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

The day’s message is a little difficult for me Because I feel like the guy that gets off the horse goes in ten different directions. So many things I want to say, and sometimes you’re not sure exactly how to say it. Anybody that knows me at all knows that I wouldn’t purposely offend anybody. And that’s the truth. I’m really a nice guy. But I have mixed emotions because I don’t like what I see coming in this country. I sometimes wish I didn’t see anything coming, that I would just focus upon now and nothing else mattered.

But the Bible says it means hearts failing them for fear, seeing those things that are coming. And if they can see them, I can see them. If you listen to a lot of the news today and commentators, and everybody’s like they’re warning about something terrible going to happen. Many people don’t believe the country is going to get turned around. A lot don’t believe that the economy is going to be revived again. Some don’t believe the stop marks are going to go back again.

I don’t really know. I’ve got my opinion on a few things. But I do thank the Lord for allowing me the privilege of 68 years to live in a wonderful country where I can freely serve the Lord. But I do have a fear for my kids and my grandkids. I don’t think they’re going to have the freedoms that I’ve had. I think it’s going to get worse. And I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Colossians in chapter 2.

start there and see where we end up. I want you to stay with me, follow my rambling. Now you know it sometimes I use some notes, sometimes I don’t use any notes at all. You say I’ve noticed that. Sometimes I haven’t got a clue how long my sermon is going to be or how short it’s going to be. I just talk until I get through. Today I might talk for two or three hours and yes I’ve got I’ve got a a few notes here.

I want to read two you a few things that I think it’s important for us to know. Here in Colossians in chapter 2, I want you to look there at what Paul says as he writes to the Christians are at Coloss. In chapter 2 in verse 6, as you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. Well, how did you receive him? By faith. Faith alone in the payment that Christ made on the cross for you.

You trusted Him as your Savior and God gave you eternal life. You were born into His family. Well He says you’re the walk the way you were saved by faith. Taking God at His Word. Believe in that what He says is true. Seeing life through the Word of God. Seeing the future through the Word of God. I try not to let the world interpret the Bible. I try to use the Bible to interpret what’s going on. And he made the statement here in verse seven that when you’re talking about as you have received the Lord, so walk in him, and this is what he means, rooted and built up in him, established in the faith as you have been taught abounding their end with Thanksgiving.

So God wants us to be rooted in the Word of God, built up in what He says, so we’ll go deep and go high, in God’s Word, so that we can live the way God wants us to live. Now, I actually believe that if God wanted us to win everybody in the world to the Lord, then this would be the will of God for everybody in the world. But we haven’t reached everybody in the world. But if we could just get God’s people to be rooted in the Word of God and built up in the Word of God, we could win the world.

We could reach the world. We could change things. He also gives us a positive and a negative. Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. So you and I are supposed to be aware there’s a lot of false teaching, humanistic philosophy in this world to get you and I not to follow Christ. follow Christ so that we don’t do what God wants us to do.

So we’re not as strong as we ought to be. I believe in the founding of this country that people that God used knew to book. And they happened to be the ones that God was able to use to bring this nation together and did a great work. Let me read this to you. On January the 13th, 1947, U.S. Senate, Senate, Chaplain Peter Marshall. Anybody ever heard of Peter Marshall? A lot of you have. He says, the choice before us is plain.

Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise. Disapplause. discipline or disintegration. I am rather tired of hearing about our rights. time has come to hear about responsibilities. He said this to Congress. And that was in 47. I think they might need another dose. He said this to him. He says America’s future depends upon her accepting and demonstrating God’s government. And then he made this statement on July the 3rd, 1947, to the 8th Congress. God of our fathers may it be ever understood that our liberty is under God and to the extent that America honors thee, well, thou bless America.

We just finished singing God Bless America. But I believe God’s blessing on America is gonna be on direct ratio to America’s blessing on God. And we’ve got to where we don’t bless God anymore. And the people in place of leadership are not doing what they do in order to honor God. So it might be a little difficult for God to bless America. though I crave it and I desire and I want it. But it’s almost like asking God to bless a rebellious child.

But I do want God blessing. So when I pray that God bless America, I’m praying also that God will turn America around because God does something in this country that drives people to their knees. Life is gonna be over soon. I’m already getting up there where I’m getting close to that 70 mark. I know I don’t have probably a lot of good years left. So I don’t want to live in fear of saying or doing what I should do as a Christian.

I realize that time is short and we need to be diligent about doing the things that God wants us to do. I had read this, especially as we’re celebrating our anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this weekend. These words were uttered by the father of the American Revolution named Samuel Adams. He says, we have this day restored the sovereign to whom all men ought to be obedient. He arranged in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let his kingdom come.

In other words, when we established this country, he made this statement that we have just formed a government to be under God. This nation was under God. So we often hear about the democratic way, to the people, for the people, by the people, under God. To be just for the people and of the people and by the people is democratic and that’s a democracy and that’s not what we have. We have a republic. I’m not talking about the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.

I’m talking about the form of government that we have that was established. Benjamin Franklin says, we have given to you a republic if you can keep it. But the only way you can keep it the way God gave it is that the generations afterwards must be taught the scriptures. And without the scriptures you cannot maintain our form of government. You cannot maintain the freedom of this country without the Bible as the basis of education in this country. He said, well, I don’t like that.

I don’t care. Later on, he made this statement. He says, I conceive. We cannot better express ourselves than by humblies supplicating the supreme ruler of the world, that the confusions that are and have been among the nations may be overruled by the promoting and speedily bringing in the holy and happy period when the kingdoms of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, may be everywhere established, and the people bow to the scepter of Him who is the Prince of Peace.

Any question about who He’s talking about? Talking about Jesus Christ. I know that historically, 104 of the first 119 colleges and universities in America and universities in America were founded by Christians. 104 of the 119 colleges and universities in America founded by Christians. Harvard was 100 years old before it had any professors who were not ordained ministers of the gospel. Dartmouth was started as a missionary outreach to Indians. Brown was the first Baptist college in America and the first 40,000 graduates in America prior to the Civil War.

10,000 entered the gospel ministry. You see, our founding fathers got this understanding. We can’t preserve this nation if we can’t preserve the education in the people so that they will think the way the founding fathers thought. So they established universities and colleges in order to teach the students how they think that established this nation. That’s pretty clear to me. Woodrow Wilson made this statement. He says, a nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do.

We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about. The Bible is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life. Now, this is the president saying this. And he says, the meaning of life, the nature of God and nature and needs of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit and the way of peace and salvation. You know, we could use a little bit more of that.

You’ve heard of a guy name Daniel Webster, also Noah Webster, but this is what he said. If there is anything in my thoughts or style to recommend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper. But if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory and profound obscurity.

We have allowed our children to be educated by humanist educators for the most part. Now there’s some good teachers here and principals there now but for the overall most part our children are being educated in a humanistic philosophy. By the very fact that in majority of schools We have the peaching of evolution. Evolution! Is a religion of the atheist. An atheist can’t believe in creation because that requires a creator. So the only other alternative is we got here by a lot of little accidents, the mutations.

You know, gases coming together, pfft, now. Next thing you know, you got some blob floating around in the ooze of the Nile. And so from a one-celled amoeba, we have developed into what we are today, and they don’t believe in a God. They’re humanistic. Everything revolves around man, and they have taken our children. And that doesn’t matter. You can take them to church on Sunday, and they will get maybe an hour of Bible teaching, and five days of humanistic philosophy.

And you think that it’s not going to make a difference in our country, how they think and how they feel, and what they want to accomplish with their life? No, Webster said this, the principle of all genuine liberty and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority, the man, therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be a accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer and the people that have not the Bible and not Christianity and don’t want God or the Bible in our schools have nothing to do with it.

Rewrite history, change everything. This accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer because it’s not in man that walk up to direct his steps. That’s why we need a Savior. That’s why we need the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to help us to do the things that God wants us to do in order to love like we ought to. And so because they don’t have the spirit of the Lord, they have to pass more laws.

And more laws means more freedoms that you and I are going to lose. And so every time the Congress gets together, they are passing some law that takes away some of your rights and your freedoms. I don’t like what I see coming in America. Let me read this to you because this is so good. Some of you know all this stuff, but there are probably some of you that never get this. You say, What’s this got to do with the Bible?

If you read this Bible, you’ll find out the Bible talks an awful lot about government, all the way through it’s about government, government, government, government, and the role that we’re supposed to play in government and how government affects our life. It was Paul who knew and understood the law that says, I appeal unto Caesar. Why did he do that? Because he knew the law. He said, I’m three born. I’ve got rights. That’s why he wound up in Rome. You ever heard of a guy named Paul Harvey?

He said this. A Reverend Joe Wright, pastor of the Central Christian Church in Wichita, before the Kansas state legislature. Now this guy had some gall. He had some intestinal fortitude we call it? Anyway, he had to pray. And in his prayer did he unload? And when he did, people got up and says that when he finished three members jumped to their feet and indignantly shouted, he can’t talk like that. Another one says that it was gross and divisive, sanctimonious, bearing another guy named daily in the Senate called it blasphemous, ignorant, and others in the chamber agreed.

And we’re very upset because of what this pastor had to say. Even though it was almost 20 years ago, listen to what he said. He prayed, Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your directions and guidance. Having problem with that so far, they did. We know your word says woe to those who call evil good but that’s exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word in the name of moral pluralism.

We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism. We have endorsed perversion and called it alternative lifestyle. We have exploited the poor and called it a lottery. We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. In the name of choice, we have killed our unborn. In the name of right to life, we have killed abortionists. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem. We have abused power and called it political savvy.

We have coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it taxes. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored vaguers of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, O God, and know our hearts today. Try us and show us any wicked way in us. Cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas and who have been ordained by you to govern this great state.

Grant them your wisdom to rule and made their decisions. Direct us to the center of your will. I asked in the name of your Son the living Savior, Jesus Christ, a man.” Now, He got raked over the cold for such a… But did you know in the founding of this country and all the colonies, they all… Believe this Almost every one of the states I Should say all of the states in America the recognitions to the Lord God Almighty About what this country is founded for and of individual states But lo and behold We’ve had something taken change in our country little by little that is a shame I had an incident that took place up in Georgia.

Any of y’all here ever heard of the CLA Christian Law Association from the Yohann? Years ago, I came down here and I had the opportunity of giving devotion for them. And so I got a chance to meet a few of them. And I became the pastor up there in Athens, Georgia. Well, there just happens to be a guy that was up there, James Hunter, who was on the Oconee County School Board. And him and a lady named Kay Shepherd was on the board, and they didn’t like the idea of evolution being taught in the county.

So they wanted an alternative. They wanted to have something about creation. They were on the board, their opinion. You think, well, everybody ought to have the freedom of education. Let them hear both sides. No, when you’re an evolutionist, you don’t want those kids to hear the other side. You don’t want to hear that. So anyway, this guy contacted me and he asked me. He says, would you be interested in helping me? I said, I’ll do anything I possibly can.

So anyway, I was contacted by CLA. And you ever heard of a guy named Ken Ham? Ken Ham has the creation thing that’s up there, a big museum and so on. And anyway, they wanted to come to our church and so they needed a place I didn’t find. But what I did is I got very interested. A few years back, Michael Adams, who is the president of the University of Georgia, he threw this office, they asked me if I would go to the University of Georgia.

They were having this great big dinner and they had a lot of legislators there. So I got a chance to sit up on the platform and know with all these big shots, you know, and I’m sitting down here on this end. I didn’t even know who was sitting on the side to me. I didn’t know some of these people. But anyway, there were politicians and all that. And so I enjoyed my meal, got a chance to shake hand with a few of the important people.

And I gave a prayer. I felt ashamed of myself. I didn’t pray like this guy did. I just gave a little prayer for the food. But anyway, I got an extra letter from Michael Adams and I started doing some digging. So I went down to the law library and I… I asked him, I said, I want to see the original charter of the University of Georgia. So they, says, we don’t know where it is. I says, the original charter, you know, when the founding fathers got together and they made this document, it had to go through the legislature in Atlanta.

I says, there’s got to be an original document. Lo and behold, they kept searching and it was upstairs in an attic, some back papers, and they finally found a copy of it. It was nowhere anybody could find it, but I found one. And I got it and I even made a copy of it. And it just blew my mind to know how these guys were thinking because this was one of the first universities in the country, especially in Georgia.

It was a first. So I read it and I made some copies. And this is what it listens to this. as it is the distinguishing happiness of free governments, that civil order should be the result of choice, not necessity. And the common wishes of the people become the laws of the land. Their public prosperity and even existence very much depends upon suitably forming the minds and morals of their citizens. In other words, you want to have a good country, you got to educate the people, and they got to know what standards to have, what to believe, understanding our founding documents, to be able to think and the reason to relate, to record, to understand how to make wise decisions.

Then it says, when the mind of people in general are viciously disposed and unprincipled, and their conduct disorderly, a free government will be attended with greater confusion and with evils more horrid than the wild uncultivated state of nature. It can only be happy when the public principles and opinions are properly directed and their manners regulated. This is an influence beyond the stretch of laws and punishment. In other words, laws can’t make people like this.

This is what I was talking about in Sunday school. And what they had is similar to all the universities and colleges that were founded at the beginning of this country. And get what he said, this is an influence beyond the stretch of laws and punishment and can be claimed only and they use the word religion, but I believe that the word religion is not necessarily a bad word if we can refer to it as true Christianity. But it says only by religion and education, it should therefore be among the first objects of those who wish well to the national prosperity to encourage and support the principles of religion and morality and early to place the youth under the forming hand of society that by instructing instructions, they may be molded to the love of virtue and good order.

It’s time to make plans for the summer. Join us for summer camp July 9 through the 13th and fits Gerald, Georgia. At summer camp, teens ages 13 to 18 will enjoy fun competitions while learning about the word of God. Over the years, hundreds of kids have been reached with the gospel at Summer Camp. This is your opportunity to make Summer meaningful and memorable for a teen in your life. The cost of Summer Camp is $150. If you’d like to donate a Summer Camp scholarship, you can do so by calling 813-884-4328 for more information.

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.