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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 muth- 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 will 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.

Everybody remember the 23rd song, the last part of it says, His goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Well, God’s gonna let things happen so that you are totally boxed in, don’t know what to do, so that you’ll cry out to God, and then God will deliver you, and you’ll see how good he is, how merciful God is, and you’ll praise the Lord for it. Now, if God does that for you, and you don’t praise the Lord, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

You hear me say, over and over again, the Lord has done this for me, the Lord has done that for me. I am so thankful for the Lord, the Lord has been so good to me. God has been so good to me. in everything and every way. You know, every problem that we’ve had here as a church, I praise the Lord for. I’ve learned so much. I thought I had all the answers before. Then I found out, you don’t know anything.

The longer I live, sometimes I’m not sure I know anything. I just enjoy seeing God do things and teach. And God can do things that you have never dreamed of. So then in verse eight, Oh, that name would praise the Lord for His goodness for his wonderful works to the children of him. God says that was a good thing. What? He boxed you in, left you out there in the desert. You didn’t have anything to eat, you didn’t have anything to drink.

And you would just fill with distress. You didn’t know where he was going. And then they got totally at wits in. And they cried out to God and God delivered them. Isn’t God wonderful? Now you probably can’t wait till that happens to you. You probably can’t wait till you get it wits in when you don’t know what to do. Some of you might face it. You might, Fran, face it a little on the health problem. You never know. I might face it in a lot of ways.

You’ve got chores. But whatever it is, we’re to praise the Lord in the middle of it. Why do we always have to wait till we come to total wits in before we cry out to God? Can’t we praise the Lord first at the beginning? It’s kind of like this woman. She met this man at a church travel agents it was last resort. Anyway look in verse 9. Verse 9 I want you to notice the second thing is the wonderful thing about God is that there’s none to help.

At times there’s nobody to help. In verse 9 for He satisfied the longing soul. He filled up the hungry soul with what? Goodness. Such as sitting darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in afflictions and iron. So there’s people that’ll go through this. And there’s there’s slaves. There’s there’s all kinds of things that people don’t have light. They can’t see. They don’t understand. They don’t have the knowledge. And it says here in verse 11, because because they rebelled against the words of God and and contempt of the counsel of the Most High.

Now when you read the first chapter in Proverbs, it talks about how they they mocked the counseling of God. See the counseling of God is the word of God. People say, I don’t need to go to church. I don’t need to go to church. All right, so when you don’t need to go to church, means I don’t need the counseling of God. So that whenever your troubles come and they will, and because you didn’t have the counseling of God because I don’t need God telling me what they’re doing because the Bible says they would not listen to the counseling of God, God says that when their time comes, I will have them in duration.

And God says, he shall laugh at their troubles. I’m not making this up. But that’s what God says. So there’s people who rebel against God, rebel against the counsel of God. Even God’s children to do that. And when they do that, it says during verse 12, therefore he brought down their heart with labor. They fell down. Notice the direction here. Down, down. And the other underlying this statement. There was what? None to help. In other words, there’ll be things that will happen.

in your light that nobody else can deliver you from. See God, the one that is so good, that does this. And that’s why sometime you find out nobody seems to have the answer for you. Nobody seems to be able to tell you exactly what you need to do. And counsel as they may, do you know the one of the greatest things we do? We are always so convinced that we’re wise. have you ever been in a place where, and I’ve done this, and I know you have, boy, if that had been me, that’s what I’d have done.

Boy, this is what I would have done. But they didn’t have to do it, and it wasn’t their call. But I can tell you what I would have done. Well, until you’re there, you’re not sure what you would have done. That’s that Monday morning quarter by. I’ll never throw it to that. Why didn’t you only any thought to the other God was opened down here in the end zone. Man, the God must be blind. As you said on TV with the instant replays and you’ve got a total vision of everything and there’s this guy down here having to make a split second decision and five guys are in his face trying to kill him.

And you want to go, well why didn’t he see that? Didn’t he see that? Well I can tell you what I would have done and there’s a lot of things in life where somebody else may seem like they have all the answers, but it’s not their call. It’s yours. And you’re going to find yourself at which end. You have finally come to the place where you don’t know what to do. And there’s nobody to help you. No individual. It’s got the answers.

So what does God say? In verse 13, when there was none to help, then they what cried unto who? The Lord in their trouble and he582 them out of their distress of why do you think God let him have all these troubles? Can you figure this out yet? Can you see where God’s going? Isn’t this a wonderful chapter on the issues of life? Because this is what this whole chapter is about. So he said there was none to help.

You’re at wits end, you stagger like a drunk man, you don’t have all the answers. So what do you do? You cry out unto God, He delivers you and lo and behold, God gets the honor once again, because you couldn’t give it to nobody else, so you didn’t have anybody to help. So you cried out to God and God did a wonderful thing for you and He showed mercy upon you. And because of the mercy, God’s good, boy God’s good, but there’s been times in your life when you haven’t found the right words.

Yes, God’s good to me. This time when you’re not sure if he is or not, because you know that God could have stopped this and he could have stopped that and I don’t see why he let this happen to me. I have a sermon that I’m working on right now. I haven’t got it down right, but I’m working on it. But what are the parts of it is this. Here’s Daniel. Daniel refused to obey the command not to pray.

He wouldn’t pray to his God anyway. And they took Daniel and they was going to throw him into the the the lion’s den. He’s in the lion’s den. Here comes a lion. Ah, teeth. And he’s right there. Freeze the film. Stop it right there. Freeze it in motion. And Daniel says, Lord, if you’re going to do something, now’s the time. There’s not much time left between me and his teeth. Whatever you’re going to do, help me speedily. But if not, have you ever been that close to death?

Have you ever faced it, that close? To knowing that, you know, this could be my last moment on earth. I’m fixing to be a meal for a hungry tiger or lion. And you know that at this moment, there’s nobody else can do anything for you. It’s just you and God and this lion and you can’t stop the lion and you have to totally depend upon God. Do I become a meal? Are you going to miraculously deliver me? Isn’t it wonderful?

Now would you like to be like Daniel? Has it been that bad for you yet? Has it got that close for you yet? Anyway, that’s just one illustration, but I got a bunch of them that I’m going to be using. But I think it’s the, I was thinking about that the other day. It sayselist the line connected and it starts freeze. And Lord, I need a word with you. I’m running out of time. Lord, help me speedily because it seems like the Lord just seems like he waits and waits and waits like he’s not in a hurry to get.

anything done. And we become so impatient, but if we’re learned to just wait upon the Lord. So anyway, he says here, all that men in verse 15 would praise the Lord for his goodness and for the wonderful works for the children of men. See, God says that was a good thing that he did. What? Letting you be in irons, let you be in darkness, letting you be in your troubles. Why? So that you would find there’s nobody to help you, but God, and therefore when you’d call out to God, that’s what God wanted in the first place.

So God uses these wonderful things. The third thing I want you to see is that there are fools. There are fools, and you may be one at different times in your life. You see, we want to be all spiritually mature, all truly Godly individuals, always making the right decision. But there’s times in our life when we actually are just plain foolish. We play the fool. We do foolish, stupid, idiotic things. And there’s consequences to it. There’s prices to pay.

But now look what he says here in verse 16, for he had broken the gates of brass, cut the bars of iron and sundur, and get verse 17, fools, because of their transgression and because of their iniquity are afflicted. Now, not everybody gets the same benefits of everything. It’s that God may do something with one that he doesn’t do with somebody else, but in all of it, it WRITESNormally627, so that men may see the mercy of God and praise God for his goodness.

You see, God not letting us go to hell by saving us by grace. We received the mercy of God. We didn’t get what we deserve. Boy, isn’t God good? Now, when somebody asks you, do you believe that God’s a good God? Yes, God is a good God. God is a good God. God is so good. God is so good. I love that song. I really do. I love that little course. But look what he says here. And because of their Iniquities are afflicted.

Now some are afflicted because of the sins that they actually commit and they bring it upon themselves. And some people are going to go to an early grave because God is going to have to chase them, maybe take them home before their time. And it says in verse 18, And their soul of ho of all men are of meat and they draw near unto the gates of death. Now where God can bring a man right to the door of death.

people who could care less about God. Until they’re in the hospital. And then they come in and see this one guy. He had trust the Lord. And I walked into the room and he was sick. So I came in and said, what can I do for you? He said, I’ll pray for me. I appreciate you just pray for me. I said, what do you want me to pray for? He said, pray that I can get Well, I says, why?

Thought I was kind of dumb. I said, I’m serious. Why do you want to get well? He says, could I already sick? I said, no, I want to know the reason. Why do you want to get well? I said, if God was to get you well, would you want to serve the Lord because of the goodness of God? He said, I don’t want to talk about that. I said, I’m sorry, sir. I don’t want to pray for you either.

And I walked out of the door. You said, you shouldn’t do that. Yes, I did. Why should I want that man to get well? So he can continue living, I know what was going on, just keep on doing it, no, no, no. I want God to deflect that man. I want God to get that man because I want that man to serve God. You use people’s problems to get them right with God. If I can’t get you right with God, I can’t do much for your problems because God brings those problems.

I’m not for patting the sale for the man that’s going into the prison. Anyway, look what he says here. He makes a statement there now in verse 19. Then they what? Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble. You mean somebody who deliberately, willfully, sins against God? Yeah. God will even have mercy on them. Why? So that they will learn that God is good. See, God wants everybody to know He’s a good God. God lets everybody have problems.

God knows that every man needs direction. in these directions and God knows that every man is going to have it timed in his life, where nobody can help him. Nobody has the answers for you. And God said, I want you to cry out to me and I want to be merciful to you. And I want you to be able to praise my goodness. Now look what he says here. He verse 20, he says, part of verse 19, this is a good statement.

He saved them out of their distresses. You see, every one of them had different distresses, different problems. Everyone was different. But the same results is that men that would learn to praise God for His goodness. So, are you facing anything? Are you scared of something? Then learned that God is good and that God wants you to learn how to praise Him. And you don’t have to wait until it’s too late. You don’t have to wait until that lion is right there.

When you can see something coming, or it’s good to learn to praise the Lord all the time. Always live, praise the Lord for His goodness because God is good to us every day all the You see, you need to realize God is good to me because of things he hasn’t allowed to happen to me. All the things could have happened to us that didn’t happen to us that we may not even know about, but God’s still good. Now look what he said.

In verse 22, excuse me, verse 20, he sent his word, heal them, deliver them from their destruction. You see, God will heal anybody. God will deliver anybody. It doesn’t matter how bad they are are because it just shows how good God is. I actually think there’s some people who are, they don’t want God to be good to somebody. I want God to be good to everybody. And then he says here in verse 22, let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoicing.

Declare his works with rejoicing. In other words, should a Christian be a happy person or always done in the dumps, always whining and moaning and complaining about something. Note but to learn to rejoice. Now verse 23 down to here, this is a picture I believe of Seaman, sailors, but it’s also to be used as an illustration to show the turmoil of the soul of man. In verse 23 he said, then they go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters.

In other words, by the time they get through they’re going to come to wits in. And people that are in a boat in this rocking back and forth because of the waves is like a drunk man who staggers back and forth. So whether you’re in a ship or you’re drunk or you’re just in your soul, you’re in such turmoil and it keeps churning inside of you. Get what he says here. Verse 24, these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep, for he commanded and raises the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves thereof.”

Get who does this? It’s God that commanded and raises the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves thereof. The Lord does. Did you know whenever the Lord told his disciples, get into the boat on the Sea of Galilee and go to the other side, they simply was obeying the voice of Jesus Christ. They got into the ship and they started to the other side and anybody know what happened on their way. You see it’s about 6 miles wide and about 14 miles long and they got right in the middle and the biggest storm came up.

Why did Jesus tell them to go right into the midst of a storm? You see we believe well if God is leading then God will protect you and everything will be wonderful and be blessed and it’ll be peace and calm. Sometimes God will lead you right in the middle of a storm. Right in a storm and then there will be people say well you know if you would just fall on the Lord you wouldn’t have all this happen to you.

Then they don’t know the Bible do they? And you are going to face the storms of life and the winds going to blow, the waves are going to come and you may find yourself sometimes like like a drunk man come to wits in. You don’t know what’s going to happen. When it says, they sing the wonderful works of God and the debts. And if God doesn’t deliver them, they will really see the debts. They’ll be going down there getting a good view of it.

See there? In verse 26, they mount up to the heaven. They go down again to the debts up and down. Then he says, their soul is melted because of what’s that word. Rubble. Do you think God knows that there’s troubles in this world? What do you think is sometimes, man, all I have is trouble. I go from one thing to the other. It just don’t seem fair. It ain’t fair. Everything happens to me, nothing happens to anybody else. Everything’s happening to everybody.

Everybody’s going through some rough time, maybe just different times in their life. Maybe different degrees of it. But maybe God believes that you’ve got a lot of faith and you need a bigger problem, the challenge is. the challenges. Sometimes in a Christian school, and we did this out there, we would give out Christian character awards. The little kid in the classroom that was a perfect little darling, he got Christian character award. Well, he might have just been playing compliant.

They could have had him on some kind of riddling where the kid was just a dope, but he didn’t give the teacher any problem so the teacher, oh this kid’s got character. Well maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. There could be another little boy in that same class. He comes from a home where his mom and dad fight all the time and they beat him half the death and then he still goes to school and he fights and he struggles and everything goes wrong and his kid pick on him and he tries to maintain a good attitude and he decks a few of months in a while, but overall the kids struggling, that kid probably got more character than that other one that’s on that Ritalin.

You get my point? You see, just because you don’t cause any trouble, you never bother anybody. Well maybe you’re dead. But somebody is alive and maybe they cause trouble what’s in a while. That doesn’t make them a bad person. They may be facing things that you and I know nothing about. And they’re struggling and it’s harder for them because they’re trying to walk and they don’t have the leadership or the guidance and I believe this. I came from a home like that.

Ray Stanford came from a home where his dad was a drunkard and left his mom. Well, my mom left my dad. And there’s a lot of kids who’ve had the struggle through life. And then there’s other ones that, you know, they were born in a good Christian home. Everything was wonderful. They took them to church, taught them all the right things and they just stayed out of trouble. That doesn’t mean they got better character. They didn’t have the struggles to go through that somebody else might have gone through.

You see, there’s a God in heaven that knows what each person needs and what each person is going to get and God is moving. And to believe that, to believe that God loves you so much that He’s given you personalized attention. So anyway, he says now in verse 27, they reel to and fro, stagger like a drunken man and you are the underlying these words at their wits in. And every one of these, they always come to their which in.

And because of it, in verse 28, then they do what? Cry unto the Lord in their what? End to trouble. Every one of these is similar, and yet they’re all different. Because see, while one person is over here looking for direction, somebody else may be over here saying, I don’t have anybody to help me. Somebody else may be facing another problem. Somebody else facing another problem. It’s just because they’re not facing the problem You have them when they don’t never have anything happen to them.

Youosition them to what’s going on in people’s lives. But everybody’s hurting and there’s trouble in everybody’s life. The Bible says, as a man is born, the sparks fly upward. Troubles, troubles, trouble, we have them from the day we’re born to the day we lead this world, you’re going to have troubles. Anybody got any troubles now? Be patient. They’ll come in tomorrow. That’s one thing I can promise you. Troubles are on the way. In other words, kind of like this, God has an arrow.

this arrow is named trouble and God is shooting this arrow towards you and based upon how far you are away from the Lord might defend upon how long it takes that arrow to get to you but it’s coming it’s on its way so in the meantime before that trouble gets here you better get into book start learning how to solve some of your troubles that’s the reason for studying the word of God so you can have the strength that when your troubles come you know I can depend upon the Lord I can look to Him and they’ll give you the peace and the calm that Maybe somebody else doesn’t have but you can have it.

It’s the peace of God. So now look in verse 29 And you ought to underline this verse This is what God can do and the reason that God does it and why he can let your soul be in such turmoil When it seems like instead of I’ve got peace like a river You’ll be singing I’ve got war like Vietnam in my soul And then he says, he make up the storm acom so that the waves there are of our steel.

Then are they glad because they’re quiet? You see, sometimes it’s good to have a good headache because when it stops hurting, don’t that feel good? You never knew how good it felt until God let you have a headache so that whenever it stopped hurting, you know how good it felt not to have a headache. Some of y’all never have experienced things like this. Like, I take a little Milton Haley, he just thumb one day and he says, man, Man, I got glad I got a thumb that can hurt.

It’s helping me, you know, don’t have thumbs. Boy, I got it. He screamed it one day. Yeah, he always had a good little spiritual lesson that he had to learn. But get this. In verse 30, then are they glad because they be quiet? So he bring it then onto their… And you ought to underline these two words. See, God knows where he’s trying to bring you, but God also know the desires of every individual. Does God know what you want?

Does God know that you want to have peace and quiet in your life, that you want to be blessed, and that you have in your mind a desired haven, a place that you like to reach? Have you ever thought about just stopping where you are? Do you think you’ve done gone far enough for the Lord, that you don’t need to get any further, and that your spirituality is already maxed out, you’re at your peak, you couldn’t improve if you tried, or do you think that you still may have a little ways to go yet?

That God may still have a little trimming to do. Maybe he needs to bring a few other things in your life because maybe God’s not satisfied with us yet. There’s a lot of things we need to learn. So what are we going to do when it’s all over with verse 31. Old that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, for his wonderful works to the children of men. Do you get kind of a little idea of how God may work in your life?

All right, now look over there in verse 38. He blessed them also so that they are multiplied greatly and suffer not their cattle to decrease. Again they are minished and brought loath through oppression, affliction, and sorrow. He poured contempt upon princes and caused them to wonder in the wilderness where there is no way. Yet said it, he the poor on high from affliction, make it his, him families like a flock. The righteous shall see it and rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth.

Whosoever is wise, Now get this, this whole verse you ought to underland. Whoso is wise and will observe these things. Now this is the difference between you that maybe are here tonight, that you may see and understand and learn something that those who don’t know these scriptures, they won’t never understand. They’ll never get it because they’re not totally just understood without the teaching of the Word of God. But get what he says in the last part of the verse.

Even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. You will learn lessons that others will not learn. They’ll have the same problems, but they won’t learn from the problem. But if you understand what God’s is teaching here, you’ll see something and understand something about the wonderful goodness of God, his mercy, and the loving kindness of God. I think it’s awesome. 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. For 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, calvaryoftampa.org. Thanks for your time 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.