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Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calbreak Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the Internet. Your regular prayers and month- and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us He’s told free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bibleline website at CalvaryOfTampa.org. We pray that you’ll enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

And many of God’s people are not faithful. They’re not faithful to read, not faithful to play, because they don’t see the need for it. need to be. They don’t see their condition. And I believe it’s a shame. Here in 2 Corinthians in chapter 4, looking verse 16, he says, for which cause we faint not? We mean we don’t quit. Well why? Well see right before this, he makes a statement in verse 14, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus and shall present us with you present us with you.

So I not only want people to be there because I want them to Christ. I want them to be rewarded by God. I want Christians to have everything they could have had. You see, whenever you see things right, it’s not that you’re glad you’re going, you want everybody else to go. Not only do I want to be rewarded when I get to heaven, because I do. I want everybody else to be rewarded too. Wouldn’t it be a shame that you get to heaven and you You don’t get anything because you didn’t serve the Lord.

Well, I knew it, but I didn’t tell you about it. I’m gonna tell you now. Cause I don’t want you up there saying, why didn’t you tell me? I’m telling you, you can’t use me in the excuse. Nana, nana, nana, nana. But look what he says in verse 15, for all things are for your sake. In other words, why do you need preachers, evangelists, missionaries for your sake? Because we want to challenge you, regardless of how hard it gets, how rough it gets, don’t quit.

I’m just so discouraged, don’t quit. Perplex, don’t quit. Cast out, don’t quit. Whatever it don’t quit. Stay in faith, but just keep serving the Lord. What you got, where you are. And God will bless you for it. And here’s one of the reasons why. Look there in verse 17. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment. And now this light affliction Paul is talking about when he was stoned outside of the city of Listerum. when he would beat with a cat of nine tails, everything that happened to all those people trying to kill him?

Boy, he took a bow that they would even slavery until they killed him. I wonder what happened to them. I wondered. You think they died? They died. Because Paul didn’t die by him, but isn’t it something that all the things that happened to the apostle Paul, he says this light affliction, your life, and this is where it would be good to go to James chapter 4, but since it’s already been read, we won’t have to turn there. Your life is but a vapor.

It appeared for a little while and then vanishes away. It’s just a moment in comparison to eternity. It’s nothing. But it’s a little portion of time that you and I are privileged to live. And in this period of time, God says, the devil is after you and he’s going to have all these things. He’s a roaring lion seeking whom he made of power. And so the war is on. In verse 17 he says, For our light afflation, which is but for a moment, work it for us.

Did you know that every problem you have is an opportunity for you to be enriched? You see, laying up treasure in heaven is because you have had a victory over some testing or trial or temptation here. Because that’s the only way you get to prove your faithfulness to the Lord is by the things that happens to you. Did you know that being blessed down here can be a testing? The supply of riches can be a great testing to your faithfulness.

I’ve seen people who didn’t have anything go to church to be faithful. And all of a sudden God starts blessing them. And then their blessings take them out of church. You see, they could handle it when they were poor, but when they got some money or something like that, they can handle that. A lot of Christians cannot handle prosperity. It’s too much for them. Because now they don’t need God. I got money. I got a good job. I got this, that and the other.

And so they fall by the wayside. Stay faithful to the Lord. I wish God keep everybody poor if it keep them in church and keep them doing right. But he wants to bless him a little money on a long way. That’d be all right. No. But you don’t want it to come between you and the Lord. Look what else he says here. He said, working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. See, it’s something that this light affliction, this problem that you may be facing or that I face is working for me and eternal weight of glory.

I’m going to get something for all eternity for some little temporary trial that I got to go through. And it’s just a light affliction in comparison to what I’m saying. Remember the verse over in the book of Romans in chapter 8 that says something along the line that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed here after. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the dynamite of what you’re going to get.

It seemed like man, better know that. God’s telling you. That’s why we studied the Bible. The Bible is God’s mind on paper. So as you study the Bible, you’re studying the mind of God to know how God thinks. And if you’ll study the word of God, you’ll learn how you are to think. And if you know how to think, you’ll know how to live. Some people don’t know how to live, because they don’t know how to think. And if you want to raise the caliber of your life, you have to raise the caliber of your thoughts because your actions are a byproduct of the way that you think.

And all actions are born within the mind. That’s why he said, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So look now in verse 18. When he makes the statement in verse 18, while we look, see this is talking about vision, this is talking about what you’re able to see. Some people can’t see this. See, they have vision only for the things of the world.

In this world you have a body and you have eyes to see what’s here. You have ears to hear by some way things that happen here in this life. And you can sense things and you can feel things. But there’s another world. And if I listen to what God says, I can see it. If I listen to what He says about it, I can visualize it. I can see things that the natural man cannot see. I can hear things they can’t hear.

I can sense something. They can’t sense. I feel what they cannot feel. I don’t know about why some people feel like God is called and into the ministry. To me, it was not one night God rang my bell and said, Yanki, I want you to preach. Yes Lord, I surrender all. Well, it never happened. I never got a call on the phone, no telegram. But I can tell you this, by the constant barrage of these scriptures pounding into my mind and breaking down my wall of resistance, then after a while bringing my thoughts into captivity to the Word of God, I heard things.

I saw things and I began to understand what I needed to do with my life. I’m not saying everybody has to to the same degree, but I believe you do need to have better vision, better hearing, And I’m talking about spiritual. God says that you have ears to hear, but you don’t hear. You have eyes to see, but you don’t see. How do you know that’s not you? How do you know he’s not talking about you? Well, it’ll depend on what are you gonna do with your life?

And he makes a statement here in verse 18, while we look not at the things which are seen, that’s the physical. He said, but at the things which are not seen. So there is something to be seen that can’t be seen. He said, for the things which are seen are temporal and the things which are not seen are eternal. So that means that God wants us to see something that everybody else can’t see. I don’t believe that a man ought to say, I have been called to preach unless he heard something.

It’s better to have heard something and say, I didn’t hear something than to say, I heard something and then hear nothing. There’s some people, I believe that never had a vision, that are motive, I question. I want to explain to you just a little bit about something that makes sense to me. You remember the story where Jesus went over the city of Jerusalem in Matthew chapter 23, where he made this statement, how often I would have gathered you together as a hen gathers her chicks together and ye would not.

But Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem. Can you see Him weeping? Picture, can you see Him weeping? Can you hear Him cry? Can you feel what He feels? Can you enter into him and try to understand why was he weeping? How he cares? You remember the story where in chapter 9 of Matthew that Jesus said that he looked upon the multitude and was moved with compassion. That means feeling of their hurt within him. And he was moved with compassion because they were as sheep having no shepherd.

Of course, he is the only shepherd, but they were sheep about as shepherd. When you see people, what do you see? What do you really see? Can you see something that God’s talking about? Do you have compassion? Now believe it or not. I have seen on television where they have somebody in some foreign country and they have the dirty streets and the poor people and these little children. And they’ll have a couple of these little children and they’ll show you their dirty little faces.

Now, this is Emily or whatever name and we want you to help us to feed these hungry children. And as people watch that, especially I know women would, their hearts are moved with compassion. Get out that checkbook and start writing out because they are pricked to the heart. They know the power of a picture because of what you see and how it can move you. And they want you to help them reach those children and put food into their stomach and and maybe some doctor can go and maybe give them some shots or maybe some clothes for them and whatever.

And we believe that it’s good to have compassion. I remember years ago they came out with a little film, they wouldn’t show it on TV, but a little film called The Silent Scream. Anybody remember that? The Silent Scream. And what they did is they videotaped a baby being aborted in the mother’s womb. And they showed that whenever they pricked that child, that baby’s face, grimmus would pain and cried. But you couldn’t hear the cry. A silent scream. They won’t show that to the mass of America.

It’s too gross because if they did see it, they’d probably outlaw abortion. So it’s just a silent scream, a child crying, but nobody can hear it. And yet it should be the safest place in the world of mother’s womb. people hurting in this world that is for sure and they have a lot of pain you and I go to a lot of pain God is so designed that this world that you and I are never going to be satisfied here that’s what makes heaven so wonderful we keep looking for a time when the body don’t hurt when there’s no more separation there’s no deaths, no more tears.

But see, we wouldn’t know what that would be like unless God had allowed us to temporarily have an experience in life where we got a little bit of all of it. Has anybody in there ever had a tear? You ever had a pain? You ever had the loss of a loved one? You ever felt rejected? Think of what you have gone through just to make heaven real. Otherwise you’d never see it or understand how much better it’s going to be unless you know how bad it is here.

And this is all temporal. And we live in a body that is not going to last forever. We’re going to be with the Lord soon. Time is running out. And because of what God’s done for us, we sometimes fail to see what God sees. When God looks at mankind, what do you think he sees? And yet the Bible says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He must really love the world. He must really love the world.

Do you realize that there is no amount of love that you can have, no amount of joy or compassion that can be greater than what God has Himself? Can you care more than God? Can you love more than God? Where do you think you got yours from? We were made in the image of God. You’ll never love your wife or your children or anything like God loves you and think how much he must really love. How he must really feel.

What it must be like to know that there’s some of his creation that have rejected him. and will spend an eternity separated from him. Christ went. I don’t really know exactly why Jesus wept at the great side of Lazarus, but I know he just finished talking to Mary and Martha. He says, do you believe that I am the resurrection in the life? And they said, we believe all that. He says, you believe this. He said, oh we believe this.

He says, but I am the resurrection of life. I mean I can do it right now was because all they looked at him and said, oh, how he loved so. He must have really loved him. Four days before that, didn’t Jesus already know he was dead? Didn’t Jesus know that he was coming there and he was going to raise him from the dead? Didn’t Jesus know that in a few minutes, labs are going to walk out of that great, he already knew that.

Then why did he cry? I think it was because of their unbelief, not because of Lazarus. He already knew he was to see him in a minute. He already knew where he was, he had a word by him. A funeral is not for the dead, it’s for the living, for the living. Every time you have a funeral, it’s never for the dead, it’s for the living. Because that dead ain’t there, because you didn’t know that. Absent from the body, present with the, present with the Lord.

I used to go into my study and I’d read the 16th chapter of Luke. I turn out the lights. I’d sit there in the dark and I tried to picture myself being in hell. No, and I’ll never get out. What if I had been one that had been missing? Nobody had ever witnessed I mean, I would be in hell for all eternity and I never get out how horrible that was going to be. And I’d literally sit there in my office and I would cry because I was so glad that that will never happen to me.

I can’t go to hell. That’ll never happen to me. I’m good, I haven’t. But I would pitch your seeing people in hell. So I believe that you need to see from God’s viewpoint how God sees the world. You have to see that. You have to feel how God feels about people, the lost people. Because if you don’t hear what God has said, who will go for me? You don’t hear, then you can’t answer it. So a lot of people never answer the call to the ministry because they don’t hear.

They don’t see how God feels, how God hurts, because they’re wrapped up in their own little world about me, my problem. They don’t care. They have ears but they don’t hear. They got eyes but they don’t see. I’m talking about in Luke chapter 6 that there’s a man that’s in hell and he cries out to Abraham. Sin lads with that he may come and dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am toward me in this flame.

Can you hear him? Can you hear him? Can you see it? Can you picture this? You see if you can’t see it, you can’t hear it. You have nothing to motivate you to answer the call. I’ll do something about that. They’ll seem to be a preacher, missionary, evangelist, or just a faithful person that goes to church and gives the money so they can have some mission or support. You care, you go, you give, you do that, because you can see it.

A lot of Christians don’t see it. Stop and think, isn’t what God wants more important than what you have? And what about the lost man that’s going to hell? How big is his concern over your little petty problems? But if you can see the lost man in hell, if you can hear the silent screams, see with the physical ear, you’ll never hear it. The only way you’ll hear it is spiritually. When you read the scriptures and you hear and see a lost man in hell suffering an eternal torment for all eternity.

When I used to sit in church because Betty’s dad took me around. I could see my mother. And I could see my stepdad, and I saw my brother, and I saw my sisters all go into that place. And I was set there in a church, and I would weep, and I cried because of it, and I couldn’t stand it. And I determined to do everything I possibly could to see my family came to know Christ as their Savior, and they all have.

They took years for some of them, but they all did. Two years ago, I buried my sister. I led her to the Lord. Last year I buried my mom I led her to the lawn But see I had to sing something I had to hear something You see you can read the scripture and many people read the scripture and well, I had my devotion this morning Okay, you had your devotion. What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel?

There was a duty You’re trying to keep up with a schedule. It’s good to have a schedule I like schedules. I even have a thing where I read so many scriptures and so forth. I got all that. But do you read because you’re looking for something you want God to speak to you? You want him to impart a vision to you? Have you ever thought about the people in this world and how they have all kinds of problems of all kinds, just like these people over there and do our liens now, a lot of them suffer.

Many of them probably died. But you know that greatest need was the Lord. And I pray that most of them, that they trust the Christ to save but sometimes things like this is a perfect opportunity for some people that listen for the first time in their life. So they can see that there’s some things they can’t control. We often call it an act of God. You know a hurricane, floods, that’s an act of God, an act of God. Everybody’s going to die.

Should we say, well, they were greater sinners than others, on whom the tower in Salom fell? No. We got a lot of wicked people all over the world. And the day’s going to come and we’re going to leave this world one way or the other. I pray that you trust that Christ is your Savior. I know that whenever you read the book of Acts and it talks about how that the apostle was fixing to go up in the age of the Holy Spirit told him to come over here and master and help us.

And when he went to help him, there was a woman named Lydia by the river. There was a Philippian jailer. And so the Holy Spirit leading them was to the year of a lost man. The Holy Spirit led them from one country into another country for the simple sake of getting the gospel to them. But some people don’t see that. They don’t see that the greatest need that people have. When I see a banker, I’m thinking, save your loss.

I see a lawyer save your loss. I see anybody save your loss. I want their save your loss. And I wish that I would witness more. I’d like to be more faithful. I’m thankful for all the ones that I have reached, but how many I could have reached. I said this before and I may not be right. I don’t know. I don’t know if a man goes to hell because I didn’t reach him, but I do know that there’s a lot of them that go to heaven because I did reach him.

I know if I hadn’t, they wouldn’t have been going. I think it’s very, very important. The Holy Spirit indwelled you. And when the Holy Spirit dwells you, you have something on the inside of you that cries out. It’s like the Holy Spirit said inside of you said, Hey, can you hear me yet? You ever seen that? Come come here. Can you hear me yet? Can you hear me now? And the Holy Spirit will let things happen into your life trying to get your attention.

Can you hear me yet? But see sometimes maybe you’ve heard the verse. It’s not in the thunder, it’s not in the light, it’s not in an earthquake, it’s not in the tornado, maybe just a still small voice. And somehow you hear what others cannot hear because you’re sensitive, you’re teachable, you’re pliable. You’re looking for something special. You’re looking for something out of this world because what you want is not here in this world. But you have to have a vision, you have to see what others don’t see and hear what others don’t hear.

It’s only thing that’s going to make you different. Otherwise you’re no different than anybody else. Because if all you can hear is the things of the world with the natural air and the natural eye, you have nothing. You need spiritual vision. You need bionic ears to hear the voice of God. And when you can hear the cries, then you can answer a call. And I believe there’s many people have answered a call that’s never heard the cry. I believe you need to hear the cry.

It was because I said in Bible school week after week after week, four or five hours a day for four years straight and I could see all of this. I hear all of this and every teacher teaching exactly the same thing and buddy, all of a sudden, I know what God wants me to do. I don’t know if it was a gradual progressive thing, a little by little, but I realize how real it is and how important it is.

Look after this, and representing you and me, the wall of represents sin. We all have sin upon us. God, he loves us, but he hates our sin. And for us to pay for the sin is eternal separation from the Lord in hell. God loves us. He wants us to go to heaven and to go to heaven we have to be perfect as righteous as God and none of us are perfect. So no man can save himself. The church can’t save you.

Water baptism can’t save you. Giving money can-, can’t save you. Can’t even help. You need a Savior and there’s only one. Letting this hand represent Jesus Christ, he is the Lord God in the flesh. He came into this world because he loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from him. Jesus Christ who had no sin did not have to die, but when he took our sins, he died to pay for them. He came back from the dead and God said that if we’ll believe he did that for us, that he paid for our sins, he would put the payment to our account and we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us.

There’s no tricks to that. That’s the best news in all the world. A lot of people have never heard that story. Learn it. Learn it well. Learn how to tell people about it. Let God use you. And if you’ve seen what I’ve talked about tonight, if you really heard what I’ve said, if you really have a compassion and heart do something about it. Make a difference. Make a difference. Let’s pray, shall we? Every head and bow in every eye, close, and no one looking around.

If you’ve never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, would you write now just between them, you and the Lord, talk to him and say, Lord, I know I’m a sin and I believe Christ died, paid for my sins, and I’ll accept him as my Savior. Friend, if you’ll do that, God will save you, give you eternal life, and you’ll go to heaven whenever you die. I’d like to have prayer for you and close them. So, as anyone would also say, yes, I’ll trust Christ, and that is my Savior, in which I’d like you to pray for them.

It would just slip you hand it very quickly, and put it right back down. Is there anyone at all? Anyone? You that know Christ is your SaviorXXX? Can you hear what I’m talking about? Can you see it? Do you believe that God wants you involved in a good Bible, believe in and teach in church that wants to rid souls and you go because you want to help us? You give because you want to be a part of something like that.

You want fruit that can abound to your account. You may not be the greatest soul-win in the world, but you can work and give and help to help the job it does. We can do so much more if we work together. Let God use you. I follow we thank you for this time together. Ask the questions upon this question. 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.

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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 broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now we’ll close you thought from Pastor Arnold. Friends, 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.