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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 down below. toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bible-lined 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.

Take your Bible and turn to the book of Romans chapter 14. Make sure you have a Bible. Everybody knows, especially if you know Christ is your Savior and have a little Bible knowledge, that one day when we leave this world, we’re going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ. The judgment seat of Christ is an important thing because the Bible says that we are going to give an account. Look there in verse 10, but why does Thou judge Thy brother or why does Thou set it not Thy brother?

for we shall and get this all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. In other words, instead of us judging one another just to realize there is someone that is going to judge us. And that’s because we’re going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ. So I’m going to be judged. You’re going to be judged. But now we’re not going to be judged to see if we get to go to heaven. We’re already there. This is a judgment that takes place in heaven for all believers.

So when you trust Christ as your Savior, you will go to heaven when you die and then stand at the Judgement City of Christ. The Judgement City of Christ is a rewarding stand where God is going to reward you for what you did. Now notice what he says in verse 12. Verse 12, very important verse. So then, every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Now do you believe the Bible? verse is just as important as John 3 16, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, 1 John 5, 13, where it says you can know you have eternal life.

We should know that we’re going to stand before the Lord, and we should know that we’re going to have to give an account of what we’ve done since we’ve been saved. Our sins is not the issue because they’ve been paid for, and that price has been paid once and for all. We’re not going to pay for sins, but we’re going to suffer the loss of what we could could have had. Now he says that if someone brings to someone a cup of cold water only in the name of the disciple, he shall in no wise lose his reward.

So rewards once they’re earned are laid up in heaven and you’ve laid up treasure in heaven that you cannot lose. Thieves can’t get it. It doesn’t rust. It doesn’t corrupt. So your rewards that you’ve laid up in treasures are eternal treasures, they’re eternal rewards. So you can’t lose rewards once they’re earned. The Bible does talk about us having a full reward. In other words, the servant of the Lord with all your heart, all your life. It’s one thing to start serving the Lord.

It’s one thing to finish up your life, still serving the Lord. So we wanna run a race, but we wanna finish the race. We wanna finish our course. And it’s not finished because you got tired and quit serving the Lord. In this verse 12, he says, shall give an account of himself to God. He says, all of our works that are, hey, wouldn’t stubble are going to be burned up. It means they’re going to be by the discerning eye of Jesus Christ.

And there could be big bonfires up there waiting for some of us that we thought we had a lot of good works laid up and find out that was just trash. Because our motives weren’t right, we didn’t do what we did for the Lord because we loved Him. There’s no doubt going to be some of us, and I may be one of them, may have to give an account to the Lord and tell them why I failed. All says in the book of Corinthians, it says, just nothing before the time.

He says, I’m not even worthy to judge my own self. And he says, when we get to heaven, he says, then, every man shall have praise of God, but not until then. I titled today’s message called, How I Fail God. Would it today we were to stand before the Lord? And today we have to give an account. And God wants us to give an account and tell them why we failed him. What would you say? What would be your reason?

Remember, you’re talking to God Almighty. I mean somebody that knows everything. Knows everything that you did. Knows what you didn’t do. Knows what you could have done. Knows all of your potential. 1 Corinthians and chapter 9. This is a tremendous chapter. I’m looking in verse 24. Would you be saying to the Lord, Lord, I failed because I followed the path of least resistance. In life, you’d be surprised how many people are always looking for the path of least resistance.

They don’t want to war. They don’t want to fight. They just want to get through life happily without a struggle. But they don’t want to do anything that causes anybody any discomfort or offense in any way. But did you know that the gospel is offensive? The truth of the Word of God is offensive. Jesus Christ, just look at the world, is offensive to a lot of people. God, the Bible, Christianity is offensive to this world. And if you’re going to serve the Lord, Christ says, he said, look what they do to me.

Shall the servant have it better than the master? If they do this to me, what do you think they’re going to do to you? And if you will live godly in this present world, you shall suffer what? Persecution. Now, if you’re not suffering some kind of persecution, you may not be living as godly as you ought to be. You may not be taken to stand that you ought to take because you’re afraid of that. And so in order to not to have that happen, some people don’t serve the Lord at all.

Look at verse 24, no you not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize. So run that you may obtain. And every man that strive for the master is tempered or self controlled and all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so fight not as uncertainty, so fight I not as one that beat the air, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

He says, I take this body of mine and I discipline my body. I bring my body into subjection. I make my body my servant, not my master. And because of that, he says, when I preach to others, I don’t want to be a castaway or a person who’s rejected, disapproved. You didn’t run the race right. Oh, you ran a race, but you didn’t run it right. And he says you’re disciplined in all areas. You see, you can have a 100 head of cattle inside of a fence and have 10 gates, close nine of them, but you can still lose all of your herd who, because you didn’t close that one gate.

Your character has to be right in every area, or you’ll lose your character through one area of your life not guarded. So you have to guard your life in every area of your life. But you would not want to say when you get to heaven, I failed you Lord because I followed the path of least resistance. I didn’t run well. I didn’t resist the devil. I gave in. You don’t want that to be said. But one day we’re going to give an account to the Lord for what we did.

The Bible teaches that. Look in Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, look there in verse 24. You don’t want to give to the Lord a reason. You’re excuse. They say out of the excuse is nothing but a reason stuff with a lie. We’re going to tell the Lord, remember it, God is perfect. But there has to be a reason why we fail. You see, no Christian has to fail. We fail because it’s a choice and we made bad decisions in our life.

But a lot of times we don’t like to own up to the decisions that we make and we already blame somebody else. You know, that started in the Garden of Eden, that old blame game. Adam, it was that woman you made. Yeah, it was that serpent that did it. Everybody got to blame somebody for why they do what they do instead of just saying, I did it. So he says here in Hebrews in chapter 10 and verse 24, he said, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaken the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another so much the more as you see the day approaching.

Would you say that you are a dedicated person to the Lord Jesus Christ? You see, how do you know that when you’re really dedicated to God? Well, if you serve God out of convenience, means I’ll serve the Lord if it’s convenient for me. I go to church if it’s convenient. Now, I give if it’s convenient and I’ll play when it’s convenient. I’ll read the Bible when it’s convenient. But some things are just not convenient, so therefore I don’t do that.

We alienate ourselves from good Christian fellowship. Whenever it says they’re not forsaken the assembling of ourselves together, the UC is the day approaches that more people are forsaken the assembling of themselves together, with God’s people. And yet this is what God wants us to do, but we reason in our mind is not that important. There’s a reason why we do what we do. There’s always reasons. A man can justify anything that he wants to do, or not do. And the Bible says that every one of us, not here to judge everybody else, but to judge ourselves, to examine our own lives and say, why did I fail the Lord?

Why did I not do what God wanted me to do? Ask yourself this question. Who wants me to go to church? God did. The preacher didn’t make this up. This is his idea. He didn’t design the walk of a Christian that’s all revealed in the scriptures. Upon the first day of the week, we’re to come together. And so this is what God wants us to do. But what would you miss church for? Think for a moment. What would you miss church for?

I believe even when you travel on the road, stop into somebody’s church. Be a blessing to somebody. You go on vacation, man. Don’t take a vacation from God. Drop in on somebody and listen. You love how to hear a good sermon someplace on the road. Some that might change your life. You might be a blessing to somebody. Try to put things in a proper perspective. God says what He required us to do, we’re going to give a count. He says we have been put in trust with the gospel even so we speak, not as please in men, but God which tryeth our heart.

You realize that we’re going to have to give an account to God. What did we do with the gospel? He trusted us. Did you fail Him? Did you let Him down? We’ll have to give an account to the Lord on this. There’s a lot of things that God has required of us as His children. We’ve got to give an account like it or not. I won’t be judging you. You won’t be judging me. But it’s something that God says He’s going to require of us.

If a man have a friend and if he falls down, he’s got a brother to help him up. Well, that’s because they’re strength. When people are joined together in unity and they help and encourage one another. Everybody needs a friend. If you got more than five, you’re truly blessed. But if you get three or four friends, personal friends, that you can really talk to and have different, you’re rich individual. You don’t have to have a lot. Most people never do.

You can go to a church of a thousand people, and you’ll have about 20 people that you’ll know real good. You can go to a small church, and you’ll have about 20 people that you know real good. See, it doesn’t change it because there’s a lot more people. In Romans 13 and verse 14, He says put on the Lord Jesus Christ Make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof You know what many Christians do in their life they make provision for the flesh it means you’re providing an opportunity for the flesh To be satisfied You know why a lot of Christians get in trouble because they make provision for the flesh There’s many things in the Word of God that God does not condemn you don’t see old verse in your says thou shot not smoke Thou shall not drink coolers You know you can go through a whole lot of things not not in there

But it does say that not to make provision for the flesh That your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit Which is of God and you’re a glorified God in your body and in your spirit Which are gods the verses that Tim read this morning? So we are to make provision for the right thing and not to make provision for the wrong thing. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, make not provision for the right. In other words, you make provision for the flesh, you make opportunities to get in trouble.

You watch the wrong things and see if it doesn’t get you think in the wrong way. You see the wrong thing and it can permeate your mind. We’re gonna have to given account to the Lord why we fail. And if you fail, is it going to be because I indulge myself in the sinful lustful appetites? And this is why I didn’t do what God wanted me to do. Galatians chapter five, look in verse 16. Says in verse 16, this I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Now you will have the lust of the flesh because that’s the flesh. Because when God saved you. He didn’t change their old sinful nature. He just simply gave you a new nature, a new birth. And you now have a choice. You can yield yourself to the Lord or you can still yield yourself to the flesh. And if a Christian yields to the flesh, he’s going to have the works of the flesh and you’re not going to like the results.

And he says, be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever man saw it, that shall he also reap. So many people reap what they sow. He says, be not deceived because a lot of people are deceived. And then in verse 17 says, for the flesh lusts against the Spirit. Whenever you feed the flesh or make provision for the flesh, you’re causing a war on your own. You’re making war. And that’s what wars against the soul of a man, as it says in the book of Peter.

We have enough trouble as it is without making trouble. says you don’t trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. Well, you’re causing trouble to trouble you because whenever you feed the flesh, you’re you’re you’re creating a little monsters inside of you that’s going to war against your soul and you’re not going to have the peace and joy that you want. And you’ll find why a lot of Christians, even preachers, evangelists, missionaries fall in the sin for the simple reason they feed the flesh.

They made provision, opportunities to get in trouble. He makes the statement here in verse 17. Now flesh lusteth against the spirit the spirit against the place and these are contrary the one to the other. So if you want to be spiritually strong why would you make provision for the flesh? Why would you want to go to places you shouldn’t go? Why would you want to watch things you shouldn’t watch? Why do you want to hang around people that you shouldn’t hang around because they won’t make you strong?

You can’t have it both ways. So if you want to be spiritually strong it’s like you got to love the wheat of the flowers but you got to hate weeds because the weeds destroy the flowers. If the Lord was to tell you, why did you fail me? And you’ll have to tell your story. Well, I looked at things that I shouldn’t have looked at. I had a lot of it. So I saw all the inconsistency in other people. I’ve had people say, I’d go to church, but there’s so many hypocrites that church.

Just pull a hypocrites. I know those people over there. I said, there’s hypocrites where you work, you still go to There’s hypocrites at the grocery store. You still go get groceries? I says the whole world is full of hypocrites and you’re probably one of them Everybody’s a hypocrite Nobody does everything right the way they should everybody puts on a little bit of a front Not everybody’s is always that open and honest Everybody’s a little be a little deceptive in some way We don’t want everybody to know everything about our thoughts everything we say and did that was wrong the shame that would come no look what he says in verse 8 finally brethren what’s your things are true what’s your things are honest what’s your thing or just what’s your thing to pure what’s your things are lovely what’s your things are of a good report if

there be any virtue and if it be any praise and you ought to underline these words think on these things learn how to think think the way God wants you to think and it’ll help you to control your eyes and your ears and your tongue. Look in 2 Corinthians in chapter 10. In verse 12 it says, for we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves. But they measuring themselves, and by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, you’re not wise.

We’re to run a race and there’s a course that we don’t always understand. God may move you here, move you here, step here, step there, bless, take it away. There’s always things going on in our life just like in a person’s life. You may have been in times in your life where you’ve had a lot of money. Then there’ll be time when you don’t have a lot of money. There’ll be times when you’ll have a good help and then there’ll be times when you don’t have good help.

Well, what’s the key? What are you supposed to do when you go through all these things? Be faithful to do what you can with what you have, where you are, with what talents and abilities that God has given to you. And it doesn’t matter because, see, there’s always somebody who wants to judge something and I can tell you this. Job’s three friends that he had that put him down and always had the answers. Well, see, they got married and had kids and there’s a lot of Job’s friends still around.

But sometimes cannot even look and examine their own life to see whether or not, why am I doing what I’m doing? Not how are they doing, what are they doing or not doing? Every man shall give a count of himself to God. Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own work. There’s a God in heaven that’s going to judge us. So we don’t have to judge one another, but we know that we’re going to have to give an account to the Lord.

And we may have to tell the Lord, why was I a failure? Why didn’t I do what I should have done with my life? Take your Bible and turn to the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 6. You may have to say something like this, Lord, I failed you because I united with worldly people and organizations. I joined up with the wrong crowd. I followed the path of least resistance. I did what everybody else did. You know, one of the problems that most people have is they look at whatever somebody else is doing or not doing, and they compare themselves, and God says, that’s measuring yourself by somebody else’s not wise.

You want to compare yourself among somebody and compare yourself with Christ and what Christ said. Are you doing, what I’m doing as much as everybody else is, and I didn’t ask you that. Are you doing what he asked you to do? That’s what you compare yourself with. You want to compare yourself about how good I am. Yeah, but compare yourself with who is perfect. Now, how you doing now? And always keep things in their proper perspective and you’ll be all right.

But look what he says in verse 14 of chapter six, he says, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, but what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion have light with darkness. So God says, unbelievers should not unite with believers, believers with unbelievers. And even if you’re a believer in Christ, you should unite with somebody who knows know the Lord. So that a believer who loves the Lord should only unite with the person who knows the Lord and loves the Lord.

So it won’t matter whether or not you convinced everybody else you were right or I was right. It doesn’t matter how many people believe in you. Is it did you or did you not obey the book? God’s the one that we have to account to. And so we’re not right or wrong based upon how many people agree with us. Truth is truth. Truth doesn’t change. because it’s truth and if it’s not true it’s still wrong. Look in 1 Corinthians in chapter 10, look in verse 23.

Some of the reasons might be is I rode the fence and my Christian testimony, in other words I just didn’t get on one side of the other and we’re kind of like in Revelation chapter 3 some people are just Luke warm. They’re not hot for the Lord. They’re not really cold. They just Luke warm. We call them fence straddlers. Luke, what does God say about those that are loot warm? He says it makes him sick and makes him want to bomb him out of his mouth.

That’s a Christian who’s not committed. He plays a little bit on both sides. Goes to church a little bit, reads a little bit. Does everything just a little bit to keep God off his back, but nothing serious. Never gets really serious about the things of God. and here in 1 Corinthians and chapter 10, all things lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Just keep these two words in mind.

Expedient and edify. Not all things has to be done. Oh, you see, I got the right to do anything I want to do. Yeah, but if you love the Lord and you love people, you have to find out is it it expedient? Do I need to do that? Do I need to do that? Does it edify? If whatever I’m doing, that I can discern for myself because a lot of things that got in the Bible, but there’s principles laid down in Scripture.

Then I should use the Scriptures to discern whether or not I should do this or do that because, let’s say my wife was to pass away and here I am I’m a single man. Do I lawfully have the right to remarry? Yes, I do. But that doesn’t mean that it would be wise for me to do so. It may not be wise. It may not be that’s what God, it may not be expedient, may not be that it’s wrong, but it might not help me to be the best that I can be for the Lord.

I can go to a dance. I can go to a rock and roll dance. I don’t believe it will be expedient for me. I don’t believe it will be necessary. I don’t believe it’s going to try to help me spiritually. I believe that might be making provision for the flesh, wouldn’t you? I don’t believe it’ll edify me. I don’t believe going to a dance and watching those women out there jumping all over and gyrating and so forth and making all these sexual baller sexual movements.

I don’t think it’s going to help my mind towards spiritual things. Well, you see, I don’t have to have a verse in the Bible says you can’t do that. But I question the wisdom of individuals who can’t discern, so you have to warn. Most people do exactly what they want to do, but they’ll ride the fence. Look in verse 31 of the same chapter. He says, whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do all to the glory of God, if whatever it is you do, you can say, I’m doing this for God’s honor, God’s glory.

Then go ahead. Do it. You’re the one and I’m the one that’s going to have to stand before the Lord. We should examine ourselves and you cannot examine yourself with a good microscope if you don’t have a good discerning understanding of the Word of God. Because if you can’t understand the truth, the Bible is the lens by which you examine yourself. You can’t close your Bible and say Well, I don’t see anything wrong with me. Well, when you look into the perfect law of liberty, the mirror of the Word of God, and it reflects upon yourself and you say, oh, I see dirt there.

I see dirt there. I see dirt there. I see dirt there. And then you go your own way as though you saw nothing. Immediately forgetting what manner of man he was. When you look into the mirror of the Word of God, you’re supposed to let the water of the Word cleanse you. Are you afraid God may talk to you? You afraid God may speak to you? Make God may want to speak to you? correct something in your life, it’ll make that day a lot better for you.

The last thing is I eliminated Bible reading and prayer. You know, I’ve never seen a Christian if they will do these two things drift too far from God. But if you leave off, you’re not going to stay very strong. And that is if you’ll spend time reading the word because that’s how God speaks to you. And if you’ll spend time talking to God, it’ll help you. You see, you can’t truly pray right between you and God in a submissive humble attitude and casting all of your cares upon the Lord and requesting things from God.

If it’s genuine, that’s genuine, the rest of your life will take care of itself. But you don’t do that and you don’t read and you don’t pray, your Christian life’s a mess because this is the only way that personally you can stay close. You can’t stay close but because you stay around people who stay close. What do you think joy is? The joy of the Lord is not something you get against from somebody and you’re rubbed by osmosis and it just jumps into your body.

Joy is something that happens between you and God. It’s a personal thing. The joy of the Lord is my what? Strength. And without the joy of the Lord, there is no strength. And that’s why there’s so many Christians that are weak. And it says some are sick and some are dead. How I fail God. Look up here. Letting this hand represent you and me. The wallet represents sin. Now we all have sin on us. And God says that He loves us.

He hates our sin. You see, we committed the sin, so we ought to pay for it. Though payment for that is death in hell. It’s not going to church. It’s not giving money. payment for sin is death. So I commit it, I’m guilty, I gotta pay. Eternal separation from God, in hell. But God loves me, wants me to go to heaven. And to go to heaven I’ve got to be perfect because righteous is God, no sin. Because see heaven is perfect and God is perfect and I have to be perfect to go there.

There’s the problem. Because of my sin I can’t get in. The Lord says that I can’t save myself. I need a Savior. This hand represent Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord, God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us. He hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him. So what Christ did for one person He did for everybody? Christ took all the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back again from the dead.

And God said that if we would believe He did it for us, He would book that paper to our account and we will get to go to heaven on what he did. See I didn’t earn it, I didn’t work for it, I don’t deserve it. For my grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourself is the gift of God not of works lest any man should vote. That’s the best news in the world and you can know that you’re going to heaven when you die.

The best news in all the world, no tricks to it, no guinea’s. Let’s pray, Shaoi. 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 by the line 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 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 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 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.org. Thanks for joining us on Bible Live, 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.