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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. 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 wrote this up this afternoon. I wasn’t gonna give anybody a copy and I thought, well, it helps me to stay on track too. So I’ll go ahead and do it. But it’s not a deep subject. It’s a very simple thing that everybody can understand. And it’s easy to follow. But I thought, you got to have a purpose that you may grow. OK, well, why? You know, when babies are born, it would be nice if they could be born today in 1819 or 20 the next day.

And then the day after that, they could be 40 or 50. They’d get wisdom fast. They just heard this thing along. But it take nine months just to have that baby. And then you got all those years, you just got to teach them how to talk and walk. And then the rest of the life, sit down and shut up. But you go through that. And most of the time you have children, then you don’t even know how to deal with the situation.

It would be so neat if we had a little manual that would come first. And I find out, well, God did give us a manual. It’s just that our parents forgot to teach it to us because they didn’t know it. And so you wind up making a lot of mistakes and you find out after about 40, 50 years, I think I could have done a better job. Well, now it’s too late. Now your kids have got kids. But it would be neat if we knew everything and all did right.

doesn’t work out of you. Some things in your life you’ll find out you can’t you can’t hurry. I know that sometime when you get 15, 16 years old you’ve just the back out to the place where you just about know it all. Parents can’t tell you anything. You’ll notice how rebellious kids can get just that quick. They’re just so fine and submissive and all of a sudden boom they just get totally rebellious. They start challenging authority and getting mean and hard-headed.

You just want to take a two before tune. And then after a while they get about 35, 40 years old they find out well maybe mom and dad weren’t so bad after all. Well they sure have learned a lot lately. And they don’t they just don’t get it. And sometimes you just can’t make people grow faster than a natural process of growing. And you learn a little bit and then a little bit a little bit more. In other words, they usually send you to K-4 and K-5 before first grade.

So anyway, I want you to look there at number one in your notes there that you may grow and you know where that scripture comes from. So take your Bible and turn there to this scripture in 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter and chapter 1. Very simple, but I want you to follow me because it gets a little deeper as we go. Number one, birth before growth. See, the fault that many preachers make churches is they’re trying to get people to grow before they’re born into God’s family.

So they teach them all the doctrines of Christ, how to live for the Lord and how to walk with Him and pray and all and they never have trusted Christ as Savior. It’s getting the card before the horse. You got to do things right in order. The first thing you do is you got to win somebody to the Lord. You got to give them the trust Christ for their Savior. So it says here in verse 23 in your Bible, 1 Peter chapter 1, being born again means born from above, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth in a bite of forever.

So you and I, when we trust Christ as Savior, we understand the Word of God is perfect. He can only give birth to a perfect child. And that’s the new birth, the spiritual birth. You’re born into God’s family. And in verse 24, for all flesh, that’s your first birth. It’s His grasp. All the glory of man and the flower of the grass, the grass, wither it and the flower thereof, fall of the way. But in verse 25, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

And this is the word which by the, see that word gospel is preaching. You see without the gospel, there is no new birth. So the birth must come first. Now, there’s another verse and I’ll just read it to you here from the notes here. For I delivered unto you first of all, that which I also received how that Christ died for our sins. This is what he received. This is how he got the birth. So I believe that this is the message that the Lord preached to Paul on the road to Damascus.

He said, this is what I heard. And what I received, I have delivered that. How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. And that he was buried, that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. That we should be to the praise of his glory. Now, first of all, up there in 1 Corinthians 15, 4, That’s first. The new birth must be first. And then in Ephesians chapter one and verse 12, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ.

And that has reference to the gospel also and in verse 13 of that same chapter talks about, because after you have heard the word of truth, the gospel, you were born in the God’s family and sealed by the Holy Spirit. Now look at number two, before you can have growth, you must have food. Kids don’t just naturally grow, they gotta have some food to eat. And the first thing they do is start hollering for some milk. They want something to eat.

It’s just a good natural desire. And so that’s why in the book of 1 Peter, where you are looking chapter two and verse two, as newborn babes desire, the sincere milk of the word, Why? That you may grow thereby. Okay, well then, if I’m going to grow, there’s still got to be a reason for me growing. We have children that are born into the families and we start feeding them and you cannot and you cannot make a child grow.

You feed them and growth will take care of itself. If God’s children will naturally read and study the word of God, they will grow, they will gain some knowledge, they’ll grow in the knowledge of the Lord. But remember this, there’s a lot of difference between just growing in knowledge and growing in spiritual maturity. You can accumulate a lot of knowledge from the Bible, but that doesn’t mean that you’re any closer to spiritual maturity because you see, they’re not exactly the same.

You can memorize the whole Bible and not have any spiritualality to you at all. Lost people can quote the Bible. A lot of false teachers quote the Bible. A lot of people that are in air and even though they’re saying they can quote the Bible, but you’ve got to find out what does it take for me to be spiritually minded, spiritually minded. So there’s a reason why we want to grow now. As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow there by.

So you grow, you guess, by the Word of God. I put this in here because I wanted to kind of make sure that everybody understands this. Growth is for a reason. Why should I grow? Now we often, when we want to make the plan of salvation clear, we’ve quoted Ephesians 2, 8, 9, for by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works. Not of works. That’s any man should boast.

But verse 10 is also there, but it’s a verse that says about, you know, as a child of God, we are His workmanship, we’re His workmanship created in Christ Jesus, before which God has ordained that we should walk in good works. That was, this is what He wants. But you’ll You notice here in the middle of your page, study to show thyself approved unto God. There’s a reason for studying because you will not be approved by God without studying.

And so nobody can make you read the Bible, study the Bible, quote the Bible. And nobody can let me learn. You can stay a child of God all your life and you are simply living in your old flesh’s birth. And you can still make decisions. You’ve still got a brain. You can reason and use logic. And so people will use that old sinful wicked nature, old deceitful heart and guide their own lives by it. But they’d never see that they’re not being spiritual just because they’re able to make decisions.

Before I ever trusted Christ of Savior, I wasn’t a dunce. I could still think and reason. I could make money and I had jobs, I had skills, and I could do all kinds of things. I just wasn’t saved. So now you can get saved and keep doing exactly the same thing. And no change in your life. Doesn’t make you spiritual in any way just because you are a child of God Now you can start studying the Bible But if you study and attain only knowledge the Bible says knowledge pepheta It means it builds you up Love edifies means edifies somebody else.

So knowledge gets you to Feel a little Egotistical and sometimes a little prideful about look what I know But that doesn’t mean you’re spiritual. Doesn’t mean you’re being spiritually minded and how to use this for God’s honor and God’s glory. You can exalt yourself and look what I know. God’s more concerned about it. You might know this, but what is it doing for you? Some people have a knowledge of the Bible, but not a working knowledge. So you want the knowledge that you have to work.

And that’s what I put this down here. Look at letter B. Growth is from something to something. From something. If you grow and you’re going from something to something, we used to put the kids up against the wall and make a little martin. That’s why they look at it and they go over there and stand and see, I told her, no. Hey, this dog. Look how you’re growing this much. If you haven’t seen kids in a long time, you’re like, I’m just like, boy, how big you are.

Well, the parents who see them all the time don’t see any growth at all. That’s natural. You know, this is every day they see them. And it happens without any. But when you haven’t seen them, you remember them like this, and all of a sudden they’re like this. And they seem like they’ve really grown. And that from a child, so we’re talking about, from a child, though has known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make the wise unto salvation.

So the Scriptures can make you wise. Now, you have to decide as a child of God, what do I need to study the Bible? Do you or do you not want to be wise? you cannot be wise outside of the scriptures, or wise in the ways of the world, wise in your own human understanding, but not with spiritual guidance. Now, the next part of this verse, the scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, means to know what’s right, for reprove to know what’s wrong.

In other words, when you read and said it to Bible, you can know what’s right, know what’s wrong. You’re able to discern your own life. Don’t you dislike the idea of somebody always trying to correct you. Somebody getting on you for something. You think, well, I’m old enough and mature enough. I even make my own decisions. I don’t even know how to tell me how to live. Well, then why don’t you make a better decision than nobody would say anything.

But some people don’t, but they feel justified. It’s none of your business. And you get off my case and leave me alone. You have no idea what my father-law had to go through with me just to get me to go to church. I was running around in dungarees in a D-shirt, and then I had to learn how to tie a tie. I remember, I’m 18, 19 years old, he tried to teach me how to tie a tie. And tying a tie, if you’ve never done it before, is not the easiest thing in the world.

I choked myself many a time. And then trying to get it off, and I didn’t want to mess it up so I could put it back on and keep it like that. like that so I keep all my times already time and the loop just opening up just enough to get it off. So there’s a lot of difference between I, hey low and a noose, but then I had to start wearing better shirts and then I decided to go to Florida Bible College and none of us as students, we didn’t have to wear coat and ties.

It wasn’t a rule at Florida Bible College. But Ray wind up having somebody from another college coming in speak and he was a little ashamed of the way all of the students looked, because he had been to their college and he saw how they dressed. And so he gave us a nice little pitch one day in chapel about the image and all that. He kept on until he had every one of us in there. We voluntarily chose to start wearing coats and ties.

It’s a dark day in my life. But We voluntarily chose to do it. Because by the time he got through, we felt so bad if we didn’t do it, he was gonna break down and cry. Because he wanted the best and he just didn’t like the idea that we didn’t represent the Lord as good as we could have. So we wound up doing it and we had to learn to do that. Now, it’s not that we always agreed with everything, but we had to have the attitude.

He’s in charge. If that’s what he wants. He sets the rules. We just we just do whatever he said done and when I started the college I didn’t Colorado guess what we did Same thing. We give y’all a little bit more flexibility down here. I Don’t know why but we do but but there’s got times when I think it’s appropriate And I think y’all do too that you’ll know how to dress and so forth because we’re trying to prepare you for down the road But look at the set to know how to make it right.

And when things are wrong, how to make it right. For instruction in righteousness, how to teach it right. Because you’re not learning just for yourself, now you’re learning how to teach somebody else. That the man of God may be perfect or complete, truly furnished under, look at the last part of it, for a reason, for all good works. There’s a reason why we want to grow from childhood to adulthood. Look at letter C. Growth depends upon study. That’s the intake.

You’ve got to take it in. I’ll tell people when it comes to money, unless your intake is greater than your outflow, than your outflow, or be your downfall. That’s not only good just for money, for guiding yourself and doing what’s right, but it’s also good for the Lord’s work. And if I don’t take in more than I give out, than my giving out will be my downfall, because you always got to take in more. If you can give out love, remember, you’ve got to keep being loved in order to keep loving.

Whatever you’re giving, you better keep taking in. And if you don’t, you dry up. So it’s important thing to remember. Then there has to be digestion. It’s not just a matter of you read a verse, memorize the verse. Do you understand what you read? Do you digest it? Do you meditate? You say, what is meditation? It’s kind of like the cow that eats the grass, goes under the tree, and set it and chews the cud. in the words they vomit it back up, and then chew it all over again.

Then they swallow it again. Now I’m not saying that’s just what y’all need to do. I need some grass. But you do need to regurgitate. You gotta bring it back up. You put it there, now think about it. Meditate upon it. Memory told Joshua, meditate upon it every once in a while. Day and night. Day and night, day and night. So there’s a reason for that. then there has to be, when you understand and agree and humbly submit, because see, you have to submit yourself to truth.

And you’re growing in the Lord spiritually, you should always have the attitude that whatever the word of God teaches me, I want to humbly submit to it. Don’t argue with the scriptures and don’t try to challenge God, don’t resist the Lord. You wanna grow, wanna be strong in the Lord? Don’t use your logic. Don’t use human reasoning and human understanding. Just go ahead and Lord, I’m not gonna fight with you. That would heart me, because I had to come to a point in my life and they were singing a song at Northside one time.

Northside Baptist Church. I’m sitting out there, and I don’t remember what the preacher preached on, but they had everybody standing. They sung the song, I surrender all, I surrender all. I don’t know if y’all ever heard that song, but it’s a good song. It’s not too good for salvation, But surrender not should surrender all. So I stood up and I stood there and I just cried. Because I wanted to surrender whatever I am to the Lord. I don’t want to fight with you.

If I know what you want me to do, I’m just going to do it. I don’t get what it is. I don’t want to argue with you. I don’t want to fight with you. This is why when we started the college down here, I told people, I said, I’m too old. I don’t want to fight with anybody. I don’t want to argue with anybody. says, this is who I am, this is what I want. And if I can’t have what I want, then I am that there’s no sense in me doing it.

If I’m going to have a college, the question I have a college, according to what I want to have, I don’t make anybody come. But I do know that I’ve got to bind myself to this. But the last thing I want is students telling us how to run a college. Have they ever had one before? If they already knew all of this, so they don’t need to to be here, see? But if you’re gonna teach somebody, you want somebody to humbly submit themselves to what the word of God says.

Don’t argue, you don’t fight, you just, or whatever. And then I tell the kids, when you get out on your own, see, here’s John John, he’s gonna be leaving here one of these days. Amen, I mean, one of these days. When he goes out and he gets in his own job, I hope he’ll invite me to come and preach for him. And if I do, I’m not gonna tell him how to run his church. I don’t tell Wally how to run his church.

I don’t tell males what to do. I don’t tell a lead patent. Why? Because you answer to the Lord and then that’s the way you want it. See, when you get mature enough, you know that if there’s nobody’s sense over you, you still got the Lord. And the Lord is, reigns over me a lot more than the Board of Elders that we got, but I realize that the Board of Elders, I have to be submissive to them. They can put the hammer down on me anytime they choose.

They can tell me. move on. This ain’t mine. I’m just here doing a job. They ask me to come and help them and that’s what I’m doing. But they can cut my salary, they can kick me out of here and get somebody else, right? That’s true. So while I’m here, do I have to please them in some way? I’ve got to keep them happy a little bit. So far so good. But now I know that so I can’t misuse what God’s given to him so I have to submit.

See nobody is exempt. Everybody has to follow my name. I remember that I walked in here one day and Peter was up here with the firehouse five and I walked out of my office and I heard someone said I don’t like that. I walked in here and I looked up at Peter and said I don’t like that song. He said okay scrub that one. He didn’t whimper. He didn’t whine. He didn’t He’s a pine. He’s a yeser. I never gave him an explanation.

Why? I don’t have to. I’m the boss. He is to humbly submit. I had O’Jesse in the office one day, and we had to correct a few things. And yeser. Yeser. Okay. Yeser. That’s humbly submitting. That’s spiritual maturity. growing in the Lord because you’re respecting the authority that’s over you. And see if you can’t respect the authority that’s over you, you’re going to have trouble in every other area of your life. You’re going to challenge authority, challenge authority. It won’t matter who or where because every one of us have what we call an old sinful nature, it is the spirit of rebellion.

We don’t want people telling us what we can and cannot do. And in our ministry, I I have to tell people what they can and cannot do. But I try to make sure, is what I’m telling them right. Is it illegal? Is it fattening? Is it going to harm them in any way? Well then I have to be careful on that. So you’re looking for people who are growing in the Lord. Spiritual maturity. Not just in the flesh, when somebody told me certain things in the flesh.

I was ready and I did. I got in fights. I was ready to take and give my Hawaiian punch in a minute, but I had to learn how to be patient, how to submit my will. And that’s not the easiest thing in the world to do, but it is something God tells us to do. And so then you have to have an application. That’s the outflow. So you can’t always be serving and not taking in. Some people go to the gas station and they get one gallon on the gas and then they want to go to Georgia.

What’s going to happen? They’re going to run out of what? They’re going to run out of gas. They’re going to be stopping up the road. They’re not going to make it to their destination. There’s people who can learn a little bit of the word of God. Well man, I know enough to go to rest of my life and I’ve watched students that I went to Bible college with. And after a while they run out of gas. They call it, I’m burnout.

I’ve never come close to burnout. I don’t even know what burnout is because I’ve always kept putting more fuel in the fire. See, I get ahold of that verse and that’s fuel. I get this verse, that’s fuel. And I keep fuel on the fire to keep me burning, to keep me going so that I don’t burn out and I don’t want to quit and I don’t faint and some people can’t finish. See, I not only wanted to start well and run well, I want to finish well.

Don’t you want to finish well? I think you do. Look down at the next statement. Growth is little by little. Look in Isaiah 28. There’s a couple of verses I want to read to you there. The book of Isaiah, chapter 28. the Lord. It’s telling them some things, but people have erred greatly. But look there in verse 7. We’re just starting verse 7. But they also have erred through wine and through strong drink or out of the way. The priests and the prophets have erred through strong drink.

And I’ve had people say, well you can’t show where the Bible says it’s not right. You can’t have strong drink. Don’t they read the Bible? Does that look like it’s promoting it or telling you that it can cause you air and judgment? Well anyway, they are swallowed up to a wine. They are out of the way through strong drink. They air in vision. They stumble in judgment. Now, then he applies this to doctrine, bad doctrine. When you don’t know good doctrine, you’re going to believe bad doctrine.

And then when you have bad doctrine, you’re gonna air in your judgment and you’re not gonna have good vision and you’re going to stumble in your Christian life. So notice what he says in verse nine. “‘Whom shall he teach knowledge? “‘And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? “‘So it’s one thing to have knowledge, “‘no thing to understand. “‘You’ve got to digest it.” And that takes time. You don’t take a child and set him down to, You know, all the food that he needs to eat for a week and just go ahead and give it to him in one meal.

That way he’ll grow faster. No, it could kill the kid. Too much light, blinds. It’s like somebody just walking up to you with a flashlight in the middle of the dark and shining a light right in your eyes. What does it do to you? Can you see better? Too much light too quickly, does what? Blinds you. Too much knowledge, even in Bible college, too quick, too much knowledge without adjusting. Digesting can blind you and you don’t see as good.

This is why you have to be careful trying to get too much knowledge too quick. You can have the knowledge but without the application, without the digestion, you’re not going to be able to apply it. won’t remember it and you can overload your little brain up there. When I went to Bible cause I had no clue how long I was gonna be there. I didn’t know what a credit was. I didn’t know what an hour was and an hour couldn’t have been an hour because it always went 50 minutes.

But anyway I never understood what they’ve done that. Not until almost the last semester I finally got some of it explained to me because I just said whatever I need whatever I need whatever I need. I made that mistake when I was in my 11th grade. I only had about a few weeks to go in the 11th grade when they brought me in the office and said, you know, you’re not going to be able to graduate. I said, why?

He said, well, you don’t have this class, this class, this class. I said, you never told me I needed him. I said, I’m here. I thought you were supposed to tell me what I need, give me what I need, and I graduate. Because whenever they asked me what I wanted, I took art, wood shop, phys ed, study hall. Well, why not? I should have got an A in all those classes because I did real good. But I wasn’t doing too good in these other class.

I didn’t even have them. I’ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way. I think maybe God allowed that to happen to me so that down the road I’d be able to help somebody else along the way. Now look what he says here. In verse 9, whom shall he teach knowledge and whom shall he make to understand doctrine then that are winged from the milk and drawn from the breast For precept must be upon precept and precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, hear a lot.

Hear a little. They’re a little. Learn little by little, little by little. Men, reserve the last Saturday of the month. For the iron sharpens iron, man’s Bible study and breakfast at Calvary Community Church. Join us at 730 for a home-cooked breakfast. Then, at 8am, 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. We’ll miss this monthly opportunity for fellowship and the study of God’s Word. Thanks for joining us on Bible I. 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. 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.