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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. and 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.

Looking first Peter chapter two and verse one, where he makes this statement, Wherefore, let us land aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envies and all evil speaking. That’s the flesh. That’s the fleshly desires. If you want another categories, read chapter five of the book of Galatians. And notice the battle that you’ll face if you wanna read that in the book of Romans in chapter seven. But every one of us, we have the sinful desires of what we wanna do.

We wanna go our own way. We wanna do our own thing. It’s my life. But there’s consequences to our decisions. Anytime God says, don’t do this, it’s because that is going to hurt you. God loves us and wants us to do right, but He will not make you do right, but He will allow you to suffer the consequences of your decisions, good and bad. Look what He says in verse two. Desire that’s sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby.

So God wants every one of his children to grow, to mature in the Lord. But we know that there’s something that’s working against us. Second Peter chapter one. Second Peter chapter one. Notice what he says. Now he’s talking to those who already know the Lord, to believers. So second Peter chapter one, notice what he says in verse four. He says, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises. Now, you heard of the promise that if you trusted Christ, he promised to give you everlasting life.

All right, you believed it, you have everlasting life. You believed the promise. Look what, believe it what God said got you. It made you a child of God, all your sins are forgiven, you’re going to heaven. Look how wonderful God is. But there are a lot of precious promises in the Word of God. So God said, he wants to add to your face. So he wants all of his children to listen to learn to grow and claim the promises that God has for us.

Look what he says in verse four again. Whereby or given unto us, exceeding grain and precious promises that by these you might be partakes of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, having escaped. In other words, once you have trusted Christ to save it, did you realize God separated you from that old birth that old sinful nature gave you a new birth? Now it is the will of God that you live your life as though you have escaped from the lust of the flesh.

And if you walk in the spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. But if you don’t, you’ve got a choice. You can walk in the flesh. So he talks and warns about the power that the lust of the flesh have. Your biggest problem is not the election. Your biggest problem is not the IRS. Your biggest problem is not the devil. Your biggest problem lies inside of you. It’s that old sinful nature. That’s what will do you in.

That is what’s going to destroy you. Because most of the great men and women of the Bible that time is just as difficult as the times at which we live. But it’s what’s on the inside of you that’s eating you, that will destroy you. Things that you desire, that’s not what God wants you to have. And some people will figure this out and some people will live their whole lives and never get it. And they’ll live their whole lives in captivity after the Lord has set them free.

Because you have been given by the power of the Holy Spirit, a power that’s over all of these things that can ruin you and cause you the fear. You see, we don’t have to fear death anymore. We don’t have to fear the grave. We don’t have to fear hell. We don’t have to fear the temptation. If you love the Lord, love casts us out the fear. But when you don’t love God like you should and don’t want to please God, then you want to please yourself.

Now you have reason to be afraid, because now you’re putting all your hopes in yourself. And you shouldn’t trust you. I don’t trust me. I trust the Lord, but I don’t trust me. It takes you so many years to build a reputation where you can be trusted. And you don’t want to ruin it because you yield to temptation. You use reason and logic instead of the word of God, abstain from every what? Abstain from every appearance of evil. No one, no one has ever seen me take a drink of strong drink, not even a sip, because I don’t want it.

I don’t want to run the risk. I’ve never had a cigarette in my mouth. I don’t want to run the risk of liking it, because I can’t trust this physical body of mine. I don’t become a drug addict. And therefore I believe that I’ll have a healthier body and I’ll last longer and I’ll have a clear mind if I just honor the Lord and do what God wants me to do. Because there is a war of the flesh, and it wars against your life, it wants to ruin your traffic.

you. And after you have escaped the things of this world, why in the world would you want to put yourself back into prison? Now get this. These verses are so important. But 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 10, look what he says, wherefore the rather brethren, so we’re talking to believers, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, shall never fall.” Your election that means you were chosen for a higher purpose. Use your life for a higher purpose, God’s purpose, not yours.

You’re not the best at making decisions. Cursant is the man who puteth his confidence in man. Blessed is the man who puteth his trust in the Lord. So put your trust in the Lord, take him at his word. And you’d be surprised the better decisions you’re going to make because you said, no, does this please God or not? Is this honoring to God or not? Doesn’t matter whether you like it or not, does it please God? Is it right?

Or is this this honoring? Learn to discern these things because there is a war against your life, a war against your soul. You see the Bible says this, that the devil as a roaring lion seeketh whom he may devour and he devours and he eats up your life and gets you chasing and going in circles and you accomplish nothing for God. You become so busy you have no time for God. You have no time to spend time talking to him studying his word.

You’d be surprised how he eats up your life. Next thing you know you’re an old man or an old woman and you never did what God wanted you to do and you’ll live with the regrets that’s what I could have done. But I do my life away. Why? Because there’s no sinful nature you have. And it wars against the flesh. Look in 2 Peter chapter 3. 2 Peter chapter 3. And notice this in verse 17. Chapter 3 verse 17.

A’s talking to believers. Yee, therefore, be love it. Seeing you know these things before them. Beware, because he knows what they know, and he tells them, beware lest he also, being led away with the era of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. Do you believe God wants his children to be steadfast, abounding in the work of the Lord? For as much as you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain, be steadfast. always doing what God wants you to do, being found faithful all the days of your life.

Look what he says, the fall from your own steadfast, but look in verse 18, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to Him, be glory forever and ever, amen. When he talks about the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, this is important. These are people who knew the will of God, but he warns them, Beware because there’s people who are going to try their dead-level best to lead you astray, so you will not be found faithful.

And the devil will interject thoughts into your mind. Now look there at another verse. This is in 2 Peter chapter 2 and look at verse 17. When we talk about the false teachers. People in this world who are going to do everything he possibly can to lead us astray to ruin our lives. You see, misery loves company. There’s people always going to put you down and criticize you, mock you, make fun of you. But he says here in verse 17, these people that do this.

There are wells without water. He says, clouds that are carried with a tempest tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. It comes along. Get to whom is the man of darkness. of darkness reserved forever. Oh, that’s what’s gonna happen to them. Why would you let somebody in the world? Why would you let people of the world, people that are lost, try to lead you and guide you spiritually? You see, this is what God wants us to do.

Well, the world doesn’t. And so Christ says, be not conformed to the world, but be a transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or discover of that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So God has a higher calling. The world can only offer you the world. God can offer us so much more that lasts for eternity. So what do you think about somebody who knows the truth and then turns against this truth, rebels against this truth?

Well, some of y’all have been very faithful. You have not read the last two lines. Now we’re going to read those last two lines. Look down below where I have it in bold, in bold at the bottom of the page. For a Christian to follow the lust of the flesh, it means to live in the flesh. Is living like the dog or the hog? Remember we are sheep with a shepherd. God’s word does not say you are a dog and it does not say you are a hog.

But he says this, if you, when you know the will of God, and you have been growing in the Word of God, to take that which you know to be true, and then turn from that, and live after the lust of the flesh is like a dog returning to its vomit. Now I can’t think of anything more disgusting and sickening than that. I’m going to ask you and I want you to be honest. How many have you ever seen a dog eat his vomit?

Look at that. When you walk in the flesh, that’s how God sees you. Like a dog eating his vomit. Return him to something that makes God sick. And you can take a hog and you can take him out of the mucking the mire and you can bring them into your house and put them into that number 10 wash tub and you can wash them up real good with soap and water and get a mike and clean and you can put a ribbon around his neck and spray him with our piggy where he smells real good you can even curl his tail but if you let that pig out of the house, where is that pig going to go?

Where? Right back to the mud. Why? It’s his nature. Now the pig is happy in the mud, but the sheep doesn’t. But you see, it’s like a person who has been cleaned and he turned right around and go to the wallowing in the You say, that’s not in the Bible. I’m glad you asked. Look what he says in verse 18. Because those people who love the world and the things of the world try to lure you, it says in verse 18, for when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure, allure you.

That means to trap or entice through the lust of the flesh, through much wantonness, which is nothing more than just sins, wickedness, those that were clean, escaped from them who live in error. So you are now going to be placed back in the bondage and living under the flesh and the power of the old sinful nature when God has sent you free and given you the power that you need to live a victorious Christian life. The only reason you will walk in the flesh is because you choose to.

It’s your choice. You don’t have to ruin your life. You don’t have to be unfaithful.” So he says here in verse 19, “…while they promised them liberty, how many times I’ve seen sharp young teenagers who’ve gone to camp, dedicate their life to the Lord. I want to serve the Lord. And they don’t want to serve the world and lust of the flesh. They’re free to serve God. And that lasts about two weeks and they fizzle out. They’re back in school with their friends.

They don’t want to be just like their friends and the power, the peer pressure, and they succumb to it. And how many of our watched young men and young women ruin their lives because of the lust of the flesh? And so many good Christian kids that could have mounted to something with their life, ruined their testimony, put scars upon themselves that they are going to have to bear for the rest of their lives. It’s not that you don’t stop loving, you know you still love them, you want the best of them, but there’s going to be scars on them.

And you’re trying to save them from those scars. But now look what he says, they themselves are the servants of corruption because they’re destroying He says in the book of Galatians and chapter 6, if you walk in the spirit, you shall reap life everlasting. If you walk in the flesh, corruption. You’re corrupting your life. You’re destroying your life. In other words, God had a higher purpose for you. Something better for you. Isn’t there something on the inside that says, I want something more.

I want something better than what I am. A power that would keep me from messing up my life because I’ve got this whole sinful nature that loves the things of this world and it draws and it pulls, as the words used here is, the Lord means to entrap, to enslave. That’s what he says here, of whom a man is overcome of the same as he brought into bondage. Whatever can overcome you traps you. You have a sinful nature and it may use a different sin on you than somebody else.

There is the lust that you can have from the fame and the power, the wealth and all these things. And you be surprised the value of what God wanted for you that you will trade for the trinkets of this world and call it wealth. I would rather have a cabin here and a mansion there than a mansion here and a cabin there. this. He says in verse 24, if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, this is what we read over there in chapter 1, have an escaped and then he’s talking about those who have known the Lord and grown in the Lord and he talks about the Lord Jesus Christ when you have the word Lord in front of it, generally it does refer to a person’s service to God and overcome the latter in his worst with them than the beginning.

You’ll ruin your life because he now is one thing when you did things when you were ignorant. It’s worse when you did it and you knew better. You knew. Sometimes when a child does something wrong you didn’t spank him because you didn’t tell him not to do it. Now I’m telling you if you do that one more time I’m going to blister your little heine. Now it’s worse because now Now he knows. You and I, if you know what’s good, know what’s right.

The Bible says is to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin. It’s something when you’re ignorant you didn’t know but when you do know the will of God and refuse to do the will of God. And you turn from doing what God wants you to do to fulfill in the desires of the flesh and you can. You can do it in the way you want. And this is why he makes this statement.

Looking verse 21, it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered to them, to know it and then not do it. You see, don’t you want the will of God for your life? You know what’s right, then do what’s right. Look what he says in verse 22, but it has happened unto them according to the true Proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit again.

And the sow that was washed to her, wallowing in the mire. See, I didn’t make it up. That’s a description of the believer who chooses to follow the lust of the flesh. It makes God sick. It’s so disappointing to God. It hurts God, your heavenly Father. It grieves the Holy Spirit. How do you think God wants you to live? I write just life. You take all the things in your life that you know that are right and just list them and start doing them.

And it becomes a path of righteousness. The Holy Spirit will never lead you contrary to the will of God. It’s the will of God that all of God’s people do right and to serve the Lord. It’s the best thing in all the world. Now remember, the most important thing that you ever need to escape from is hell itself. How can you escape this judgment where the Bible calls the great white throne judgment and every person who did not trust Christ’s Savior is going to be judged because it determines the amount of punishment they receive in a literal fire burn in hell.

How can you escape all of that? There’s only one way, but it can be done. It can be done. Look up here. This is why we do this because it’s talking about this very subject we’re talking about right now. This hand represents You and me. The wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. God, He loves us. Now He hates our sin, but He loves us. You see, because of this whole sinful nature we have, we do bad things.

And God says, you can’t save yourself from, you can’t escape. You see, it’s within you. It’s part of you. You are born this way with a sinful nature. You sin naturally. The consequences is the wages of sin is death. So every man’s sinned, every man is guilty, every man is condemned, and nobody can save themselves. You cannot escape this. There’s nothing you can do. You can’t offer money. God won’t accept it. You can’t offer, trying to keep the day, God won’t accept.

There isn’t anything God will accept except your death. But to go to heaven, you have to be perfect as righteous as God and none of us are perfect. We have all come short of God’s How do I escape? This end represents Jesus Christ, God in a flesh. He came into this world. He had no sin. He didn’t have to die. So when He came into the world, because He loves us, He took all of our sins and paid for them on the cross.

He came back from the dead. So the only thing we can do is to believe that He did this for us. When you believe He did it for you, He paid for your sins. He He puts this payment to your account. Now I have a payment so I can escape hell. All my sins are paid. But if I don’t accept this payment, I cannot escape hell. By trusting what He did, for me, He gives me as a free gift, eternal life.

I go to heaven on what Christ did for me. Now I don’t have to fear death because I’m not going to hell. When I leave this world and leave this whole body, absent from the body present with the Lord. So I escape the power of sin, death, and the grave, and the devil can’t touch me. This is why this is so important. Because once you’ve been set free, why become entangled again with the yoke of bondage? Why place yourself under the old man that’s all flesh and let him run your life, doing what you want, going your own way.

You decide in what you wanna do instead of, Lord, what do you want for me? How do you want me to live? And you seek to honor and to please the Lord, and He makes a statement for without faith. It is impossible to please Him. Without faith. It means without faith in what God’s Word says. So you’re studying the Word of God, so you put your faith in what God says so that you can please God. Because it’s impossible to please God without faith.

And faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It is the will of God that all of his children grow in the Word. This is why, yes, we teach the Bible every Sunday morning, every church service. We teach it on Wednesday night. we teach it on Sunday night and you can listen to me five days a week on the radio. True? And I know that everyone of you all in here are just chaffing at the bits, trying to get every last morsel you can, aren’t you?

I mean, you wouldn’t want me to preach without being there to hear the Word, because you’re in love with the Word, because the Word is your only hope. Think about these things. Are you close to the Lord as you ought to be? If not, Maybe somebody ought to move and I don’t think God’s going to move. Do you get further and further away? One day, me and Betty was driving down the highway. She said, right out of the door and she says, you remember when I used to sit real close and you just put your arm around me?

I didn’t move. I didn’t move. I’m still right here. Are you close to the Lord? Stay close to the Lord. Beware, beware. You have an old sinful nature just like everybody else. And you can follow at any given time. Do you want people to know in their mind that if you walk in the flesh and you go your own way and do your own thing, people know now there’s a person who’s in the flesh. that’s living like a hog.

You want somebody thinking about you. There’s a dog eating his own vomit. It ought to make you sick. You don’t want that to be said about you. You’re walking in the flesh that the power of the flesh is so strong that God isn’t sufficient to help you. I can do all things through Christ. Well, I can’t. It’s your choice. It is a choice. Let’s pray, show him. Wherever you hid, bowed, and every eye closed, no one looking around. If you hear this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want you to know that God loves you, and so do I.

God wants you to have eternal life. They go to heaven. So do I. That’s why I told you how to go to heaven. You can’t earn it. You can’t work for it. by it. It’s the gift of God. It’s not a works lest any man should boast. All that you need to do to go to heaven is to believe that when Christ died, He died for you. Would you believe it? Would you trust Him right now? If you will trust Jesus Christ right now, He said He would save you right now and give you eternal life.

And if it’s eternal life, how long would it last forever? If it lasts forever and all you sins are paid, where would you go when you die to heaven. So can you know you’re going to heaven before you die? Of course. It’s free. God loves you that much. Would you trust him? I’m going to ask you in just a moment for raise your hand. Raise your hand. Raise your hand doesn’t save you. It only lets me know that what I said made sense to you.

And you’re saying, preacher, that made sense to me. And I want to know that I have eternal life. I want to escape the fires of hell. I want to escape this judgment of God. I want to know that I’m going to heaven. I will accept Christ right now as my Savior. And if you’ll do that, friend, would you let me know by just quickly slipping your hand up and putting it right back down? And what at all? If you’ve never done it for it, yes, God bless you, ma’am.

I’m not gonna embarrass you. Not gonna have you forward right where you’re sitting. Anyone else? Say, yes, that made sense to me. I want to be certain of going to heaven. And there’s no gimmicks to it. It’s over and done with, not gonna have you forward. Anyone else before we close? If you trust Christ as your Savior, that God gives you eternal life and you can know that you’re going to heaven, God loves us so much. Our Father, we thank you again for your blessings.

Thank you Lord for those that are listening by way of radio or the internet, that we pray that there’ll be many that will trust you, Savior. We thank you for the one that indicated this morning that they will trust you. By doing so they become your child. You said you never cast him out, never lose him. They can know that they’re going to heaven. We thank you so much for this day. And each person here bless each one. In Christ and we pray, Amen.

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. 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 40-811 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. Hada can meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.