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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. 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.

look in chapter 2 and verse 4. Chapter 2 verse 4, this is for those who have already trusted Christ as their Savior to realize that He has given to us a new birth. We’re born into God’s family. And He says in verse 4, to whom coming as unto a living stone, this allowed rejected indeed of men but chosen of God and that one little word so precious, precious. Jesus Christ is precious. Jesus Christ is precious, his blood was precious.

The trials that you and I go through, they’re precious. That’s why you would not despise the blood, you would not despise the Son, should you despise the trial. Should you? No. Are you and I going to have trials? Do we wind up despising sometimes the hardships that we have to go through? Or can you like Paul says rejoice always? See that’s why the book of James is the book of hope. the joyful anticipation of the end results. And this is why as you read the book of 1 Peter and it gets into some of this it’s a wonderful thing to know.

Look over there in 2 Peter. 2 Peter looked there in verse 1 in verse 1 where it says, Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like and go down the line is precious faith. Now God says your faith is precious. Think what your faith in Christ got you. It caused you to have a new birth. And that’s why this precious faith is so valuable. You see, without my faith in Christ, I didn’t get to go to heaven.

But when you put your faith in what God said, look what you received. A new birth, going to get a new body, get to go to a new place and live for all eternity with the Lord. You see, we got so much by putting our faith in Christ. But not only that, but He wants us to live by grace. In other words, God wants to give us some more, wants to give us some more. So that’s why He says add to your faith, add to it and your faith becomes more precious and more precious and more precious.

But that’s because you’re growing in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So the more you do that, the more you have and the more you’re going to get. Now look what he says down in verse 4. Because when you study God’s Word, your faith in the Lord begins to grow. Your faith becomes precious because now you know more of the precious promises in the Word of God and look what you’re going to get by learning how to trust the Lord.

So in our pines of suffering, our hardships, our trials and tribulations, God wants us to learn how to trust Him and keep serving Him. But that’s why our hope is called a living hope. It’s a living hope. Go back there to the book of 1 Peter 1. You’ll notice in verse three of chapter one where he says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy, hath be gotten us again or caused us to be born from above, unto a lively hope or a living hope, get this and here’s why.

By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. See Peter was blessed by God to be able to be there, see the Lord, saw Him. He was there when He denied Him three times. He saw Him on the cross and the Lord looked at Him and He knew He was dead and He saw Him after the resurrection. And then He saw Jesus walking on the water and then He saw Him supply some food for them to eat. And then he asked them and says, Peter, love us thou me.

He never asked him if you love the sheep. He said, you love me three times. Do you love me? Do you love me? So Peter knew what it was like to have now. What a trial he went through. Remember when the Lord said to him, get behind me, Satan, for Satan hath desired that he may sift you as wheat. See that’s what trials are for. See Satan wants to sift you as wheat. He wants to take the wheat out.

God wants the devil to sift you because he wants the chap to be taken away and leave nothing but the good Colonel of wheat. He wants to purify your life. The devil can take the same thing, same trial. The devil is trying to destroy you and the Lord is trying to build you. But it makes the testing that you go through very, very important. So you have in this book a very simple thing about the living hope. Learning how to put your confidence in the Lord regardless of what you’re going to go through and you’re going to suffer.

So the Bible says that Jesus Christ is our hope and he is our example. Look there in chapter two in verse 21. Chapter two verse 21 says, for even here unto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should, what’s those three words? follow his steps. You and I in this life have been called upon to suffer for the Lord. In other words, you decided to do what God wants you to do with your life, which means you gave up your plans and your will and your goals, your dreams to do whatever God wants to do with you.

You gave that up for something else, you sacrifice. What a real sacrifice. A good sacrifice, mimically, is when you give up something that isn’t any good for something that’s a lot better. Now, should sacrificing for the Lord be that hard? When you know he has a better purpose for your life, a better plan for your life, and he’ll watch over you and bless you and give you all that you need to fulfill his will. And there’s where your peace will come from.

That’s where your strength will come from. You don’t have to understand every trial and every testing, but you know that God can use it to make you strong and the way that you ought to be. So he says here, he in verse 22, who did no sin. Neither was Gao found in his mouth. He did all of these things and God says that we have been called upon to suffer for the Lord. Oh look what he says here in verse 19, verse 19 of chapter 2, where he says, for this is thanks worthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief suffering wrongfully.

So in this life it doesn’t mean everybody’s going to treat you right even though you deserve it they could treat you wrong. And you can have grief and suffer wrongfully. Now it’s one thing when you suffer you know but doing right God says not to suffer because you did wrong. They don’t necessarily see that everything to do is for the Lord and why you do it and therefore you may suffer but it says least suffer for doing what God wants you to do.

Suffer for doing what is right. Now this is why you have here Looking Chapter 4 real quick. In chapter 4, because you’re going to suffer. Now when we get to chapter 3 and it talks about a man and a wife, chapter 3, I guess one of the best illustrations he could think of after Christ suffering on the cross was married life. But we’ll get to that later. In chapter 4, in verse 1 says, for as much than as Christ had suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves, likewise with the same mind.

why? Because you’re going to suffer also. Arm yourself with the same mind. Why did Christ suffer? Because it was the will of God. And He also could see the fruit of His suffering. It’s mentioned back there in the book of Isaiah in chapter 53 that He, even though His soul made an offering first-end, He was able to see the results, the fruit that came from that. And so here we have a promise from God. See one day we will see the result, the end result of our faithfulness to the Lord.

So he says that this is going to take place. You’re going to suffer. Now look what he says there in verse 12. Verse 12 ought to be underlined in your Bible. Verse 12 says, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you. Now, remember that Peter was an apostle to the Jewish people, Paul to the Gentiles. But Paul also went to the synagogues. And Peter also had gone to the Gentiles.

But when you go all the way back, when Christ was actually here, he had a lot of runnings with those Pharisees, the so-called law keepers, and they had a false message. They were misleading the people. As long as they did what the book says, Christ told them, says, obey that. But he says, you have overlooked the weightier matters of the law. He says, you forgot about mercy and judgment, and grace and these things that are also important. And Christ calls these Pharisees, He says, of white eshetraka, full of dead men’s bones.

And so here you have Jewish believers who have in chapter 1 of the 2nd Peter where these are strangers and it mentioned some of the countries where they were from, but strangers, Jewish, I believe, believers who have gone out and he says, you are strangers and pilgrims. You’re the ones now that are high priests, Don’t you understand what God has for you? Something so much better, but also that because they were Jewish, they were also suffered great persecution. The persecution was strong.

And so this is why in 2 Peter in chapter 2, as he Christ had referred to a man who cleans his house, cast out the demons, And then he comes back seven times worse than it was before. He also refers to those false teachers as dogs or sows and pig wallowing in the mire because you see they can clean up and they’re worse off than they were before. The Pharisees were doing exactly that. They had cleaned up the outside, but the inside was still rotten, full of dead men’s bones.

And so Peter, in talking to Jewy believers, is telling what’s out for false teachers, because there’s a lot of damage that they do. And they can rob you of your hope, rob you of your joy. And next thing you know, you’ll think that, I guess, God doesn’t love you. This is why he says in 1 Peter chapter 5, cast all your cares upon him for he care for you. That’s hope. The reason you can do that is because you believe it.

It gives you something to live for to go through all these terrible rough times. But look there first of all in verse 12 where he says, beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you. Remember the very first chapter. He told him, he says, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold, though he tried with fire, that it might be found in the praise, honor, and glory at the appearance of Jesus Christ.

Then he says in verse 13, but complain, murmur, gripe, because nobody loves you. Act like you’ve been baptized in lemon juice, but rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad. You may not be glad now, but be glad as you can be because you know how it’s going to be. You’re looking down the road at the end results. You know where you’re going to end up with because you’ve already cheated, read the last book in the Bible and you know you’re in.

You know you’re going to win. So in between nothing really matters. You put your confidence in the Lord and you keep serving the Lord. And though things seem rough and just dragging you down and all that, I know, I know. Buddy, how I do know the Lord has had to teach me a lot of lessons over the years. I am alive only by the grace of God. But suffering and the trials and tests that you go through, I’ve been through a couple of them.

And then He makes His statement. Yee may be glad also with exceeding joy. See that exceeding joy. But He just talked about the fiery trial that you’re going to have. Not if, but when? Because you’re going to be tried. It’s going to happen. Also look there in 1 Peter in chapter one, where it makes a statement in verse nine. He says, because you’re gonna go through these things, it’s gonna be trying for you. He says in verse nine, receiving the end, the result of your faith, even the salvation of your soul.

You realize what you got by trusting Christ as your savior? Because he mentioned that in verse three, you were born again, born into God’s family. Then he says, in verse four, yes, you’re saved from something to something, to an inheritance that’s incorruptible and undefiled, that faith if not already reserved in heaven for you. So this is what God has got for you. So as you serve the Lord, you’ve already got a place reserved for you in heaven. You can’t lose that.

Now, you know where you’re gonna end up. You know where you’re gonna be. And nothing between here and there can change that. That ought to give you hope. So that everything you have to face and go through God who keeps the books, knows every trial, every testing that you go through. And I think he says somewhere in 1 Corinthians and chapters and maybe verse 13, that with the temptation will also come a way of escape that you may be able to, that you may be able to bear it.

You can escape it because your escape is going to be because you’re hunkered down in the Word of God and you’re trusting what God has to say. Now, when He makes a statement there in verse 4, to an inheritance incorruptible, file that fade if not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God. See God saved you and God can keep you saved because you put your faith in Christ and you had salvation. Look at the result of what you had by your faith.

Now he’s telling you because you put your faith in Christ look what you have. What was the end result? You had salvation. But I believe now he goes even further than that done in verse 9. He says, then in verse 10, of which salvation, so we know that verse 9, talking about salvation, of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. Then he gets into a whole system here about how precious the blood of Christ is.

And if that’s precious, if Christ is precious. If the promises are precious, then the trial, they must be precious too. It uses the same word to describe all these other things. True? So from this day forward, you have nothing to complain about, right? Your hope is in the Lord, your trust is in the Lord. No more wine and imponning out of you, right? Your confidence, your boldness comes because you believe what God’s Word says. And if you have to suffer a little bit?

Praise the Lord, right? How happy are ye? Fill with joy, looking forward to the day when the Lord says, blessed are thou. Interth thou unto the kingdom of the Lord. And you’re gonna lock in. And you’ll be so glad you went ahead and endured those things. That’s why James talks about enduring, enduring the temptation, not enjoying, but enduring these things. And learning how to walk with the Lord. So we have the living hope in chapter 1, verse 3 to 12.

And then our reaction to it. See, God tells you, now here’s the point I want to make, and then here’s how your reaction to this truth ought to be. He talks in verse 22 through verse 5 in chapter 2, he says, the living word and our reaction to that. And then the living stone that we looked at while ago, this precious stone and our relationship to that precious stone. You see, everything is in relation to what point he’s talking about.

And he goes through these various things because you and I are going to be trying, but you have to have a living hope. And you have to put your compass in the living word. And you have to have your compass in a living person. You see, it’s one thing to learn the Bible, but you realize this Bible is talking about a real person, the Lord. He ought to be more real to you than the clothes that you have on your bike.

I hope that he is. So as we’re going to do a few little studies in the book of 1 Peter and 2 Peter, a lot of good interesting things in there. Things that I may have trouble trying to explain to you. But if I get caught down here, I’ll just ask John, John, would you explain that for us? And I think everything will be all right. But as you read the scriptures, one thing will help you more than anything else.

Read, read, read. And then when you get through Donate, read and read, read, read. I remember Dr. Cambron says, anytime he’s going to teach a book in the Bible, he will read it through 30 to 40 times before he ever starts trying to outline it or trying to teach it or anything. 30 to 40 times just to get the idea so he can remember certain things and where they are. Now have you done that lately? Cameron, he was kind of pudgy, but you poked him.

Jesus come out. He used to have these big ole suspenders on. He always wore the big ole suspenders. And we thought if those suspenders ever snapped off, they’d go straight up. When he prayed, he prayed scripture. I mean, all of his prayers, it was like he just quoted scripture. And he made an impact upon students. And And he would always say, you know, because he would teach about all the trials and tribulations that we have. He said, as long as you can move that little pinky.

I wonder if he called it pinky. Did he call it pinky? But that little finger, he says, hey, everything’s okay. Everything’s all right. As long as you can move that little pinky. So everybody got one of those? Let me see it. Let me see your little pinky. See that? As long as you can move that little pinky, you’re going to make it. He’d come to class with his Coca-Cola. And I think he had another coat in between the breaks.

And then for his next class he’d have some more Coca-Cola. Well that’s okay, Dr. Hank Lindstrom had Pepsi didn’t he? He had a diet? Dr. Pepper. I gotta get me a favorite drink. What’s I’m not gonna have? I don’t know what to drink. I saw…what’s that? What’s that? I saw a cartoon. This guy is laying there on the bed, and there’s that bottle laying up there, and he’s having a nicotine fit, and they were having to put coffee in his veins.

She arrived again. I thought that was pretty good. But anyway, we’re gonna go through some of this, and I think it’ll be a blessing to you. Look up here. Isn’t though, in spite of everything, the one thing we know that we have that’s always so good and that’s to explain the gospel to somebody. You know, even the day I had somebody to trust the Lord, but I can’t remember where they were from. We had two from Germany yesterday or someplace, a couple of them from Germany, a couple of places.

I love that. I really do. I’m gonna get on there one of these days and I’m gonna hit every one of these messages we got on there and I said, yes I trust the Lord, yes I trust the Lord. Just so I can have about 50 of them and you know, no, don’t you ever do that. This hand represents you and me. The wallet represents saying we all have sin on us. Now God loves us. Hey, it’s our sin, but He loves us.

I love telling people that God loves you. God loves you. Because I don’t think enough people ever heard if anybody loves them or not. Everybody wants to be loved. And sometimes parents don’t tell you, or the kids don’t tell you, sometimes a husband SECTION or wife won’t tell you, but we always want to be loved, but God does love us and He hates our sin. And this is why because we’re so sinful. Think of all the people and all the sins of the world.

And yet here’s one person who could come into the world and the value of His precious blood was enough to pay for all the sin of all the world. everybody. And so the Bible says we need to pay it, but ours is in precious blood. We have a debt needs to be paid. To go to heaven we have to be as righteous as God and none of us are perfect, none of us are righteous. So the Bible says we cannot earn eternal life, we cannot work for her.

If we could then that’s the way it ought to be. This hand, Jesus Christ, He loves us, took the sin and paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead. And all he wanted us to do was believe he did it for us. And if we’ll believe it, he puts that payment to our account. And we go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever it believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Isn’t that good news? Best news in the world. Let’s pray, shall we? With heads bowed nice clothes and no one looking around. And if you’re watching by internet tonight, we’re glad to have you with us. Hope you’ve enjoyed the study in God’s word. But you may be listening, and maybe you have never trusted Christ as your Savior. Would you right now? Just between you and the Lord, say, Lord, I don’t understand it all. But I believe that when Christ died, I believe He died for me.

And I’m gonna trust Him right now as my Savior. And if you trust Jesus Christ right now as your Savior, He puts that payment He made to your account, and you’ll have a payment for all of your sins. That’s the reason for this. You have a payment for all of your sins. That means you don’t have to pay for your sins. I know that don’t sound that good, but that’s the way it is. It’s called grace. God loves us that much.

Would you trust Him? And if you will, God said it gives you eternal life as a free gift. And you can know that you’re going to heaven because you know that you can’t go to hell. I pray that you will. With heads about nice clothes and no one looking around. If you’re here tonight and you never trusted Christ, you say, would you trust Him right now? Would you trust Him right now? Say, preacher, that made sense to me And right now I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior.

If you would, trust the Lord, just slip you in it very quickly, put a right back down. Zayim will it all. Our Father, we thank you again for your blessings. And Father, I pray for you. Your children that know you and love you, want you to use them. And they want to be a blessing. And we know they’re going to be a lot of trials. And some may be going through some fiery trials even now. But Lord, we know that we can look to you and trust you because we have a living hope, a confidence that’s in a person who’s alive forevermore, that sees us and watches over us and we can cast all of our cares upon him because we know that he cares for us.

So bless each one here. And Father, we pray especially for this coming week that you’ll help us to get all the details done for the missionaries coming in, that you’ll give them safety and Father for us to be able to be a blessing to each and every one of them that we’ll be able to give them a good offering for common and that we’ll be able to use them in various ministries doing that three, four days. And we thank you so much for the ministry that was started here so many years ago by your great servant Hank Lindstrom.

We thank you Lord for him. And follow me just pray that you’ll continue to bless this work and every phase of it in Christ’s name 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 Main. 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. Father can meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Leaving that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.