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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa. 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’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.

Now look up there in chapters 2, the book of James. Then he’s talking about people that know the truth, but they don’t all believe exactly the right way. And he says that you become partial in verse four, or you not then partial in yourself, and you become judge of evil thoughts. You go into the right places, you’re trying to do the right thing. He says, but whenever there’s certain people around, you act differently. In other words, you’re not totally committed.

You’re a fence straddler. You’re sometimes you’ve got the faith and sometimes you got the work and sometimes you got the work and you don’t have the faith and you’re but you’re not clear And so he goes down through hearing he tells them and has to warn them. You’re doing things, but not correctly In other words, if you’re gonna run the race you have to be a master in all things in other words You have to be disciplined in every area of your life And so there’s some people who who go to church, but they’re wrong doctrinally They’ll witness, but they don’t tell them the true gospel.

There’s a lot of people who have a lot of weird beliefs. They’re doing what they think and their mind is right. Doing the works. There’s Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons and there’s all kind of people that are going to church, giving money to a lovel, but their belief is wrong. So they got the work, but they don’t have the faith, the true faith. And so God says, that’s out of balance. See, the key thing is if you can get a balance between winning and training.

I believe in soul winning. I believe in talking to people about the Lord. But I also believe in God in my life. I also believe that a Christian should read the Word of God and be close to the Lord and study God’s Word and pray and do all these other things. I’m not just one side. If somebody says, well, Yankee doesn’t believe in just soul winning. That’s all he believes. That’s all he knows. Then they don’t know me. They’re not listening to what I say.

I teach many things about this book. You never know from one Sunday to the next what I’m going to cover. Unless I’m in a series or something. And I cover from anywhere in the Bible. I teach anywhere in this book. And I go to almost every book as I teach. In time, if a person comes every service, they won’t get a great, I guess, balanced knowledge of the Bible. Now, I can do that. But my goal is so when, but I need this other so I can stay strong enough to do that simple little thing.

Because this devil will try to stop you, try to ruin you. And so he makes a statement down here in verse 6. He says, but he despised the poor. They’re making bad choices. They’re making decisions, but the wrong ones. And he says here in verse 8, if people fill the royal law according to the scriptures, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well. In other words, you got the word, but you don’t have the love. You’re doing the right things, but you don’t love.

Your motive is wrong. What you believe isn’t exactly right. And as if a man keeps the whole law and offended what? One point is guilty of all of them. He says, you’re doing a lot of things right, but there’s some things you’re not doing that’s right. Let’s ruin it for you. There are spots upon your garments, like having a white tuxedo, but somebody flesh mud all over it. Well it ruins it and this is the way Christians are. And so he makes a statement down here look there in verse 11, for he that said do not commit adultery said also do not kill.

Now if you don’t commit adultery but you did kill didn’t you still break the law? So there’s Christians that they won’t get right in every area of the life they just think it just long as I’m close. Do you think God just wants you to be close to Him, I mean a close-end something, or really right there with the Lord. I think you use the best choice of words there, but you understand what I’m talking about. So in verse 12, he says, so speaky and so do speak and do.

So he says, be swift to hear. Slow to speak, slow to write. The work of the flesh is that you’re slow to hear. Swift to speak, swift to write. Have you ever seen anybody who can lose their temper? that quick. Never seen anybody like that, huh? Or you somebody like that? I tell you, I have to be honest. I can lose mine like that. Just that quick. And that doesn’t mean that you are, you know, you stay there, but you’re for the moment.

You have a whole sinful nature inside of you. It doesn’t take much to get you mad. And if you are swift to hear God, be all right. And slow to speak means you had to think before you speak. Slow down a little bit. Count to a thousand. Somebody said count to ten. That ain’t long enough for some people. And, but if you’re not right, then you’re slow to hear what God says. See the Bible tells in the book of Hebrews in chapter 5, you are dull of hearing.

Means you’re slow to hear, slow. In other words, like you just turned God on. You don’t even hear God. So if you don’t hit, then you’re going to use your judgment and you’re not going to respond the way God says so God said that that’s not right. Now look there in James chapter 2 and verse 14. From verse 14 down to verse 26 then you’re talking about how that you need the balance between faith and works because faith without works won’t work and works without faith won’t work.

In the Christian life you have to have a balance between what God said and what you do. You’ve got to believe right so you can live right. And if you don’t believe right, you can’t live right. You understand that? You can see that. You can see that right there. And you see that. I know you can. So he goes down through here and he talks and gives him illustrations of how that faith without work, it is dead. It doesn’t produce the righteousness of God.

In these verses are we talking about how to get to heaven? We’re not I’m not talking about salvation. We’re not talking about eternal damnation and so forth. So when he says, if there can’t faith save him, no, it cannot save him. See up there in verse 14, he says, what profit would that the prophet my brother, though a man say he had faith and have not works can faith save him? No, it can’t. So we’re not talking about salvation from hell.

We’re talking about can it save you from God’s chagony? Can it save you from the judgment of God because every man is going to be rewarded for what he’s done, he’s going to serve the lost. So you put this in the context and it will make sense. But see many people take these verses. These are talking about salvation. And so they’ve got to have old works. Yeah, you’ve got to believe it. You’ve got to do these good deeds too.

No, we’re not talking about how to get to heaven. We’re already talking to those who know Christ is Savior and explaining how that you need. Leave right and live right. If you believe right, you can produce the righteousness of God. You don’t believe right, you cannot. This is why every time you come to church and you learn a little bit more truth, it’ll help you in your life. But if you go week after week or month after month and you never read the Word of God, you don’t go to church, whatever, then you will find out you cannot live right because you don’t believe right.

So you say to little by little, you’d be surprised that the truth that is said on Sunday morning, Monday morning the devil is picking it out of your brain. Remember he uses the parable of the sore went forth the sown, he sowed some seeds and the birds came down and he got the seed before it got Germany into the ground so he could grow. What do you think the devil, and use the statement and he says that the devil is like the bird that picks up the seeds out of your mind before you will think about it.

That’s why after a sermon is preached, the best thing you can do to remember it is to go over it and over and over in your mind So that you can remember what was said it’ll do you more good But by Wednesday chances are if you’re like me getting over you can’t remember what I preached last Sunday morning By tonight you might not even know what I preached today somebody working fast in order to get the thing out of your mind or to get you mind on something else so that you can’t remember what was saying All you know is, well, it was a good sermon.

What did you preach on? Well, I don’t know, but it sure was good. How are you supposed to change your life if you can’t recall anything that was said? If you can’t remember it. This is why notes write it down so you can try to remember. Because that’s why whenever you cover a certain verse, underline that verse. Not all of them. Otherwise that one verse won’t stand out. Just certain verses. Or certain thoughts. Some thing that you learn so that you can remember.

They say a short pencil is better than a long memory. I don’t know how long your memory is. It doesn’t remember everything all the time forever. But a short pencil is better than a long memory. And it can help you. Now look at the next statement. By being slow to speak, This is chapter three. And get this uncontrolled tongue received greater condemnation. In other words, like he says in verse one, my brother, be not many masters, not many teachers or instructors, because if you use this tongue to teach somebody, there is going to be greater condemnation upon you, greater judgment upon you, because somebody else might believe what you said, and what if you didn’t say the right thing?

See, if you are not willing to learn the truth, but you give your opinion to everybody, what if people are following your advice? What if they literally follow your advice and it’s wrong? You ever think of the consequences that might make a difference in their life? I’ve had people that will lie and have lied about me and people have believed a lie and if they believe the lie, it could change their whole life. It could cause them not to ever go to church again because You know, they I heard I heard I heard and it can destroy their lives Is that a wise thing to do you got to make sure that what you say your tongue cannot be tamed But it can’t be controlled it can only be controlled by the truth of God’s word So whenever you believe right you could say right and

If you don’t believe right you’ll say whatever comes into your mind and doesn’t mean it came from God But if you in your mind you feel like it’s true you’ll stand up on it and you’ll preach it and be totally wrong. And what a shame. Now also the second statement I wanted to give to you on this, number two, uncontrolled tongue produces greater consequences. It talks about the tongue sitting on fire the course of hell. In other words this little tongue, if you just do things with your life but don’t say a word.

It’s not going to maybe damage too many people but you can take that one little tongue and buddy you can inflame somebody that quick and hurt and destroy cut and because of the tongue you can hurt somebody make somebody mad bitter what all kind and the consequences are unreal, but not only the consequences, but look at the next statement. Uncontrolled tongue revealed greater contradiction. You see, it says here in verse 10, out of the same mouth for see that blessing, cursing, my brethren, these things ought not so to be, because they contradict each other.

God says this, you say this and hear somebody weak in the faith They don’t know what to believe in. You can influence somebody in the wrong direction. Bad consequences, because the tongue is not controlled. Do you think that God wants us to produce the righteousness of God? Or with the tongue, are you supposed to produce righteousness by the things that you say? This is why you’ve got to be careful about what you hear, what you believe, what you say.

out of your mouth should not come filthy communication out of your mouth should not come the gossip that destroys and ruins people you got to be very careful I have to be careful because this scriptures is to God’s children and There’s times when we may have guard upon our minds and we’re very careful and then there’s times where we may not watch what we say or do but the consequences can be devastating. And so down through here you have some scriptures that tells us about the different kinds of wisdom in the world.

The wisdom of man, the wisdom of God, and trying to discern so they will help you. Look at the next statement, the letter C by being slow to wrath. Look in chapter 4. Is it possible for Christians to war with one another? Christians to devour one another for Christians to say mean, bad, hateful things against one another? Is it possible? Hmm. And fighting. No. Okay. All right. All right. All right, we’re going down to the next one. Go back for the first.

Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. Thank you. All right. All right. Well, thank you. Yeah. And verse 1, 4, from whence come wars and fighting among you come, they not hence even of your lust that were in your memory. Look back there in James chapter 1, and look in verse 14. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of… what? His own lust. So where does all the problems come from? Well see, there’s… trials, there’s tribulations. Those are things that you may not be able to control.

You may not be able to help at what somebody else says or does. But are you supposed to be in control of your own lust? You can’t blame nobody else for that. A man is drawn away because of his own lust when he is in tight. But what you have to be careful is that you don’t try to in be the instrument that entices somebody else to share in a lie, the spread gossip, to do wrong, go to wrong places.

I know people that used to go to church and they were faithful and somebody got them to miss on a Sunday morning and they went up to the mountains and had a great time. There’s nothing wrong with them. Now those people keep going but the ones that got them there, they don’t because they go to church. But they stop long enough to take somebody else and then they love it. They didn’t have the control. They don’t know no more.

Now is that good or is that bad? Yeah that’s shame. You can use your influence in the wrong way. You’ve got to be careful. Everything in our whole life produced the righteousness of God. You know what they’re responsible for himself, but got to make sure that you’re not a stumbling block to somebody. You may be strong enough to say and do a lot of things. Go play in and you stay strong because you don’t like the wrong, you can discern.

But somebody else may not be able to. It’s whenever you care about them. It’s not your conscience. Sometimes the conscience of somebody else. Well, they’re not there strong or whether they’re weak. Now look at letter C. I got two things down here. The lust of man will produce the wrath of man. So whenever you let the lust of the flesh control you, you’re going to have the results and that’s going to be the wrath of man. The wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God.

And now, line in verse 5, do you think that the scripture sayeth in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us, lusteth to end? Now there’s two things about this verse I want to show you. One What is this? The lust of man leads to destruction. The lust of the Holy Spirit leads to the fruits of righteousness. You mean the Holy Spirit has desires? Yes. Can a man grieve the Holy Spirit? When you don’t produce the righteousness of God in your life, the Holy Spirit is grieved because that’s why he’s there.

He is the work in your life. And he lusted to end, in other words, to the point of it, the Bible says in the Old Testament that God is a jealous God. You ever heard that before? He’s jealous. If a Christian falls in love with the world, you don’t think God’s jealous? Would you be jealous if your husband began to look at another woman? Spent out enough, would you get jealous? Bill of India’s? Why not? That’s the way we are.

That’s the fear of being replaced. God doesn’t want to be replaced because you love something else more than God. It’s wrong. So the Bible tells us that there’s the lust of man, leads to the wrath of man, and they lust of the Spirit that will lead to the fruits of righteousness. But look at it somewhere else. If you have the lust of the flesh and it leaves you into sin, is it possible that they were some that thought? Well, it’s not my fault God tempted me and That’s why the scripture says God cannot be tempted with sin neither Kennedy any man because some Christians think that God someone attempted them to do the wrong and store it’s not my fault It’s God’s fault and God tempted me God doesn’t tempt a man to do wrong that never came from God He says, you’re drawn away from your own last from within you, not gone.

But do you actually think that the Holy Spirit that lives within you lures you in the sin? That one way God’s gonna test you is God’s gonna pimp to you with sin. God doesn’t pimp to sin. He’ll give you trials. He’ll give you tribulations. Those aren’t necessarily sins. Just because you’re having a rough day. Bad health. No finances. Or this or that. That doesn’t mean we’ve gone. You don’t want the things wrong because it’ll sin in your life? No.

But if you go ahead and commit adultery, that’s a different story altogether. If you lie, that’s a different story altogether. If you murder something, that’s a different story. That’s not tribulations and trials. It can lead to that, but that’s because of the temptation, the lust on the inside, the man that produced the right. That’s not the will of God. But what is the solution to the pride that produces the lust of the flesh, because a man wants his own way.

Look what he says in verse 6, instead of pride lifting you up, let it be humility. The opposite of pride is humility and verse 6, but he giveth more grace, wherefore he said, God resisted the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore they God resist the devil. So you haven’t seen the devil in all these verses, but the devil’s behind it, ain’t he? He’s there? The devil’s at work. He’s at work in your life. You see, can you see the Lord working in your life?

No, I don’t think so. Can you see the devil working in your life? Well, sometimes I think he’s working more than God. You’re the instrument by which they’re both fighting over to get you to do certain things. There’s a war going on and the battle is real. But get what he says, resist the devil and he will what? He’ll flee from him. He will flee. Resist. Not go along with him. Now, as you go down through here, we don’t have time to cover all of this here, but I did want you to see this.

Look at number three in your notes there. Endure till the end. Have you ever heard the phrase, Ah those that endure to the end, the same shall be saved? Well, enduring to the end, I believe it’s the will of God for every Christian to endure to the end of every trial, every tribulation, and to endure the temptation, as he says in chapter 1 and verse 12. In other words, until the Lord comes, you see there in chapter 5 and verse 7, the talk about being patient, and so forth, and verse 8 being patient until the Lord comes, verse grudge not one against another, lest you be condemned, behold the judge standeth before the door.

Don’t you understand that the Lord is right there at the door and we’re gonna be there. We’re gonna be there. And the judge, the Lord, is watching everything. You don’t have to be a judge in everybody else’s life. You don’t have to go around condemning. Remember this, it’s a good thing to remember. The Bible and everybody knows John 3 16 or most people. For God so loved the world that he gave is only begotten son. The hosts who ever believe within him should not perish but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his son into the world to what? To condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. Now if I’ve been sitting to the world and you’ve been sitting to the world we’re not to go into all the world and condemn everybody. We already know people sin don’t we? So we don’t have to condemn them. They condemn nothing called it what they’ve done that because they don’t believe. So the key in our Christian life is not trying to find all the sin in everybody’s life so we can condemn everybody.

The goal in the Christian’s life is not trying to find all the sin in everybody’s life. I already know everyone of y’all said it here sin, but I don’t care to know what it is, and I don’t care to take an elaborate on all the bad things you’ve done over your life. And I don’t really have any great desire to share all of mine with you. So therefore I’m glad that we don’t have a booth up here and you’ve got to come up here confess your sins and pay me for doing so.

Aren’t you glad all you got to do is just talk to the Lord about it or if you wrong somebody else you can make it right with them. So we have the scriptures that tell us look look down the road and there are results down the road that after you have done this look at letter A when you believed all you can and you have worked all you can and you have prayed all you can and if nothing changes what should you do?

Praise the Lord anyway. Look at that relief. When you bleed all you can and you work all you can and pray it all you can and if everything changes what should you do? Praise the Lord regardless and stay faithful until it’s all over with. God doesn’t want you to just be faithful until you’re 30. Be faithful until you’re 40. Be faithful until you’re 50, 60, 70, 80. Now it doesn’t matter. Be faithful until the end. Endure. Turn the end.

Didn’t say you’re going to enjoy everything, but we can endure everything that the devil throws at us, the flesh throws at us, and unbelievers throw it up. and even Christians can throw at you. You can still be found faithful, can’t you? Doesn’t it work? And he says look at the end result of Job, the patience of Job mentioned right here in these verses. And then whenever you have others for an example then he says this pray. You got trials, what should you do?

Pray, got tribulations, what should you do? Pray, got temptations, what should you do? pray, pray all the time about everything. The fervent prayer of a righteous man of valor much. And if that much is true, it means it makes a difference in your life. It may not change the circumstances, the world, the trials, the tribulation, but it can make you stronger. And that’s what you’re praying for. So that you can endure. Sometimes God will not move the things away from us.

Our answer to prayer would be if God just removed the temptation, but sometimes that’s not possible. We live in a world of temptation. And God says, if you become a friend of the world, you’re no longer a friend of God. And he talks about in this book, James chapter 2, that Abraham was a friend of God, He didn’t love the world. And many of God’s children are in love with the world, and God is jealous. God doesn’t like that.

I hope that those notes will help you just a little bit more to understand. I believe one of the greatest books on the Christian life there is. You take it out of its context and try to apply it to the lost man. It’s chaotic. And that’s why so many people, they don’t do that with that book. Anyway, look up here. God loves you, paid for your sins. You trust Him, He gave you eternal life. I believe all of you in here has heard me maybe two or three times and you have eternal life and you’re going to heaven when you die.

But we’re not there yet. It is the will of God that we just keep being faithful. What’s the things we say and do because there’s other people that hinge upon our power of influence? Use your power of influence in the lives of other people to do right. Let’s pray, shall we? Our Father, we do thank you so much for the word that you’ve given us. And Father, for this book that makes it so simple and so clear. And I pray, Lord, your will to be done in our church, in our home, our families.

And bless these people and help us to endure until the end. Not for salvation, but because we’re your children. And there’s a lot of things in this world, a lot of battles to fight. So bless us in 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 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. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryuptampa.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, and we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.