This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Bibleline, Bibleline, here got word on Bibleline, here got 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. regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for a 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.

For us we’re privileged to live on this side of the cross and he says, look, I said this and this happened. Therefore, you know that what I’m telling you, it will be worth it all. And it’s supposed to affect our lives. That’s why he wants us to live holy because it’ll be worth it. Do sacrifice. It’ll be worth it. Give up this world for the will of God. It will be worth it. Then your decision, when that day comes, will be vindicated.

Therefore, this is what we’re supposed to do. Look in chapter 3 and verse 9. Chapter 3 and verse 9. You’ll notice that there is a situation with a man and a woman. And the woman is told that she could win her husband by the way she lives. where she’s living with the husband. And it’s not the adornance of the hair or the dress that’s going to win him. It’s going to be because of your attitude, your submissive spirit and so forth.

Convincing the woman why she should treat her husband the way she should. So then he uses an illustration and use the illustration about in the old 10, see in verse 6, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, that’s the illustration. She did that, and God richly blessed her. She had a child, and this child, that’s where the whole nation of Israel came from. But she obeyed, submitted herself, see in verse 5, where it says, been in subjection onto their own husband.

This is now in this life. Go ahead, submit yourself to the authority of the Lord, knowing that what God promised, He will perform. And that even though you suffer at this present time, all of your suffering will be worth it. And someday you’ll be so glad. You’ll be vindicated. You won’t lose. And if somebody says something, that’s okay. Let God protect you and defend you. And you’ll be surprised what He will do. Now look there in the verse nine.

Verse nine, he says, not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing, but contrary wise blessing, knowing that you are there unto called, get this because this is down the road, that you should inherit a blessing. In other words, you do this and you’ll get this. Everybody wants to be blessed. We always ask God to bless our lives. All right. Do things that God can bless. God doesn’t bless our disobedience. He blesses our obedience. So this is why he talks about up here, about our obedience to the Lord.

See there when he makes that statement in verse six, even as Sarah obeyed. And then up there in verse one where it says, if any obey, not the word, there’s a thing about obeying and disobeying. That’s also mentioned in chapter two about the word disobedience means those who obey and those who disobey. because he’s talking about us having a reason to suffer for the Lord. And this was mentioned, I believe mainly because there were some Jewish people that were suffering because of the temple was going to be destroyed.

Israel was going to be under persecution. And the temple, being destroyed, the children of Israel were scattered in all the things that was going to happen to them. And they were going to be strangers and pilgrims. And so he’s telling them that wherever you go and there’s Gentile nations out there and that’s why it’s mentioned there in chapter 2 about this. Also look there in verse 16, in verse 16 of chapter 3. When he says, having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you as of evil doers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good behavior in Christ, but your good behavior is a choice.

You can have a good life and obey and serve and then suffer the consequences for it. And that’s what’s going to take place. And as we said before, down in verse 21, talking about your good conscience. that notor you have toward the Lord. Now, if there’s any verses in the scriptures that seem to be difficult to explain, it seems like you’re just moving right along, everything’s going long fine, and all of a sudden you come up verse 18, 19, and 20.

So what’s that doing in there? Well, there’s a reason. It’s an example again, and he gives several examples in just a couple verses, but you see the examples have to fit in with the overall context. It’s not just these stand alone. They are here to explain other things. And you don’t use an example or a parable and try to make everything mean something. But get the thought of it. You see, when Christ came into the world, and you’re looking in verse 18, chapter for Christ also hath once suffered for sins.

Or now he suffered and then glory. But he suffered first. But why did he do it? There’s a reason why God allows us to stay in this old world and why he allows us to suffer. So he says in verse 18, for Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust. Now see, that’s not right. So that you and I, as we go through life, you may be just and there’s people who are unjust and they do you wrong.

They can defraud you. They can hurt you. See all kind of bad things about you. Slam you, taught a knife you in the back, turn people against you, and it’ll hurt. It’ll hurt deeply. But see whether you get hurt or stay hurt is gonna be your own choice. You can decide that God knows I’ll be vindicated someday. Because whenever I get to heaven, if all my works are going to be revealed, then God is going to bless because God says, He is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love.

So therefore, can I be patient? Knowing that one day my heavenly Father that’s going to judge me the judgments of Christ is, I’ll be vindicated because I know that God knows and He keeps the books. And I can wait and be patient knowing that I’m going to win when it’s over because God knows all the little details. And people say and do things that hurt you, you can try to get them back, even the score, or you can learn to just put your confidence and trust in the Lord.

So get what He says here. He says that he did it, but it was a reason, that he might bring us to God. And as we mentioned the other day, we could be used by the Lord to bring people to the Lord. And then he said, but quickened or made alive by the Spirit. So he died the flesh, but it was quickened by the Spirit. And see, but first of all, there was the death. Then there was a quickening.

See, he suffered, then he was made alive. And then the Bible talks about it in the book of Philippians chapter two. is now in heaven. So when the Bible talks about you and I, because Christ has suffered for us, he says, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. Knowing in this same principle is found in the book of Hebrews in chapter 12 when it says, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finish of our faith. You know, because of what was laid out before him, he ran the race, the spies and the shame and he knew that for the joy that was set before him.

The suffering is not the joy. It’s what is accomplished because of it. So because of what God has done for us, we have a desire to want to please the Lord. Now, this same principle is also found here in chapter 4, and look down here in verse 17, when it says, well, the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God and if it first began at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?

In verse 18, and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly in the sinner appear? Now I know that sounds like a very complicated verse, but let me just give you my little yankiology. Because in this life, there is the will of God to do what he wants us to do. But in doing that is not always the easiest thing in the world. Sometimes it’s very hard and difficult. Sometimes we sacrifice a lot. Sometimes you may go without sleep, you may go without food, you may go without doing what you want to do.

But if you do it, when I stop and think, and I’ll just use this as an illustration, Alright, I’m almost 75 years old. And as I said before, only one time in my life has anybody ever witnessed to me. And it just happens to be Betty’s dad 56 and a half years ago. But the odds of him being there at that time in my life was very rare. I mean, it was just so close. It’s amazing that I ever was even there and that he was there at the same time to explain the gospel to me.

I mean, if you tell my best scarcely being saved because of what somebody has to go through in order to reach you. Because not everybody is doing it. Not everybody is winning people of Christ. So what are you willing to go through and suffer and sacrificed in order to reach that person. So that means that person was scarcely reached. And we’re somebody, if you hadn’t had done it, nobody would probably have ever reached them. We often think about the kids who go Friday night sewing them.

Well, they’d have been saved anyway. No, I don’t see that in the scriptures. But what if they had not done so? Then there’s some people that would have never heard the gospel and look how scarcely it would have been that they will have ever heard the gospel in their whole life. So I believe that that’s a little bit about what it’s talking about. For if the righteous scarcely be saved, suffering to reach the lost with much difficulty. Because it’s difficult for some people to ever witness the carrier track, so the seed at all.

So it’s amazing and it’s a miracle that anybody ever trusts the Lord. So notice when he says here in verse 19 of first Peter chapter 3, which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison. Now this is a little bit on the tricky side because there’s various views. One, some people believe that there were these angels who were before the flood and so therefore they were put into this prison and when Jesus died he went to this place and he preached to these spirits that were in prison and so they said the word spirits refers to angels wicked angels the bad angels and that is a view and it’s hard time to disprove a view but trying to substantiate and vindicate a particular view is a little bit more on the difficult side.

The other one is that there were people that in the Old Testament that had died. And so when they died, well they didn’t go to heaven, they went to the place called paradise in the heart of the earth. And so when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He didn’t go to the torment part of hell. He went to the place of the departed, but the believers and when He came back from the dead, He led captivity captive, so there were spirits in prison.

And so he led them out. And then there’s others that believe that this is a reference to those people who lived before the flood. And so if people lived before the flood and here’s Noah preaching the gospel and perhaps there were even others that could have been preaching the gospel but died before the flood which could have been possible. And there could have been a lot of people that trusted the Lord but died before the flood. I don’t know.

But And Mathuzla, he lived a long old time. And so he was probably alive at the time of the flood, or dying right before that. But then you had someone else that was living doing that period of time. And his name just happens to be Enoch, and Enoch, seventh from Adam. So just hold your place here and look over there in the book of Jude. And you’ll see that there’s a reference here. He went and preached to the spirits that were in prison.

But remember, we’ve already looked at in chapter 1 where the Old Testament prophets talked about in the spirit which was in them and they were prophets who preached. Back in the Old Testament. So are there people that knew the gospel on the other side of the flood? So he says here in Jude Look what he says in verse 13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars and whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

And Enoch also the seventh from Adam prophesied. So that means that Enoch was a preacher or bring forth the word of God, teach in the truth, but look what He preached. He says, behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints. Now this is not the rapture because they didn’t know anything about the rapture. That would reveal to the apostle Paul. But it does talk about the revelation of Jesus Christ coming back in power and great glory and He knew that before the flood.

And He was a preacher. So the Spirit which was in them did preach to people that lived before the flood. So whether or not is that what it’s a reference to, whatever it is, there’s a word that is used there in the book of, of course, Peter in chapter 3, if you go back there, and talks about the word long-suffering, look in verse 20, which sometimes we’re disobedient when it wants the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.

Now what is the purpose of this book is to get us to understand that there is to be the suffering with patience, suffering with patience, long suffering. And so God is given us another illustration of how that even before the flood, how long he preached, suffered all that time. Now, how much ridicule did he go through, how much suffering he go through? We don’t have a clue, but only that there were people that were preached to and maybe did not believe.

Now when you see that word in verse 20 when sometime that word can just simply be in Old Testament time or once they were disobedient. So that word disobedience, I just want you to look at this, look in chapter 2. You look down there in verse 7 of chapter 2 where it says unto you therefore which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient or unbelieving. So is it possible that they were preached to gospel to when they were unbelievers before they died, but they were preached to the spirits that are now in prison?

I don’t know. Was there a lot of people that have trusted the Lord over the years? And when He went there in the book of the Ephesians in chapter 4 talks about how that he descended. But before he descended, he descended first until the Lord parts of the earth and led captivity captive. So they were captive and he led them out. Another thing to consider is this. When we talk about when Christ was on the cross, he told the thief on the cross, today shall thou be with me in paradise.

Now if he was in paradise, three days and three nights, He says in the heart of the earth. If he went into the torment section of hell, did the thief on the cross go with him? Because he said to three days and three, he said, you’re going to be with me. Today thou shalt be with me in paradise. So if it’s paradise, then he couldn’t have preached us some spirits or fallen angels in another place, I don’t believe. But you know what?

I don’t have to understand all of it. I know there’s different views, and we’ve got different teachers that can have all kinds of views, and it could be another five that I haven’t even mentioned. But the point, I believe, is very simple. In illustration that they preached, and it was a long time before the flood came, but the flood did come. And when When that flood came, Noah was vindicated. When Christ came and suffered on the cross, when he came back from the dead, he was vindicated.

He was who he claimed to be. And God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue shall confess. But then he makes a statement here in the last part of verse 20. while this was going on and preparing an ark. Why was he doing this? Because God told him to. Hebrews chapter 11, he moved with fear and prepared an ark for the saving of his house so that the ark was built because it was going to be a flood.

And they went into the Ark, and yes, the Ark is a type of Christ, which was your in the Ark. When he talks about here in verse 21, the light figure, which is another way of saying an illustration, an example, a picture, it illustrates something. Now, the light figure, we’re unto even baptism, does also now save us. Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God. So if it saves you from anything, it saves you from an evil conscience or a bad conscience or a guilty conscience, you do what is right.

Now, there’s another way of looking at this. Is the baptism here referring to the baptism of the Holy Spirit? If it’s the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that happens to everybody. everybody. But not everybody is water baptized. But we know this that when we are in Christ, and when He died and came back from the dead, we are in Him. And that’s why the last part of that verse talks about the resurrection of Christ from the dead. So if we’re to be resurrected from the dead, then for the rest of our life, as He says there in chapter four in verse two, we should live the rest of our life in newness of life.

We should walk the way God wants us to walk. Now, no person is ever to be what are baptized to be saved. There’s no amount of works that we do to save ourselves, so we never have to worry about adding works to anything like this. But you’ll notice there’s a one little word that’s called subject. See there in the last part of verse 22, when he talks about Christ, he says, who has gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God.

But no, wait a minute, he wasn’t always there. He came into this world and he suffered and died and now he’s there. So you and I are supposed to learn something from all of these verses to encourage us that We’re going to live in this whole world and we’re going to suffer while we’re here. But as you go through and you read some of these verses, it’s designed to help you and I. Realize it. While we’re in this world, you’re going to suffer but be patient.

The Old Testament prophets, they also made prophecies and they had to wait to find out. And the Bible even talks about it. And the angels desire to look in to try to understand some of this. See, we don’t get all the answers while we’re here. They didn’t understand everything that they wrote. We’re not going to understand everything that we read. The angels desire something because they probably had questions and said, what’s all this about? Why has the Son of God been born as a little baby?

And when he announced that night to those shepherds and so forth about the the Lord Himself has come, going to all the world, and joy to the world, and so forth. Yeah. And so we find that Noah, he had to work for her, as we know from the sixth chapter of Genesis. Well, he just did it for 120 years. And then he says, and wherein few were saved. Now, are those the spirits that were in prison back in that day, in that body?

we don’t know. And when you get right down to it, you don’t matter. You don’t have to know. I can look at saints and trauma with three or four different answers on it. But what I know is, in all the years since I’ve trusted Christ as my savior, I’ve done a lot of suffering on things. I’ve given up a lot of things. And I’ve traveled, and I never know sometimes how things are gonna work on. That now we’ve lost one of our sons, who was brutally murdered.

So we don’t get everything we want, but we know that God is just, God is right. God does not make mistakes. But so until then, we’ve got to be patient, long suffering. But we know one of these days, everything we’ve given or anything that we’ve sacrificed for the Lord, it’s going to be vindicated someday. It’s going to be worth it. Now, can you believe that? Can you believe it’ll be worth it? All the things that you go through. But one day God’s gonna say, I saw everything.

And I wrote down everything. God keeps the books. And you’re gonna be vindicated. In other words, you’ll find that it was worth it all. Don’t you believe that? If we can believe that, see, it can help our attitude in the meantime. He can help us accept what God brings into our life and decisions we got to make, and I believe it’ll all be worth it. But close with this verse, chapter 4, verse 2, one more time. That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lust of men but to the will of God.

Why is he talking about all this? So that that’s what we’ll do. We’ll live the rest of our life. Where’s another verse that’s found in the Bible that talks about, and for the love of Christ constrain us us because we thus judged that if one died, then he died for all and that they which, you know, lives should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him who died for them and rose again. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 14 and 15 get a chance to, you ought to mark those verses in the Bible, Well, they are awesome verses.

Look up here. This end represent you and me. The wallet represent all of our sins. God loves us. Our hates our sin, but he loves us. And for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from the Lord. And that means because we’re all guilty, we’re all condemned. And there’s nobody that can stop this. We don’t have the power to stop because we’re already condemned. We’re just waiting for the day of execution, which takes place when we draw that last breath.

But God loves us, wants us to go to heaven. And to go to heaven, we have to be perfect as righteous as God. And none of us are perfect, none of us are righteous. So the Bible says, we cannot save ourselves. We’re unjust. It means that we’re not righteous. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh. God foreordained before the foundations of the world that Jesus Christ would come into the world and make a death payment and shed his precious blood for all of our sins.

So he would take all the sin of all the world and pay for them on the cross, come back from the dead and say that if we would believe he did it for us, he would put this payment to our account and we would go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. That’s the best news in all the world. You don’t earn it, you don’t work for it, it’s the gift of God. So once you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, not payment put to your account, you’re vindicated.

When we get to heaven, everything will be all right. Everything will be wonderful. This world will be over. We don’t have to worry about anything. We win. And we wait patiently for that moment. Let’s pray, show it. But his bow nice clothes and no one looking around. If you have never trusted Christ as your savior, why not right now just talk to the Lord and say, Lord, I don’t understand at all, but I believe that when Christ died, I believe He died for me.

He paid for my sins. And if you will trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, He said, He’s saving, give eternal life. And you can know that you’re going to heaven. If you’re watching by the internet, understand that. Yes, God does love you. And He did pay for your sins because He didn’t want you to do it. But He will put that payment He made to your account if you’re simple to believe He did it for you. You can do that because it’s a gift.

It’s totally free. A person is saved by grace. Grace means unmerit it. You don’t deserve it. But he gives it to us because he loves us so much and he loves you. I pray that you’ll trust Christ as your Savior. Father, thank you again for your blessings. Thank you for all you do for us. And we thank you Lord for your words you’ve given us. Or we wish we could just understand everything. We can make everything so understandable but help us to be obedient to that which we do know what we do understand and bless us in the study of your word and Christ 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. book The Gospel Driven Man covers all those topics and we want all new listeners of Bible line 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 Bible Mind. 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, believe in that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.