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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 m- and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us until 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.

I want you to take your Bible and turn over there to the Book of Matthew, the Book of Matthew. And chapter 5 Matthew chapter 5 I have a couple things I just wanted to share with you from there but how many of you remember an old Negro spiritual? Go something like I’m gonna lay down my burdens where? Down by the riverside and generally it means that one of these days we’re gonna come to the river and And this river speaks of crossing over into Jordan or heaven, you know.

So one day we’re gonna come to the river and I’m gonna lay down my burdens down by the riverside. It’s a good song. But what do I do in the meantime? How many of you want to wait until you get there to lay down your burden? There’s a lot of burdens that we have to bear. I asked somebody this not long ago.

I asked you how much does that water wait? Well, it all depends on how long you want to hold it. You see, that water is not very heavy at all. I can hold it out there, it’s arms straight up. It is not very heavy at all. But I assure you, the longer I carry that weight, After a while and it won’t be long, I won’t be able to hold it out there at all because it’s gonna become such a heavy burden.

So you are built to carry a little bit of burdens. We all have them. We got concerns and there’s things that we have to do and they weigh up on our mind. But if you don’t learn how to either solve the problem quickly or cast it upon the Lord, the burden gets heavier and heavier. The same burden that wasn’t heavy at one time to get heavier as time goes on. I’ve had a lot of burdens that I’ve carried that I never had to carry.

Like one person says, don’t tell me worry and doesn’t help. 90% of the things I worry about never happen. So see there? Worry and does pay off. I don’t think that’s the way you’re supposed to look at it. But here in the book of Matthew, and look in verse 3 of Matthew chapter 5, Blessed are the poor in spirit. Now as you read down through these, you realize that the world looks at it just the opposite. Everything in here in the eyes of the world is opposite of this.

What Christ is saying here is totally contrary to the natural mind. We think instead of being poor the key is to be what? Rich. Instead of being weak we could all be strong. And that’s what the word mean. Meat is not actually weakness. It’s just a surrender of your rights. You know where you have people always fighting for their rights. Well, So meekness is strength, but it’s subdued and it’s controlled. You can have a horse that’s a meek horse that’s got the power.

It’s just subdued, surrendered. And that’s what God wants us. The Bible talks about Moses was a meek man. It doesn’t mean he was a weak man. And he also says up here in verse 4, blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. We would say blessed are those that are happy. See just the opposite because that’s not what we want. Bless it or the meat. Well, I don’t want to be me. I want to be a strong individual dominating dictatorial, you know, controlling.

Well, that’s just the opposite of what God says. And everything is a blessing or they that do hungry. Well, wait a minute. I said blessed are those that are full. After church today chances are somebody’s gonna go and get something to eat. And don’t it feel better to be full than hungry? Then why is it blessed to be hungry? See, every one of these is just the opposite, but that’s the paradox in the Christian life. opposite in order to really be happy.

A man that will lose his life for Christ’s sake will find his life. And most people are trying to find themselves, like I told you before about the hippie, that had real long hair. And it was just kind of lost, couldn’t find himself. He got a haircut and there he was. So there’s people that really mess up. But he makes a statement down through here, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, Bless of the peacemakers and those that are persecuted will see we believe just the opposite in life because who doesn’t want to be happy?

Because all these other things are nothing more than burdens. These are burdens. Because anytime that you’re poor, you have burdens to bear. You’re always trying to figure out what to do financially. Have health problems, you’re trying to figure out what to do with that. And burdens add up. And these burdens that are not cast up on the Lord are figured out how to solve the problem really can weigh upon your mind. I had a problem that I had to deal with years ago.

And maybe some of you have had the same problem, but let me just kind of run it by you. I trusted Christ as my savior. I have eternal life. I’m going to heaven when I die. Betty’s dad spent a lot of hours talking to me about why I needed to go to church. I didn’t go before. Why do I gotta go now? How do you wanna go? He spent hours trying to tell me why I should support the Lord’s Word.

Well, I didn’t before. Why should I do it now? And I never did much serious praying. I’d talk to the Lord. Could I warm them to know? But now he’s trying to tell me there’s a certain way to pray. but now he’s trying to tell me there’s a certain way to pray. I never prayed in Jesus name. Now he says you gotta, anything else in his name? It’s not in your name, not for your honor, not anybody else’s. You ask it in his name.

He’s the one that signs the check. So it’s got to be in his check. His name’s got to be on the check. And so I had to learn that. But one of the problems is I was in church on Sunday morning and Sunday night. He finally got me going on Wednesday night. So I went Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. Never about it. And the whole time I’m doing this right deal, you know, this is right, I did that.

I felt like I was dragging, And I didn’t understand too much about it. My old sinful nature with me, because they didn’t want to go. So every time I wanted to go to church, I had to drag my old flesh birth with me. And he was fighting and scratching and screaming and kicking, he didn’t want to go. So I had to battle with him every time. Sunday morning, Sunday night, I went night, I had to kick him in the rear, make him go, because I didn’t know how I can go without him, because he was inside of me.

So I wanted to go, that was my new birth, And he didn’t want to go. That was my over. So I felt like I’m dragging the flesh with me. And then when I get to church, I got to make him sit there and behave. Have you ever seen a little bratty kid in church? Don’t know how to sit still, got worms in the pants, and you ant, and you figure like, I’m fixing to knock his kid. Remember when time this guy was on an airplane?

Jack Eil. He said he got on the plane, he was tired and where he had had a whole week of meetings, and he was flying back to his hometown up there in Chicago. Then he got on the plane and there was his mother and she had a little boy. And the mother could not discipline this little boy. This little boy was hollering and crying and screaming and doing everything. And it was sitting right across from Jack Howe. He said, and the mother just try and be quiet, be quiet.

She’s long. Nothing worked. And finally the kid got to where he would look at it. Jack Heil’s and Jack Heil’s looked over at him. And the kid was looking at him and he was making all kind of noises. It’s on it. Sorry about that. It’s time to wake up. It’s time to wake up because you’re asleep. He looked over at this little boy and he went, it’s only here. And the little boy, and he said back and he watched Jack Howles, the rest of the trip, Nipticadazzo.

That little boy says no man ever spoke like this man before. This man speaketh with a torote. This little kid was scared to death. And it only took one word, and it wasn’t even a word. It was a big, heavy grunt filled with threats. When you come to church, say you brought your old nature with you. How many of you left your old nature at home? Say that, you brought it with you. And so while you’re here, you’re having the deal many times with that old central nature of yours.

And he doesn’t want to listen. He cares not about the Bible. He doesn’t want to grow spiritually. He’s against everything that you’re hearing, and it’s sitting right there with you. So sometimes while you’re trying to listen, you’re battling other things, and he’s always trying to get your mind off of what the preacher said and onto something else. else and your mind begins to drift and about 15 minutes later come back. What was he talking? No, he never said anything I get anything out of and you’re in another world.

You’re thinking about what you did yesterday, what you’re going to do tomorrow. If you left something on the stove cooking, did you ever get the food out of the oven or what did you be surprised it’s going in your mind? Well, see, you got a little brat that you brought the church with you this morning. Well, see, I’m dragging this old nature with me and I’ve got to try to make them sit there and behave so I can listen and learn something.

But then after church, whenever you go out into the world and I had to work at Benson Bakery and I was a bread romping. I got up early in the morning, 3 o’clock in the morning, so I hated it, but I did it. It was a job, you know, you’ve got a nasty habit of eating, you just do those things. And then you do it six days a week. You’re running a bread drive. And always another pressure in the gun, I’ve got to get so many stops, I’ve got to go in there and change the food out and all this stuff and dig up this stuff.

And then when you get back, you hope you had enough money to pay for what you put out. If you didn’t, you could buy the pay. So there’s a lot of pressure. But then I had to, felt like I’m dragging my new birth with my old birth. Because see, that’s into the world. And now my new birth is fighting, scratching, screaming, those don’t want to go. Because many times when I would be on the job, I thought, this is a total waste of time.

And I had built in frustration for the simple fact that I saw this working regular job doing those things as a waste of my valuable time. I would rather, at the time, be studying the Bible, witnessing to somebody, you know, doing spiritual things. I am doing carnal things, fleshly things. This deals with my first birth and the other is my second birth. And so I feel like anytime I’m doing that, which relates to my first birth, I’m forcing and dragging my old nature with me and he’s got to sit there and endure while I’m doing all this other stuff.

I got the time to get out of all that and make him happy. And you said, well, I never thought about myself like that. I did because it was a built-in frustration with me. I kept thinking about even when I was sitting in Bible school, all the hours that I sat there and going to work late at night. I worked the night shift. And I got about two and a half hours of sleep a night for two years. That was my average.

And it was rough. And this is what I got so discouraged, so filled with despair, so frustrated, because I didn’t know how to get a balance between the two. I loved it when I was at church, and I loved it when I was studying the Bible in the college class. Now I’ve got to go to work. Now I’ve got to go out there in the world. And I’ve got to drag this one. And there’s got to be something better until I begin to understand that things are not the way I appeared them to be.

I had a wrong perspective, I believe. And so as you begin to read the Bible and study it, you find out, did Jesus want He was here? Did He spend all of His life in the synagogue? No. He was only in the synagogue maybe once a week on a Saturday. Where Jesus was out there in this world was that secular without God and only when he was in the synagogue he was doing sacred things, holy things. His whole life was not divided into the sacred and the secular.

His whole life was sacred. And when he walked down the dusty trail toward Jericho, that was a sacred trail to him. Everything he did was sacred. It was holy on the God. When he sent in the house with those centers and got ridiculed for it. That was still a sacred moment to him. He wasn’t looked upon in his own mind, because as I read the scripture, this was, I was in the world. And this was the secular world. This is where you’re without God.

No, everywhere he went, it was holy to him because he was about the Lord’s business. And everything he said, thought, everything he did, was sacred. It was holy. And I begin to re-look at this and you find that the Apostle Paul, when he didn’t have the needs to take care of him financially, the Bible says that some failed to support And as he says in Philippa, he says, your need has flourished again. And he said for which he was thankful.

But he made tents on the side. That means the apostle Paul spent time making tents and selling them. And that’s how he made money. That’s how he supported himself. the way that we look at life supposed to be divided between the sacred and the secular. If I live in this body and though I got this body from my first birth my body is not sinful it had the sinful nature but this body is the tool by which I live in this world and the body is a instrument that has to be taken care of.

This body needs a place to live. It needs food to eat. There’s work that has to be done and I’ll show you some of this in just a second but I want you to understand that we are to esteem others better than ourselves. But in doing so it does not mean that they are better. It’s only that you esteem them better. Meekness means that I am not putting myself up over somebody else. Now let me give you a good thing to think about.

If Satan is the God of the world and you and I have been born into this world have his nature, the sinful nature because of the seed that was planted in Adam and Eve on down the line. If Adam received a nature, a rebellious nature because of the sin and we are born with that sinful nature, we are born then with a sinful nature of a God. Which one? Satan. So we have a nature just like a God. Satan himself.

During our lifetime, do you realize how many times you are going to play God? Have you ever had somebody tell you don’t try to play God in my life? Who do you think you are God and yet when you stop and think of it what are the characteristics of this God and you list the qualities that are listed in the book of Galatians in chapter 5 the works of the flesh that is a description of the nature of Satan of the lion the anger the bitterness the hatred the jealousy, all these things.

And Satan wants to be God. Well, what do you think you want to be? You want to be like God. You want to call the shots. You and I want to be number one. We want to decide what we do, where we go, and whether it’s right or wrong, everything. We want to be our own judge. We don’t want to go through life having somebody else tell us what we can Kenny cannot do, Kenny cannot go. What’s right, what’s wrong?

You got two little kids, you watch them as they grow up. And as they get a little bit older, they’ll begin to challenge all authority. But as you get older, you begin to challenge and you play, you play God. Some of you sitting right here and they, at times, will demonstrate, I want to be God. And we won’t say the words, but we do the actions. And we judge as though we were God and we’re right. We’re right and everybody else is wrong.

You ever taught that, huh? And we also will do things to another person. We want sometimes people to serve us. Christ says He came into the world not to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for everybody. We have all the major problems in society because we are playing God. And we want to demonstrate that we are right and therefore we are going to impose our will upon everybody else. This is why people run for public office.

It’s not just they just want to serve, they want to impose their will. Why do you think they want certain people to be on the Supreme Court? Because they know that that man, if he thinks just like they do, that man can impose his will on those who don’t believe him. truth, we want to make somebody else do what we want them to do. And our laws is one way of doing that. If I want your land and you won’t give it to me, we can go and make some laws and that law might be written up by getting up people to agree with it, well we can take your land, imminent domain and take it away from you.

And there’s people that do it all the time because of the desires that we have. So here you are as a Christian. Do you drag your place to church and do you go and do the world and you’ve got to drag your new birth with you out into the world because there the flesh rules, but in church the spirit rules. Or is a Christian to let the spirit rule anywhere in the world. Now Wednesday night I preached a sermon.

Well I don’t know if you’d call it a pre-centre sermon, but it was along the lines of who is God? Where is God? And when I say where is God? And we had fun with it. Some says he’s up there. And some says he might be over there. And over there. But if I am with God and you are with God, and we can walk with God, God is here. I don’t have to worry about him then. There, there, there, there, there.

In the book of Acts, chapter 7, he says, in him, in God, we all move and live and have our be. So if God is all and all, is the world inside of God, then he is a spirit. And we are in God. Where are we talking about where God is? Will he hold me in heaven? Okay, that’s a place. But the Bible says that we can walk and talk with God. And if that is true, I would put somebody the other day.

I’ll say this now, I’m sitting right here. I’ll say, not too close here. I’ll say God’s sitting right there. So that everywhere you go, you always figure I am in the presence of God. Whenever you leave church, this is a sacred holy place. So we go out those doors. Now we’re entering into the world. And God’s still in here. Or does God go with us? Lord, I am with you even until the end of the age. In other words, I’m with you everywhere you go.

Where can I go? David says, where can I go that God is not? If I go into heaven, He is there. Even if I went out of hell, He is there. Where can you hide from God? You can’t. So I believe that as a Christian, I am not fighting two battles, one in the church. Don’t these spiritual things and then out there in the world doing those things There’s only one battle. I Am to do as right in the church as I am outside the church It’s not two different things To me my whole life is a sacred thing When I am at home, I am in the presence of God because God is with me Not only in me.

He is with me. I I just can’t see him. Sometimes I say, God, let me just see, just for a second. And I’m like, yeah, better not. Just give me the death. And he says, no making see the face of God and live. Well, I’m not ready to go yet. I’ll just take it to work. You’re here. Because he says he is. And to believe that. So that as I live my life, God is with me all the time.

And every situation, whenever you get up in the morning and you hit that alarm clock. Is God with you when you wake up in the morning? Yeah. And if you get in the car and you head down the road, is God with you when you’re in that car? Do you think that that place at that moment in that car should be less of a holy place than the church? This church is no more holier than any other place in the whole world.

He says, some say you must worship in this temple in Jerusalem, But I say unto you, you shall worship God in spirit and in truth, in my spirit, wherever I am, in my spirit, can I worship God there? I can worship God in my spirit, anywhere in the world. That’s good news. I don’t have to worry about a place or time. See, there was a certain place and a certain time in the Old Testament that God would meet with His people.

Now God says we’re not governed by, so-called, holy days, special days. I believe all seven days should be holy days for God’s people. I believe my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we are the servilor, so it doesn’t matter what time of day it is. it is. Any time all those hours are sacred and any place. So anywhere, anytime that I’m in this life is to be a holy sacred time. And I’m the serve God as well.

I’m not a dual individual in the sense that I am trying to fight two different wars, only fighting one. And the Bible says, he that is in me is greater than he that is in the world. And it doesn’t matter if I’m in the church at home, at work, whatever. That’s sacred. Let’s say for example, there’s two men. These two men own their own business. This man says this is a secular business. This man says, his belongs to God.

They both do exactly the same work. The only difference is, his belongs to God, his belongs to him. I have a home, but in my mind, I gave that home to God, or I should say, God gave it to me, to manage for him, but he owns my home. He’s figuring it out, whatever you want. I’m just a steward of what He gives to me. This man has a business. If this man would look at it, say, my business belongs to God, then his business becomes a ministry, and his business becomes a sacred thing.

His ministry and his business are the same. Even though maybe all he’s doing is making something and serving somebody, He’s making some profit off of it, but this belongs to God. Can a man give God his business? Can a man dedicate his home to God? Yes. If this is true, and I believe it is, soul winning is more important than washing dishes. But washing dishes in God’s eyes is acceptable. There are some things that are more important than other things.

But there’s a multitude of things that are important and acceptable to God. Remembering makes this statement in the book of Romans in chapter 12 verse 2. Be not conformed to this world of being transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or discover where they’re good, acceptable, perfect, will of God. Some things are good, and there’s things that are acceptable to God. 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 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 Calbury Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10 30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, Calvary of Tampa dot org. Thanks for joining us on Vital Line 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. live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.