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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 to give you this because I believe anyone who says I want to serve a Lord. I want to win people to Christ. The easiest target of all so winning, all little children, they’ll leave it or not. They don’t know enough to argue stringously with you. And most times they are easy to win. I am sold on getting adults to understand how to go to heaven. But if you can make it clear to the child, you can make it clear to a lost person.

Because adults are just little kids grow up. And sometimes they don’t understand some of the simplicities of childlike faith. So if you can make a child understand and get them to understand it, then you have a good chance of making it clear for the teenagers and for the adults. I always just keep it, we used to call it K-I-S-S. Keep it simple, stupid. But I’m not calling anybody stupid. I’m just saying, we need to keep it clear. So on the paper that you have right there in front of you, this is life-changing.

This changes a person’s destiny. This is what you need to tell people so you know how to keep it clear. Been interesting seeing those that have come up with different names for the Bible college if we decide to start one. I’ve heard of everything. All kinds of names. Jay just gave me about six or seven names or something like that. Somebody else call it, how to go to Heaven Bible College? was called Hanke and Yankee Bible College. So, as we’re moving right along.

Anyway, I like it to be crystal clear. Something is very different, very unique, but we got time for that. Somebody sent this to me. He says, A new pastor was visiting in the homes of his parishioners. At one house, it seems obvious that someone was home, but no answer came. So repeated knocks at the door. Therefore he took out a business card and wrote Revelation 3.20 on the back of it and stuck it on the door. When the offering was processed the following Sunday he found that his card had been returned.

Added to it was this cryptic message, Genesis 3.10. Regent for his Bible to check out the citation he broke up in gates of laughter. Revelation 3.20 begins, Behold I stand at the door knock. Genesis 3.10 says, I I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid for I was naked. So some people are taking showers and can always come to the door. I thought that was pretty cute. Anyway, I have something I wanted to give to you.

We say that we love and appreciate the gospel of Jesus Christ and I preach the sermon not long ago on Romans 1 16. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believe it. I thought it was neat that on Friday night, so when the teenagers get to go out, Peter takes them out and also Betty Dowdy and a few others go with them. And anyway, they have a great time and they’re learning how to get a little boldness and talking to people.

And after a while, you’ll find out what works really good, you know, to open up a conversation. And sometimes you have to make a point of what works best for you. I’ve never found an illustration better than the hand gesture we used for the wall of the illustration, or you can use your purse or shoe or just don’t hit him with it. But you can use a lot of things to represent sin. I never let the Bible represent sin, and I usually don’t let a Heaven track represent sin.

I don’t know, can I guess, but I would prefer not. So anyway, if you’ll look there in the notes that I just gave to you, there comes the time in your life when you have to figure out what is my life purpose, my purpose in my life. Now we know in the book of John in chapter 15, and I spoken this not long ago, about, you know, bearing fruit and that Christ says, unless you abide in me, you shall do nothing.

You can do nothing. But it said, here in in verse eight, here in is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit. And we believe the fruit there is really referring to people that we went to Christ bearing fruit. And we know there’s the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace and so forth. But we are supposed to have people that we can talk to and lead to the Lord. And it’s not always the easiest thing. It really isn’t.

And I like to say I take advantage of every opportunity, but I don’t. I don’t think I can say like the Apostle Paul, I am free from the blood of all men because he hit everybody. And he covered all the areas and all the bases. This one guy says, you mean you was in the presence of this individual for a whole hour and you didn’t give him the gospel? You were in the presence of a person for a whole hour and didn’t give him the gospel?

I’d done that a lot of times. I’d give the gospel. But you need to know what your purpose is. And so the life purpose is to glorify the Lord, which means to bear fruit. Now the goal, look at the next statement, what is our life goal? That’s to lead the people to the Lord. So you’ve got to know what is my life purpose to glorify the Lord because that’s what God wants. And so what he wants is what I should have as my goal in life.

So then I seek to find out how do I fulfill this responsibility. Now, the next statement, keeping this in mind, listen to the questions all children and adults ask themselves sometimes in their lives because this is what I want to give to you right now, or things that I tried to teach the kids that were in college on making the gospel clear even for little kids. See, if little kids can understand you, then you have a possibility that the adults will, believe it or not, it’s harder to reach adults than it is kids.

And if you can win kids, you might be able to reach an adult because they’re looking for a gimmick. They’re looking for the bottom line. The adults, they’re setting their ways and they don’t trust you as easy. Little children are trusting and I think it’s good. And if you want to reach an adult, the best time to reach an adult is when they are children, because these children are going to grow up to be adults. So you want to reach them why you can.

So the next statement, what do I want to do with my life? So my life perfect. The answer should be, and here’s the two things from we get from the law, and that is to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, and mind, to love my neighbor as myself. So these two things love the Lord and love others. And so to demonstrate that I do, this is what I do, then what should I be? Because sometimes we always wonder, well, what would you like to be when you grow up?

Well, what you want to be will determine what you do. I want to be a fireman. Well, if you’re a fireman, that kind of tells you what you’re going to do, you’re going to put out fires. And if you want to be a policeman, that kind of sounds, this is what but I want to be so I didn’t tell me what you want to do. So I’ve wanted to be a soul winner. So I knew what I had to be, to be a soul winner, to win people to Christ.

Now look what the next statement, what do I want to be in my life, my life goal? The answer should be to be a mirror of the image of the Lord Jesus Christ in my life to others, to be a specialist at sharing the gospel of salvation with everyone I meet and train them to serve Him. Now, everyone you meet, you’re not going to, but you should be prepared to. You never know when you’re gonna get certain opportunities to talk to people, and wouldn’t it be a shame to have somebody come up to you?

Could you please tell me how to go to heaven? Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know how to do it. No, I think you probably will know enough. If you’ve been coming here long enough, you’ve seen enough and heard enough that you would know how to get through it. But the reason for your faithfulness is not just because of the person you may witness to, but because of the Christian that might see you doing it. Now you don’t do it to be seen of men, but you should be seen of men, because the Bible says, let your light so shine.

Before men, that they may glorify your Father, which is in heaven. So, there’s nothing wrong in people seeing you talk to people about the Lord. Your motive isn’t to be that it’s just because, the only reason I’m witnessing or passing out tracts is so everybody can see me how great I am. Because God says, if you’re doing it for that, you’ve already got your reward when you do it just to be seen of men. So, you’ve got to get the balance in there and do it because you know it’s a right thing to do.

You do want to influence others. So don’t hold back and be so shy and timid. And that’s why I am. I’m very shy and very timid. And I have to make myself do these things. But the second point, to be a specialist at sharing the gospel of salvation with everyone I meet and trained in the Servo Lord, you don’t have to be a specialist in everything. You don’t have to know everything. I’ve often told people, I says, between men, God, we know everything.

And between men, God, we can do anything. But of course, you know, God’s gonna have to do it because I can’t, I don’t know where everything. I can’t do anything, God does. So you wanna be a specialty at making the gospel clear. So when you talk to a football player, it’s nice if you can know a little football language and talk to him a little bit, maybe they’re open to conversation, but you wanna be a specialist on the gospel.

I mentioned this to you before. when I had an opportunity to give devotion for the Denver Broncos out in Colorado. And they called me up and asked me if I’d come and give the votions. And so I said, sure. So I went down there right before the Oakland Raiders game. And they had the whole game in there. And they’re gonna go play in the Malha Stadium. And so I go in there and there’s the coach Red Miller and there was Floyd Little and Bobby Anderson and all these guys in there.

I didn’t know them. I just knew a couple of the guys names. And anyway, I didn’t talk to them about how to play the game. They got a coach to teach them that. They know more about how to play football than I do. So I don’t want to be an expert on that. I just want to know how to tell them how to have eternal life. So I spent a half an hour telling the little wall of the illustration.

So I can tell that little wall of the illustration in two minutes, or I can take 10 minutes, or I can do it in 30 minutes. All you do is just explain a little bit more on each point. But when I got through and gave the invitation, I had about 25 trusts to the Lord. So it’s worth doing it. It’s worth knowing it. And I had a chance to speak at different places. I had a guy named Jerry Bird that would fly me all the way to Utah to speak to Christian businessmen associations.

And I was 26 years old. I just got out of Florida Bible College and I had gone through the camps and now I’m in Colorado. And so he would fly me to certain places and I would speak. I didn’t have to speak to them on business and how to run their business. All I would do is just explain the gospel. Become a specialist in that. You don’t have to know everything. To witness to a doctor, you don’t have to be a doctor.

You don’t have to be a lawyer to witness to a lawyer. You’ve got the greatest knowledge in the world. That’s great as what a doctor or a lawyer or a banker or anybody knows. The most intellectual people in the world, if they don’t know God, you’re one up on them. If you know how to get to heaven, you’re better off. And so therefore, talk to them about what you know and explain that. In other words, next statement, be a specialist at sharing the gospel of Christ.

Some important things to remember. There’s only two kinds of people in the world. Those that know they’re going to heaven and those that don’t know they’re going to heaven. See how simple that was? I used to talk, I’d ask the person, and I’d say, what kind of religion are you? Just to kind of get a question going and conversation. I’m Catholic. Also, well, okay. Well, you know, there’s only two kinds of Catholics.

So what’s that? Kind of just going to heaven, kind of thing. I said, which kind are you? You got to think. I’m a Baptist. Well, well, well, next good. Okay. There’s only two kinds of Baptists. Kind of just going to heaven, kind of thing. Pentecostal. I don’t you name the religion use the same thing. There’s only two kinds. I don’t get an argument about their religious belief. Are you the kind that’s going to heaven? The kind of isn’t. And it eliminates a lot of stuff.

It gets right down to it. I was talking to this one kid and men Betty had gone to this sprint store to get our little cell phones corrected it didn’t want to work right all the time something happened to mine and I had to get it done so anyway he he had to do it and he had to wait wait wait wait wait for it to download something I says you know we got a few minutes you’re I can I ask you a question he says sure I said isn’t it true you heard all your life they Christ down on the cross and paid for all the sins of the world.

And then what’s the next question I usually always ask? Well, the next question is, if he paid for all of our sins… Why do we have to go to hell and pay for sin if he paid for it? So I never thought of that. So I explained to him a little bit more and he said that makes sense and he thanked me for telling them that. So you can get somebody to trust the Lord and this is standing in the store while we’re waiting on the cell phone to download some kind of information on it to make it work.

But just learn how to do it and it needs to be as natural as possible. You know you don’t just talk about you know the weather. I gotta talk to you about the things of God No, you Would you want somebody to do that to you? No and Or to be in the line, you know and you get up to the cash register you kneel over there now kneel over here Oh God bless the same That’s that be petrifying You ought to do it where nobody else even watching whatever even have a clue what you’re doing unless another Christian from here know that what you’re doing.

And believe it or not, you can win people to Lord without even doing that, but it does help the individual to understand. So the next statement, the best way to reach an adult with the gospel is to reach him or her as a child. Learn to reach children is a right harvest. One of the things about little children, they usually don’t challenge you. They will listen to And if it makes it simple and clear to them, they’ll trust the Lord.

Most kids, if they understand it, they’ll trust the Lord. Now, adults will argue all day long. That’s why you have to be able to pick and choose and when to move on and when to shut up and so on. But then the next statement, believing that Christ died, that’s history, believing Christ died for me at salvation. That’s on the back of our tracks, by the way. Next statement, being born again means you must have a second birth. It is important to know your spiritual birth date.

Now you may not know the exact day and hour. It’s good if you do, but if you don’t, but you know you are saved, you should still be able to sing this little song. Happy birthday to you. Only one will not do. Born again, mean salvation. How many have you? Now, with little kids, you have a cute little tomb. So your lead little kids to the Lord is the biggest key of reaching the adults. You reach them why you can.

Look at page two. That’s all Harvey would say, page two. Top of the page, sharing the gospel of salvation is a command. It’s not something the preacher made up. It’s something that God says to do. God gives to those who have trusted Him as their Savior. It is one of the main reasons why God left us here after we’re saved. Because, see, we can sing and all those things in heaven and fellowship, but here we’re left to get this done.

And this is why we want to support the ministries that get that done. That’s why we should be thankful that we have a ministry like the Tampa Youth Ranch, because they’re having a lot of people, trust Christ as Savior. And every once in a while we have some that will trust the Lord in church or some will trust the Lord because of the Reformers unanimous. But see, the biggest thing is individual people, just don’t it as you live your life.

And the people you get a chance to talk to, and just looking for opportunity. But look at the next segment, we are entrusted with the gospel. Now, I know that most of you here, you already know most of this stuff, but you may not have it down in an order where you can teach it. See, every one of us ought to be teachers. You should be teaching somebody because of your living it and people see what you’re doing. And there’s an advantage of doing that.

Or you may wind up teaching in a Sunday school classes like that. I’d love to have 10 Sunday school classes on Sunday morning. But everybody building a Sunday school class. But see, a lot of people don’t feel like there’s an interest there. It’s not as important. And yet it can be so valuable because not only for the people that are learning, but for the people that are teaching. Did you know you don’t really know if you know what you think you know until you start trying to teach it to somebody else?

Because then it really pulls it out of you and you find out when you have to prepare something every week. I have four or five times a week that I prepare things to speak on. Somebody asked me, he says, how long does it take you to prepare a message? I said 50 years. Because see, it wasn’t done last week or two weeks ago or a year ago. I’ve spent 50 years learning so I can go back and get this illustration or this illustration or this Bible verse or whatever and put it together.

But it’s harder when you don’t have all of that knowledge behind you, but you see you have to start building and getting some successful past experiences of people that you’ve led to the Lord. Because you know one day we’ll all have to stand before the Lord. But look at the next statement. We are told to go into the entire world to preach the gospel. That’s why we want to have missionaries everywhere. I love to have 50. You know when Lee Patton was here, he has a small church, Faith Bible Church, in San Antonio, Texas.

Texas, he has sent hundreds to Bible college and they support over 50 missionaries a year and they give I think five or six thousand dollars a month to missions a little small church but all the people they give support their church and give extra to missions and every time I’ve gone to a lot of churches and I’ve never seen a church that small supports so many missionaries. It just blows my mind. But think of that little church and how many places.

And this is what he was talking about. He said, your faith is heard throughout the world because there’s people everywhere because they have been influenced by that church. I was reading something and somebody sent it on Facebook and they were talking about the youth ranch from days gone by. And then one of them wrote in there about the West Coast youth ranch started by Mel’s carbonyl about 40 years ago. And then somebody told me about the ranch that they had right here, Tampa youth ranch, and they was talking about that youth ranch.

And so you have people 40 years later, and when you started getting older, because you were reached when you were a teenager, and now see these guys have grown up, they’re old men, should say, too old, but they’re older, and they look back, and they know that the greatest thing that ever happened in that whole life of theirs was the day they trusted the Lord. And it might be that that little kid in a Sunday school class or in a water program or whatever, and they come to know Christ of their Savior, and they don’t look like nothing big and exciting then.

You know, little kid just trusts the Lord. They know they’re going to heaven when they die. And then they start slowly learning and growing and gaining their little knowledge here and a little knowledge there. And next thing you know, one of these days they could be behind a pope at some place or missionary or evangelist or raising a godly family. And the influence is so important. See, serving the Lord is letting God use the power of your influence in other people’s lives.

Anyway, the next statement, God says, He that wins souls is wise, Proverbs 11-30. He that wins souls is his wise. When Christians follow Christ, He will make us fishers of men. God’s will is for everyone to be saved. You know that. Who will tell them? Remember, In heaven we can pray, in heaven we can fellowship with others. But one thing we won’t be able to do in heaven is share the gospel. So we pray for the unsaved. That’s why we want to have the various ministries and we say pray for ranch.

Well, you don’t pray, just pray for ranch. We’re praying that they’ll have some fruit, that they’ll have people come. And we pray for the Reformers Unanimous, you want people to come and hear the gospel. There might be a lot of people that will be here and see the importance of, Hey, I need to be in that program, but you got to, you got to sow seeds, sow seeds, sow seeds. And so this is what we want everybody to do.

The next statement here, pray for the boldness to share the gospel because sometimes it takes bonus. Paul even taught about pray that I may have boldness to open my mouth and to speak because see, the hardest part is getting started. You all know this. If there’s anything that I want for you as a church, I want God to reward you when you get to heaven. I want people to be in heaven because they heard the gospel from your lips personally.

So I want to encourage you to do that. There are some that are getting some of that boldness. Peter was talking about some of the people that, well, when they first started out on Friday night, so when he put a little shy and timid. And now it’s like they doesn’t even bother them. They just go and they can talk to just about anybody. And so do pray for these kids. Look at everyone in the light of the gospel. Ask yourself, are they saved?

Use every opportunity to give the gospel. Weddings, funerals, showers, birthday parties, neighborhood parties. When you ask to give a testimony of what is going on in your life, Christmas letters and so forth. This way, if there is ever just one person in a group that is not saved. You had shared the most important information they could ever need. Also, for the Christians who hear you shared the gospel over and over, they will learn how to present it clearly. Now what I enjoy is when I do a wedding I like to give the gospel and then whenever you do a funeral, the funeral is a good place to go fishing and there’s opportunities when somebody, a loved one, passes away in your family, that’s a perfect chance.

To be able to talk to people about the Lord. Sometimes it’s the only time people listen. Now I’ve had people say this. They love the Lord, they love the gospel. But when they die, they have somebody else. Do the funeral that’s not clear on the gospel. If you have the power in your hand, the authority to determine who should do your funeral, try to have somebody that will give the gospel because the person that’s dead, they’re dead. The funeral is not for the dead person.

It’s for those that are still alive that we may teach our hearts to number our days and apply our hearts unto wisdom. That person has died, they’re already wherever they’re going. They’re there. They’re not in that body. And so therefore use that as an opportunity to get the gospel to the people that might come there for no other reason and may never darken the doors of a church and don’t naturally assume, Well, the preacher will do the funeral. If you don’t have it down, I won’t be doing the funeral because there may be somebody else in the family that will determine it, and there you go.

If you can choose and you can make that decision, and it’s in your hands, try to make the wisest decision. People will think about, you know, where are they gonna be buried, and their insurance policy, and the headstone, what they want on it, and a verse of scripture, and all the flowers, and where it’s gonna be, and everything except the gospel. As long as the preacher says nice wonderful things, I was doing a funeral one day for my aunt.

And she had a son that was in another state. I never got a chance to talk to him, but she had wanted me to do her funeral, so I was going to do her funeral. There’s a little white church way out in the woods where my daddy was buried. So I’m not there, and everybody’s middling around and so forth, so we go in there for the funeral service and we had a couple songs and he’s setting there in the family and all them, you know.

So I got up here and I started doing the gospel. I talked about this and that, my relationship with her. It’s up to you nice little things at the beginning, you know, and that the people here are here as a testimony of their love and appreciation and the flowers and all that kind of stuff. And I started going to the gospel. I got about halfway through this hand represent you and me and this wall represents sin and I was going through, he gets up out of his seat and comes up on the stage, walks right up to me and whispers in my ear and he says that’s enough of this stuff.

Just say some nice things about my mom and let it go. I don’t want no more of this. And he turns and walk back down. He said, I says, once again, let this hand represent you and me. And Waller represents sin. And I went ahead and did it all over again because he had interrupted me. And I went through and I gave the gospel, gave an invitation, had several trusts to the Lord. Now, can that happen? Oh, I’ve had it happen.

But you’ve got to determine what are you committed to. to. She had wanted me to do this because she heard me do it years before and she trusted Christ as her Savior and her sister, my Aunt Grace, I had led her to the Lord and I did her funeral. So I got a lot of people, the relatives that trusted Christ as Savior because I explained the Gospel to them. 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 by the line 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. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, Calvary of Tampa dot O-R-G. 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 everyday, believing that the Lord is coming soon. Just keep looking up.