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Bibleline. Here God’s Word on Bibleline. Everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee, your pastor at 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 which is toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bibleline website at calbryoftampa.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Turn in your Bible to the book of Psalms, the book of Psalms. I was trying to figure out what kind of a title to have on today’s sermon. I thought about the oak tree and the pine. God, that would make a good sermon. But I’m not sure that’s what I want to call it. And so then I thought about the fern and the bamboo. But I’m not sure I want to call it that either. Then I thought about, this is it, the biggest mistake God ever made.

Then I thought, well, God can’t make a mistake. But it, God could make a mistake. What would be the biggest mistake God ever made? You say, making man. No, if God did make a mistake, what would be the biggest mistake that God ever made? I believe that it would be that God gave to man a free will. Do you realize the damage that has come to the world because man was given the ability to choose the right of choice to make up his own mind to say no and look at the damage over the years because man made the wrong choice?

Did God make a mistake in giving you and I a voice, a choice to choose, right or wrong, good or bad? And look what’s happened to everything. And there they were in the Garden of Eden and everything was perfect. Everything was just right. And then God told them one thing not to do, gave them a choice. Told them it would be consequences. Boy, Peter just never gave us a free will. We would have such a wonderful life. We’d all been not on this world.

They’ve been perfect. There have been no sin, no problems. And you know what? God made a mistake. Now God didn’t make a mistake. God knew what man was going to do before he did it. So I guess we’re back here to the book of Psalms in chapter 1, trying to decide what is the title of today’s message. Made before I’m through, you’ll figure it out for me. But notice there in the book of Psalms in chapter 1. Verse 1 says, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly nor standeth in the way of sinners nor siteth in the seat of the scorn-porn.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law that he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither. And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so but are like the chaff which the wind drive of the way. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment or centers in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knew of the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.” Now, there’s three things in chapter one. One is that there is separated, and then there is the saturated, and then there is the situated. You see, in verse one, It talks a little bit about the separation, things that makes us different. You and I, when we trusted Christ as our Savior, we were separated from the unbelievers because you’re now the leader. You became a child of God, so you’ve been separated from just been a child of the flesh.

So there is a separation, there’s a difference. You’re not the same as you used to be. God doesn’t see you the same way. You’re different now. And yet at the same time in our Christian life, God says, I don’t want you to do some of the things that others do. I don’t want you to walk in the counsel of the young godly.Studies, so I don’t want you to listen to them. I don’t want you to walk the way others walk.

And it then he says, and not to stand in the way of the sinners. I don’t want you to do that because it has to deal with what we do. One is what we hear and then the other hears, nor said it in the seat of the scourmpom. This is what we say. So there’s three things here that gives us some things that says God said, blessed is the man that walketh not, doesn’t act like the world, doesn’t think like the world, doesn’t talk like the world.

Because in God’s eyes you’re not of the world. You were, but you’re no longer. You’re in the world, but God doesn’t want us to be like the world. And then he makes a statement there in verse one, talking about our separation. So we’re separated. And then in verse two, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law that he meditate day and night. Now if the man does this, doesn’t do the other, but he does this, then the man is to be saturated.

So we’re separated, but then we’re saturated. We’re saturated with what the Word of God says. It permeates our mind so that we want to do what God says to do. We want to walk the way He says to walk. And we want to sit in the counsel of the godly and not the walk in the way of the ungodly. It’s causing you to have a separation because the Word of God saturates you. And because of that, He says, you meditate upon the Word of God.

It just says in the book of Joshua in chapter 1. It says that we may have success all the days of our life. Now not success in the eyes of the world, but success in the eyes of God, what God considers it to be. And then we’re situated in a certain spot. See, there’s a lot of places that we choose to put our home, where we choose to live, look, there’s 50 states in the United States, we can choose to live so many places, and there’s types of homes that we have, there’s different types of cars that we have, but the thing that you and I should understand that there’s a better place to be situated.

And that’s to be situated by the river of life. You see, there’s a place that you can be that will sustain you all the days of your life, all the days of my life. There’s a place that we can be. And whenever it doesn’t seem like things are flourishing, like you’d like to say them, but you yourself as an individual are supposed to be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. look there in verse three. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bring it forth his fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he do it shall prosper. That is a good verse. And this is talking about the God’s child that is saturated with the word of God. And he does the thing that God says to do, and therefore he is situated in the right spot for the blessings of God. And every person that I know of that knows the Lord, loves the Lord wants the blessings of God upon their life. And I want that and I’m sure that you do too.

But he says in verse four, the ungodly are not like this. The ungodly doesn’t love the word of God. They’re not situated by the river of life. Talking about the word of God itself. They don’t plant themselves into the word of God so that their roots go deep. Now, I mentioned to you about the oak tree and everybody knows that an oak tree grows real slow. And they say, well, there’s two ways to get to the top of an oak tree.

One, you can climb it. Two, you can sit on an acorn. Now, which one do you think will take the longest? Well, that acorn tree may never grow because you’d kill it. But if you want to get the top of an acorn tree, just climb the thing. But an acorn tree will take a little bit longer to grow because it’s got deeper roots, it’s a stronger tree, and it produces hard wood that burns good. Now pine tree is not exactly like that.

And a pine tree, well, it grows faster and roots is not as deep. When there’s a storm, they blow over quite easily and they can be a danger. And so that’s why a lot of people don’t like pine trees up close to the house because the wind can knock them over. It’s just that there’s a difference in the root system. Now this one person, he was very sick and tired of life. He didn’t like his job, didn’t like his wife, didn’t like his health.

He didn’t like people. He didn’t like the world, he didn’t like God. And matter of fact, he just hated everything and hated himself. So he just one day just told the boss, he says, I quit my job, told his wife I’m quitting, don’t want to be married to you anymore. He says, and I’m just going to quit my spirituality altogether. want church no more, I just quit everything. And I’m gonna go out into the woods and I and I’m just gonna end my life, I quit.

You ever think like that? That’s I’ve had enough. I don’t want to go to no more. Stop this world, Lord, and let me off. He thought I’m going to have one last talk with God. So he’s got out there in the woods and he says, dear Lord, before I end it all, you have anything final you like to say to me. I mean, can you talk me out of this? Can you give me one good reason why I should not just end it all right now?

Give me a good reason. And the Lord says, have you ever seen the fern and the bamboo? He said, well, yes. He said, well, you see this beautiful force that I have? Yeah. He said, you know that I plant the fern and I plant the seed for the bamboo. He said, even if I plant them both at the same time and I can give them water and I give them sunlight. He said, you know that that fern will just grow up immediately, beautiful green, and it’s great, beautiful.

He says, but that bamboo seed didn’t grow at all. He said, but I didn’t give up on that bamboo. He says, after the first year, the ferns came out more abundantly and covered the floor of the forest and it was beautiful greenery. Look great!” He said, but that bamboo still didn’t grow. The seed didn’t grow at all. He said, and I watered him. He said, and I gave it sunlight. But the bamboo seed didn’t grow. The third year, still the same story, didn’t grow.

The fourth year, He said, but in the fifth year, there’s a little sproun. He says, in comparison to the ferns, he says it was small and insignificant. He says, but you realize in six months that bamboo can be a hundred feet tall. He says, those five years that nothing happened. He says, there was nothing wrong. He says, I created them both. He says, but that bamboo was built in its root system so that when it started to grow, it could grow as tall as it goes.

He says, I didn’t give up on that bamboo. He says, just because it didn’t grow, he says, I don’t give up on you. I don’t give up on people. He says, my word doesn’t go and not come back. It accomplishes what I sent it forth to do. He says, when it comes to anything that I’ve made, he says, I’m the Creator. He says, and it will accomplish that which I intended. So whenever you and I understand that our good days, all we talk about how blessed we are of God.

But those bad days are the days that God is spending time causing us to deepen our roots into the Word of God. So it’s not wasted time. So every one of us may flower at times, but he says, there’s other time, and he says, I’ve got your root system going deep. And I want you to hang on to what the Word of God says. And so your faith grips this rock and your faith grips this rock. And this one goes down 20 feet and grips a whole of this verse.

And this one gets a whole of this verse so that whenever you really start to grow, he says in the wind start coming, he says the root system is what sustains you. He says when you want to be a strong Christian and we talk about this last Sunday night about standing or calling. I was talking about you can’t stand if you don’t have a deep root system. So your roots in the world of God has to go deepampion just like that bamboo.

It might seem like a year go by@@ two years, three years, four years, times of law, nothing exciting but it’s not lost time. It’s because God is spending time giving you experiences. So the good things are we love the blessings of God, but the bad days are not really bad days. But we look at them as bad days. Now those bad days is where we’re gaining experience that will deepen our relationship with the Lord and cause us to be a stronger Christian.

And then whenever your roots go deep, you can grow and be higher and the man says Lord how high can I rise? He said how high can the bamboo tree rise? He says as high as it can. He says that’s what I want for you. I don’t quit on you. I want you to rise and give me glory as high as you can. Just be faithful and God will bless. And I believe that the Lord will. Now remember this because we often think about the bad days.

And it’s amazing that many times in our calendar we can’t remember certain days unless something happened on that day that really helps us to remember. Sometimes good things happen. We can remember that day. Sometimes bad things happen and we remember those days. And we learn a lot of lessons in bad days. Or bad times, I guess you could say. But remember, there was a boy named Joseph. He happened to have had 11 brothers. How would you like to have been Joseph with 11 older brothers and the older brothers hated you?

hated him without a ca- he hadn’t done anything wrong. They just didn’t agree with what he said. They just didn’t like him because well daddy seemed to like him more made of a special coat of many colors. Showed little special favoritism. You said that’s not right. Yeah but look what Joseph had to go through. Did you know that all those years of what happened to Joseph and going down into the end to Egypt and yet at the same time God simply was built in the root system so that the man Joseph could stand strong and do right and God blessed him with wisdom because he did do right.

He served the Lord, he put God first and even when Pharaoh’s wife made advances to him, you know what he did? The Bible says he grabbed his coat and what? He ran. Now he It could have become a wicked man. He said, how can I do such a wicked thing to a God who knows and loves me? How can I do this to Pharaoh? No, he wouldn’t do that because he loved the Lord. But all these years root systems are growing.

And it seems like at times it seemed like it’s a waste of time. How many years passed when he was about 16, 17 years old when this happened to him? Did he ask for that? No. into think, he was the Lord. He used those 11 brothers and made them tribes. And we have the 12 tribes of Israel because Joseph and then Ephraim and Manasseh. And you’re talking about, look what God did with people that were so messed up. You know why God doesn’t use perfect people?

There aren’t any of those. If God didn’t use sinners, say, by grace, wouldn’t be anybody for God to use. So God has figured it all out. I’m so glad he did. Did God make a mistake when He gave you the right to choose? Here’s the Lord. He gave you and made the right of choice. He saved you, gave you eternal life, and then set you free to live. Now you’ve got the freedom to choose to serve the Lord or not to serve the Lord.

How did you do with your choice? You have a choice to read God’s word or not to read God’s word. What kind of a decision did you make? You have a choice to witness for the Lord or not to witness for the Lord. It gave you choices. Set you free. You can choose. Did God make a mistake? Did He trust you too far? Did you let Him down? Did you fail? Do you think it’s worth it? Did God make a mistake when he left you here, said, taking you on home, that God make a mistake.

I don’t want to live my whole life thinking that God blew it on me. God really messed up when he saved me and left me here. I want to serve him and I want to serve him all the days of my life and I pray that that is what you want also. Whenever you think about the 12 disciples, Christ spent three and a half years at least with his disciples taught him walk with them, did all of this. I guess you could say he had a youth group and he spent time with them.

And then whenever it was all over with it the big test came, they all fell. They all fell their final exam because it says in the scriptures that they all forsook him, every one of them did. But Peter, remember him. God bless Peter. He said, Lord, no, everybody forsake you. I won’t. I will never forsake you. And the Lord says before the night’s over, you’re going to deny me three times. Nah, not me. I don’t know what everybody else is going to do, but man, I’m rock solid.

You know, Peter’s roots were not very deep. It didn’t last the night, did it? It didn’t last the night. Because before the night was over with, he’d done messed up. Done messed up. And Can you believe that Jesus and Peter exchanged a glimpse at each other? You know, I often thought that he was Peter and he denied the Lord, but you know, Jesus was out of sight. And he was sitting by the fire and somebody says something that says, hey, you’re one of them.

I don’t know the man. And he cursed, cursed. I don’t know the man. You remember right before this he was willing to die for the man? No, I don’t even know the guy. And it happened three times. Did you know on the last time? And it’s only mentioned in the one gospel that Jesus looked at Peter, looked at him and Peter saw him after he denied him three times and it came into his mind and he wept because he knew what he had promised and And literally he knows that within a few hours he was going to let the Lord down so bad.

You talk about failure. Did God make a mistake with Peter? Did he make a mistake with him? Look how bad he blew it. And yet God still used Peter on the day of Pentecost. What a great honor to use this man. See, God didn’t use a man because he was perfect. God used a man because he realized, I’d done messed up, I accepted, and then make things right with the Lord. And when Jesus came to him, he says, Peter, they says, do you love me?

How many times did he ask Peter, do you love me? Three times. Oh, no, I did it three times. You got to include? How many times did he deny him? Three times? I think there’s something there. Now you know, I want you to take your Bible, look there in the book of Luke in chapter 22. Luke chapter 22. You know, one time there was a girl. She was blind. A girl was blind. She hated herself. She hated the world.

She hated everything, and everybody hated God, because she was blind. She hated everybody and everything except for boyfriend Never boyfriend and he asked her says will you marry me? she says if I can see the world if I could just see the world I’d marry you somebody miraculously donated her some eyes The surgery was a success and she could see totally changed her outlook on life. And her boyfriend asked her, says, now that you can see, will you marry me?

And she looked at him and she was shocked. She didn’t know he was blind. And she says, there’s too much of the world that I want to see. I don’t want to spend my life tied down to a blind person. And he wept, walked away. Several months later, after he got over some of his grief, he wrote a little letter. He says, take care of yourself and take care of my eyes.

Wouldn’t it be something to look one day into the face of Jesus Christ and you realized who has done so much for you and how little we respond in a good way to the Lord. Now notice here in the book of Luke. And chapter 22, looking verse 54, then took they him and led him and brought him into the high priest house. Peter followed afar off. When they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall and were set down together, Peter sat down among them.

But a certain maid beheld him as he set by the fire and earnestly looked upon him and said this man was also with him. And he denied him saying, woman, I know him not. And after a little while, another saw him and says, thou art also of them. And Peter says, man, I am not. And about the space of one hour after another, confidently affirmed, saying of a truth, this fellow also was with him, for he is a Galilean.

And Peter says, man, I know not what thou sayeth, and immediately, O’wally Yech’s bake, the cock crew, and the Lord get the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. What that look must have done. Did you know one day we’re going to stand before the Lord and we are going to look into the face of Jesus Christ? I’ve often tried to picture what Christ really looks like, but I just can’t seem to do it. It’s just a mist. But all I know about the Lord is what the Bible describes about his character.

I know what he’s like because the Word of God tells me. This is Jesus. He is God. And this is what he’s like, and this is who he loves. And this is what he promised, and all the things that he will do, and things he won’t do. And I said, can God do anything? Can God do anything? No, there’s a lot of things God can’t do. That might sound surprising, but see, God can’t lie. And he can’t send me to hell.

And a third thing I know is that he can’t make a rock so big he can’t put it anywhere. I was trapped on that one time, not since. And then he makes the statement here in verse 61, And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter and Peter, remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cockroach thou shalt deny me thrice, And Peter went out and wet bitterly. Wet bitterly. When he knew he had blown it, he had failed the Lord.

I believe Peter loved the Lord, but I believe he took his eyes off of him. I believe he got scared, but I believe he still loved the Lord. But he didn’t realize how shallow his roots were. You see, the roots didn’t go very deep because a big test come along and he wasn’t able to stand. But you see, God doesn’t just forget about it and let you alone. I believe there’s some of these teenagers and even adults that you pour a lot in and say, I watered and I gave sunshine and I did all these things.

And in some Christians will just seem to take off and grow. And in some of them, they’ll never grow. And then I see years later, all of a sudden there’s a little sprout. But in all those years, they’re still going through experiences of life, and their roots are still going down. And then one day, you’ll be surprised how God was just person, then that person begins to make wise decision. And then down the road, there could be 10, 15, 20 young guys who become those into the ministry that came out of our youth group.

But right now you would kill a quarter court. But we won’t see things the way God sees things. I think it’s not worth it. It is worth it. Because he, their God’s children. And God can do a better job raising his kids than I can. And God’s word is true. We’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.

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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, calvaryoftempa.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound. We will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon.

Just keep looking up.