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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, 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 Bible-lined website at calvaryoftampa.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family.

I want you to turn in your Bible to the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 10, 1 Corinthians and chapter 10. You need to have quitters insurance, insurance against quitting. We spoke about a person dedicating their life to the Lord. And chances are, you that have trusted Christ as your Savior, your God’s child, you know you’re going to heaven when you die. And you have already determined you want to serve the Lord and serve the Lord all the days of your life.

But there comes a time when you get discouraged. discouraged. You think about quitting. So how do I keep from quitting? And so there’s several things that I wanted to mention to you. And that is found here in 1 Corinthians in chapter 10. It makes the statement there in verse 13, there have no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful who will not suffer you or permit you to be tempted above that you’re able.

But will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it, you and I should understand that we are going to be tempted to quit serving God. I believe that all the trials and temptations, discouragements, you name it, all the sin temptation, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, all temptations to do anything that’s wrong is to get you and I to quit. the ultimate purpose of why the temptations of the world to get us to quit.

And God says, moreover, is required in a store that a man be found faithful. Faithful means you didn’t quit. And God wants us to finish our course to run our race, to fight the good fight of faith. In other words, God doesn’t want us to quit. And there’s many things that happens in life that causes us to want to quit. Let me give you just a few other signs. these are four signs of quitting. This is when you’re on the verge of quitting but you may not recognize the symptoms.

I’ve been doing this long enough and I look at people and I watch people, I read people and I know when it’s close. And I can see when people are going to be having a very difficult time down the road. And I mentioned this for like guy like John and for like Tim. And you’ll see why in just a little bit, These guys, they may be a little bit like I am that I could years ago when I was a little younger.

I could go the pace that they go, and they go a pace that most people can’t keep up with. They’re hungry, they’re like wolves, and they’re always after it. I have a problem trying to figure out how can I slow them down. Now there’s some Christians, you gotta figure out how do I get them to do anything? You know, people like that? They never do anything. But they’re not that way. I’ve gotta try to figure out how to slow them down because I know that if they keep going at the pace, they’re going, they’re not gonna last very long unless they get some help.

But they may be of a certain breed of individuals that it doesn’t matter. And they can go seven days a week, 24 hours a day. I don’t know, but I want y’all to pray for them. The first thing is over committed. When you get over committed, you’re running a danger of quitting because of things that will happen. I used to tell the kids, unless your intake is greater than your outflow, than your outflow will be your downfall. And so there’s people who get themselves too committed.

And sometimes you got them going, but now how do you slow them down? Betty’s dad used to worry about me like that because whenever I saw something I would go after it and I wouldn’t slow down until I did it or die trying. And he always lived in holy fear for his daughter. And like I said, it’s kind of like, you know, handing a stratovirus over to a gorilla. And that’s how he felt about me. His wonderful, loving daughter and I drug her all over this country and we lived in five states in a year and a half.

This thing, five states in a year and a half, but I did it. Another one is you become weary. In the book of Galatians in chapter 6 it says, be not weary in well doing. One of the signs that you’re fixing to quit, you’re getting ready to quit is because you are tempted to quit. You get tempted because you get weary. And if I just quit, I won’t be weary anymore. If I quit, then I won’t be over committed.

anymore. So people are looking for sometimes a way to get out of doing the things that God wants from this so you have to watch being overcommitted. The other one is apathy. It means you slowly. Little by little you start losing interest, apathy. You just don’t care anymore. You don’t care about reading your Bible. You don’t care about going to church. Don’t care about giving you don’t care about witnessing. You just don’t care. Filled with apathy. You’re quitting but it happens first on the inside before it ever happens on the outside.

You can still be coming here to church and your body’s in the right place, but you’re really your feel with apathy and nothing’s going to move you. You’re in the right spot where God wants you to be, but inside you’re not right with God. And the other thing is offended. Doing too much and then when you get doing too much it begins to hurt. You get hurt because why don’t somebody help me? If nobody helps me then it’s not long before what anybody says or does hurt you and if it hurts you then you get offended.

So these are areas in which you need to learn to read some symptoms of when you’re getting ready to quit. The second thing I wanted to give you is realize, realize why you are tempted to quit. And here are several things that I wanted to give you. Four things to know that you’re on the verge of quitting, to realize why am I tempted to quit. And the Scripture that Peter who said, Lord, I’m not going to quit. I’m not going to quit.

Though all the night I won’t quit. And yet he denied the Lord three times. Christ knew he was on the verge of quitting. Christ knew that. Christ saw things that he didn’t see for himself. But he says, the devil has desire to sift you like we. You ought to understand that when you say I’m going to serve the Lord, it means I am willing to get into the fight. But when I get into the fight, I’ve got to fight an enemy.

And the enemy has got one goal, and that’s to destroy. And so that’s why a lot of Christians, they are easy to surrender because they get tired of the fight. And yet, it’s not that you’ve started the fight. It’s not that even you’re fighting today. It’s that you want to fight until there’s no more fight left. Until the fight is over, until God takes you out of this world. Faithful unto death. Faithful unto death. Finish your course. it all the way.

Don’t allow the devil to win over you. So the thing is is guard your weaknesses. That means you have to watch that you don’t get run down. You don’t get run down and you don’t wear out. Not some people they call this I’m getting burnout. Well you don’t have to get burnout. I have never in my Christian life I’ve never been close to burnout. I’ve never been filled with apathy like I don’t I don’t care anymore. But because I’ve got quitters insurance.

Quidders insurance means that you’ve got to stay in the word you’ve got to stay close to the Lord and you got to keep your vision you got to keep your folks there phone why are you doing what you’re doing? I said last week you’re not going to continue to fight all your life unless you believe that what you’re fighting for is worth fighting for if it was worth fighting for 40 years ago it’s worth fighting for today and if it’s worth fighting for today is we’re fighting for tomorrow.

If I believe that one time in my life that it was worth keeping a clean testimony, keeping my morals clean, staying close to the Lord, going to church, reading God’s word, praying, witnessing, soul-winning. If I believe that was important before, it’s still important. I keep fighting for the things that were worth fighting for. And many people they quit and they give up because they lose their vision. And then next thing, no, they’re not dedicated to the Lord like they used to be.

You begin to quit. You must know Satan’s plan. Satan’s plan is to destroy everything that God wants to do in your life. God has a plan, the devil has a plan. And God says, if you’ll listen to me, it’ll work. And if you listen to the devil, it won’t work. Nothing will work. And he’s out to destroy and does not care how he destroys. Remember this, whenever a man and a woman, they get married. They Yum! They may, I love you, you love me, we get married, everything’s wonderful from there on out.

Getting married is sometimes the easiest part of all of it. That’s the easy part. And even when you get, I say 90 years old, that might be the easy part. There might be a lot of things, you don’t have to fight anymore. But that time in between, ooh, there’s a time in between where there can sure be an awful lot of not an awful lot of not-down dragons. And it gets rough. And you begin to fight some battles. The other thing I wanted to give you was this.

Offences, the Bible says in the book of Matthew, offenses will come. You and I know we live in a sinful world. We’re offended by things. We’re offended by people. Sometimes we offend ourselves. Did you know that when Jesus Christ was here, Jesus Christ offended his disciples. He says, does this offend you? And then his disciples came up to him one time and says, Master, notice not that those Pharisees, that you offended them. You hurt their feelings. And Jesus says, I did?

You’re going to offend and you’re going to be offended. But God says in his word that we should set our offenses aside. realize whatever it is that God wants you to do is that more important than whatever happens to me or what somebody says or done. Otherwise, being offended will cause you to be hurt. And when you get hurt, you quit. Don’t quit. Never stop. Never stop serving the Lord. The other one is fatigue. You ever get just plain tired, just plain wore out.

I had a girl call me up. But is Lisa in here, Lisa, it’s sitting right there. She called me up Wednesday night. She says, Yankee, she says, Shannon’s not gonna be able to make it. He’s sick. He has these cluster headaches and he’s really been going through it. He’s been having to take pain pills. And I know what them pain pills can do. He’s on the same pain pills. A lot of them, the same ones that I had that I had to take.

And I’m talking about, you can’t think clear. And so it’s taking this toll upon him. And she says, Yankee, she says, I am just plain fatigued. I am tired. I am so tired. I said, then you stay home and take care of that sick boy that you have. She’s raising a child. She has a little child that she has to raise named Shannon. And, but she, she just get playing for takes. And then what do you do when you get like that?

Rest, rest, stop. You see, you got to figure out what does it take for you to keep going and to be strong. If you don’t take care of you and understand your body and the limitations of your body, You can destroy yourself, learn the limitations of the body. The fatigue will make quitters out of all of us. And some people say, well, if I quit, then I can get rest. Yeah, if you quit for a day or two days or three days and get some rest, that’s one thing.

But some people think they just quit the ministry. Well, I’m just burn out, burn out. Well, I’d rather burn out than rust out. But some people never burn out they never got on fire to start with. The other thing I wanted to give you this, number three is realize that we all have good days. Did you realize they estimated that we have about 30% good days and about 10 to 20% bad days and about 50% of our days could go either way.

They’re just there. You know we just live on. But most of the days that you remember in the past are not the normal days. You You remember the good days and you’ll remember some bad days, but the other days didn’t make it impact upon your life. You don’t remember them. I can remember every time I’ve gotten sick and gone to the hospital every surgery I’ve had. I can remember when somebody really did me wrong or what I did somebody, you can remember some things.

Usually if it’s really bad or really good, you can remember it, can’t you? But the other days, it’s some time, they just seem like they come and go and you don’t have nothing to recall on those particular days. something to keep in mind as this. Never, never quit on a bad day. Never quit on a bad day. When you’re really down and discouraged, never make major decisions on a bad day. Always wait till you’re on top and then decide.

Always wait till you get back up to make a decision. But never make decision, major decisions when you’re down and when you’re discouraged because you’ll usually make the wrong one to get you out of something that God may want you to stay in and bring you through it. We often believe that if God loves me, He will remove all these problems. And so we ask God, God, remove the problems and the trials and so forth, the testing from my life.

And God says, no, I want you to learn the lessons that you’re supposed to have. Number four is you always determine that you’re going to finish the fight. You determine that you finish. In the book of Philippians in chapter one verse eight, he that hath begun a good work in you will perform. You see in the book of Romans in chapter 7, it says, that is in my flesh, well, no good thing, but how to perform, that which is good, I find not.

So how do I perform? The one that hath begun a good work in you, he saved you, gave you eternal life, the Holy Spirit lives within you, he wants to perform through your life. So if you let the Lord work through you, he’ll give you strength and energy to do things and your vision stays straight. What wears most Christians out is seeking to do the work of God in the energy of the flesh and you don’t have the energy It will play out you cannot go on and you’ll wear out your burnout and you will have any vision whatsoever And you’ll quit and you’ll think it’s God laid too much upon me No, God doesn’t do that.

He said well the temptations were too great God says he always makes a way of escape a a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. See, God didn’t say that he’s going to always remove all of our temptation. Well, if he removed all of our temptations, then we wouldn’t have a battle. There’d be no battles. If there’s no battles, there’s no victories, no victories, no rewards. And God said he’s going to see every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.

So God wants us to labor. He wants us to work. He wants us to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ to work and to keep going. Never stop. Philippians that talks about the promise. You promise God, you promise others, you promise yourself that you never quit. Did you know that when a man in a woman stands before the preacher and before the congregation, he’s promising God something. She is promising God something. What are they promising God?

That they’ll never stop, they’ll never quit. Until death do us what? Until death. It means they’re talking about being faithful to each other. All their life and not quit. That’s what a marriage is supposed to be. They are committing themselves to each other and promising before God and witnesses that they’re gonna keep their vows. My wife and I have been married going on 44 years. I made that promise to her, even though I was a lost man. And then after I trusted Christ as my savior, in my mind I have renewed that vow a thousand times.

I meant what I said. I meant what I said. I want my kids to know that’s what I said and that’s what I meant. I want my grandkids to know that’s what I said and that’s what I meant. And whenever you go on the record and you give in your word and you promise never quit. Don’t let Satan destroy your home. Don’t allow Satan to destroy a church, your marriage. You don’t want to destroy your kids. You don’t want to destroy your grain.

You don’t want Satan to win. You want everybody that knows Christ to save it, you want them to win and you want God’s will to be done in their life. Responsibilities must be fulfilled. You can surrender your rights, but you can never surrender your responsibility. You see, God places the man as the head of the home and you have certain rights and responsibilities. Now I may surrender my rights to someone else, and this is generally what a woman does when she gets married.

And when she does, but she is not to surrender her responsibilities to her husband or to her children. The man is not to surrender his responsibilities. It was my responsibility, and sometimes I failed in my responsibility to be the husband that I ought to be. It’s my responsibility to be a good father, a godly father. I haven’t always been what I should have been in my life. There’s a lot of things I wish I could go back and redo, like most of us wish we could, but you can’t go back.

You wish you had all the answers before I had all the questions. I got the questions and all the problems and I didn’t have any solutions because there’s so much that you don’t know, you don’t understand. So you try to the teach what you can’t hope that the next generation will do a little bit better than the next generation a little bit better, but at least you try to stand for what you believe is a right thing. And so you cannot relinquish your responsibility.

Jeff and Tammy have a responsibility with that little child to raise that child in the nursing, the admonition of the Lord. That’s a responsibility. God gave them that right. Therefore they’re not to relinquish their responsibility. And so because they have this responsibility, or they should apply themselves, now keep us in mind. Right now, as they stood up here with that little baby, All of their motivation comes strictly from them. They have a hundred percent motivation. That little baby is not gonna give them any encouragement.

Thanks, Dad. I would venture to say that little baby so far has not said, I really appreciate all the sacrifices y’all are making for me. No, no encouragement. Oh, they are doing what they’re doing 100% motivation. But as the time goes on and that little child gets a little bit bigger and that smile and the way she walks and the way she’ll talk, all those little things that they’ll do, you just begin to draw things from that. And it’s a great encouragement.

I’ll have to be honest, I was never really motivated to change diapers. They just never motivated me. But Betty, God, bless her heart. She had 100% motivation. But as those kids get a little bit older, you begin to find out that they become a little bit more independent of you. And whenever they become more independent, you have less motivation because you don’t have to do everything. So you have less motivation. And the less motivation you have, you run the point where it comes 50-50.

You know, I have a little motivation and they have a lot of responsibility. So you begin to slowly back off and tell them sometimes you get to the place where you can totally give up on your kids or give up on your grandkids or give up on marriage. Because you when you first start off, I love you, you love me, it’s gonna be happy from now on. And then things don’t always work out right. And little by little you find out you got great motivation at the start and then after a while that motivation begins to go.

You go to a church and you get motivated. Boy I like what I see, I like what’s being done and done you can jump in him and then after a while the motivation begins to you lose your motivation when the motivation is gone you’re on the verge of quitting you need quitters insurance where you don’t run just on motivation alone you see you’ve got to get some things from God to keep doing what God wants you to do it so very important you need to always remember that it’s better to fail than to quit I have failed in the ministry many times doing many different things.

I’ve worked with radio program. I’ve had the TV broadcast. I’ve not tried to get a radio station going. I’ve had started ranch two or three times since I’ve been here. And it would fail. And then it would fail again. But the vision never failed. It was always in my mind. And it wasn’t until Shannon came along a couple years ago. And he says, I think we can do it. And he had a vision that we could do it again.

Because he’s seen what we’ve done. I didn’t have time to work with Ranch. He said I’ll do it and he was able to get him and he got John and he got different ones to do this and Lisa and I got Gina doing the little thing with the ranch on the skits and so for the drama team And then they had all kind of a in mic up there He got them all involved He he was great at pulling people together and he got it going and then for the first couple months There it didn’t seem like it did much then all of a sudden they started getting the few kids here now few kids here and a few kids here.

And next thing you know, they got a vision and they began to grow. And then they had 130 teenagers. Now we’re walking along in the summertime here about 110, 115. And God has been good, but you’ve got to have motivation. But when motivation goes, then after a while, I don’t see a reason for this or a reason for that, you always have to stay at it. But it’s better to fail than to quit. But you don’t stop, you always stay at it.

The next thing I wanted to give you this, remember why you started in the first place. Why did you start, Sir Noloid? Why did you marry that girl? Why did you marry that man? How did it start? Well, it was just, you know, moon, June, you know, I just, I don’t know how it happened. But somewhere along the line, love, not somebody upside the head. And sometimes this kid is trying to con the girl. I’m the best. I’m the greatest.

I’ll take care of you and I promise. But he’s conning this girl and this girl’s over here and she’s conning this guy. And after a while, these two cons got married. They conned each other. And then they find out, oh, this is really, well, this is what you really like. And I’m going to send you back to your mother.

And you find that, say, what is mixed emotion? Mixed emotions is watching your mother log over the cliff in your new Cadillac. You don’t know whether to stop and let it go, you know, you know, or being a ball headed hippie. that would be, you know, mixed emotions. But you have to find out why did I start in the first place? If it was worth starting in the first place, why isn’t it now? What’s happened? What changed? And see, many people today, and listen to me, many, maybe some of you sitting right here, you don’t have quitters insurance concerning your marriage because you’re not doing what’s going to keep your family together.

What’s going to keep your marriage together? Me and Betty, because of our involvement in the Lord’s work and praying together and staying together and loving each other and all these things that we do, that’s why we’re still together or we would not have been. You’ve got to have quitters insurance when it comes to your family. That’s why you need to be in church. See I know as long as my wife stays in church and keeps singing in the choir and keeps working with the little kid, long as she keeps doing this because she loves the She’ll be a good wife.

And she knows as long as I stay close to Lord and she keeps praying for me and we keep doing the thing that ensures a good marriage, then you’ll have a good marriage. But many men don’t work on their marriage. It’s easy to get one to God and get another one. No, you haven’t solved the problem. You’re the problem. The man is the head of the home. Be a man. Be a man and do what’s right. And God will bless you for doing so.

But everybody needs to have this motivation and I Want to close with this? Count your blessings and then demand recount think think encourage Think of 10 blessings of what God has done for you if you can think of some of the things that God’s done for you Then you’ll have a reason to thank God. And if you can thank God for the blessings, then you’ll stay close to God. You see, you’ll never get away from God or the things of God until you get away from God Himself because you don’t pray.

Look up here, this is you and me. This is sin. I got me some beautiful sin this week. So I gave me a new wallet. Every time I pull out this wallet, I’m going to think about the person that gave it to me. That’s not a good idea. I don’t know if That’s a good amount. I connect him with sin. No. This is sin. I mean, you and me. The Bible says that we’re all born in this world with a sinful nature, and that’s why we sin.

God says he loves us. He hates our sin, but he loves us. But the payment for sin, the wages, death, and hell. Now, God loves us once us to go to heaven. And to go to heaven, we have to be perfect. Because righteous is God, but we’re not perfect. We’re not righteous. We’re sinners. And because of sin, we can’t get in. And God says, you can’t earn eternal life. You cannot work your way to heaven. It’s not by your good deeds.

There is none righteous, not one. There’s none that doeth good, not one. So we can’t do good to get to heaven because there is none good. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord. He’s God in the flesh. He came into this world because he loves us, loves the whole world. He hates our sin. All of our sins, but he loves us. So he took our sins and he paid for them. Came back from the dead and said, all I have to do is foul believe that he did it for me.

He put that death payment to my account and I get to go to heaven on what he did. I didn’t earn that. Not only deserve it. I’m a center saved by grace. If Christ walked in here right now and offered you eternal life and you accepted what would you have? If it’s eternal life, it lasts forever. And if it lasts forever, and all you send are paid, where would you go when you die? To heaven. So, can you know you’re going to heaven before you die?

Yes. And once you trust Christ’s Savior, you become a child of God, and you’re going to heaven when you die. Now, you may not always live like a Christian, but you still are if you trust the Lord. But your heavenly Father may have to chase and discipline you. Read the Torah of you. Take you home before you die. Sir, the Lord, guard yourself. Be wise. Watch what you see and what you hear. Let’s pray, shout. 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 home page.

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 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 joining us on Bible Live, 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. And just keep looking up.