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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.

Well, we have been going through the Book of Acts, so take your Bible and turn to the Book of Acts. Acts chapter 2, we’re going to look at it very, very quickly, just to kind of give you a little reminiscent of some of the places, some of the places where they preach the gospel. See, a lot of people think, when you preach the gospel at church, or if you have a Friday night soul winning, that’s when you do it.

Or if you go on Thursday night visitation, like a lot of churches do, that’s when you do it. But I think you come out better if you just be ready to breach the gospel wherever you have an opportunity. And it doesn’t matter what time, now what I did this one time in church, I had everybody who trusted the Lord on a Monday to stand up. Then I, whoever trusted the Lord on a Tuesday, in the Wednesday I did everything.

And I said, see there’s somebody trusts the Lord every day of the week. I said, now let’s just take a look. What time of the day did you trust the Lord? If you trusted the Lord at seven o’clock in the morning, raise your hand. It was somebody did. I went through every hour somebody had trusted Lord. So it didn’t matter what day it was, it didn’t matter what hour it was, somebody got saved. And then it said, let’s try to find out where you trust the Lord.

And so different ones would tell where they trust the Lord. And it’s amazing, you studied the book of Acts and you’ll find out that people trust the Lord just about everywhere. And so whenever he sent his disciples out in the book of Matthew chapter 10, he said, And whatsoever city you enter into, or whatsoever house you enter into, see with the Lord, it really doesn’t matter what city you go to or what house you enter, you still give them the same message.

He gave them a message and says, this is what you do. And so he says, those that are worthy, you can spend some time with them and those that are unworthy when you get to the end of the sidewalk, shake the dust off your feet. In other words, those that were worthy were those who trusted Christ the Savior would want to stay with them and bind with them and so forth. But if they don’t trust the Lord, move on.

Move on. Don’t let somebody who rejects the gospel be like a gristle in your throat and then you die. Well, I’ll never witness again. They treated me bad. They said something against me. You don’t let that bother you. Just keep on moving. And so whatever city, that’s why it doesn’t matter if I was in Georgia, it doesn’t matter from here in Tampa, doesn’t matter if you’re out there in Colorado, doesn’t matter if you’re in New York, Missouri, or wherever you go, wherever you go, this is what you do.

And so this is what you say and you give the gospel. But in verse 14 it says, but Peter standing up with the 11 lifted up his voice. Now he’s talking to some men here and they came from different nations on this special occasion, but he gave the gospel there. He explained it. And how many trust the Lord on Peter’s first sermon? Anybody remember? How many trust the Lord that first time? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Like I’ve never said it before.

I never told anybody. Look there in verse 41. Verse 41 says, then they that gladly received his word were baptized and the same day they were added unto them about how many? 3,000. Now this is when the Holy Spirit came, remember this, the law is death, the Spirit is life. So when the Holy Spirit came, everybody, 3,000 got life. Now whenever the law was given at Mount Sinai, about 3,000 died. Just a coincidence in it. The law, killeth, but the spirit, make it alive.

And so, here’s you got people that trusted Christ’s Savior, and so they had eternal life. Now, look in chapter three, very quickly, chapter three. And look in verse, well, let’s just look there very quickly, in verse two. This is about the ninth hour of the day, so you’re talking about three o’clock, something like that in the morning. morning. So they go into the gospel, I mean to the temple, in verse 2, and a certain little man lame from his mother’s womb was carried whom they lay daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful, to ask alms of them that enter into the temple.

So here they’re going into the temple. They hadn’t got in there yet, but outside there was somebody, alms for the poor, alms for the poor. And The first time I took training, Eddie, and Eddie was really small, about four years old. And David, we got excited to go down to Mexico. So I gave each one of them some money, you know, just a little bit to spend. So we’re walking down the thing, and next thing you know, they come running the bases, Daddy, we need some more money.

I said, what did you do with the money I gave you? Well, Daddy, all those people were asking for money, and so their heart went out and so they gave mother money. He come asking me for some more. I said, those are professionals. I said, now you can’t help every one of them. Or daddy can’t supply the needs of all of these people. But they had a hearted compassion. I was glad they had that. It’s just they were doing it with my money.

But anyway, arms for the poor, arms for the poor. Now you know you drive down the streets and you’ll see you get ready to stop at the red light and you have people that are standing there with their little sign and so forth. And it’s amazing. Probably a lot of them are not looking for work. I’ve seen the same people out there, five scenes years. That’s their corner. And that’s where they go to work. They’re not working. They’re going to work.

And they walk up and down. And it’s the arms of the poor. What hit this man was laid there. And then Peter and John comes by and says, silver and gold have I none but such as I have given thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. So it’s wherever you are, being in the way the Lord led me. It’s as we go, wherever we go, be willing to talk to individuals and do what you can.

It’s better to do something than do nothing. And I like I said before, a poor presentation of the gospel is better than no presentation of the gospel. So some people say, well, I just can’t do it perfectly like you. Well, do it for about 40 years and you’ll get the knack of it. Now, also to look there in chapter 3 verse 12. And when Peter saw it, he answered them to the people, ye men of Israel, why I’m more of it at this?

Why looks at the sad festival on me? Is though I did some great thing. Now this is what God has done. You just simply do what God wants you to do, where God tells you to do it, and just be found faithful. Don’t seem to be great. Don’t look from the return to coming to mail. Just do right. And God will bless you for doing so. look now in chapter 5, chapter 5 and verse 27, chapter 5 verse 27.

You’ll find out that God has got things that He wants us to do and Peter has broken the law so He was placed in jail and so So he makes a statement that they were going to talk to them, but look at verse 26. And he says, then went the captain with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people lest they should have been stoned. So they had gone out, met with people and so forth, and they were teaching and standing in the temple teaching the people.

Verse 27, and when they had brought them out, he says, they set them before the council and the High Priest asked him, saying, did we not straighten to command you that you should not teach in his name? And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine. So they went everywhere, and they filled the whole place. With this doctrine, Jesus Christ came back from the dead. He was the Son of God, and talked about the resurrection, talked about the gospel, and people trust the Lord.

And so you can preach and do what God wants to do, just about anywhere you want to go. Can you witness to the wrong person? Well, I don’t want to witness to the wrong person. I don’t want to witness to the wrong person. Oh, you are so holy and godly, aren’t you? Wouldn’t it be ashamed to tell somebody how to go to heaven? Oh, it was a mistake. God didn’t want that person to hear it. Can you witness at the wrong time?

Well, you might want to wait until they stop eating. There’s a little bit of wisdom that you have to apply here and there, but you can do that. Look in chapter eight. Look in chapter eight. Chapter 8. And you’ll notice down in verse 26, here’s Philip and he’s in a big revival meeting and in the city of Samaria and he’s preaching tries. People are responding. Great things are happening. Great joy in verse 8. But verse 26, the Lord, the Lord knew about one person in one place.

Now sure there’s a lot of people, but what about the people that are not in the city where you can catch a lot of fish? Sometimes there’s little places here and there a little place. places there and God needs somebody to go there. So here’s Philip in verse 26 and the angel of the Lord speaking of the Philip saying, a rising go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto God’s which is desert. This is why I left Lee Patton in the middle of the desert down in Arizona in 1968 because there was somebody that he was supposed to witness to.

I don’t know who it was, I never saw them. But surely there had to be somebody there to justify why I left him in the middle of a desert. But we did because that was what he wanted to do. He was going one direction, I was going another direction. And he wound up going to California and then down into San Antonio and I go up here to Colorado and we both started a ministry and it’s amazing how God has worked in our life.

You know that’s 49 years ago. That’s 49 years. That’s a long time ago. And the more I think about this, it gets longer, longer, long time ago. But he says, I want to hear a thing to my teacher. He’s in a city, a lot of people, but there was one man had gone to the Jerusalem to worship and it the opening uni and he’s on his way back and he was in charge of the Treasury. He was a financial secretary.

And he’s on his way back and he’s out in the middle of a desert. And it’s amazing that God can take this man Philip and this man that’s out there in the desert and make their past cross and bring them together. Now do you believe in the providence of God? I do. That God can bring them together at the right time. And the thing is though, he only had to go about a hundred miles and then on top of that, he didn’t have his GPS with him.

He didn’t have a little thing that says northeast, south and west on him. I could have gave him mine. I got a new one last night. And just think, now he’s got to get out there in the middle of a desert. Would you like that job? And so the Lord can bring him together at the right time, right? the Bible says he ran, he ran. I mean if God is God, what couldn’t he give him a Ferrari or something to kind of a zoop around in.

I remember I can call it right at one time there was a guy named Fred Bandemier and there was a Sam Bandemier but Fred Bandemier had a trans-am type car. I mean it was a super duper powerful little low-hanging thing like somebody has stepped on the car and it was, but it was a hard rod. And I had to go to South Dakota, Pine Ridge South Dakota, and speak in an Indian camp. And my car wasn’t available. Well, it wasn’t running.

And I needed a car. So he let me use that car. That thing would fly. Oh, it would fly. And I let it fly. And nobody picked me up. I mean, there was times when I used to break the law a little bit. not much just a little bit. And so, man, I flew up there. It was 400 and something miles I had to go for Bible study. Have the Bible study and then come back. Now, a round trip, that’s almost a thousand miles.

And I went for a Bible study. You said, why don’t we do that? That’s nothing. When I lived in Athens, Georgia, you know how far it is to Athens, Georgia from Tampa? 500 miles. I did it 12 times coming down here. Preach on a Sunday morning, turn around after church on a Sunday morning, drive all the way back. Remember? I did the same thing one time from my aunt and uncle. I drove all the way to Virginia to see my aunt and uncle because I wanted to make sure they trusted the Lord.

And we were living down here in Florida. I drove all the way up through Georgia, all the way up there to see my aunt and uncle. I’m talking about the Lord. Ain’t I leaning uncle Merle? And when I got there? They didn’t want to hear it. Do you know who I am? Evidently they didn’t care. And I couldn’t get it made me so brave. I broke my heart though because I wanted them I wanted to make sure they were going to go to heaven but they didn’t want to listen to it.

And I didn’t travel this far and just to talk to them and they didn’t want to listen to. Later on they moved to Georgia, a little place called Lexington and wind up going to a church that was started by Gordon Rodden. And he was from FBC, Clearsor Bell, and my aunt and uncle wound up going to that church. And he got to hear the gospel over and over and over again. So I imagine they dressed up because I think they joined the church there.

Surely they dealt with them enough to find out. But my aunt was, well she was different. She loved Saturday night wrestling. They had wrestling on every Saturday night. And she would get all excited and she’d watch the wrestlers. wrestlers and she was in the rain and she would be twisting her necks and she would be hauling and yelling and screaming. Uncle Merle just said to her, nice and quiet, but she was alive. And so one Saturday night she’s watching the Saturday night live wrestling and died of a heart attack.

It killed her. She died. And you think, where can you witness? You can go anywhere. I have traveled 1,000 miles to witness somebody. Somebody asked me if I would go see somebody in another state. I said, sure, so they bought my plane ticket and sent me to a place in Oklahoma, I think it was. And I got there and I got a chance to witness his person, I led him to the Lord and then I went back. And so another guy by the name of Jerry Burt, he was out there and his daughter was Peggy Burt.

And she came through the ministry there, but he was in charge of getting me to speak in different places. He worked with the Christian Business and Business Association, and so he had openings. And so he would fly me to Utah, and I’d go to Utah and witness to Mormons, and fly me back. And later on, he kept going up there so much. He wound up leaving his wife and married a Mormon. He became a Mormon. That’s all. All right.

And so sometimes you have to watch, you know, getting too close to listen to what everybody says and or maybe she was just pretty. I don’t know. I never did see her. But as you go through the script, you find out all the strangest things that happened. And so he wind up getting this person to trust the Lord. Look what he says here in verse 29. He says in verse 29, then the Spirit said unto Philip, go near, join thyself to this chariot.

Philip ran to the to him and heard him read the prophet, now isn’t the Holy Spirit led him, told him where to go, led him to the right person and it was just a coincidence. Just a coincidence. Does God know when somebody’s seeking and how to bring somebody together? We call it the providence of God. And lo and behold, he says, what are you reading? He says, I’m reading from Isaiah 53. No, he didn’t say that. He was reading from the scripture and He was reading about Jesus Christ.

He says, do you understand what you’re reading? And he says, how can I accept some man should guide me? He needed somebody to guide me. See, soul winners are just people who guide somebody. Tell them how to get to a place. You want to go to heaven? See, how do you know if somebody’s lost? Or somebody asking, where are you going to die? And I don’t know. How do you want to get to heaven? I don’t know. Well, if you don’t know, you must be lost.

What are you going to do? You’re going to explain to me, explain how they can have eternal life. So he goes through and sure enough, the guy trusts the Christ of Savior. But you’ll notice now, look at chapter nine, chapter nine, verse 20. Where are various places you can preach to gospel? Or you can preach it in the city. That’s what he did though. And then he preached it in the desert. This is where I left Lee Patton, remember?

Because there must have been a Navajo Indian out there that needed to be a witness to. Well that’s near Shonto-Eresona somewhere. Well that’s right there where the Navajos are. So that must have been a Navajo you opposed to witness to. If you didn’t witness to them then you missed out. So you find that you can witness anywhere and just by any time. Oh look what he says here in verse 20. And straight where you’re middle he preached Christ in the synagogue.

Now today that might be well he preached Christ in the church. You can preach it any place and at any time. Look in chapter 10. Chapter 10, and look in verse 24. Chapter 10 verse 24. Now here’s a man that was a Gentile. He wanted to know the truth. God knew who he was and knew where he was. And the Lord gave him a vision about, hey, you’ve got to get somebody to go and talk to this person. He got, said he was a rock star.

See there in verse 1 of chapter 10, there was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the Firehouse Five Band. He called the Italian Band, so he, I don’t know if you played the guitar harmonica, what he did, but he was in charge of a band. And so you see how you can read the scriptures and make it come alive? Well anyway, he wanted to know the truth. Does God know where people are and who wants to know through?

So he sent Peter, but he had to do a number on Peter. He had to work on him. Peter wasn’t prepared to talk to a Gentile. So God had to give him a couple of little lessons, and so God worked on him. He sent him over there in verse 23, then called he them in and lodged them, and on the moral, Peter went away with him, and certain brethren, there was six Jews that went with him, from Japa, and accompanied him.

him. And tomorrow after they entered into Caesarea and Cornelius awaited for them and had called together his kinsmen and near friends. So he got everybody together because he wanted them to hear the words. And the reason for that, see there in verse 22, and they said Cornelius the centurion they just man and one that feared God and of good report among all the nations of the Jews was warned from God by an holy angel to sin for thee into his house and to hear words of thee.

So he’s going to tell them some words. The greatest thing you and I have is knowing the right words. The right words to say to the right person at the right time. And so he says, here in verse 34, he says, then Peter opened his mouth. There’s the biggest problem that most Christians have. They won’t open their mouth. Oh, they talk about everything. I’m of the sun, but being a good soul winner, you’ve got to open your mouth. open your mouth.

I said, well, I’ve had people say, well, it’s better to see a sermon than to hear a sermon. But just see in the sermon, nobody gets saved. They may marvel over you and your testimony and how wonderful you are, but do they know why you’re doing what you’re doing? Faith cometh by seeing? Hearing. Well, good. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word. So you’ve got to tell the word. Now, it’s good to have a good clean life so that your testimony doesn’t overshadow the word or somebody not believe the word because of, well, the way you’re living.

So you’ve got to have a good Christian life to back up your testimony so that people listen to what you have to say. And so he makes a statement, God is not a respecter of persons. And he give them in verse 36, the word which God sent unto the children of Israel, he sent the word. And then he says in verse 37, that word I say you know. And then he talks about Jesus Christ in verse 38. Jesus Christ was the Word.

The Word came into the world. So you cannot know the truth without knowing the Word of truth. That’s why I said whenever you want to be a sound person of a sound mind, sound mind comes because of sound doctrine, sound doctrine comes because of sound words. You’ve got to have sound words to produce the sound doctrine so you can have a sound mind and God have not given unto us the spirit fear but of love and power and of a sound mind.

So you go down through here and lo and behold, he talks to him about the resurrection and all that and says in verse 43, now look at verse 43, to him give all the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever keeps the 10 commandments and goes to Calvary Community Church pays 50% because of inflation. No, note that this is what the prophets in the Old Testament also taught to him give all the prophets went debt through his name who saw it.

They taught this in the Old Testament. This is a new message. Every man’s always saved the same way by faith and what Christ did and he would receive remission of sins. Your sins are not taken away until you believe that you have to accept the payment he made for you and God can forgive you. Why? Because he’s made a payment. Sins cannot just be forgiven. You have to have a payment made. And so he did that. And so while they heard in verse 44, while Peter spaked these words and they heard the word.

So the word must be important and you got to pray for boldness like Peter did or Paul did, might speak the word of truth with boldness with confidence. And this is what God wants us to do. Now look in chapter 16. Chapter 16, You’ll notice that there’s a little story here. And look there in verse 13, verse 13. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river site. So can you go witnessing down by the river side?

You ever heard that song? Down by the river side. Down by the. So you can witness in the temple, you can witness on the streets. You can witness in front of the council. You can witness. You study the book of Acts, you’ll find that they witnessed everywhere. You think, well, everybody got to get saved at church. No, you can come together as a body believer, learn a lot of truth. You go outside and drop your bombs, come back here and get fellowship.

We’re used to talking about this here guy. You fly over the enemy and you drop your bombs, then you go back and have fellowship with your own people on your own side. This one guy, he dropped the bombs and took out some warships and so forth, and then he broke through the clouds and went down there and he landed in him. He threw the cock back on the plane and he got up and he says, boy, I really took care of them that night.

And they said, very good, very good. There we go. He landed on the wrong boat. He went back to the wrong people. That’s why they cycled, they went out and they would witness, but they came back and they told them all that they did. So you’ve got to have that good Christian fellowship. And so here in the book of Acts, here’s a lady. God did it for a man in a desert and then one person by the riverside that was important and Her name was Lydia.

See there in verse 14 certain woman named Lydia, Selah a purple of the city of Thyatara, which worship God heard us whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken to Paul. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s a man or it’s a woman. Now think about this. In the book of John in chapter 3 it says there was a rule of the Jews named Nicodemus, a rule of the Jews who came to Jesus by night, it’s a He says, and he says, we know that our teacher come from God, for no man can do the miracles that thou dost think God be with him.

And Jesus says, I am very impressed. He says, you must be born again. Oh, wait a minute. You must be born again. But he talked to a religious man at night. But he talked to a sinful woman in the middle of the daytime. You don’t want to reverse that. There’s things you need to be aware of. It’s okay to talk to women. It’s okay to talk to bad women, but you better do it in the daytime, in a public place.

And so did he talk to a woman? Yeah, talk to the woman at the moment. He said, if thou knewst the gift of God and who it is, the sittin’ that they give me to drink, thou would have asked of him and he would have given the living water. And she says, every more, give me this living water that I didn’t come here for. And so he gave her some living water. Did you know that when he was talking to the woman at the well, the disciples had gone into town to Burger King, McDonald’s get them something to eat.

Jesus says, I have meat to eat, no you’re not up. In other words, there’s something else that satisfies me more than he did Burger King or McDonald. And then the 12 disciples came back. And when they came back, this woman went to the very same city that the disciples just came out of. And she went and told him, says, you ought to come and see this guy, I know. He told me all the things that ever I did. This has got to be the Messiah.

Women, the disciples had just left there. They had just come back. How many did they bring with them? One woman did more than all the disciples. Now a bad woman, she went and told the men. I don’t think she told the women. She went and told the men. And the men came out there here. So you see, God can get glory out of one person. That one woman got greater results than all the disciples who went to the same city.

Men reserved the last Saturday of the month for the Iron Sharpen’s Iron Men’s Bible Study and Breakfast at Calvary Community Church. Join us at 730 for a home-cooked breakfast. Then, at 8 a.m. the featured speaker of the month will present a one-hour classroom style Men’s Bible Study in a relaxed atmosphere where questions in dialogue are welcomed. The scripture tells us that Iron Sharpens Iron and this Men’s Bible Study is open to those of all levels, whether new believers or mature Christians.

The Iron Sharpens Iron Men’s Bible Study and Breakfast. Don’t miss this monthly opportunity for fellowship and the study of God’s Word. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. to be a good friend of the If you are in the area we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 40-8-11 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33-6-3-4. 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