This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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 through the Bibleline website at calvaryoftampa.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.

He says, foxes have holes and birds of the ear have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head. He said there in verse 59, and he said into another, follow me, but he said, Lord, allow me first, or suffer me first to go and bury my father. Allow me to go and bury my father. Now, what’s wrong with that? Well, I believe that Christ knew that their reasons were simply excuses. You see, you cannot plan a dedication that I’m gonna dedicate my life to the Lord tomorrow if you haven’t dedicated your life to the Lord today.

With the Lord, God always is to be a priority. He wants to be first and not Lord, I’ll serve you, but first of all, I got other things I wanna do. Other things that are more important to me. Well, you can’t serve God that way. So he makes a statement here in verse 60, Jesus said unto him, let the dead bury the dead. I believe he talking mainly about let the spiritual dead bury the physical dead. You see, there’s some things that Christians can do, and there’s some things that lost people can do.

It’s kind of like, well, let the lost people do what the lost people can do, and let God’s people do only what God’s people can do. Because you see, the lost people can’t do the work of God. Only God’s people can do the work of God. When the Lord tells us to follow Him, and I will make you fishers of men, that’s not to the lost men, because the lost men don’t do that. But God’s people can do that.

So it’s God’s people doing that which is a priority, the most important job in all the world. There’s some things that the lost can do, we’ll let them do that. It doesn’t mean that you don’t do some of the same thing the lost does, but the law can’t serve God. So well, I’m gonna serve the Lord, but, and then they butt it all over the place. They got a few priorities that take the place, it’s center stage, and God says, you don’t get it.

I’m first. You take care of what I want first. So then he makes a statement in verse 61. And another came at him and said, Lord, I will follow thee, but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Lord, I’ll follow you, but let me go home and tell them by first. God says, forget it. You don’t understand what I’m talking about. You don’t understand, you don’t get it. It’s not that he cares, you can’t go home and you can’t tell him.

It’s that Christ God, he says that he knew What was in man? He knew reasons that people give that are simply excuses. The reasons are not good reasons. I’ve met a lot of people that have been in the hospitals and boy, preacher prayed that I’d get out of this hospital bed. If I ever get out of this bed, boy, I’ll be in church and I’m gonna live right and I’m gonna straighten up and I’m gonna do all this. No, you serve God right where you are, even in the hospital bed and start glorifying Him.

Where you are with what you have at that moment. Start serving God now. It has to be now. But they said, I will follow, but you must wait. God doesn’t want to wait. He wants us to serve them. Now, I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Matthew. In Matthew chapter four, it says there in verse 18, and Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee saw two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew, his brother cast and they net into the sea, for they were fishers.

And he said unto them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they said, well, I’d like to, but I got a lot of other things to do first. Now, it says they straightway, they were straightway means immediately let their nets followed him. Now, out of all the people that Christ has said, follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me, there’s 12 of them that did. But he mentioned a lot of them, but they had reasons.

They had excuses. They had other things to do. So we read about those who did. We don’t know who those were that didn’t. They have the things that were more important. When you get to heaven, God’s going to reward you in heaven because you put God as a priority. You served him first. And then you trusted God in your service to him that God would take care of all the other things because God will. And he promised. When he makes a statement in verse 19, follow me and I will make you rich.

Is that what he says? Follow meheast and I’ll make you popular. No, he didn’t say that. Follow me and I’ll make you fishers ofse. Men. So I believe that one of the things that God wants us to do is to be fishing. Now, for example, this afternoon, there’s some fish that are getting together. enthusiasian. And they’ve asked me to come fish. And I’m going fishing. It’s a funeral, but a funeral is a place to go fishing. Whenibraries are a wedding, a wedding is a place to go fishing.

You see, I’m a fisherman. That’s what I do. I go fishing. go to the flea, the flea market, I go fishing. If I go to a grocery store, I like to go fishing. Sometimes all I can do is pass out a track then, but sooner or later I might be talking to somebody, but I go fishing. I like to fish. I’m not talking about those other kind of fish that you have to sit there and wait for the ones you see in the water.

I don’t do too good on that. But let me mention something to you. There’s two goals when you go fishing. The goal of the fishermen is to catch a fish, right? The goal of a fisherman is to catch a fish. The goal of the fish is to get the bait without getting a hook. Now I don’t know if that fish says in his mind, I’m gonna get the bait and I don’t want to get the hook or he just goes ahead and gets the bait and just luckily he gets away.

But remember the goal of the fish is not to get caught. We have people in the world and their goal is to get the bait, get the goodness from God, get the wonderful blessings of God without getting caught. Can they give, get go all the way through life and enjoy the wonderful blessings of every day and not get caught by the fisherman, the Lord Himself. Now our job as the fisherman is to try to bait the fish because our goal is to catch them.

Don’t you think it’s, people have the right to believe whatever they want to believe? I said, no. No, I don’t believe that. I believe they have the right to believe right and I don’t believe it’s right to believe wrong. I believe that God’s going to hold us responsible for how we believe. So there’s only one way to get to heaven. I talked to a man the other day. I says, well, what kind of church do you go to? He says, I’m Baptist.

I hadn’t told him what I was. He said, I’m Baptist. I said, you know, there’s only two two kinds of Baptists, the kind that’s going to heaven, the kind of ain’t. I said, which kind are you? He kind of smiled. He said, well, I hope I’m going to heaven. I said, so if you hope you’re not real sure, well, I hope I’m going. Anyone who just hopes are going to heaven, I always talk to them like they don’t know.

Because if you don’t know, why should I tell them he knows? And he said, I want them to understand, trust the Lord. I talked to a person one time, I said, what kind of church you go to? He said, I go to Pentecostal Church. I said, you know, there’s only two kinds of Pentecostals. Well, what’s that? I said, kind of going to heaven, kind of name. I said, which kind are you? And I would I don’t care what religion you go to.

There’s only two kinds. Kinds go ahead and kind of name. So it doesn’t matter what church you go to. It’s have you or have you not have you really, have you trusted Jesus Christ as your savior. And I believe that when you go fishing, you got to go where the fish are. And you’re going to have to try to figure out how fish react and what they want and certain baits to use and so forth. And I believe that God in heaven knows where the fish are And he knows the fish that are hungry, and he knows the fish that are bite, and he also knows where the fishermen are.

And I think the greatest thing in the world is how God brings the fishermen to a fish. Sometimes bring the fish to a fisherman. There was a man, I guess you would say he’s a college age, young feller, but he was big, and he played football. I had never met him before, but he was hungry. Well, I like to talk to people about the Lord and so I thought it was amazing how God brought me and this man Together he was from way up north and I’m from down here in the south and God allowed us to meet in North Carolina one night our Pass crossed and I caught me a fish But it all started because see Eddie was in the Navy up there in Connecticut and and anyone in the car.

So I bought in this beautiful car, very expensive car. I paid at least $600 for this car. But I didn’t know if it would make it up there. I told Eddie, I’ll drive the car up there for you. I’ll drive it for you. So I left here after church on a Sunday night and I drove that car to Connecticut. Well, I left here. It was dark and I kept driving and driving and all of a sudden in the wee hours of the morning, the lights started getting dimmer and dimmer and dimmer.

I couldn’t hardly see. And I’m on the expressway, going about 25 miles an hour. And the big old transfer truck just whoa blowing past me and almost knocked me off the road. Little old Ford Escort, wouldn’t hardly go. And I thought I’ve got a thousand miles to go and this car won’t hardly move and here I am taking the car. Oh my stars. In any way I had a few little incidents on the way up there. But I got close to New York and I said things already then broke down twice.

I wanted to try to get it fixed. And I’m taking this beautiful little bomb to my son. And I told the Lord, I says, Lord, don’t let this car break down on Brooklyn Bridge. Don’t let it break down during rush hour. Well, whatever happens, don’t let that happen to me. Now, you know, I like to pray. Well, you won’t believe this, but here I am. I’m going over the great big old bridge over this great big old body of water.

There’s about three or four lanes on my side, and I just made the mistake of getting on the inside lane. And I’m a boogin’ along about 70 miles an hour, trying to keep ahead of the traffic behind me. We was on the group plan. And all of a sudden, the car died. It just died. On the top of the bridge, it died. It stopped running. For no reason at all, just stopped. And all of a sudden, here I am stopped on the top of this bridge and all the cars behind me.

And on the right-hand side, they’re just a bulletin pass me and blowing the horn and all that. And then I’m sitting there. And a guy comes up behind me and he says, can I push you off the bridge? I thought, well, the car ain’t worth that much, but I’d still like to keep it. I thought he literally wanted to push my car off the bridge. And I said, what? He said, for $20, I’ll push you off the bridge. I said, all right.

And I said, pulling up slowly and I’ll say, if our bumper’s made, he says, you just get in. I got in. Bam. He never took a second thought about whether we matched or didn’t match. He hit me and started pushing me. And I could see him motioning me to get over in the other lane and car started sliding sideways, sideways, trying to keep from hitting me. He pushed me, I couldn’t, no, no, I couldn’t do a stare. And he pushed me off the bridge and took me on down and started at a service station and I gave him his $20 and before I could give him a track, he was gone.

But the man there fixed the car and I led him to the Lord. Now would God allow certain things to happen at certain times to get you at a certain place to meet a certain person at a certain time so you can win him to the Lord? I believe that. Well, I got the car to Eddie, but then I had to come home. And I thought I would try to save this kid all the money in the world because I knew he didn’t have much money and he was going to have to take care of Daddy.

Well, anyway, he took me to the bus station. He took me to the bus station and I got on the bus. I’m tired because I’ve been up all day at Sunday. I was up all that night. I was up all the next day. I had no sleep. I’m shot physically. I’m tired. Now I’m going to get on a bus, like a 12-way bus, and drive right home. Well, at least I can sleep on the bus. You know, just get there and conquer it.

You wake up, you’re there. I like that idea. That bus stop every 20 minutes. Every 20 minutes, that bus will stop. Some people get off and then the other ones we get on, it was a constant barrage of new people getting on and getting off and turning lights on and all that stuff. But anyway, this one lady gets in the front. I’ll get in the back where it’ll be nice and quiet. I get back in the back. And then right in front of me, this woman came in and sit down with about four kids.

And I try to go to sleep. And those kids hollered and yelled and screamed and fought for 500 miles. It had to be. I didn’t get no sleep. We got to a bus station and had changed buses. So I’m in the bus station and I hadn’t done this for a long time. And I thought, well, now what do I do? So I checked and they said, well, the bus will be by here at a certain certain time. And that place was packed in there.

And I said, well, if a bus comes by here, there’s more of us than there’s room on the bus. They said, well, whoever gets on the bus first. Well, I think I got a ticket. They said, well, so do they. They don’t catch this bus, they have to catch the next bus. Well, I said, well, I can’t afford to take and catch the next bus, but I got to get this next bus. No one’s coming. He says, then you better get in the line.

Everybody was sitting around the edge because it’s going to be a while for the bus to get there. And they had about five or ten people standing in the line. I’ll tell you, if I sit here, I fall asleep. That bus comes, I’ll be sleeping when it’s gone. So I got up and I stood in line and I stood there about three o’clock in the morning. When I fell asleep, I have no idea how long I slept. Now I can stand straight out perfectly still and go sound asleep.

Anyway, a bus came and people started getting on the bus and I got on early enough, I went to the back and nobody was sitting there and just see, I got that whole seat all by myself and so I just kinda spread out. To try that, I don’t want nobody to sit on it cause I figured, soon that bus starts off, I’m gonna take this whole seat, I’m gonna lay down and I gotta get me some sleep. I am physically, I’m shot.

I said, if there’s a God in heaven, Lord, let me have this one whole seat all by myself. Everybody get on the bus. All those seats were taken except mine. I had hoggy that. I had to kind of put my duffel back there and I kind of spread out. Somebody come by. I kind of looked at the whole thing, you know. You say you posed a duet, but I did. I did that. I did all of that thing you can pose a duet.

And then the guy got ready to take off and then next thing I know, I noticed he got back up out of his seat and he walked down there. Let’s see if we got any more room on here. And he looked at me and he gave me a big smile. We have room for one more. We got room for one more. And on the bus came the biggest dude I ever seen. I mean, he was huge. He was huge.

And this black boy came on down. He must have weighed 300 pounds. And he looked at me and he smiled and he sat down. And when he sat down, he pushed me up against the wall. And there I was. We started talking after a little while because I’m still wide awake. I can’t sleep yet. out that he was a football player. For some national team, I mean, he plays football, and I led the man to the Lord. And the greatest thing was, is after I led him to the Lord, I was so sleepy, I went to sleep.

And because he pushed me up against the wall so tightly, I didn’t move. I could sit there and sleep all night long. And after a while I woke up, I was refreshed and I was like, can God bring all the… Well, all about to happen to you just to get to where you can talk to an individual. I believe that. I believe God will allow things like that to happen. I was one time having a… I had a great big old continental silver eagles bus that I had and it was a motorhome and we’d travel around it.

And so I was going to sell it and I went to Nashville. So I’m sitting up there in Nashville, Tennessee at a place where they have great big old buses up there. And I was sitting there in the park and a lot waiting for them to open up because I got there early. I noticed that there was a guy looking in the windows. So I opened the door and I said, you can see it better from the inside. He says, oh, I’m sorry.

I said, that’s okay. Come on. You can come in. So he came on in and I gave him a quick little tour and I asked him who he was and he gave me his name. I couldn’t remember. And anyway, I said, do you know where you’re going to go when you die? He said, well, I hope I’m one to heaven. I said, you know, the Bible says you can know you have eternal life. I said there and I explained this to him.

This is what I explained to him. This is you and me and this is sin and we all have sin on us. And the Bible says God loves us but he hates our sin. And for us to pay for that sin is eternal separation from the Lord in hell. But God loves us once to go to heaven and to go to heaven we have to be perfect as righteous as God. And God says nobody’s perfect. We’re all sinners. And God says you cannot save yourself.

You can’t earn eternal life. This hand represent Jesus Christ. He’s God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us. Now He hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him. So Christ took the sin, paid for on the cross, came back from the dead, said, if we’ll believe He did it for us. He’d give us a free gift everlasting life. And I said to the man, I says, right now the best you know how I said, will you trust Jesus Christ?

Will you depend upon Him to take you to heaven when you die? He said, yes, I will. I said, if you trust Christ right now, God said, He saves you right now and gives you eternal life right now. And I said, what kind of worked you do. He says, I’m the bus driver for Randy Travis. And I says, that’s interesting. I just watched that on the news the other night. He said, I know he was on the Johnny Carson show and he’s coming in here in a couple hours and he has to be picked up at the airport and I got to go drive the bus.

He said, that’s why I’m here. He says, I enjoy talking to you. He says, are you going to be here later? I said, I’m going to be here and there. I said, I really don’t know. I can’t promise. Anyway, he went to the airport, picked him up and delivered him wherever he was going to. I went and got him something to eat. He came back and he had a red Mercedes beautiful thing. He came over to me, he says, can I talk to you for a few minutes?

I said, sure. So he came back in the motor home, we sit there and talk. He says, you know, he said, I always wanted to come to Nashville and I wanted to do something and I wanted to either get in the band or something like that. He says, and the Lord’s opened it up for me to do all this. He says, and I made good money. He says, I get good money for just driving a bus. He said, and I’ve got some land here.

He says, and I got a beautiful car. He said, I got money to bank. He said, I’m single. He said, I know you girl wanna know what’s his name. He says, I’m miserable. And I says, because happiness is not in those things. I says, happiness and true happiness is between you and God because you don’t have joy. You see, you have to know what is your purpose in life? What does God want to do with you? I says now that you trusted Christ as your Savior this morning, I says God wants you to serve Him.

God wants you not only to be his child or go to heaven, but God wants to use you while you’re here. And I talked with him and I had to wear a present and then he was gone. I don’t know whatever happened to this man, but you know what? I caught a fish. When I get to heaven, I expect to see that fish in heaven. That guy on that bus, I expect to see him in heaven. That day whenever I was down here in Florida, and I was so frustrated with myself because I like to play a little game of golf every once in a while.

But sometimes I get so frustrated because the harder I try to hit the ball, it goes all kind of ways and don’t go where I want it to go. I’ve been caddying since I was 12 years old. I learned a little bit about the game I could tell a person what to do, but when I have to do it myself that I can’t do it. It’s good. And I went to this driving range and I got me a bucket of balls and I started hitting these balls and they were going everywhere.

I was so frustrated. I was mad. And that’s the last thing you’re supposed to do when you play golf. But I was just frustrated. This guy was over there watching me. And he came over and he says, you look like you could use a little help. I said, yes, I sure could. He says, who are you? I said, who are you? He said, well, I play golf. I said, wonderful. I play golf too. And he said, well, I think I can help you a little bit.

I said, okay, well, what do I do? I said, I ain’t got any money to pay you. He says, that’s okay. I said, he says, I’m a golf instructor. He says, I give golf lessons. He said, that’s what I do. I said, oh great, got me a guy that’s going to teach me golf and not have to pay him. He said, now dress the ball. I said, hello ball. No. But anyway, I did everything he told me to do and he said, now swing.

He said, number one, he says, you don’t stand right. He said, number two, you don’t get it from the club right. He said, number three, he says, your backswing isn’t right. He says, number four, he says, your father, he said, this is not right. He says, come and think. He said, you don’t do anything right. I thought, well, thanks bud. But anyway, after a couple hours of him working with me, he kind of says, I can’t help you. He says, I’ve never met anybody that I couldn’t help.

You’re the first. He says, I don’t know what it is. He says, but there’s everything that I tell you to do, you do it, but it don’t work. And he was frustrated because that’s what he does. I found out that he played on the senior tour. He was playing on the senior tour at this time. But at this day, and he also, he was a gopro, a country club. So he came by and he had seen me in my dilemma.

I said, sir, I don’t have any money to pay for the lessons. I said, but can I buy you something to eat? He said, sure. So we went to a restaurant and he got him a big old tray and he sat down there and he started to eat. And when he sat down to eat, I stopped and I bought my head and I was gonna pray. I said, you mind if we have a word of prayer? I said, no, go ahead.

So we prayed. I said, what kind of a religion are you? He said, well, I’m Catholic. I said, oh, he said, what are you? And I said, I’m a Christian. I said, where are you going to go when you die? He says, I’ve been having a lot of questions. He said, I’ve been wondering where I was going to go when I die. And I thought, this is interesting. So I talked to him and found out his wife had just left him.

And after I explained the gospel to him and I went through this sitting there while we were eating, I pulled out my wallet right there at the table and I explained this to him. says, we’re all sinners. God loves us. Jesus Christ paid for all of our sins. The only thing we can do to go to heavenmpeg is to believe that He did it for us. See, you don’t join a church to go to heaven. You don’t give money to go to heaven.

You don’t have to pray to go to heaven. I say eternal life is a gift. It’s totally free. It’s like if I offered you my wallet and you accept you’d have a wallet. If I offered you this microphone and you accepted you’d have a microphone, eternal life is a gift. I said, if you trust Christ right now, God said He would give you right now. He’d turn the life. And I said, sir, you understand what I’m saying? He said, yes, I do.

I says, right now, right here at this table, the best you know how? Will you trust Jesus Christ as your only hope to go to heaven? He said, yes, I will. I said, if you trust Christ right now, then God said, He gives you right now what kind of life He said eternal life. I said, if it’s eternal life, how long would it last? He says forever. I said, if it lasts forever and all you send are paid, where would you go into that?

He said, I’m going to heaven. I said, you understand what I’m saying? He said, yes, I do. I said, no, if I saw you 10 years from now, and I asked you, where are you going to die? What would you tell me, Simon? It wasn’t a heaven. I said, why? He said, because I’m trusting Christ as my Savior. I said, by the way, what was that question he was going to ask me? He said, I was going to commit suicide today.

He said, my wife has left me. And even though I played on a senior tour, and he says, I made some good money, he said, my life was miserable, and everything was falling apart. And he says, and I’ve been talking to God, if there is a God, If it is true, I want to know. And he says, I teach golf lessons at another country club, and he says, I just happen to come by here. And I was going to hit me some golf ball, but then I started talking to you.

He said, not only have I trusted Christ, but my Savior. He said, but you know, He says, you saved my life. Now, do you believe that there’s a possibility that God already knew the condition of this man? And God knows what I’ll say and what I’ll do, and He can bring people together? See, it don’t matter if a guy plays on the PGA tour. It doesn’t matter if the guy is a driver for Randy Travis or whoever they got.

They’re all individuals and if they die, they go to hell. They have to be one to Christ. I never forget one time I had a guy named Bobby Anderson called me up. He played football for the Broncos and I’m living there in Denver, Colorado. And I had given devotions before for not in Miami and for a couple of teams. And here I am out there and he gives me a call and I wonder if I would come and give devotion for the Denver Broncos.

And Mr. Miller, Red Miller I think was a coach at that time. And I said yes I would. So they were all meeting in this fancy restaurant and a hotel there in downtown what they called a mousetrap. And I went there that morning and my friend Bob Daley, my old bodyguard out there, he went with me. And it was very interesting, fluid little, and one of the other guys, now I can’t remember who they are. But anyway, we went in and they all ate breakfast and when they got through they asked me to speak.

Now what do you think I should talk to these football players about? Should I talk to them about how to play football? Should I talk to them about the individual positions and what to do and how to win the game today because they were going to play the Oakland Raiders? You think I ought to tell them how to do the job? I don’t know anything about that stuff. I see, when God put some fish together, I’m a fisherman. So what do you think I ought to do?

I’m going fishing. They gave me 30 minutes to speak, 30 minutes. So in 30 minutes, I wanted to talk to them about what I thought was the most important thing in all the world. Why? Because we’re only passing through life one time. And if I come in contact with them, I want to make an impact for eternity. I may never get a second chance. And so I, in that 30 minutes, started off very simply, my name is Ralph Arnold, and I know I have eternal life and that I’m going to heaven when I die.

And I want you to know that. Let me show you something. And I says right now, the best you know how, if you’ve never done this before, will you trust Jesus Christ as your savior? And I will say two thirds of the ball players, at that moment, that day raised their hand trust Christ as their Savior. But it’d be a shame if you went fishing all your life and you never caught any fish and if you have trust the Lord I want to encourage you to serve him to tell people about him.

Let’s pray, shall we? Remember this, salvation is free. It’s a gift. Will you right now accept Jesus Christ and Him alone is your only hope of going to heaven? If you will I like to pray for you. Not going to have you forward, not to get embarrassed of you. Or right where you are, so yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior and preach I like you to pray for you. Trust the Lord, believe me, did it for you. You that know Christ as your Savior, realize it’s the most important thing you can ever do to go fishing.

Our Father, we thank You so much for Your blessings to us for this time together and for each person here, for those who listen by way of radio and Christ, and we pray, amen. 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 toll free 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. If you wish to hear today’s program again or would like to download a free MP3 today’s or any previous Bibleline program, go to BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the spinning globe in the upper right corner of our homepage. 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 six o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen going to our church website.

Calvary of Tampa dot org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. We will be changed. Hot 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.