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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 year. 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’ll 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.

You can learn all you want to buy rules and regulations, news and don’ts. But God is a person. He’s a person. Learned to talk to him. He’s a person. And he’s more important than a model or a plan. I said, well, I’m right with God because I go to church. You can be sitting here in this church right now and not be right with God. Well, I read my Bible. You can read your Bible and not be right with God.

You can even pray and not be right with God. And I’ve seen a lot of people do a lot of things because, well, I’ve prayed about it. I prayed about it. I don’t hear if you did pray about it. If it’s wrong, it’s still wrong. Was it the will of God? You said, we don’t serve God according to our idea about God. We serve God according to His way, leaning upon Him. What does the word of God say? This is why you can’t grow without the word of God.

This is why Sunday school is so important because you’re learning some truth about God, what he wants and doesn’t want. Church, Sunday night, when you’re learning the word and so important to learn the word, because you can’t know the will of God unless you know the word of God in order to know the will of God. So it is the will of God to know the word of God so you can know which will. Did that make sense? And some people get it and some people never do.

They live their whole lives and they live just like a lost man. Look in John chapter 15, you’re right here in the book of Luke, just turned to your right, the John chapter 15. Look there in verse 5, he says in verse 5, I am the vine, ye are the branches, he that abideth in me, and I in him. It is a he that lives in the church. We’re talking about a person, And I and him the same bring the forth much fruit for without me in your on the line this without me Not some little plan that you got Not because you’ve got all the things in row in your mechanical and you’re just not born by the robot He is a person I Know wherever I go and whatever I do I have a person the Lord lives in me and So therefore knowing that helped me to watch what

I say what I do what how I think Because you always need some way of restraining yourself to hold you back otherwise You know it doesn’t matter as long as you don’t see another Person I got to freedom do whatever I want to do But when you realize I have a person of the Holy Spirit living inside of me, this changes everything. This changes everything. You see, I don’t have to worry about whether you are there or you are not there.

I know that I got to watch what I think. I got to watch what I do. I’m always on guard. And if I fail to watch, and God, I can ruin my whole life. I can ruin my testimony. So you want to grow in grace, learning from the Word of God, and God will give you the strength and the grace that you need to do what God wants you to do. Number five, being the preoccupation with results instead of your relationship with the Lord.

The reason that that is so dangerous is because you could be so preoccupied with results of something and you can’t control results. Last night, several trusts of Lord at Ranch. That’s what your after is those good results. I want that same joy when next Saturday night nobody responded. Isn’t it true that some Sunday mornings I could give the gospel and you’ll hear me say God bless you and God bless you and then sometimes nobody says anything. I am supposed to be thankful to the Lord that I was obedient and that I gave the gospel.

Whether somebody did or they didn’t. Now we want that extra blood because we want people to trust. That’s the result. That’s what we want. But I better not hang all of my life upon the results that hang up on other people’s decisions. You see, you can’t make people trust the Lord. Have you ever passed our tracks? you had some of them getting back to you. Have you ever knocked on doors? Somebody tell you to get lost. Say, oh, no, no, you get it wrong.

I’m here to help you because you’re lost. And you’d be surprised. Just be found faithful to the Lord. That’s where your joy should come from because there’s something that we can’t control. There’s circumstances that you and I have no power over. Leave the results to the Lord. And if people trust the Lord, praise the Lord. If nobody prays the Lord, you’re still faithful. Praise the Lord. Because God’s going to reward you not for the results of your service, but because of your service.

You’re faithful to it. Moreover, it’ll require inner steward that a man be found faithful. And God’s just looking for people to be found faithful. So it’s not so much your ability, it’s your availability. Can God use you? Number six is comparisons instead of your commitment to your own unique ministry. Did you know that God made us all different than he has? And that if you want to truly be different, serve the Lord. If you don’t serve the Lord then you just like a mass of humanity.

They’re all the same. All live in for the same thing. Lives are not really the… You’re not as different unless you serve a Lord. I’ve always had this little desire. I want to be different from everybody in the world. I don’t want to be like everybody else. I’m different. I’m Yankee Arnold. I don’t want to be anybody else. I might want to be like a few people, but I don’t want to be them, because I am so satisfied with me.

You ought to be satisfied with who you are and what God’s given you. You’re unique. And the Lord tells us not to compare ourselves with others. That’s when you get into trouble. Look at this scripture. I want you to see this. Look in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Second Corinthians in chapter 10. But second Corinthians chapter 10, look what he says in verse 12. Verse 12, for we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that that commend themselves, but they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are what?

Not why? In other words, you’re not supposed to compare what you’re doing with what somebody else is doing. I must be doing a good job while I’m doing this as much as you are. Well, a lot of it all. Did you know that he might not be doing everything he ought to be doing? Did you know that God gives some people more than He gives to other people? That’s just the facts of life. One man, he gave ten talents, one man five talents, one man one talent.

And God expected all men to be found faithful with whatever He gave to. This is the book of Matthew chapter 25. Some of y’all, God has blessed with the ability to make more money than what somebody else has. Some people just don’t have it and they’ll never do it. Some people, everything they text seems to turn to gold. Mine turns to gold. You say, why didn’t God give me a million dollars? Why? Because they can’t trust you with a hundred.

But you see, don’t compare yourself with others because when you want to exalt yourself, you’ll always compare yourself with others who are doing worse than you. And whenever you’re having a bad day and nothing’s going right, and you’ll always compare yourself with somebody who got so much more than you got in order to justify your ill thing. Remember when I told you about the dog that bit the duck got down in the mouth? Some of y’all never got that.

That’s why I repeated it. So you’re going to get down in the mouth because you know you’re comparing yourself. And that could be so defeating. Or it can take and make you feel like you’re doing something and God says you’re not really doing what I know you can do. You want to compare? Compare yourself with the Lord. He has no thoughts. When you want to measure yourself, he says, they measured themselves by themselves. He says, you’re not wise. Here’s the Lord.

Here’s you. How you do it? Well, I got a little work to do. And to esteem others better than yourselves instead of trying to walk on people and use people. I had people come to church and see if that preacher. I love this church. Oh, I love your attitude. I love your motivation. I want you to use me. I want you to use me. So I use them. That’s all he wants to do is use me. So you can’t win with some people.

So you do not want to be unwise. And this is what a lot of people do. Number seven, leading without listening. In the words you lead, but you don’t listen to the one you’re supposed to follow. Every one of us needs to understand, be thou an example of the believer in word, in spirit, in love, deed. You’re supposed to be an example. The best example is somebody who’s following somebody. Are there people watching you? Of course there is. No man is an island unto himself.

But you and I are supposed to be listening to the Lord and following the Lord. And sometimes we just want to take and become our own leader in our own cells and just see how I can rally around me and how great I am. Wait a minute. My job is not supposed to get you just to follow me. I’m supposed to try to get you to follow the Lord. There’s the leader. Follow the the Lord. Follow me only as I follow Him.

Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ. But you’re supposed to know the Lord and Lord, are they following the Lord? You’ve got to be wise for yourself the way these things in your mind lead by following the Lord. Number eight is competition without cooperation. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 1 and 2, where it talks about God, we’re got such a great cloud of witnesses and that lay aside the sin which so easily beset us that we may run the race that is set before us.

Oh, looking under Jesus, the author and the finish of our faith. Running your race is the consideration you have for those that are in the race. my running my race is not like I’m gonna leave everybody in a cloud of dust on a Harley-high-oh silver. Running my race is how many can I get to run the race? Running my race is to try to help you in running your race and you’re running your race is see how many of you can help in running their race.

For example in the last year, I’ve tried to, you know, get as many different ministries and so forth going as they can. I wanted to see if I want the best for this guy, Peter Amato, then I want to see him have a ministry and I want him to have people help create jobs. I used to have a bus ride in Colorado and part of the responsibility I had this one kid is you guard that back door and make sure nobody jumps out and I expected him to be faithful every time on that bus ride and make sure that nobody jumped off the bus I Would try to create as many different responsibilities We got James working with the program on Friday night and Then he needs some helpers Getting more people involved more workers why because I want the best of the people here

So I’ve got to have something for for y’all to do It just to come to church and sit on the pew is not going to cut you’re not going to get strong that way What are you going to do as a result of you coming to church? You came here this morning. You’re listening to the word Now, what are you going to do about it? What was the purpose of it? If you walk out those doors and you never make any changes or alterations in life, nothing happens, nothing changes.

Then I feel like a failure. Because my part of running my race is to get you to serve the Lord. And it’s not just to come to church. I want to see growth in your life. I want you to grow strong in the Lord. I want you to have the strength of Christ in your life. I want you to have fruit that abounds the Lord. to your account when you stand before the Lord because I love Him, then I have to love you.

And so I want to challenge and motivate people to be faithful, to do what you can, with what you have. And that’s why I want to try to start. I want, if you say, well, I’m not doing anything, well, we got Sunday school, you can help there. But we got a why, you can help there. We got a choir, you can help there. We got ranch now, you can help there. Whatever it is. And if we could think of another minister we don’t got, we’ll start that.

There’s a lot of things I want to do. Yeah, I’m going on 70 years old and I could drop dead today. Yeah, I know that. But I’m not dead yet. There’s still a little fire in the gut. I’m not ready to roll over and play dead. I’m dead bury me, not in advance. That makes sense, of course it makes sense. Number nine, our focus on attracting or attacking the weed instead of attracting with the flowers. You know, some Christians, they spend all their life attacking weeds.

Other than attack weeds. But now if you love flowers, you have to hate weeds. But some people just motivate themselves hating all the weeds, but they never loved the flowers. You can find yourself, you can listen to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and some of these other top show hooks like that and you can hear what’s going on in the world and it won’t be long. Okay, now what are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it?

If you want to save America, get America saved. You can’t get lost people to live for the Lord. We need Godly people doing the right things. And yes, I believe the election is very important. And I believe God’s people ought to vote and to do right. And if I was in my right mind, which I saw the man, I would tell you he’s even how to about. But you said you have an opinion? Of course. Everybody has opinions. But I believe that my priority and your priority is spiritual things.

Because this world is going to burn up anyway one of these days. I’m looking for the upper taker. I’m looking for Jesus Christ to come back soon. That’s what I want. So you want to Focus upon the beauty of the flower, not how ugly the weeds are, though you should be able to tell the difference. As a child of God, you might stand and say, well, I don’t do this and I don’t do that and I don’t do this and I don’t go there and I, blah, blah, blah, all the things, but you don’t do.

What is negative? Tell me what you do. What’s positive? Do you love the Lord? You got a good testimony. Are you doing right? Are you faithful? You have character in your life. Are you a man or woman of integrity? That’s more important than anything you’ll possess in this life. Number 10, a passion for growth over a priority of grace. Some people have a desire. You want to grow so bad that you forget that there’s a way of growing. Growing should be the result of you constantly doing right.

You see, after I trusted Christ as my Savior, I didn’t try to make myself grow. I remember when I was born in this world. Well, not really, but I remember when I was born in this world. And I never had to worry about growing. I just ate, slept, and lo and behold, I grew. So growing is a result of just doing what takes to grow. So I don’t have to make that happen. I just let it happen. When I began to read the Word of God and spend time with the Lord and witness His honor, I began to grow stronger as a Christian.

So if you want to grow into a strong Christian, just do the things that you’re supposed to do as a child of God. See, the only thing that lies between a child of God and a man of God is the word of God that he feeds upon. And you can’t go from childhood to adulthood without the word. So whenever you eliminate the study of the word to grow thereby, you’re not going to grow thereby. You won’t go and you can be saved.

Have eternal life, a child of God. And 20, 30 years later, you’re still a child because you can’t discern right from wrong because you’re still after the milk instead of the meat. because you can’t understand. It’s in the words, you’re still not fit for the master’s use, fit for the master’s service. It means you’re not prepared. So that’s why we study the word of God. So is the word of God important to you? Sunday school important to you. Why is it not important to you?

Why did I important to you? All these things should be important to you, or your own personal time. I had to put up with my son-in-law this week. You know, because his wife was with my wife. You know, there was on that little boat. So anyway, we did a few things and came home. I said, I’m going to drop you at the house. I said, I’m going down here to a restaurant. So he said, okay. So he got his truck and he went and got him some pizza.

Peasted. I went down to, uh, Denny’s right down below the house. And I brought in my Bible, this one, and a couple books that I had I was going to read. And as I sat there and drink me some coffee and the little lady should walk up there, can I help you? I said, yes ma’am, just a half a cup. Half a cup? Yes ma’am, I drink so slow sometimes it just gets cold on me. I said, I’d rather have you make 20 trips.

She smiled a little bit and gave me a half a cup of coffee and she left. I said, well she come and walk it back. Are you gonna eat? I said yes ma’am but not yet. Oh, I need some coffee yet to have a cup. I said that’s two. She had 18 times to go yet. Anyway she left. Well, once she come back I ordered something. I ate it and then she came back again. Need a warm up? Yes ma’am, give me a little warm up.

I was there for two and a half hours that I I just sit and read and studied. I went back and forth. I was in this book. I was in this book. I was all over the place. I had paper there and I’m writing all kind of stuff, you know. And so, she comes, she says, I see you’re reading the good book. I says, yes, ma’am. I says, it’s a good book. It’s got a good story. I says, do you know where you’re going to go when you die?

She says, well, I hope I’m going to heaven. I says, if you could know it, wouldn’t you like to know? Well, yeah, I said, let me let me show you something. I said, let me ask you these two questions and then I want to show you something. She’s okay. It wasn’t too busy in there at this time of night and they 39 o’clock something like that. I said, isn’t it true that you’ve heard almost all your life that Jesus Christ down the cross and paid for all the sins of the world?

She’s, yeah, I’ve heard that. I said, if you’ve heard that, how come you ain’t going to heaven? I don’t know. I says, if he paid for all the sins of the world, why should you go to hell and pay for any sins if he paid for all of them?” She says, I don’t know. I said, you never thought about that? She said, no, I never thought about that. I said, let’s think about that. So she thought about that. And I says, the only reason is because you have an except the payment he made for you.

I said, he made a payment for the sins of the whole world. So that means they’re all paid. I said, when I get through eating here and I go up there to that register and I pay for my meal, I says, do I have to pay for it again before I get out the door? She says, no. I said, if he paid for all of your sins, do you have to pay for them again? She said, you shouldn’t. I said, can I show you something?

You never seen this. I’m going to show you right now so that you can see what I showed her. I said, this is you and me. This is sin. God says that we all have sin on us. And because we are a sinner, we sin. See, this doesn’t make me a a sinner. I produce this because I am a sinner. I have no sinful nature. And because of sin, I got to pay for it. And the wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God in hell.

I didn’t want to go to hell. I said, now, to go to heaven, you have to be perfect as righteous as God. Now nobody’s perfect. Nobody’s righteous. We’re all sinners because of sin can’t get in. So God says, you cannot earn eternal life. You can’t work your way to heaven. All of our good deeds will not pay for our sin. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the place came into the world because he loves us hates our sin because it separates us from him.

So Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. So he took all the sin of all the world, all of us, paid for all the sin for everybody. Came back from the dead. So the payment has already been made 2,000 years ago. The only thing you have to do, the only thing I can do is believe he did it for us. So I looked at her and I said, will you believe that he did this for you? Will you trust Jesus Christ to take you to heaven whenever you die?

She said, yes, I will. I said, if you trust Christ right now, I said he would give you right now. a free gift everlasting life. I says, if I offered you my coffee cup and you accepted, what would you have? She says, coffee cup. I says, if I offered you my Bible and you accepted, what would you have? She said, a Bible. I said, if Jesus Christ walked in here right now and offered you eternal life and you accepted, what would you have?

She says, eternal life. I said, if it’s eternal life, how long it lasts? She says forever. I said, if it lasts forever and all you send your pain, where would you go when you die? She said, I’m going to heaven. I says, where are you going? She said, I’m going to heaven. I says, it makes sense. She says, that makes sense to me. Can you do that? Can you do that? Have you ever done that? Try that. Ask the question as bold as you can.

Do you know where you’re going when you die? Or have you ever had anybody take the Bible and show you how to have eternal life? Or if you could know you could have eternal life, wouldn’t you like to know? any way you can word it, let God use you, but find a way. That’s more important than anything else you’ll ever accomplish in this world is where people are gonna spend eternity. Growing in grace produces a good soul winner because that’s what it’s all about.

That’s why God left us here. We’re not here just so I can build me a big business, so I can be the pastor of a great church. I’m not here for that. We’re here to keep people out of hell so they can know that they have eternal life and know they’re going to heaven when they die. Let’s pray, shall we? Every head bowed and every eye closed, no one looking around. If you hear this morning and you’ve never trusted the Lord, maybe you like that little waitress I talked to.

If you died right now, where would you go? So I’m not sure. Well, if Christ paid for all of your sins, why don’t you believe he did it for you? And God said, if you’ll believe it, you’ll put that payment to your account and you get to go to heaven on what he did for you. No tricks to it, no gimmicks. Now we’re hedge-bound, nice clothes, no one looking around. If what I’ve said made sense to you, and you say, yes, I will trust Christ as my savior this morning and I’ll bring you, I’d like you to pray for me.

Friend, I’m gonna ask you just to slip you in a very quickly and put it right back down. I’m not gonna have you forward, not gonna embarrass you, but right where I am. Yes, God bless you, man. Anyone else, just slip it up real quick and put it right back down. But is there anyone at all? Say yes, I will trust Christ right now as my Savior, and I’d like you to pray for Him. Other others. Our Father, we thank You so much for this time together.

Bless each one for being here. And I pray, Lord, that the truths that we discussed will be a blessing to each one. And only the Holy Spirit can reveal these things so that they can know how to apply them. We commit this church to You, all the people in Christ and we pray. Amen. 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. 771. 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Life 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. Hot 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.