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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 BibleLineMinistries.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.

I want you to take your Bible and turn with me to the Book of Matthew, the Book of Matthew, in chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24. A lot of verses, great subject in this chapter, but I’m not going to talk about the chapter. I’m not going to talk about all the other verses. I just want to get one little phrase out of one verse. I used to hear about these preachers. They use one verse as a springboard and then they spring off of it and they dive all over place and swim all around.

And then when they get through they come back and go that verse again and he got it nicely lit up. And so that’s what I’m going to do tonight. Here in the book of Matthew 24, I want you to look there in verse 12. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax coal. We’ve got a lot of problems in America. got a lot of problems in churches, got a lot of problems in our homes, got a lot of problems in government.

Now with all the things coming out with people accusing everybody of things they thought was under the rug and nobody will ever know, man people seem like they just can’t wait to tell some little secret on somebody. The things that may be true may not be, I don’t I really don’t care, can’t do anything about it. But I know this, be sure your sin will find you out. And he says that because iniquity abounds, the love of many wax cold.

Now we’ve got some things down here and they try to light them every Sunday. But you know, if you heat wax, it’ll just melt. But if you don’t and it gets cold, you may not be able to bend it, may not be able to bend it, but you should bring it pretty easy. You and I are supposed to be pliable in God’s hands. You know, stay nice and warm and close to the Lord, stand on fire, and we can melt like wax and he can shape us any way he wants.

But when you get away from the Lord and you get cold and you get hardened, you get brittle, you’re easy to break instead of just being able to bend and God can shape you the way He wants to. So I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 8. 1 Corinthians and chapter 8, I don’t want you to get to the place where you get cold toward the things of God because it’s so easy.

You know there’s things that you’re supposed to do and should do and want to do sometimes, but without knowing it, you can drift from the Lord. You can still come to church and be hardened in your heart and get into the place where you’re not teachable or pliable, where God can’t use you. You just like put on a shelf and you know the Lord and you might even try to serve the Lord half heartily. But God knows your heart.

He knows when you’re right, knows when you’re not. But here in book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 8. I want you to look in verse 1. Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Everybody knows something about something. Everybody knows a little bit. But now these… Corinthian Christians were, well, they were kind of proud of all of their knowledge. They had all these gifts that God had given to them. They kind of gloated and lifted up.

We pride about, I got this gift and this gift. What do you got? And there was divisions among them and problems. 14 major problems in this one church alone. So if people think that, well, when you know the Lord, all your problems are solved and everybody loves the Lord. and everything is rosy from here on out, need to read the book of 1 Corinthians. They didn’t that away. Can Christians mess up their lives? Christians still do things wrong and live in sin and all that kind of stuff?

Yeah, they do. You see, you’re not going to heaven and I’m not going to heaven because I love God. I’m going to heaven because they love me. But there is so much that God wants to do with those who do love him. I spoke on this just about a week ago. But now notice the last part of this first. Knowledge puffed up, but love edifies. Charity. Charity is love. Charity or love edifies. It means it beautifies what’s there and adds to it.

That’s what you’re trying to do with each other. That’s what a man tries to do with his wife. Edifies what’s there and build up. And most times people are trying to tear each other down. They argued and the fighting among each other, the bitterness, the hatred, instead of encouraging and praying for one another and doing the right thing. Love waxes cold and therefore iniquity abounds. And I remember listening to somebody the other night just talking about why are all these people going around killing all these people?

Because of sin and the only cure for sin is the new birth and the only way you can get the new birth is by the preaching of the Word of God and preaching the gospel but they don’t want that. Our government doesn’t want the cure for the problem. They just think you just pass another law. Pass another gun law. That’ll solve the problem. Think so? You know it ain’t gonna work because it’s a heart problem. It’s the problem on the inside of a person because they are filled with hate and when you don’t stay warm and close to the Lord you will thank sin, live sin, you commit sin.

That’s what you do. So there’s a cure and so God presents the cure here and to these people in Corinth. Notice what he says in verse two. And if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. Now, there’s a lot of things you can know. You can have all kind of degrees after your name. You can know all these things. But if you have never in your Christian life, if you never have learned how to love, you are not mature and you will never mature.

But churn in the Lord is learning how to love like God. And if you don’t love like God, you may know him as your Savior. You’re going to heaven when you die, but you don’t love him in your life. You don’t love what another is you should. You don’t even love yourself correctly. So the key after you trust Christ as Savior, you study the Word of God so that you can grow in your love. You don’t just, I fell in love.

No, you grow in love. That’s all he says here in verse three. But if any man, and see those two words, you ought to underline him in your Bible. If any man loved God, the same shall be known of him. And how do you know if somebody loves God by the things they do, the way they are, the character about them? But if they live in a life of sinful rebellion against God, they don’t love God. Now, a person that can be lost and give the impression of loving God, that’s between God and them.

I don’t try to judge whether or not a man is saved or he’s lost, but if you say you’re saved, I’m going to take you at your word. If you say you love the Lord, I’m going to take you at your word, and I want to see the decisions you make that you love the Lord. And by the way you live, you may be shouting from the housetop. I really don’t love God. Now, take your Bible and turn to the local 1 Corinthians in chapter 12.

1 Corinthians chapter 12 and look at these verses. In verse 27, he says to this body of believers, he says, you are the body of Christ and members in particular. In other words, every one of you are special. You’re all in this body and every one of you have a particular ministry. He said, but you’re not all the same. You don’t all have the same talents and abilities. So he makes it straight, so they can understand it. Look in verse 28, God has set some in the church.

Apostles? Profits, teachers, after that, miracles, gifts of healing, helps, government, diversities of tongues. He says, are all apostles and the answer should be, are all apostles? No. Or all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. Are all workers of miracles? No. Do all have to get to healing? No. Do all speak with tongue? No. Do all interpret. No. But he says, in spite of all those things, things and if all of you had all of them and you did them all, something’s still missing.

There’s one thing that you’re lacking and if you had this one thing it would solve your problems. Now you know a lot of people go through life and they have problems galore and it’s interesting if you could just figure out how to solve that marital problem or the that those teenagers problems or the you know the preacher’s problems or the deacon’s problems or the elder’s problem, the member’s problem, the government’s problem. Boy, everybody’s got a problem. But if there’s one thing they all had, it’s all of everything else.

Do you know whenever they were asked, what are the two greatest commandments? Especially when they asked Jesus, he says, the love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and mind, body, soul and strength, love the Lord. And the second is like unto it. Love thy neighbor is thyself. Love God and love each other. There’s your problems are solved. Without love, there is no cure. There’s no real solutions to anything. It’s just camouflaged. But if a man doesn’t love his wife and a wife doesn’t love her husband, all the talking in the world ain’t going to mount the hillabings.

When people in government don’t really love our country, And don’t really love God. You can’t legislate love. You can’t make somebody love somebody. It’s impossible. So God says, I loved you and I showed you how much I loved you. I sent my son into this world. Now he was in heaven with all the glory you could ever desire. He had all the power, the honor, the praise, and He gave all of that. Set of the sight came down here, took upon a human body, lived in this world and allowed Himself to be really killed and mocked and hated and spit on and cursed so that He could down the cross to pay for our sins.

Now that’s how much He loved us. Came back from the dead and went into heaven. So I did that for you because I loved you. You don’t have to love me back. But I love you and you can’t keep me from loving you. I love you. But God says in His Word, if you love me, if you love me, this is what I want you to do. And so if people can learn how the love got, I couldn’t figure out how people could read instead of the Bible and not grow in their love to the Lord.

But he makes a statement here in the last part of verse 31. He said, I show you a more excellent way. There is a better way to solving so many of the difficulties in life. And then he gives him the cure, chapter 13. What do we usually call chapter 13? The love chapter, the love chapter. Look what he says, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity or love, I have become as sounding brass or a tinkling symbol, a lot of noise, but no love.

Though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith that I could remove mountain and I have not loved, I am how much? I’m nothing. You’re nothing without love. Nobody cares how rich you are. How many houses you have, how much money you got in the bank? How good you look? Do you love? Do you love? Do you love your husband? Do you love your wife? Do you love your kids?

Love your grandkids? The best thing you’ll ever do is love God and they will know you love God. Do you love Him enough? Then He says in verse 3, and though I be still all my goods to feed the poor, though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profit us me nothing. If you want to serve a Lord for man’s praise, you’ve got what you work for. But if you want God’s praise, you’re going to have to serve him because you love him and you did it for him.

And God’s the one that knows. I was going to speak one time at a Valentine banquet. And of course, you had a Valentine banquet. What do you usually want to speak on? Love. So the love chapter is a good one. So I started off here in chapter 13 verse 4. Love, which is chapter, love, sufferth, long is kind. Love envy, love, if not itself. Love is not puffed up. Love does not behave itself unseemly. Love, sicketh not her own, is not easy to provoke.

Love, thinketh no evil. Love rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Love, bear with all things. Believeeth all things. Love, hope with all things, endures all things. Love never fails. And I thought, man, that’s that’ll preach. That’s good. Then I told him, I said, look, Let’s take the word love out of it, and let’s just put the word God in there. God suffer of long, God is kind, God envy if not, and God does not, it’ll fit right in there.

Do you know you can take God out of that and put Jesus Christ in there? Christ suffer of long. Christ is kind, Christ envy if not, does not behave itself unseemly. Christ, think if not his own, is not easy, provoke, think if no evil, and you go right down here in verse eight, And Christ never fails. You can see that, can’t you? Now, if God is controlling you and Christ is controlling you and lives on the inside of you, put your name in there.

Peter or motto, suffer of long. John, Henry, enviff, not. And you go right down there and you put your name in those places. If this does not describe your character, something is wrong with your testimony. Can you see that? Can you see that? Love will solve most of all of our problems if we love the way we should. One of the things that I want these kids to learn when they come to Bible college is just the facts. No.

I want them to learn to love God. Because if they don’t love God when they leave here, they’ll amount to nothing. It won’t matter how much Greek they know, Hebrew they know, personally evangelism, all the stuff. It’ll profit nothing if they don’t learn how to love God. They can go through the motions and play games and the world is full of people that are what we call them hypocrites. That man, Teppoo in time says, I don’t go to church.

I says, why not? He said, hypocrites there. I said, we got room for one more. I said, there’s hypocrites at the gas station, you go there. There’s hypocrites at the grocery store, do you still go there? I bet you there’s hypocrites where you work, you still go there? I said, if you don’t, you’re a hypocrite. He didn’t like that. I don’t know why, but you’re good out through here and one of the things that he talks about in the last verse of chapter 13, but now I’ll buy to faith, hope and charity.

These are the greatest of these is not your faith that you have, it’s your love that you have. But I want to show you something now. Take your Bible and turn to the book of Hebrews, the book of Hebrews, chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, see after you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. The reason you trusted Him as your Savior, because you heard that He loved you and paid for your sins until you accepted Him as your Savior and He gives you eternal life.

So you were saved by your faith in what He said and what He did. He paid for my sins and He said, if I believed it, it’d give me eternal life. Do you have eternal life? Yes, I do. How do you know? Because He said so. I’d never had a children a thrill and a lightning bolt shooting up down the spine. I’ve never had a Holy Ghost bit. I just said, He said it and I believed it. And that’s how I know how I have eternal life.

But now notice what he says here. Look in verse 38 of chapter 10. Now the just, that’s us, those who have trusted Christ as Savior, shall live, we’re not dead yet. You got a pulse, you got a purpose, shall live how? By faith. So now we’re not talking about how to get saved, we’re talking about how the saved the just shall live. Then he explains to us in chapter 11 what it means to live by faith. So you look there in verse 1, now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.

I’ve got faith. I can’t see the end result. I can’t see God. I can’t see heaven. I can’t see hell. But I’ve got faith in the one who promised and that is the evidence that I need. I put my faith in what Christ said. And get what he says in verse three. Through faith we understand. Through faith we understand. You see, you learn how to trust God when you don’t understand from the human perspective. In verse four, by faith, Abel offered a more.

excellent sacrifice. Verse 5, by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death because he had well such great faith and a great testimony and he was and he was not for God took him. And then in verse 7, by faith Noah been warned of God of things not seen as yet. Move with fear prepared an ark. Verse 8, by faith Abraham and you’ll notice that as you go down through here all this by faith by faith. Look in verse 20 by faith Isaac 21 by faith Jacob verse 22 by faith Joseph verse 23 by faith Moses verse 30 by faith the walls of Jericho.

Do you realize how much can be accomplished by faith? But this is not faith without works. This is a person believing what God said and doing what God says. Now when God says you want to go to heaven is by faith alone because you’re trusting what he did. But God wants to reward us when we get to heaven. He uses here because he has a purpose, he has a plan and he wants us to be obedient to him. So I could go back through here with this same principle that we use just a moment to go over there in the book of 1st Corinthians in chapter 13 about love and God and faith in ourselves.

Look up here in verse 4 of chapter Hebrews one more time. And this is faith because of what they believed. And so in verse 4, because of what they believed, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than came by which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaking. Because of what he believed, Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him for before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God.

But in verse 6, because of what he believed. He says, he was able to please God, because you have to believe that he is, and that he is a re-water of them that diligently seek to please him. So every one of these, in verse 7, because he believed God, Noah been warned of God if things not seen as yet moved with fear and prepared an ark and to save into his house. You see, when you say, I’m going to live by faith means I’m going to live according to what I believe because I believe God.

I take God at His Word. So faith is the ability to trust God. Faith, I’m taking God at His Word that what He has promised, He is also able to perform and I can trust Him and I believe Him. Now, He already says that without faith and without love, it’s impossible to please him without faith is impossible to please him and without love it’s impossible to amount to anything. He says without me you can do nothing. So then you go back and you look at this verse and you think well what else can I put in there?

Well because you see when you obey the Lord why do you obey the Lord because I love him and he told me to do this so I do that. My daddy told me to go get some Stowwood, I go get some Stowwood. Why? Because I love my dad and no I was scared to death of him. I knew what was going to happen if I didn’t go get that wood. I never heard my mother or my dad ever say I love you.

I did respect them because I knew that what they can do to me and they very often they did. I am here only by the grace of God. My daddy was an officiment, but we did go on a few wailing expeditions. I was taken out behind the barn a lot of times and sometime never he made it that far. By obedience, Abel offered in the God in more excellent sacrifice. Why? Because God told him to do this because he believed God, he did what God said do.

Now see, If you love the Lord, you don’t mind doing what God says do. But when you don’t love Him, it’s so hard. Serving God. That’s why in the book of Deuteronomy he says, because thou serveth not the Lord thy God with joyfulness of heart. I will put a yoke of a what? I earn upon your neck until it destroys you. Because you didn’t serve God with joyfulness of heart. In other words, it’s a drudgery. It’s just a burden to go to church, study the Bible, and to be able to do it.

do right and I’m just getting sick and tired of doing all this right. I want to see what’s on the other side. Look how much good stuff God is with holding from me out there. Why do you think your kids when they get old enough they want to leave home? Because you have withheld all those good things from them while they were young and they got to see what’s on the other side of the fence. What they’ve been missing out on all their life.

So most kids when they get old enough and they can as soon as they get off the aisle, how pew them they’re gone. Now not all the time. There’s a few of them that in the process, this is why when kids are young you got to get those kids as much as possible to fall and I should hate to use the word for it, but to grow and love with the Lord. Because if they don’t love it now they’re not going to love it later.

And you’ll wonder why? What happened? And this is why so few people that when they get to be college age, don’t go to Bible college, because their heart is set up on either making money or a career, whatever they wanna do, you know, the security of life, as though if I put God first, He won’t take care of me. He won’t meet my needs. So because of a lack of faith in God, it makes the difference in your whole life.

And you rob yourself and there’s no profit. and you’ve wasted your life. And it happens to so many. You only get one trip through this life. No reruns, no instant replays, just one trip through. And so he makes a statement there in verse five, by obedience in it was translated that he should not sit deaf, why? Because he had a testimony that pleased God. He walked with God, why? Because he loved the Lord. And verse 7, by faith Noah or by obedience Noah, because of what he believed Noah, why did you do what you do?

Why did you do what you do? Why are you here tonight? Why do you want to come to college? Why do you want to take and have a good Christian home? Why are you looking for that perfect individual that you might want to marry someday? anyone out of life. Put God first in everything and you love Him and He says all of these other things will be added to you. But if you forsake the Lord and you run into the world looking for the happiness and the peace, the so-called joy and the temporary pleasures of the world, you’re going to lose.

But you put God first and God will not withhold anything that’s good for you. You’re winning the long run. Are you ready to learn how to live your life as a strong Christian, lead others to Christ, or excel as a church worker or ministry leader, then look no further than Florida Bible College of Tampa? With traditional and online classes taught by instructors with years of experience, Florida Bible College of Tampa can help you grow in your Christian life. Whether taking individual classes or working toward a one-year degree, Florida Bible College of Tampa is here for you.

To learn more, visit online at florida-biblecollege.us or call the Register of Bob Gilbert at 8502275325. That’s 8502275325. 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 in looking up.