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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. and 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.

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. And no, he didn’t say that. He was reading from the scripture, and he found that 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? How do you know when somebody is lost? Well, somebody asked them, 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, Lee, that needed to be witness to. Well, that’s near Shonto Air zone somewhere.

Well, that’s right there where the Navahoes are. So there 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 immediately he preached Christ in the synagogue. Now today that might be, well he preached Christ in the church. You could preach it any place at any time.

Look in chapter 10. Chapter 10 and look at 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 got to get somebody to go and talk to this person. He got, 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 I don’t know if you played the guitar, I’m on it, but he did, but he was in charge of a band. And so you see how you you can read the scriptures and make it a 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. 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 they’re in verse 22, and they said Cornelius the centurion, a 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, end to 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 under the sun. But being a good soul winner, you’ve got to 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 seeing a sermon, nobody gets saved. They may marvel over you in your testimony and how wonderful you are, but do they know why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Faith commits by seeing? Hearing. Hearing. Well, good. 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 live in. 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 it 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 say 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 has not given unto us the spirit of 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 the Calvary community church, pays 50% because of inflation.

No. Know that this is what the prophets in the Old Testament also taught to him, give all the prophets, wouldn’t get through his name, who’s so, 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 made a payment. Since 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 spanked 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 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 riverside. So can you go witnessing down by the riverside? You ever heard that song? tongue 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 in 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 talk about You know, this year a guy, you know, 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.

Then he broke through the clouds and went down there and he landed in him. He took the back of the plane and he got up and he says, boy, I really took care of them, didn’t I? And they said, very good, very good. 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. Say there in verse 14. Certain woman named Lydia, Sulla a purple of the city of Thyartara 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 a woman.

Now think about this. In a book of John in chapter three, 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 Pharisee. And he says unto Jesus, he says, we know that our teacher come from God, for no man can do the miracles that thou doest, they can 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. Now, 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. So did he talk to a woman? Yeah, talk to the woman at the well. 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, ever 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, not up. In other words, something else that satisfies me more than he did Burger King or McDonald. And then the twelve 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 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 of the disciples who went to the same city. And then he told them, he says, look upon the field. They’re wide already to harvest. Evidently they couldn’t see the harvest. But there’s one woman. She says, come and see a man that told me everything.

It’s not just the Messiah. So when the men came out, they believed on Christ and says, now we believe. Not because of the woman, but because we’ve heard in ourselves. So you can preach the gospel anytime, anywhere. And all of that. Look there in chapter 13. That’s kind of skip chapter 13. Chapter 13, look at verse 14. In verse 14, when they were ridiculed in one place and they had opposition, so they would leave and go to another place.

In verse 14, but when they departed from Persia, they came to Antioch in Pecidia and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. And so they went there. And then in verse 15, and after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, say and brethren. If ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. What did they just receive? An invitation. Last night at the big pot.

Peter stands up there and says, anybody want to have anything to say? Come right on up. And as soon as I said there, I said, Jenna’s going up. Jenna will go up and guess who went up? Jenna goes up. Why? Because that’s what they were told to do years ago. 40 years ago. Take advantage of an opportunity. If I was asked this morning, who would like to give a test one of this morning? And everybody look at everybody on it.

Not me, I’m looking at it. You go, no, I’m not gonna go. Give it to Mikey. But very few people will take an advantage. Your goal in life is always looking for an opportunity just say something about the Lord. Then brag on the Lord. Test the ones all you’re doing. You got something you want to brag on God about. What has God done for you lately? That you can brag on Him about. Magnify the Lord. Let people see what God is doing in your life.

And if you’ll do what God wants you to do, you’d be surprised at how much peace and joy and love you have. Well, I don’t want somebody else. I don’t know how you’re gonna go now. You go first now. No, no, no. Why are you? Why are people you afraid? Scared, intimidated. Just do it, just do it. You see what Paul was always, by the way, do you think Paul took advantage of that opportunity? Hmm? Well, what he says in verse 16, then Paul says, not me.

What did he do? He stood up, begging him with his hands as men of Israel and ye that fear God. Hey, you got something I won’t talk to you about. And so that’s what he did. Now, look there in chapter 16 of the book of Acts. And you’ll notice in verse 25. Now Paul and Silas, they’re in jail. They’re in jail. And while they’re in jail. Midnight, they started singing that song we sung last night, amazing grace, amazing man.

You didn’t know Paul wrote that song, did you? They’d be singing. They had to talk about the Lord. How do you know? Because then Jaylor wanted to get saved. How do you know he needed to be saved? They must have said something or sung something that caused him to think when the earthquake hit and everybody could get out of there? He’s going to kill himself. And Paul says, do thy self no harm? We’re here. We’re here. Can you witness in jail?

Now one of these days you may read in the newspaper or hear it on the nightly news. Yankee Arnold in jail. And you’ll say, I knew it sooner or later he was going to happen. He deserves everything that happens to him. He doesn’t, he doesn’t make so many people mad. He deserves to go to jail. I hope he gets, you know, the book thrown at him.

God bless you. But if I go to jail, can you witness in jail? I guess unless they put me in solitary confinement, which is a possibility. But can you witness in jail? You can witness anywhere. And that’s why he didn’t make any difference with Paul He was in the prison or He was in the palace. He says, there’s people in the palace that have heard about the Lord because of what happened to Him. He says, all things have happened to me for the furtherance of the gospel, for the furtherance of the gospel.

So God will work in your life and let things happen for the furtherance of the other. He may let you get sick just so you can go to the hospital and leave somebody a track. You see, God has a soul winning plan and we are his lights and he’s going to put us where we need to be and he’s going to say, you need to go here and you need to go there and he may have your car break down so that somebody else can come along and you get a chance to witness or to give them a tract or to give a good testimony about the Lord.

You’d be surprised at things that God does in our lives for the purpose of furthering the gospel and so it didn’t matter whether it happened to him or wherever it goes. Lot, look in chapter 17. Chapter 17, Paul goes to a place called Athens, Georgia. Now you didn’t know that it was in Athens, Georgia, but see there in verse 22 just to show you this. First of all, then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill. He said, he meant of Athens, so we know that Paul went to Georgia.

But here is in another place. Now what did he do when he went there? Well, he saw as he went in all the statutes they had and all their little worship centers they had and all the various churches they had, various religious centers, and they worshiped everything. And they would meet together because they wanted to hear some new thing. You know, this is probably the seedbed of how to gossip. Something new they came to hear. And so what did they call him when he went there?

They gave him a name. He says in verse 18, that certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him and some said, what shall this babbler say? Some said, he seemed to be a setter fourth of strange gods because he preached unto them Jesus and their resurrection. Did he hold back? He didn’t hold back. And so they said, we want to hear more about this. And that’s why he says in verse 20, for they’ll bring a certain strange things to our ears.

We wouldn’t know therefore what these things mean for all the Athenians and the strangers which were there and spent their time and nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some strange thing. So they want to know he’s got something that’s different. So he says, as I came in, I noticed all of these things that you worshiped from all these He says, you even got one to the unknown God. He says, I want to talk to you about that one.

The unknown God. And he says, the God that made the heavens and the earth and all the things that are in it. And how that God has determined the boundaries and so forth of everything. And he says, the one that gives to all things life and breath and so forth by whom we have our being. And so he gave them the gospel. Now look at the results of what he told them to do. She died in verse 32. He said, and when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mott.

and others says we will hear the again of this matter. No, and when you witness, isn’t that what you have? Some people will make fun of you. Some people will mock, yes, and some people will say, well, I’ll think about it. But you also have some people in verse 34, how bit certain men believed. So there’s times when you’ll have some people that will believe it, and some people will say, well, I’ll listen to it later. They didn’t totally reject it, but no decision is a decision, and some people might make fun.

So when they did that, this is why I’ve made the same for years. You have to serve the Lord as though you have never been hurt because you’re gonna get hurt serving God. And sometimes the hurt doesn’t always come from the lost people, it can come from Christians. Most of my life has been involved with the lives of Christians. Can you get hurt by Christians? Yes, but you have to serve the Lord like you’ve never been hurt. Otherwise, you’ll stop because you don’t get hurt anymore.

You don’t want that rejection anymore. But you still got to be found faithful. So just put it aside, let people say do whatever and you just keep on going. The train doesn’t stop for every barking dog. You just keep doing what you’re supposed to do and let people yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap. You know how I handle my critics? outlive them. I’ll live them. See a lot of people used to attack me. Some of them are dead. I don’t have to worry about them anymore.

I’m just going to outlive them, but I’m not going to change. So as you go through the Scriptures, you’ll find out there’s all kinds of things and ways in which you can witness and where you can do it at. Look in chapter 20. In the book of Acts, chapter 20, there’s a lot of them in between here, but these are some of the ones that I know and I love. about looking for 17. Acts chapter 3 verse 17. Now we know that he’d gone to Ephesus, he’d want people to the Lord, he established the church, and he says, now I am going to be leaving and I’m not going to be able to probably see Yalini more.

Because he knew that his time was coming, he was going to go to Jerusalem, he’d already been warned, holy spirit had warned him, that if you go there you’re going to be bound. And so he had to be, am I willing to pay that price? And God had already told him in chapter nine of Acts that I’m going to show this man what great things he’s going to enjoy. No, I’m going to show him what great things he must suffer for the Lord.

But I’m going to bring him before the kings. And Lord said, I’m going to do it. So God is working in Paul’s life. And look at all the things that happened to him. In one place, he was, they thought, he must be a God. And just that quick, they were ready to stone him to death. Well, they did. And so later on, he said, I knew a man about 14 years ago whether in the body or out of the body.

He said, I cannot tell, but such a woman was caught up until the third heaven. He said, whether in the flesh or out of the flesh. He said, I don’t know. He said, but he heard and saw things that was unlawful for a man to talk about. I wonder what in the world did he see? Because when he came back but nothing stopped him. You’d think, oh, that stoning that he went through and everything that had happened to him.

Well, that’s good reason for me not to serve the Lord, but now there was no reason. He was going to serve the Lord regardless of what happened to him. But anyway, I can see my time is up. We’ll continue next week. Look up here. This hand representing you and me. God says that he loves us, but we’re born into this world with an old sinful nature means we sin naturally. You don’t have to be taught how to sin. Well I did, none of that.

Everybody sins. This wall represents sin. We have all sin. And because we’ve sinned, the wages of sin is death, so we have a debt to pay. But God loves us, but He doesn’t want us to pay for this sin because that’s eternal separation from Him. So the Bible says to go to heaven, we have to be perfect. It is righteous as God. None of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. We’re all sinners. And God says you cannot save yourself by what you’re doing.

We need a Savior. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord. God in the flesh. He came into the world because he loves us. Hates our sin because it separates us from him. So what Christ did for one person, He did for the whole world, took all the sin of all the world, made one payment, came back from the dead, never has to do it again. They’re all paid. And God says, when I believe that He did it for me, He puts this payment to my account.

I’m forgiven of all my sins. It’s just like I died and I paid for all of my sins. My debt is paid. So I don’t have to go to hell and pay for sin because he paid for my sins. And once you accept that payment, it’s a done deal paid in full. That’s why I can’t go to hell. I can’t go to hell today. I can’t go tomorrow. I can’t go in 10 years. I can never go to hell.

He died for my sins. Oh, that’s good news. Now, if you’ll believe he did it for you, guess what he’ll do? He’ll save you just like he did me. Everybody gets to heaven the same way. You accept Christ as your Savior or you don’t go. Isn’t that fair? All you have to do is believe it. Will you believe that he did this for you? Now you’re here this morning and I don’t know if you trust Christ as Savior and I want you to.

I want you to go to heaven. I don’t want you to be deceived. I don’t want you to think, well, I’m going to do the best I can. Then you don’t get it. The best you can do is not good enough. You need a payment for your saying, Christ did that. Will you trust Him as your Savior? Let’s pray, shall we? Every head, bow, and every eye closed. No one looking around. If you hear this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you trust Him?

All I want you to do is right where you’re setting, I want you to talk to the Lord. You see, you don’t make a mistake this way. Only the Lord knows your thoughts. He can read your mind, but just tell him something simple like this. Lord, I’m a sinner. I don’t understand it all, but I believe Jesus Christ died on that cross and paid from my sins today, right now. This moment, I will accept Jesus Christ as my Savior.

And praying God said, if you would do just that much, it’s all you have to do. That He would save you from hell. you eternal life and you get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for you. Would you trust Him? I’m going to ask you in just a moment to raise your hand. Raising your hand doesn’t save you. It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you and I like to know. So it hit by a nice close.

Is there anyone at all? This morning say, yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior and preach. I’d like you to pray for me. Would you slip it up a little quickly, put it up back down? If you’ve already trust the Lord, you don’t have to do it again. But if you’ve never done it before. See right now I will trust the Lord. Just lift it up very quickly, burr up it down in with all. Yes, God bless you man.

I appreciate that. The sign of good judgment. Anyone else you can put it down. Remember by trusting Christ as your Savior He gives you eternal life and He’ll never catch you out and never lose you. You that know Christ as your Savior, has He been talking to you this morning? Are you walking with them, I want you to serve them. Our Father, we thank you so much for all you’ve done for us, especially for the individual that indicated by an uplifted hand that they would trust you a Savior.

By doing so, they become your child, your child forever. You’ll never cast them out, never lose them. We ask your blessings on each person here to help them to understand the value of walking with you, growing up, letting Christ build a new, a strong house. We thank you for the Christ name. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, The Gospel Driven Man.

Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones. This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics. And we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy. There’s no obligation, no donation necessary, simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of the Gospel-Driven 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 the day and every day. Leaving that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.