. But now look in verse 21, who shall change our vile body that he may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. God is able to change these vile bodies. But that’s something that you and I don’t have to do anything about. It doesn’t depend upon us to do anything.

I don’t have to ask him to do it because there’s some things that God says, now this is on me. That’s on him. When the raptor takes place, is that on me or on him? That’s on him. He’s going to change me in a moment, the twinkling of an eye, and we’ll be caught up to meet the lurnier, and that’s not on you. That’s nothing to do with you. That’s what he’s going to do. Now he’s able to do all of that without our help.

But there are some things that God says, I am able to do this and this and this and this and this. But it depends upon what do you want? Ask. Now there’s a verse somewhere in the Bible talks about, you ask and receive not because you ask a misgory for your own lust. And so sometimes you don’t get what you ask for. But I just like to ask the Lord for everything. If I think of it and I want it, I asked.

If I don’t get it, it won’t be because I didn’t ask. Now some things I’ll not infervent prayer over, but there are some things that if you know what God’s word says that he is able to do, bring it to the Lord. Learn to walk with him and talk to him and enjoy your Christian life. Cast all of your cares upon him because he is able to take care of it. He can do it. He says it good. And if he says it, I believe it.

Look at the next scripture. Now you don’t have to turn back out to the Old Testament because I think that I can just read the notes here. Now you know there’s these three young fellas. They were maybe teenagers. And anyway, they were supposed to bow down and so forth, not call upon any of the God and so on, you know? And when they heard the music, but if you don’t, you’re gonna get cast into a burning fiery furnace. Well, they got told on.

So they didn’t bow. So they’re saying, you know, they’re having to face the king. And he says, you bow, everything be fine. It’s that our God is able to deliver us. But if not, now we know God is able, but he may have a higher purpose. And at that time, trusting without knowing the outcome. So after that verse in your notes, write down this little statement, trusting without knowing the outcome. Because isn’t it true that those young Hebrew children trusted without knowing the outcome?

God does not have to tell you how everything is going to end up. What he’s gonna do or not do, it doesn’t matter. Trust the Lord anyway. And the older you get, you still gotta keep trust in the Lord. That doesn’t stop, it never stops. You’re always having to trust the Lord. But it says, if it be so old, God, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us. They knew that, they believed that, and they trust the Lord to do whatever God wanted to do.

Now, sometimes God has a higher purpose, and he doesn’t always heal. He doesn’t always answer your prayers, because God has something else he’s working in your life. Even in those times, in those moments, you trust the Lord, trust Him. So that is so important. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of Acts, chapter 20, the book of Acts, the book of Acts, in chapter 20. Every one of these, just about, God’s ability does not always override the will of man.

What God is able to do, in many cases, depends upon what you’re willing to trust Him to do. and we leave Him for. And so sometimes we make the right decisions. Sometimes we don’t. But God has given us so much freedom within the boundary. The limits of that boundary is called the will of God. And anything was in this boundary is the will of God. And you can make a million decisions. And they’re not all wrong. But make the best when you can that doesn’t lie outside the will of God.

So learn the boundaries of God’s will and they’ll help you tremendously. But here in the book of Acts in chapter 20, the Apostle Paul had gone to this place, Ephesus, and he had met with the elders, and he had led a lot of them to the Lord, established a church, and then he says some things that I wanted to share with you here, looking in verse 19. Acts chapter 20 verse 19, serving the Lord with all humility of mine.

Now remember this person asked me this just the other day about humility. Humility is not so much the position of the body, it’s the position of the mind. Are you dependent upon him? Are you submissive to his will? You see humility is a person dependent on God. That means if you don’t, it’s because of pride. If you don’t have pride… You don’t mind submitting to the will of God. Pride will keep you from doing that. That’s why God hates pride.

Serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears and temptations, which be fell me by the line and weight of the Jews. In other words, what Paul did wasn’t always the easiest thing in the world to do. There were obstacles. There were people who wanted to kill him. And he says, I did all of them. And there were temptations. And so he says in verse 20, and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you and taught you publicly and from house to house.

We should call this Acts 2020. Everybody needs 2020 vision. Acts 2020 is a good verse to give you a good vision. And so he preached and he was warned that if you go to Jerusalem, trouble awaits you. And he knew that trouble was going to await him. So he told them, he says, you may never see my face again.” And so he says there in verse 23, he was told that the Holy Spirit witnesses in every city saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.

So he knew what he was getting into, but he knew that God was able to deliver him. He knew that God had promised that he was going to witness before kings. And so he was willing to whatever it was go through it. And sometimes we maybe Paul was just a little on the verge of being hard-headed. Maybe he was just very strong will. You may have a strong will child. Did you marry a strong will husband? Strong will wife, or they don’t even exist.

There’s no such people like that. But now notice what he said in verse 24. But none of these things, none of these things, you know, the tribulations, or the tears that he shed, or the problems and bonds and afflictions that are abiding. that are abiding, they said, none of these things moved me. Neither count I my life dear unto myself, and the cry that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God.

In other words, he was all about the gospel. And he says, and I count not my life dear unto myself. And he says, I have a desire to depart to be with Christ, which is far better, But it’s better for you that I stay here. More needful. So this is what he went through, and this is what he did. So even though God was able to do all these wonderful things for me, he says, now when I leave, he says, grievous wolves are gonna come in, and there’ll be people inside, no people on the outside, and if they can’t infiltrate, they will storm the gate.

One way or the other, you’re gonna have problems. And people will sow seeds of discord and try to ruin and destroy your life. But God is able to build you up. God can make you strong, but not against you will. So he says down here in verse 31, he says, therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years, I cease not to warn everyone, night and day with tears. Now brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace.

Now, underline that in your Bible, which is able to build you up. The word of God is able to build you up, but it’s not automatic. Doesn’t mean just because the Word is God is able to do something, it will do it. It will do it if you’ll read it and if you study it and if you believe it and if you apply it, it can build you up. Doesn’t the Bible say somewhere, maybe in the book of Colossians, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him and being rooted and built up because those are decisions that you and I are supposed to make.

We’re the ones that decide, well, or not, will I be rooted in the Word of God? Will I be grounded? Sound words, sound doctrines, sound mind. All comes from making the right decision. Study to show yourself approved, under God, study. Study, that depends upon you. If you will do what God says, God’s word promises to make you able to build you up and make you strong and you can stand it. And you can be the kind of a Christian you ought to be.

You cannot blame God. God is able to do that, but it depends upon are you willing to do what God says do, and God’s word will work. This is why so many Christians do not have power of God in their life. They don’t have any power. They’re so weak. Everything gets at them. Everything brings them down, always mowing and mowning and groaning and always dining the dumps. So read the word of God, and this is what God’s word able to do.

So he says there in verse 32, which is able to build you up. And to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. And this is something that you need to keep in mind. If it’s able to build us up, we need to believe that. Now there’s a couple more that I want to give you here. But look there in Ephesians chapter 3. The book of Ephesians, And chapter three, some of the body of Christ is in heaven, some of the body of Christ is on earth.

But there’s a whole family. I believe that anyone, whoever they may be, anywhere in the world, if you trust in Christ as your Savior, you’re part of the family of God. You are a child of God. So we’re brothers and sisters in the Lord. Whoever they may be. Not all of God’s children go to Calvary Community Church. into church. I wouldn’t mind it. But I believe there’s a lot of churches around and even some churches that have pastors that maybe teach contrary to what the Word of God says, but people of trusted Christ, I believe you’ll find out they’re going to be some saved people that are Catholic, that are Mormon, that are Jehovah’s Witness.

You name the religion to be some people that have trusted Christ and Savior and they’ll make call themselves whatever. But somewhere along the line if they ever trusted Christ because they heard gospel, even if they never got out of their religion. But if they trust the Lord, they believed on Jesus Christ, are they saved? And they may not grow, but I would rather them get to heaven than diapers and not at all. But anyways, we’re moving right along. Look at verse 15 of Ephesians chapter 3, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man.

Now it is the will of God that his children be strengthened with might in the inner man. That means your new birth to grow strong the way God wants. Remember Ephesians 2 8 9 4 by grace are you say through faith that not of yourself it is the gift of God not of works that any man should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. God has ordained that we should walk in good works but that That doesn’t mean that everyone is going to walk in good work.

It is the will of God, but not everyone who is the child of God is going to walk the way God wants. Not everyone of God’s children are going to be rooted in the Scriptures and built up to be strong in the Lord. But it’s the will of God. And God is able to do that. But He says, you’ve got to read and study, meet together, speak the truth in love. And he says, and I have given to the church and prophets and apostles and teachers and evangelists to equip the saints for the work of the ministry that you may grow and be strong and so forth that you’re not tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.

So this is what God wants. But you have to yield to it. You have to be willing to want that. 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 manual. The 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.