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Bibleline Bibleline, they are 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.

Want to take your Bible and turn to the book of Proverbs, the book of Proverbs? I want to share a few things with you because you’ll often hear me say these things that I say them doing sermons and they’ll be a little quote. And I love quotes. I love seeing things that I’ve seen on signs at different places. Sometimes somebody will come across something good and they’ll send it to me. Sometimes it’s just because I’ve read a book and I read a certain thing.

I have preached whole sermons with nothing but just a lot of little quotes. But there’s something that I want to give to you, but then I want to take and use some scripture just to kind of help you to see how you should apply it. All of us need help. And I want you to see this verse here in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter 25. And look in verse 11, verse 11, where it makes the statement a word, fitly spoken, is like apples of gold.

When’s the last time you had an apple made out of gold? Been a while. If you did, it would be pretty valuable. Or a pitcher of silver. That’s probably all I’ve had is a pitcher of it. I never had it. I’d like to have a whole bunch of it. You know, like a ton of it. That would be all right. But he says, a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pitchers of silver. As you read the proverbs, you’ll find that pro verb, it means more than meets the eye, pro in verbum.

And it’s a statement that’s made, but there are sometimes other meanings that you can find in it, and it’s like digging little nuggets out of a gold mine. And so the Bible talks about that in the book of proverbs and chapter two about digging treasures and hunting for it and searching for it and finding the wisdom of God and how much you can buy the merchandise you can purchase with wisdom. You can have all the money in the world but you can’t buy wisdom with it.

And so learning the word of God is the most important thing that you’ll ever do in your life. And so there’s a lot of neat sayings in the book of Proverbs and they will help you to be wise in your relationship to man. The book of Psalms helps your heart to be warm toward the Lord. And if you want to have some activity in your life then you read the book of Acts and then make sure you want to go to work and do something.

So different books has a different responsibility of trying to raise God’s children and would help us. Here’s a couple that I had given to you and some of these I had given to you just recently, but I want to go down through them fairly quickly. But just listen to these because each one of them will teach you something that you need to know. Courage is, I remember, courage is fear that says it’s prayers and goes ahead. A lot of time we think, well courage is the absence of fear.

No, it’s in the presence of fear. Sometimes we’re afraid to do certain things because that’s the human element of our makeup. We have a physical body. We’re still human. I didn’t stop being human to be because I trust that Christ is my Savior. I got a new birth, but I still got to have a physical body, not to have a mind that… It’s going to mess up sometimes, not lately, but it has been. And so we have things that we need to learn and to do and to trust.

And sometimes I have courage and just trust the Lord in spite of understanding how it’s going to be fulfilled and how it’s going to happen. Another statement I had is, a Christian can’t waste time without affecting eternity. Think about that. You can’t waste time without affecting eternity. And I, given another statement over and over again, is your future is being determined by your obedience to God today. Another way it’s in eternity is being affected by your obedience to God today.

Because the things that we do today is going to affect eternity. So if we waste a time here, we are affecting eternity. And therefore, when you understand that it causes you to maybe want to try to accomplish as much as possible to try to be diligent in your walk with the Lord. Another one I have down is what really counts is that which you send ahead and not which you leave behind. You’ve heard this guy, a Warren Buffett, a billionaire.

I can’t fathom how much that would be. I can’t even fathom what a trillion would be or a billion would be or a million would be. I have a hard time understanding what a thousand looks like. But just to think, he says, we ought to tax all those rich folks and take more money from them. He actually says that. But see, it doesn’t matter how much they tax him because he’ll have enough left over. Now let’s just say that we’re going to tax him to where he had only a little left, like the rest of everybody else, and see if he still believes that.

I bet you he wouldn’t go for it then. So it’s not how much you give, it’s how much do you have left. When we leave this world, what did we leave behind? So it is important. A light shines the brightest in the darkest places. So whenever we want to let our little light shine, or as the scripture says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.

So men are supposed to see our good works, But we’re not supposed to do good work just to be seen of men. But the light shines the brightest when it is the darkest. But don’t we have a little element of fear when we see God’s hand moving for the light switch? And you know he’s fixing to turn off the light? And we get an element of fear. We get scared. And God says that we’re supposed to learn to trust Him even whenever it’s in the dark.

And another statement I like is don’t doubt in the dark what God gave you in the light. You know, when things were right, when things were good, when everything is going great, and you’re strengthening the Lord, you’re commenting on the Lord, everything is a-okay, you’re good to go. And then when things get looking pretty dark, don’t doubt in the dark what God gave you in the light. Now is the time to apply it and see what God will do.

Another statement I like is the price for shining is burning. The price for shining is burning. And you’ll hear some people say, well, I’ve just been burned out. Well, I’ve been walking with the Lord for 51 years. I don’t know what that would be like. I burn out. Does that mean I have no more light? That means I haven’t been putting any wood on the fire. There’s no hot coals anymore. That means I’m lukewarm. What does it mean? I’m burnout.

I mean, my plate is so full I don’t have room for anymore. I don’t think that’s what it means. But a lot of people don’t have any more energy, no more strength. I can’t take anymore. I’ve had it and I want to quit. Stop the earth, let me off. Well, the light that shines the brightest shines the brightest at home. Or in other ways, the light that shines the fathers shines the brightest at home. Where should your light shine?

Everywhere but at home? life should shine better at home where it’s the closest than it should a long ways off. So the light that shines the brightest should shine the brightest at home. So always keep that in mind. It is easy to get the notes of the teacher into the notes of the students without getting into to the minds of either one. Did you know that you can take notes and never put them into your mind, but you’ve got notes.

And you can teach those notes to somebody else who writes and takes notes. So everybody’s got notes, but nobody knows anything. So you can get the notes of the teacher into the notes of the student without getting to the minds of either one. You can come to church and read your Bible and hear it read and it never sinks into your mind. You really don’t know what he’s talking about. Remember the devil is alive and well on planet Earth and when it says in some of the seed where’s fell by the wayside.

That means the devil got that before you did. And then some seeds, well, it falls upon stony grounds. You say, what’s stony grounds? A person who got rocks in their head. I mean, they’re hard-headed. It’s hard for things to grow on solid rock. Would you plan on solid rock? So So even though you may hear the word, your head, your mind might be filled with rocks and the seed can’t grow. And then sometimes it says it falls upon, well, well, there’s some good soil, but there’s briars and thorns and it comes up and it chokes you half to death.

I remember a story one time about the Samaritan, good Samaritan, don’t remember that. came up and choked him half to death. The next day he went down to Jericho and climbed the sick of more tree. Oh, that’s another story. Next statement I want you to understand is there are two ways to get to the top of a tree. You can climb it or sit on an acorn and wait for it to grow. Now, people, they can hear that, but they don’t really get what it’s talking about.

If you want something, is it better to Climb and work for it, or just to sit on and do nothing and just, well I’m just trusting the Lord. You have a God may have given you the strength and the grace that you need to work for something, to have something, to do something, to be something. It takes effort. In other words, you’re supposed to sow before you reap and some people just want to sit and dream and never do anything at all.

The The next statement is the worst thing that can happen to you is to miss God’s will. Think about that. Here you are on planet Earth, it’s going around, days are coming, days are going, years are passing away. The worst thing that can happen to you in this life is to miss the will of God for your life. Is it God’s will for you to go to heaven? He says he’s not willing that any should perish. So it is God’s will for you to go to heaven.

Wouldn’t it be a shame for you to miss that? of all things that have happened on the planet, I’m glad that I trusted Christ as my savior. I know I’m going to heaven when I die. But do you know that God has a will for your life? And he has something he wants you to do with your life. Wouldn’t it be a shame to miss that? So of all things that we would ever want in our life, it should be the will of God.

Do you want the will of God for your life? How bad do you want it? bad enough to study, to find out what it is, and how God can use you to a fullist extent. I saw something that one time I was up in Tennessee. I was having some dark moments in my life, and I went by and I saw this sign, says, the will of God will not lead you, where the grace of God cannot keep you. When I saw that, Moa, I sat there in my car, And I saw that on the sign in a churchyard.

I pulled over the side of the road and I just cried. Because I was trying to figure out how God was gonna keep me where I believed He put me. And I found out that the grace of God can keep me whether we’ll have God can lead me. Do you believe that? You should believe that. That’s what God wants us to do. Next statement, God’s leading is never contrary to his word. We often talk about the will of God, doing whatever God is that he wants for.

He will never lead you contrary to his word. The Holy Spirit that lives within you is a Holy Spirit, not an unholy spirit. The Holy Spirit, the Lord gave to you the day you trusted Christ as your savior. So you have God living within you. and he will never lead you to do anything that’s unholy, or lead you to do anything that’s not like God. That would be ungodly. Ungodly means you’re not like God. Godly means you’re like God.

So God always leads you, the Holy Spirit, to do right. And always within the boundaries of the Word of God. So just because you want to do something doesn’t mean it’s right because well I prayed about it. A lot of people do a lot of sinning because they said I prayed about it. Yeah, but did you get an answer? Well, I don’t know about that, but I prayed about it. It’s important to get an answer and an answer is it.

Well, you see, that’s what I’m saying. That’s why you have to study the book. To find out, is it in agreement with the revealed word of God? Because God, the Holy Spirit, will not lead you contrary to it. Next statement. Let God steer the car, but you keep your foot on the gas pedal. Isn’t that good? Let God steer, but you’ve got to have your foot on the gas pedal. I used to listen to teachers and preachers all the time.

And sometimes it seems like they’re on the right road, they’re in the right car, they’re in the right lane, but they’re not going anywhere because there’s no gas in the car. They’re just sitting in the right place at the right time in the right direction, but there’s no gas. They’re not going anywhere. They’re not going anywhere. And it’s like the little kid, you know, gets behind the steering wheel of the car. like sign the fix. And all they’re doing is playing but they’re not going anywhere.

It’s easier for the Lord to steer you when you’re moving. And some people say, Lord, guide me, guide me, guide me. God says, why? You’re not moving? steer a wheel when the car is not moving. Just something to think about it. God wants men who will get the job done, not the one to explain why they didn’t do it. Is there anything God wants you to do that you are incapable of doing? Can God, who is perfect, makes no mistakes?

Can He try to get you to do something that’s totally impossible for for you to do, God will enable every one of us to do what He wants us to do. The problem is, not God, we don’t want to do what God wants us to do, or we will not do what God says to do. Not that we can’t. Another question. If you were God, would you hire yourself? If Would you or God, would you hire you to work for Him?

Are you worth being paid for by the Lord? Did you know that whenever you serve the Lord God is paying you? God’s going to pay you? It’s just not payday yet. But we’re supposed to labor now the leaving pay days coming later and that God is going to reward us and it will be worth it all. Do you believe that? I believe that. I believe pay days coming and I can wait. 8 days not here. That’s right, when you do good things for the Lord down here, don’t expect everything to be wonderful, everybody love and appreciate it.

They may do it, they may not. It doesn’t matter. Because you know God hired you and God is gonna pay you. I guess he could fire you too, huh? Time to come on home boy. Next statement, the Lord’s approval is worth all the sarcasm of your friends. The Lord’s approval is worth all the sarcasm of your friends. And it doesn’t matter who your friends are, or people to work with, even sometimes people at home, people at church. You can’t convince everybody of everything that you do, or why you should do it.

But you should be convinced that if God wants you to do certain things and you do that, then if it’s acceptable to God, that ought to be pleasing to you. The next statement is, give eternal issues proper priority. In the book of Matthew in chapter six and verse 33, it says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto you. So it’s a get your priorities straight. Always put the Lord first in everything.

Always be reasoning in your mind, what does God want me to do? What is God’s will for my life? Because you can live your life, and everybody does, but they don’t all live it for him. So you can live your life and totally waste your life. Only in the dictionary… Does success come before work? Alphabetically, success starts with a S. Work starts with a W. So only in the dictionary does success come before work. But in reality, you have to do the work in order to be successful.

Let me have you take your Bible and turn to the book of 2 Corinthians. The book of 2 Corinthians chapter 12 sent to be spent. See you and I, when we trusted Christ as our Savior, he gave us eternal life and wants us to love him and to serve him. He wants to love others through us. But it makes a statement in verse 14 of chapter 12, 2 Corinthians chapter 12, look at verse 14, Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you and I will not be burdensome to you.

For I seek not yours, what you have, but you. So you are more important than the things that you have or accumulate. God loves you. That doesn’t mean God loves your house and God loves your car and God loves your kitty cat and God I don’t know how he feels about kitty cats. I should take that back but I know God loves you and You’re supposed to believe that God loves you and God has allowed us to have and enjoy many things in life But don’t think those things are more important than the one that gave them to us The Lord is more important to you that anything you presently have or enjoy Why?

Because you can lose all of those things. Because everything that you see is temporal. It’s all temporal. You say, what does that mean? It don’t last forever. So he says, for I seek not yours, but you for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. That’s the only verse in the Bible that I’m not sure I agree with. Now that I’m getting older and I’ve got a couple of kids, You know, they ought to take care of Papa when he gets old, you know, the grandkids.

So, I think that what we’re supposed to do, train him to take care of us when we get old. But it says, but the parents for the children. So you and I are supposed to be given them something worth living for. It’s not always the things, it’s the character. It’s them learning how to trust the Lord, walk with the Lord, lean upon the Lord. We should be leaving spiritual values with our children. Looking verse 15, he said, and I will vary, gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.

You’re to underline that. That’s a beautiful statement. I almost feel sorry for Paul when he writes this. He had gone to this place, He led these people to the Lord, and then somebody else comes along and turns them against Paul, and He has to defend his apostleship. And they just turned against Paul, and they said things against him. And he says, all that I have gone through. He means that in chapter 11. All of that that I’ve gone through.

The cares of this world, the cares of the churches. He says, I have spent my life for you. And the more I love you, the less I’m loved. The more I do for you, the less you understand and respect. Now, if that happened to the Apostle Paul, is there a possibility you might do something for somebody and they do not do not. Do not appreciate you or what you believe or stand for and all the love that you try to show I’ve had people that I’ve led to Christ and they were just almost worship me greatest guy in the world and then after a while Totally turn and hate you and tell you I hate you I said, what did I do to you?

I don’t know I just hate you I’m against you. You would think you ought to have a reason, a good reason, but you can’t explain it. You’re just going to have to go through it. Keep serving the Lord in your way because this happened to Him. It will happen to you. And you’re going to do things for people and you’re going give them your life. You’re going to give them your choice time. And they won’t care. And there will be no respect.

Sometimes we see that without sometimes our children, maybe even the grandkids. They can be somebody where you work. They can be at home. And all of a sudden it seems like things can change and you don’t know what’s happening. The devil can work behind this scene. You can’t see him, but he works on people’s minds. He can cause people to believe things, to imagine things. Remember this, the devil cannot make you sin. He can only tempt you to sin.

So don’t blame everything on the devil. You just happen to have something within you that he can tempt you with. There’s a little song of, yeah, not to temptation. For yielding is sin. But a lot of people, you sense it when you yield to it. You’re going to be tempted. Another statement that I want to give to you. Don’t reject in the dark what God gave you into light. And that’s Matthew 516, I’ve already mentioned that to you. Don’t get too busy polishing your armor and not sharpening your sword.

It’s not a matter of just seeing the beautiful foliage on the tree. Look how beautiful that tree is. Look at the way those branches are. Look at those beautiful leaves on the tree. But is there any fruit on the tree? Well, there’s no fruit, but look at the leaves. I think there’s a story in the Bible about that. The Lord is looking for fruit. And so sometimes you’re so busy polishing your armor, or you make sure you’re in church all the time, and you read your Bible and do all these good things, and you just shine and shine and shine and.

But no fruit. You’ve never learned how to use the sword of the Spirit. What is the sword of the Spirit? I wonder what that is. The sword of the Spirit, according to Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 12, is the word of God. The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the divided in the sun or soul and spirit and of the body. And so you have a tool that you’re supposed to use, and it’s the sword, but many people don’t.

They’re dull of hearing. Their sword is dull. They can’t cut as they should. When the Bible says, study to show thyself approved unto God a workman, that word is chopped to them. They’re talking about making one clean sweet, though we can a clean cut and rightly divide the Word of God. And a lot of people they don’t have that sharp edge. You see, that’s what causes you to be able to make wiser decisions for down the road. Study the Word of God and God will bless you because of it.

Another statement that I’ve used for years, and then I had to kind of look at it with a little question mark. Souls are unreached because they’re unloved. Now if I don’t reach them, it’s because I don’t love them. Are there still lost people in this world because they’re unloved? Because if we really loved them, we would reach them. But I know the responsibility doesn’t fall upon just one person, but the church of the Lord has a responsibility. But if I don’t reach them, does that mean they’re unloved?

No, I believe the Lord still loves and loves all of them. 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. 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. 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 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. 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.