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Bibleline Bibleline, dear 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 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 calbryoftampa.org. 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.

Here in the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 1, 9 verse 26. For you see your calling brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble or calm. But God had chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God had chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, things which are despised, have God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to not things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

That last verse that I just read, that no flesh should glory in his presence. That’s why God made salvation by faith and not by works, so that nobody can boast or brag in God’s presence. So God doesn’t want people bragging and boasting about what they’ve done. The Bible teaches us that God wants all the honor and all the glory because He really deserves it. He is God. He’s the one that designed salvation and made a payment by giving His Son so that you and I by simply accepting it can have eternal life and we go to heaven on what He did for us.

And we’re supposed to spend all eternity thanking Him for what great things He had done. I have been saved now 41 years, but my salvation has not gotten so old to me that it’s lost some of its luster. It still burns inside of me. I am so thankful for what God has done for me. I know that I have eternal life. I have never yet understood how any person who has trusted Christ as their Savior has never developed a burden for souls.

See a burden for souls isn’t something you really have to pray for. A burden for soul means a concern, a deep concern for other people to go to heaven. After I trusted the Lord, I became concerned. I wanted my family to know the Lord. I wanted the people where I work to know the Lord. And I determined that I’m going to spend the rest of my life telling people how to be saved, to be sure of one to heaven when they die.

I didn’t know I would be a preacher. I didn’t plan that. I just wanted to tell people how to have eternal life. I don’t look back with regrets. I’m thankful that I had that burden, But not a burden that I had for a little while and then I lost it. I have maintained that concern for 40 years, over 40 years. I still have that same burden, that same concern. I still don’t want people to go to hell. I used to wonder what kind of a person does God use because when I trusted Christ as my Savior, I was 18 years old.

And whenever you’ll come and use to have the old Bible book stored out here in Athens, 1960, I used to go down there when I would have a lunch break. And I would take my little sack lunch and I would run down there from McGregor printing company. And the time I worked there at Benson Bakery. And I’d go down the street as fast as I could and I’d go into the Bible book store and I would get some missionary books off the shelf.

And I asked him if I could sit in the corner and I sit in the corner on the floor. And I would read these missionary books. And he would let me sit there, he’s got customers coming in and out. And here’s this young boy sitting over there in the corner, eating his sandwiches. And reading these books on missionaries. And I used to sit there and I’d forget sometime about the clock. And I’d cry. I would cry because inside I wanted to do something with my life.

I kept reading these stories about how that God used all these people. But I knew that they had something special. But I’d sit there and I would think I don’t have anything special. I can’t do anything. I don’t have any talents. I don’t have any abilities. I dropped out out of high school. I wasn’t raised in church. I didn’t know the Bible.

I had just trusted the Lord. I know I’m saved. I’m going to heaven when I die. But I want to do something. And I was so miserable for so long. Because I was searching for the will of God and I didn’t know it. I kept wondering what kind of a person does God use. And I wanted to be used. I remember asking a preacher, I says, when do you know if God can use your, how do you know? And he just pat me on his shoulder and says, you know, son, you’ll know.

And so for several more years, I wondered, I heard, I searched, I was so empty inside. I remember when I was working for the mince and bakery and I would drive out bread truck every morning getting up here about 3.30 and and loading it, and driving on a route, and I’d get in late at night, six days a week. And any time that I had left, I’d come to church, and went right here to this church. And I’d come to church, and I kept wondering, is this all the rest of life?

I mean, is this it? Getting up in the morning, you go to work, you come home, you get up, you go to work, you come home. There’s gotta be more to life than just that. I didn’t know what it was. I was so hungry inside. And I wanted God to use me, but I knew that I wasn’t fit to be used. I didn’t know what to do. I got so frustrated. The Bible says God has chosen the foolish things of the world, the weak things, the base things.

I thought, you can’t get any bacer than what I am. I’m as low as they come. But if God can use me, I want to serve him. And when I told my wife I was going to go to Bible school, she told her dad. Her dad called me up on the phone. And he says, do you know what you’re doing? Are you sure he did everything his power to talk me out of it? But when I was at Bible College, I had a chance to meet a few people that really helped me an awful lot.

And I saw other people that had the same desire, the same burden that I had. They wanted to serve a Lord. That means you want to live your whole life for Him. You don’t want to do just whatever you want to do. You realize that you’re not smart enough. You don’t have all the intellect that you need to make all the right decisions. You want somebody to tell you what to do. If I let God tell me what to do with my life, I can’t go wrong.

And I found out that that’s true. Forty years later, I can stand here And I can tell you, God is wise. His way does work. It does satisfy. I have no regrets, but I’ve lived long enough to see so many people that also have trusted Christ as their Savior and have lived 40 and 50 years and lived to regret their life because they didn’t serve God. Dr. Stanford, he had a youth work. call it youth ranch. And there was a lot of kids that came to ranch.

And I got to come to ranch one night. And this one night I was all excited because I finally after about two years of being at Bible College, I got to go to ranch and when I got to ranch, I heard the music and I peeked around the corner and I saw Ray in there with all those, the firehouse fire must have been about 20 people playing guitars and all. And there’s about 200 or so kids sitting on the floor, and they were singing and having a good time.

And I was standing there watching. I was scared to go in. And then all of a sudden this one kid walked down the aisle in a hallway and he saw me. I hadn’t gone in. And he was loud. And he was excited. He had taken some pictures and he had developed them. He wanted to show them to somebody. And I just happened to show up. I hadn’t said a word. I’m sending the hallway and he showed me these pictures and he’s talking loud.

And all of a sudden Ray Stanford, he came out of the youth meeting and he came down the hallway and he looked at both of us and he stood there in that hallway and he chewed us out. He says, you two have no concern for souls, you have no burden for people. And you are making all this noise and all this racket and now you have done all this here and you’ve disrupted my meeting and EDITION he was beside himself.

And I stood there, totally in shock, realizing that my first time to come to their youth meeting, and I got chewed out by the president of the Bible College and I hadn’t done anything. And I left one out the door and I went on back, and I was so discouraged. But later on, Ray found out what really happened and he apologized to me. A few months after that, I became the youth director of the Christian youth ranch. Now how God can turn things around.

And I started working with some of the football players. And I didn’t even know how to play football. And one night we had one of the kids who came to the fifth quarter because I used to give devotion for the top two football teams in state of Florida. And they were playing against each other in the orange bowl. That’s not a joke, it’s not a line. I’m just telling what it was true. And there’d be 60, 70,000 people at a high school football game.

Mimey High and Norlin were playing against each other. And both of these football players, I mean, teams, the first string, were in my youth group. I had one of the most awesome youth groups you’ve ever seen in your life, a far sharp, sharp individuals. And the cheerleaders, my youth group, the leaders, they were there. And I give devotion for both teams in the Orange Bowl on both sides. I had to sit on one side one half and the other side the other half because they didn’t want the other side to have an advantage of winning.

They thought it depended upon where I sat. Somebody has to lose. But afterwards we had a big meeting called a fifth quarter. After the football game was rolled with these kids came to our youth meeting and they kept coming till after midnight they kept coming. Ray had an invitation and closed it out about four times. Different than the people that kept coming. It was awesome. And I thought this is tremendous that God uses people like him. But we had one kid there that trusted the Lord.

His name was Stan Ponce. He was about 15 years old, 15 or 16, something like that. But he came out. He trusted the Lord. But Stan was a kid that was sit there and he was quiet. He wouldn’t hardly do anything. And I was working with football players, but Stan was always faithful. He was just always faithful. but he had listened and he learned. And that burden that I had at one time, I would keep teaching and next thing you know, he had the same burden, the same concern.

Now after about 36 years, he’s serving the Lord and he speaks all over America. Doing an awesome job for the Lord. And there’s others I can tell you about, but there’s other kind of people God uses too. It’s not always that super dynamic type of an individual, that football player, cheerleader, now most of them fight you by the wayside. There was a kid who came to our ranch, the ranch sign that Ray had. And his name was Jim Tenjin.

Well, first of all, see Ray, he was the president of the college, but it didn’t just happen automatically. He was in the war. And he’ll let you know that was the second one, not the first war. And when he was there, he said that his plane was shot down over Germany. And he said he was going down. He was a pilot. And he says that he had some men on there that he had never witnessed to him. and it used to tear at him because he knew he should have witnessed him, but he didn’t witness to him.

He would drink with him. And so his testimony wasn’t good and it kind of shut his mouth. But he says, when that plane turned over and started down, he says, I realized I’ve never witnessed any of these guys. And he says, I prayed to God, if you get me out of this, I’ll serve you and I’ll tell people how to have eternal life. Well, he said that God didn’t get him out of it, but he really didn’t dedicate his life.

He really didn’t serve the Lord that much. He said that one day when it came in and they landed and a friend his came in right behind him and when he landed he hit too hard and when he did the stretch went up into the fuselage and when it did he caused a plane to catch on fire and his friend Benny Sahoyat was in the cockpit and jammed the cockpit and he couldn’t get it open. He said I stood there on the deck and I watched my friend that I have drenched with and talked to and joked with and flew with and all this.

He said, I’m never once ever told him how to have eternal life. And he said, I watched my friend as he sat there in that cockpit and he, in the flames are all around him and he’s hollering and he’s looking at Ray and Ray said, I’m standing there. He says that I can’t get to the plane because of the flames and the heat. He says, my face was burnt except for the tears run down my face. He said, I watched my friend burn the death and look at me and cry and scream and he said, I’m never once ever witness to that man ever told him how to have eternal life.

He said how much I would have given the fuck to go back and talk to that man about the Lord. And Ray says, I talked to him just yesterday on the phone. I finally, after 50 years, one of those guys that was in that plane with me, when we went down that I never witnessed two, I finally found him. And I led him to the Lord. He said, I talked to him and I led him to the Lord 50 years later.

Here’s a man 84 years old, still concerned and burdened. But one night, a kid came to the ranch meeting. His name was Jim Kenjin. Jim was not the individual that a girl would want a date. Jim had his marbles, but his shoes. was missing. It means that he didn’t have it all together. He was slower than the normal individual. But when he came to ranch, he looked a little funny. He also had an eye that had been injured. When he was a child, he played with scissors and he had cut his eye.

And because of that, he had to take cortisone shots for the eye. And he came to ranch one night and lo and behold, he heard the gospel for the first time. And he sat there and he could not believe that God loved him because nobody ever loved him. Nobody wanted anything to do with him. Nobody in school wanted anything to do with him. No girls would date him because he was a lord. But not because of any choosing he’d done, he can’t help it.

But nobody wanted anything to do with him. He had two less feet. You would call him probably a nerd or something, but he came to ranch and he heard that God loved him and paid for his sins and he trusted Christ as his savior. Well after that, Jim wanted to get other people to trust the Lord. And so he would do a thing he could. And when he come to ranch meeting the Bible study. He’d want to bring some people with him.

And sometimes people wouldn’t come. And he’d get on his bike and he’d check out the parts and he’d do that just before ranch so he could try to bring somebody to come. Nobody would come. This one night he was feeling kind of down. He has to go to a branch and didn’t have anybody to take. He went by a movie theater, x-rated movie theater. And when he did, these servicemen came out. And he hollered over to him and said, you guys want to to go to a party?”

They said, yeah. They said, there’s any girls there. He said, yeah, lots of them. So, well, let’s go. And so, he held on to their car and he rode his bicycle and he brought them to the Bible study, the Morgan’s home. And when they got there, they opened door and they walked on in and they were halfway in before they realized as they looked around, your several hundred teenagers sitting on the floor with bibles in their hands. And they done walked on in, got in the middle and they were turning around, getting ready to And Ray said, sit down right there.

So they sit down. And Ray gave the gospel, explained to them how that God loves them and paid for their sins. They had been in an X-rated movie theater. They thought they was going to a party where there were some girls. And Ray gave the gospel and one of the boys trusted the Lord. Afterwards they came up to Ray and, what him says, I just want to thank you so much for explaining that to me. And he says, this guy came by and told us about coming here.

that we didn’t know this is what it was, but he said, I trust the Lord and I’m thankful. And his other friend says, I am too. He said, I’ve already trust the Lord. And his friend looked at him and says, you mean you already knew this? He said, yeah. He said, why haven’t you told me about this? You see, when you know you have eternal life and somebody else finds out that you know they wonder why haven’t you told them?

Don’t you love them? Don’t you care? Don’t you want them to go to heaven? But anyway, that’s what Jim would do. He would do that all the time, trying to get people to come and trust Christ as Savior. One night Ray was in his house. I used to be an exterminator. So I used to get the opportunity to go to his house and I would kill bugs. And so I’d been all over his house upstairs, downstairs and all the closets and everything because I was an exterminator.

I know where this took place. Well, I should say in the afternoon, Ray heard an 18-wheeler come down the road, down his one-way street, and he couldn’t believe it, an 18-wheeler would come down the street. So he went out there to look, and lo and behold, here comes this guy that you always hear about this truck driver. You know, that has those great big old muscles kind of like I am and has those tattoos all over his arm, you know, the big old black cigar in his mouth, you know, that big old mean, rough type guy, and there he is.

And he drove up and Ray walked up to him and said, Sir, can I help you? He says, I’m looking for a guy named Ray Stanford. He says, I’m Ray. He said, well, we never met, but I was driving down the interstate and I picked up this kid with his dog. I don’t even know the kid’s name. Ray says his name was Jim Ten did. He says, that’s right. How do you know? He says, mind go ahead. He’s like, how do you sign?

He says, no writers but for some reason I picked him up. And we were driving down the road and he was telling me how you can know you have eternal life and he says that you could explain it to me. And he said, I’ve often fallen asleep at the wheel and I’ll catch myself right before I go off the road. He said, one of these days I thought, I’m not going to wake up in time and I’m going to die.

And I was wondering about that when I And I saw this kid and I just picked him up. And Ray says, yes, I can explain it to you. He said, look up here. This is you and me. Now Ray’s standing outside and he’s up there in the truck. He says, this is you and me and this is sin. We all have sin on us, but God says he loves us, but he hates our sin. And the Lord says that we pay for that sin as he turns up a ration from God.

So you have to be perfect to go to heaven, nobody’s perfect, we’re all sinners. We can’t save ourselves. This is Jesus Christ. He’s God in the flesh. He came into the world because he loved it. He took our sins, paid for them across, came back from the dead. God said, if you’ll believe he did it for you, that he paid for your sins. He’ll give you eternal life and you’ll go to heaven on what he did for you. for you.

He says, that makes sense. He said, yes, it does. He said, if it makes sense right now, will you trust Christ as your Savior? That man says, yes, I will. He trusts the Christ as Savior and got ready to leave. Ray says, well, I don’t guess I’ll see you again. That guy says, you’ll see me in heaven. And he left. But Jim would always want to talk to people and witness to people. And one night, Ray was, he usually gets up about four o’clock.

It still does because he only needs about four or five hours sleep a night. And when he wakes up, he wanted to get a book off the shelf. He has bookshelf. He had always ran his bed. When he wakes up, he just picked him off the shelf and he’d read. He said, but I couldn’t find anything I wanted to read. He said, I even got my Bible and I tried to read my Bible. I couldn’t read my Bible. Didn’t see anything I wanted to read.

He said, I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to go out and read the paper. I’ll get out and get the newspaper. So he went downstairs and he was still in his underwear. But it’s four o’clock in the morning and he opens the door and he looks this way and looks that way. Nobody’s out there. So he knows all he got doing the paper laying right there. So he thought I’ll just get it real quick. So he run it real quick, grabbed the hold of the paper and before he could get back in he heard a voice from across the street saying, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray!

He jumped in the house, opened the door back up and there’s that gym tangent across the street. He said, wait till I get my pants on so anyway came in and he had a boy with him. When he got inside, he says, Ray, I want you to witness to him. See, this is a little Catholic boy. He doesn’t know for sure. He has eternal life. He said, I’ll talk to him, but I don’t make it clear like you do.

And he began to scheme. How can I get this little boy to talk to Ray because his mother and they wouldn’t let him come to the meeting? And so he was concerned about this boy that had a paper route. He He says, what if I help you roll your papers and throw your papers for you? And then if we get through early, we’ll go by and see my friend Ray. He says, okay, we’ll do that. So he had gotten up early that morning and they helped this kid roll his papers, throw the papers, and they came back to Ray’s house and they’re setting out in front of Ray’s house about four o’clock in the morning.

And they’re setting on this little thing that goes around the tree and they’re sitting there. And the kid says, how is he going to know we’re out here? He says, I’m going to ask God to send him out. And so he bowed his head and says, Lord, please send Ray out. And that’s when Ray popped out the door. You’re talking about a kid that nobody else. But see, he wants to be used by God. He believed that God will answer his prayer.

And he would do things that would be strange to some people. And that little boy heard for the first time that God loved him and paid for his sin and paid all of his sins. And all he had to do is trust him, and God saved that little boy. And Jim was thrilled at death. But you see, Jim also, he wanted more than anything else in the world, he wanted his mom to trust the Lord. I know what to dislike because after I trust the Lord, you know who I wanted to trust the Lord?

I wanted my mom to trust the Lord. But you become concerned, but his mom was an alcoholic. If you’ve ever lived with an alcoholic, you know what it’s like. Bible calls him drunkard, but we got a better name alcoholic. But it does the same damage. That’s what my dad was. My dad was a bootlegger. And I’m not going to be too weak drunk. I mean, I’ve seen the hell raising. And I determined years ago, I didn’t want that from my life.

And I did that before I ever knew the Lord. But alcohol is destructive. But his mom was already showing signs of the deterioration in her body. And she had the cough. And she was just, you know, she would die in a cancer, but she didn’t know it, not at that time. But he kept saying, boy, I want my mom to trust the Lord. But his mom wouldn’t listen to him. Mom didn’t want anything to do with him. He tried to witness to his brother, and his brother wouldn’t listen to him.

And so he was a lonely individual. And nobody would talk to him or have anything to do with him except Ray. And Ray did because a kid came to ranch and he had a burden for souls. And so Ray would talk to the individuals that he would bring. And Jim came in the house and said, Ray, would you go talk to my mom? And Ray said, yeah, I’ll go talk to your mom. Just one of the dates will go by and then say, he said, Ray, once you go by and see mom now, she’s very sick.

And Ray, she’s not saved. Ray said, well, I’ll go by and see her son. I got some things I got to do right now. Ray, why don’t you go by right now? He said, he pushed the pork chops aside. He got on his motorcycle and they went over to see it. When they got there, he went around the house, said they lived in a shack. And he went to the front door and he could hear Jim inside. He said, mama, mama, raise here.

Raise here. Won’t you let him come in and talk to you? No, I don’t want him coming to the house. The house is a mess. And Ray Holler-Detter said, look, you think your house would measure you ought to see mine. And he thought, I’d give up these pork chops that I got to talk to her. And so she said, all right, come on in. So he went in. And she looked at me. laying there in bed. He explained the gospel to her.

He explained how that she could simply believe that Jesus Christ paid for her sins and if she trusts Christ or says, is she happy turn life and go to heaven whenever she dies? She, people make it too hard and complicated. It ain’t hard and a complicated child can understand that. Follow for you my wallet and you accept it. What would you have? A wallet. Follow for you my Bible and you accept what would you have? You don’t have a Bible.

That’s a sense to understand. Salvation is that simple. But Lord talks about just look and live. Drink this water and you shall never thirst. Eat this bread and you shall never hunger. It’s simple. Salvation going to heaven is the easiest thing in the world. People make it hard, but it’s not hard because you don’t have to live a certain way. Salvation is free. It’s Him saving you, giving you eternal life. And she trusts the Lord. Jim was excited. He says, now all I got to do is get my brother.

Boy, if I could get my brother, I’d give my life if my brother would trust the Lord. Well, One night he brought somebody to Ray’s house, a guy named Jim Peacock. Jim Peacock was brown as a bear. He had short black hair. He had brown beady eyes. He had a white calypso pants, who was barefooted. He was built like little Abner. If you ever seen the old comments years ago, that’s what he looked like. And he walked over to Ray’s coat machine and he took out two coat bottles out of the crate and he put them down, two bottles, and he did the handstand.

And while he’s standing up around the sand and his muscles are rippling, he just stands there. And Jim says, talk to him, Ray. The guy is upside down. So Ray got his wallet out and got down there to the guy and he could see his eyes. And he says, this is you and me, this is sin and we’ve all done things wrong and so forth. And went to an explainer and says, no, if you trust Christ as your Savior, give you turn life and you go to heaven and you die.

He said, do you understand what I’m saying? He said, yeah. He said, well, will you right now? Will you trust Christ to say, yeah, I’ll do that. Ray said, I wouldn’t give you a quarter for what he said. He got down and left. I’ll never see him again. A couple days later, Rayto Su locked the house. He saw a bucket of bolts driving down an old jalape, and there was a peacock, an old jalape, and about ten people and it packed in.

And he said, one woman looked like she was, he didn’t know if she was inside getting out or outside getting in. What she had on was a tight. They all sat on a big old ping pong table. They had, there was a double layer with plywood. He’s a sardine on that thing. They all sit down. Give me a religious speech. Sure, Jim. So Ray began to explain the gospel. This is you and me. This is Sam. We all have sinors.

He explained it to him. And how that God loves you, the hate you’re sin, took your sin, paid for him, and crossed came back from the dead. And Ray got through it. He says, you trust the Lord. So what did he say? This is Jim Peacock. This is the one where Brown was a bear. Had B. media, Jesus, you trust the Lord. Everyone will be told, everyone will have to do it and they all did it. You say, well, you can’t do it that way.

You do it your way and let you and me God do it his way. 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. Our two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to 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 of today’s or any previous Bibleline program, go to BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the spinning globe in the upper right corner of our home page. 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. Life broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.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. 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.