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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. 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 prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bible line to continue on the air. You can reach us at 813-884-4328, or you can donate on the homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family.

I want to pretend this morning, you know, just for a little bit. I want to pretend like I’m John in the Bible when he was 90 years old. I kind of feel like I’m closer to 90. But I want to talk to you today as a father talking to the children because that’s kind of like the the book of 1 John. I want you to take your Bible and turn with me to the book of John, the Gospel of John in chapter 17.

John chapter 17, we often ask people, do you know the Lord? Do you know the Lord? I know the Lord. I know the Lord from back in 1960, September. I know on a Friday I trusted Christ as my Savior so I know the Lord. I will say that it’s taken me almost 60 years to really know the Lord. I knew Him from the day I trusted Him as my Savior but to get to really know the Lord it’s taking me almost 60 years.

I think I know Him better today than I did 60 years ago. And that’s a little bit about what I want to talk to you about. Here in John chapter 17, if you’ll look there in verse 1, this is these words, spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.” See, it’s a two-way street. Glorify me so that I can glorify you. Jesus has glorified us so that we may glorify Him.

And the Bible says that the suffering of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed. And then he also makes the statement in 1 Thessalonians, concerning the people that we reach for the Lord, ye are my crown of rejoicing, ye are my joy, you are my glory, the people we win to the Lord. The Bible says that you bear much fruit. Hearing is my Father glorified. So we’re here to give glory to God our heavenly Father.

And the people that we win to the Lord is one of the ways that we glorify the Father, because He gets glory from those people who trust Christ as their Savior. So the greatest thing you and I can be about is telling people the most important message in the world by that glorious gospel about how to have the glory, the perfection. He says, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So here in this verse, he says this in verse 2, as thou have given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou have given him, all flesh.

There is made up of believers and unbelievers. And he says that according to this verse that he should give eternal life to as many as thou have given him. Now there is a good little note of explanation here in the church Bible that’s in front of you if you don’t have one. Or in your Bible if you look down at number three at the bottom of the page, seven times Jesus speaks of believers as given to him by the Father.

Jesus Christ is God’s love gift to the world. That’s a beautiful statement. And then he says, and believers are the Father’s love gift to Jesus Christ. In other words, what does Jesus get out of this? In the second Psalm it talks about we are His inheritance. This is what He gets because of what He does. And then He makes the statement here, it is Christ who commits the believer to the Father for safe keeping. So there is your security.

the Father says, He’ll never cast us out and never loses and none can take it out of His hand. But the day will come when we will be presented to the Son. That’s why in John chapter 6, all that the Father gives me shall come to me and Him that come up to me, I will know why He’s cast out. And then He says here, So that the believer’s security rests upon the father’s faithfulness to his son Jesus Christ.

Now God had promised that he would justify the heathen through faith and the son had to come and make the payment for the sins of the world so that God the Father could keep his word. You realize that Jesus had not come and was not faithful to do the will of the Father that the Father could not have saved anybody? There would be no salvation. But They did come. Now look at verse three. And this is life eternal, that they may know the, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast said, to know God is to have eternal life.

And you can’t have eternal life unless you know God. And you can only know God through the Son. And that’s why he says in John 14, he that have seen me have seen the Father. So why ask, show us the Father, show us God, look at Jesus and you’ll see God. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. If you really want to know God is revealed in your walk with the Heavenly Father. You see, you can know God through Jesus Christ when you trusted Him as your Savior.

I wrote a little note down there. To really know God is revealed in your walk with your heavenly Father. If you never learn to walk with the Lord, you’ll never understand God. You’ll never see why He does what He does. You’ll not be able to discern the character of God. And there’s a lot of descriptions and attributes concerning the character of God. And you’ll learn those in your life by walking with God and seeing what God will do for you, through you and to you.

So it’s an important thing. I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 John, the book of 1 John and chapter 1. 1 John and chapter 1. And notice what the disciple here is saying when he makes the statement about our walk with God, our fellowship with the Lord. You see, it was one thing that they knew him here in the place, but they also learned about God, the way God is. You notice in verse three, that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that he also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

And these things right we unto you that your joy may be full. So these are things that are written so that people’s joy could be full. There’s great joy in knowing, truly knowing, intimately knowing God your Heavenly father. There’s things about God you will never understand unless you walk with him. You may be as child you’ll go to heaven when you die, but until you learn how to walk with the Lord. You’ll always hear me saying, I don’t care what’s going on in your life.

The Lord will walk you through it until he takes you home. It may be you got cancer, finances, social. I don’t care what the problem may be. There is no problem that you have greater than your God to deliver you. And the way he may deliver you out of all of your problems as he might take you home. Don’t fear death. It was amazing that while I was in the hospital I had some people send me some funnies. And out of about 10 funnies every last one of them dealt with death.

That really encouraged me. But anyway, I didn’t die. I’m not dead yet. May come tomorrow. But this is a very important verse. Now take your Bible looking 1 John chapter 2. So here you’re talking about the fellowship that you have with the Lord during your life. Fellowship is like two fellows in a ship. going in the same way. You and God, how can two walk together unless they be agreed? And so chapter 2, and there’s two verses here I want to bring to your attention, verse 9, where it says, he that saith he is in the light and hated his brother is in darkness even until now.

Look, I’ll be here very quickly. When we are born into this world, this is the flesh that walks in the dark. It doesn’t have the light of God, doesn’t know. He’s lost. This is a person with a sinful nature and we all sin. So whenever you trust Christ as your Savior, God doesn’t change this birth. He gave you a new birth which is the Holy Spirit living within you. You have a new spiritual birth. These are separate from each other.

This one walks in the light. This one walks in the flesh, in the dark. So if you tell God in other people, if you believe that you’re walking in the light but you’re bringing forth the works of the flesh, you’re lying to yourself. You’re deceiving yourself. So he says here, if you say you’re in the light, doesn’t mean it’s true, you’re saying though. You’re believing something, it’s not true. And you hate your brother. Well, hate. Does that come from the new birth or does that come from the old birth that comes from this one?

So that means you’re lying. You’re not walking with the Lord. You’re not fellowshiping with the Lord. You’re walking into flesh. So first John is to help us to see how we’re walking, how we’re doing. You see John, when he was young, was probably one of the youngest disciples. And he was the one that loved the Lord and he was always the one that was leaning on his breast. And he talks about how he was the one whom he loveth.

And he’s always writing about love. John is a book on love. And first John is another book on love. But it’s to the believer on how to judge for himself to discern things in his life. And that’s why I want you to see the verse 10. Because you see in verse 10, he said, he that loveth his brother abideth in the light or darkness, the light. So that means you’re walking in truth, you’re walking in the light, you’re walking according to the new birth.

See, God has fellowship with you. And then he says this, and there is none occasion of, and you ought to underlying these three words, non-occasion of stumbling in Him. Remember, we’re talking about a walk with God, not a step. First John 1-9 is a step. It is not the walk. When you cease to walk with God because you choose to walk in the flesh, confessing your sins is you acknowledging, Lord, I’m walking in the flesh. Confessing that only up to the truth, you can now walk in the Spirit.

But confessing your sin is not the walk, is to enable you to walk with God. It doesn’t make your spiritual, it’s so that you can be spiritually minded, by minding the Spirit, minding the truth of the Word of God. So we acknowledge this is why you need to learn discernment in the Word of God so that you can judge clearly between walking in the Spirit and walking in the flesh. So the book of 1 John is to help us not to fall because if you don’t stumble you won’t fall.

And so the way to keep from stumbling is to walk in the light or darkness. So that light means walking according to the new birth that God gave to you. And so this is very, very important. Now take your Bible and turn to the book of Hebrews in chapter 8. The book of Hebrews in chapter 8. This is a reference, believe it or not, in the book of Hebrews to the Hebrews in the Old Testament. And in the book of Jeremiah, in chapter 31, talks about they will not stumble.

They will not stumble because they’re going to walk with the Lord. Not everybody is going to walk with the Lord. But when you don’t walk in the light according to the truth, well then you’re going to stumble. stumble and you stumble you’re going to fall. And when you fall you can’t be walking with God. And so you need to learn to discern for yourself. So here in the book of Hebrews in chapter 8, I want to look there in verse 10.

This is a reference to an Old Testament covenant and there is a covenant that demanded righteousness and the failure to produce this righteousness of the law produced death. Temporary, you are dead. You die. That’s stone you to death. You didn’t keep the law and the sacrifice that it means the shortness of your life. But if you can’t do that and prohibit physical death, how are you going to produce this spiritual life? Grace is always the way a man is saved.

So he says here in verse 10, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. Sayeth the Lord, I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me and people.” Now that part of the verse is also quoted in the book of Revelation when he says, and I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And he goes down and he says, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people, a fulfillment of a promise that he may be back in the book, the Old Testament. And here referring to it again, and he says here in verse 11, and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother. Why? Do you not have to say, do you know the Lord? Do you know the Lord?

Because they all will know the Lord. the last part of the verse, from the least to the great day, all going to know Him. The day is coming when everybody will live for all eternity because we know the Lord. That’s what knowing God gets for us. The day you trusted Christ as your Savior, you got a free pass into eternity to be with the Lord. And God became your Father. You became His child. And I will be to them, their God, our Father.

And we shall be His people. And that’s why we’re called the children of God. Beloved, we are the children of God. And to not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. That day is coming. And see in verse 11, and they shall not teach that. the Lord for all shall see me.” Now it’s one thing to know the Lord and know that you have eternal life because to know Him is to have eternal life.

And if you don’t have eternal life, you don’t know the Lord. All the religions of the world, if they don’t know they have eternal life, they don’t know God. And they don’t believe what Jesus Christ said. Because Jesus says, if you believe you have everlasting life. So if you believe, what are you supposed to have? And if you don’t know you have everlasting life, then you don’t believe what he said. And that’s important to remember. Very, very important. Take your Bible and turn to 1 John chapter 5.

First John in chapter 5. First John chapter 5. Now you’ll see parts of these verses referred to in the gospel of John. and it also especially in the 15th chapter of John and as you read through the book of 1 John you’ll notice a word that’ll stand out kind of slapshipside the head. The word to know, know, know, know. We know, we know, we know, we know. Well in order to know that this is true and know this is true and know this is true and know and know it, know he kind of puts all of it, hinging upon the greatest foundation that if you can believe God about this and know this is true, then you can know that this and this and this and this and this is also true.

If I know that if I trust Christ as my Savior and He gives me eternal life and I can take God at His Word for that, then why can’t I take God’s word that he will never leave me and never forsake me and that regardless of what I go through he will see me through. And that whatever suffering that I may have to go through, it will be worth it all. Because you see, I have a great foundational truth.

See there in 1 John chapter 5 verse 13, look at it. These things have I written unto you that give the 10 commandments and obey the goal and roll and go to Calvary Community Church. Then what it says? No. These things have I written unto you that believe. So that means if it’s written to those that believe, then it must be something every believer should know, because he wrote it to those that believe. Now if you believe, then you should know this.

Look what you’re supposed to know. He says, these things, have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may what? Know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. whether or not that’s a reference to a mixed audience or not in case somebody else, it’s believers should know they have eternal life and the lost man should know he can have eternal life if he believes.

But notice the next verse, this is the what? You ought to circle this word, confidence. This is the confidence. What’s the confidence? If you can know that you have eternal life and if you can believe that what God said. Then we as God’s children don’t believe everything else that he has to say with that. Don’t you agree? So let me ask you this, what was the greatest problem you have ever had in your whole life? The greatest problem, your greatest need and take all the way to the end of your life and when you died where was you going?

You were on your way to hell. Now, regardless of what happened in the period of time that you lived, whether it’s 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, it doesn’t matter how long you lived, your greatest problem was where were you going when you died. Now, if God can take care of your biggest need, your greatest problem that you’ve ever faced so far in your whole life, can He take care of all the little stuff in between? If God can give me eternal life, can I trust him to give me a hamburger from day to day?

For God, he’s bankrupt. He has no means to take care of me. I’ve got a heavenly Father who has forsaken me. Do you believe that God knows everything that’s going to happen to his children? What you’re going to do? You know, I thought it was really bad that day that I went in had that surgeon and thought, God didn’t know about this. God didn’t know I was going to have to go through this because, you know, if you really love me, if Compatibility, he really loved meAttorney, he wouldn’t let this happen to me.

I mean, he knows that I like this thing and now I can’t sing. He knows that I like to do the wallet illustration by lifting my hand all the way up. And now I can only go here. Boy, I wish God knew that ahead of time. But You see, God doesn’t know everything, He can’t do everything. And you’d be surprised at how you’ll feed your mind with questions and doubts. I try to tell the college kids, feed your faith and your doubts will start to death.

But if you don’t, you’re gonna feed your doubts and your faith will start to death. So how you doing? Learn this. Now, you’ll notice in verse 14, this is the confidence. See, 5’13 is to give us confidence to believe what else he has said in the book of 1 John. He said that if we ask anything according to Israel, he hear at the, now that’s mentioned also in the book of John in chapter 14. What’s whoever you ask my father in my name, I will give it to you.

But the confidence of you to doing that is based upon do you really believe that you have eternal life? Because you took God in his word. And now you know that you’re saved, you’re going to heaven when you die. Well then believe this, God hasn’t stopped loving you just because you trust in Christ’s Savior. God hasn’t taken a vacation. God is intricately involved in your life, whether you see Him or not. And He’s bringing things into your life and taking things out of your life because He’s building your character because He wants you to be like Him.

He wants you to love Him more than the love of the world and that’s why in chapter 2 he talks about the love of the Father and if you love the world then that means you don’t love Him and He’s going to reveal these things to you. And so that’s why he lets you have all the problems because he’s trying to get you to get closer to him. He hasn’t forsaken you. He knows who you are. He knows how you hurt.

He knows what you go through. And God will do what He promised. You see, when he talks about there, notice what he says in 1 John chapter 3. looking verse 19. First John chapter 3 verse 19, here by we what? We know. You see we know. How do we know that because God keeps his word. God promised. Well what if I don’t believe what God says? And I begin to question and doubt. Well that’s why he says up there in 1 John chapter 5 and verse 10.

Look what he says verse 10, because throughout this first John, he talks about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit that is within you, the Holy Spirit that is to lead you, the one that they give you this spiritual joy that you’re supposed to have. He says in verse 10, he that believer on the Son of God have the witness in himself, what is this witness that he has inside me? See, I am indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God.

And the Holy Spirit is to teach us truth. The Holy Spirit is holy. The Holy Spirit never teaches you a lie. The Holy Spirit doesn’t lead you astray. The Holy Spirit doesn’t desert you and leave you. We’re sealed into the day of redemption till we get our new body. That’s how secure we are and we ought to believe what God’s Word has to say. And then he says in verse 10, He that believeth not God hath made him what?

Made him a liar. You know that’s also found in 1 John 1, look what he says there. In 1 John 1 and verse 10. If we say we have not sinned, we make him what? This is to the believer. The believer calling God a liar. Because when you begin to question and doubt God, you’re saying, saying, God, I don’t believe you. You can’t take care of me. God may want to give you the peace, the love, the joy. He may not send you finances.

You see, between you and him, that’s more important, that you don’t start questioning and doubting your heavenly Father because you didn’t get what you wanted. You’re not as healthy as you would like to be. You don’t have the friend, maybe you’d like to have. You’d be surprised in this life how many things go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong. But God’s never done you wrong. God has never failed you. God doesn’t lie to you. God doesn’t deceive you.

God doesn’t tempt you. How do you know all of that? Because he said so. He said so. And you’d be surprised how you’re like and be filled with questions and doubts. And as a child of God, you’ll never get to know God personally. He is more real to me than the clothes I’ve got on my back. And He ought to be real to you. That you know regardless of what comes, what happens? Instead of griping and grumbling and murmuring and complaining.

But a smile on your face, isn’t it great to be alive and have a father like I’ve got. I got a father that will never leave me, and he wants the best for me.” You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing 813-884-4328.

That’s 813-884-4328. To listen to today’s message again, or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible Line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030, and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

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, and just keep looking up.