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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. 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 line 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.

Look at number six, worry is solved by faith in the promises of God. That’s why you study the promises of God so that you know what God says so that you don’t have to worry. Most of our worrying is because it’s based upon our own performance of what I can do or can’t do. And so my life is totally dependent upon my ability and when you can’t see how you’re going to do it, you worry. When you can’t see financially how you are going to get yourself out of this, or you’re going to try to solve this medical problem or this, whatever it might be, well then all those worries come back because you forget the promises of God.

God didn’t promise that we’re going to live here forever. He did not promise us that we’re going to have all the money we want. See, you might just live until you die and you can die at any time in any ways. So you don’t worry. Number seven, jealousy is solved by esteeming others better than yourselves. You know, if you read the book of Colossians in chapter 2, it talks about esteeming others better than yourself. Seeing them that way so that you’re not jealous because they are lifted up and they’re doing things and God’s using people.

Because you know that if you humble yourself to the Lord, God will honor you. God will bless you. God will use you. So you see, it’s a personal thing between you and God and all these things reveal where you are spiritually. And some people are not as strong as they think. And I believe sometimes we don’t want to find out how weak we are. We’re scared. We’re afraid there’s going to be a problem come along that I can’t handle.

Well maybe I can’t but me and God can. And so whatever it is, you just trust the Lord to walk you through it. Number eight, laziness is solved by meaningful productivity. Now when we study the book of Ecclesiastes, if you want to see a book that can really depress you. That’s one book that can. All is vanity and vexation of spirit. In other words, what in the world is the purpose of life? Why do I do all this work?

Why has all of this got a meaning or whatever? So it’s always looking at life as a man under the sun, as a man living without the knowledge of God. And so there’s not much hope, not much reason for anything. And so we’re just like the beast of the earth we live and we die and that’s all there is to it. But I do want you to just see a couple verses there. Look in the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes.

In the book of Ecclesiastes and look there in chapter 3. Chapter 3 and look in verse 17. A lot of things he goes down through here and talks about there’s time for this, then a time for that. Time to be born, time to die. Time to love, time to war, and a time to weep, in verse four, and a time to laugh, time to mourn, time to dance. In other words, all this is what goes on in your life.

And so he says in verse 11, he hath made everything beautiful in his time. Also he hath set the world in their heart, or eternity in their heart, So that no man can find out the work that God make it from the beginning to the end. Regardless of how long you and I live. By human wisdom, we will never find out or understand God. So, he says down here in verse 13, looking verse 13, and also that every man should eat and drink, enjoy the good of all of his labor, it is the gift of God.

Did you know that God given to you and I, the ability, not only the ability to work, to work, but the need to work is a gift. Now you talk about being bored in life. God has designed life that if you’re not willing to work, then you let you die. So, well, I don’t want to die. Then work. Find a way to meet your needs. So God has designed life and given When you were a body, gave you a mind, and God says, work is a gift from God.

Now take your Bible to look there in the book of Genesis, all the way over to the book of Genesis. In Genesis in chapter 2, Genesis chapter 2 and look there in verse 15, even before Adam and Eve had sinned, he gave them responsibilities in the garden. So he says in verse 15, And the Lord God took the man, Put him into the garden of Eden, To dress it and to keep it. He had a job to do. He also was given a job of naming all the animals and all the plants, giving everything a name.

You know he had to be pretty smart, to start off with. And yet they want to tell you that the first man, you know they came walking out of that cave, you know, and we had a big old club and beat the woman over the head and drag her by the head and drag her back in the cave. And didn’t know how to talk, but just grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt. Now the first man God ever made was probably one of the most intelligent men ever made.

And so they were very, very smart at the very beginning. Look there in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 17. 3 verse 17, you know they had sinned, so they had to be placed under curse. In verse 17, and under Adam he said, because thou hast hearken unto the voice of thy wife, and hath eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shall not eat of it? Now keep us in mind, even though he did listen to his wife, God still held the man responsible for his actions.

True? He was responsible for what he did. God did not accept his excuse. Well, that woman you made me. I mean, he used that excuse, but God did not accept that excuse. Every one of us as individuals are responsible for the decisions that we made. And so he says, thou shalt not eat of it? Cursed is the ground. Why did he curse the ground?” And you’ll see those next three words for thy sake, because man would totally be miserable in life if he didn’t have to work.

Being able to work is truly a blessing because God has placed so much upon the idea of work, work, a man having to work and to provide. And so he says that this is what God wants us to do and this is what he’s done. But a lazy man, a lazy man, God despises a lazy person, people that don’t like to go, don’t like to produce, don’t like to work, find a work, find something to do for the Lord and try to find out how you can do whatever it is.

want you to do, but glared upon with the spisest slothfulness and laziness. Those are not too honorable traits that go back here to book of Ecclesiastes chapter UNCLASSIFIED. I want you to see this in verse 17. He says in verse 17, I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is time, therefore every purpose and for every work. But a man needs a purpose for why he should work. And if a man can find a way to get out of work, most time that will be his purpose in life, trying to find out how to get out of work.

It’s better to have a little and work hard and earn the right to rest. Some people haven’t earned the right. This year, one business man, he was talking to this hippie years ago back in the 60s, you know, they’re all called hippies, you know. Lay around, didn’t want to work, smoke, rust, go to pot. Anyway, talking to this hippie, and he says, why don’t you get up and go to work? He says, why? He says, so that you can have a job and make some money.

He says, why? Well, so you’ll have food to eat and a place to live. He says, why? He says, so that you can grow old. He says, why? Well, so that you can retire. He says, why? So you can take it easy and relax enjoy life.” He says, I’m already doing that, but he hasn’t earned the right to do it. You’re supposed to earn the right to take it easy and to relax and enjoy life down the road. But most people, they want to jump the gun and do it now, and then there’s no preparation for the future.

You’ll find out one of the blessings of life is just to keep on working. A lot of people have died after they retire. So you have to be careful. You’ve got to have something to keep living for, something to keep motivating you. Look at in verse 22, verse 22, he said, Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works. For that is his portion, for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him, for a man to work and enjoy what he’s doing.

It is a blessing to man, even for a man that doesn’t even know the Lord. But for the man that does know the Lord, to have a purpose in life and to be willing to work. That’s why he talks about the Lord’s work. He’s a study to show thyself a workman, workman, rightly be vital in the word of truth. And so whatever thy hands findeth to do with all thy might. So all this is mentioned in the word of God.

Now look at number nine, rejection of Christ produces an awful lot of depression because think of the question. There’s so many problems that people have when they don’t know who they are and when they don’t know about death and they don’t know what they are. They don’t know where they’re going, and they don’t know where they came from, and they don’t know the purpose of life. That causes so many people to be so down and so discouraged, so depressed.

Because you see, if you’re nothing more than an animal than there is no God, there’s no creator, there’s no plan, so that requires a planner. There’s no real laws because that means a law giver. There’s no right and wrong. Everything’s a dirty grave. Just whatever you want to do. You’re just an animal. Up on the top of some evolutionary ladder. How discouraging and depressing that would be. This is why there’s so many people have nothing to live for. And isn’t it a shame that there is a religion where there are only hope of going to heaven.

If there’s only real hope of going to heaven if they can kill some infidels, then they might get to get some virgins up there in heaven and so on. How stupid. Can you see why there’s no hope in those countries? While those people are willing to die, there’s nothing to live for. It’s so pathetic. You and I have something to live for. So rejecting of Christ is such a depressing thing. But see, that’s where you and I have hope.

You and I have something to offer people because they’re so down and so discouraged. They don’t have the answer. Only through Christ can these answers be given where they can know the truth. And then number 10, demonic depression. believe in a lie causes depression. So when you don’t believe the truth, you will believe a lie. And if you believe the lie, it’s not the truth and it won’t have the answers and it will not satisfy. Now, very quickly, the non-cenful causes of depression.

You see, there are some things that causes depression, but it’s not the result of your sins. You see, those other things we talk about are things because of bad decisions you make on your own. It’s a result of how you’re thinking. But there are other things that can cause depression. Number one, being a victim of sin. Now in Exodus chapter 6, verses 6, 7, 8, 9, it talks about how that there came a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. didn’t know anything about Joseph.

400 years has passed. Now, the children of Israel, the Hebrew, were slaves, and their taskmasters were hard upon them, and the Bible says that they cried unto the Lord because of their taskmasters, how they laid upon them such heavy burdens. And so being so down and so discouraged, what wrong had these Hebrew children done? They didn’t ask to go down in the Egypt. They were taken down there by Jacob, the father of the nation of Israel. Joseph had already been sent down there to give them a place to incubate so they could graze themselves up into a great nation.

So now after all these years, they got problems and they’re so so depressed. They cried out unto God and the Bible says, God heard their cries and sent Moses down there. But what wrong had the children of Israel in reality? What did they do to deserve this? They hadn’t done anything. So there’s going to be things that’s going to happen to you and to me that you did not do anything to deserve it. You didn’t cause it. That’s why it’s a non-sinful cause of depression.

But can you get depressed because of what others do to you? Because of these situations, the circumstances that you find in life. For example, a child that’s abandoned by the mother can cause a lot of depression. I was really small when I got very, very discouraged, very depressed. And my mom and my dad had taken the other three and they had gone down into Florida. I was with my uncle up there in Georgia and they lived way out in the woods.

I remember the house that they lived in. It didn’t have a floor in it. It was just a dirt. And they’d send me out there and I had to twist, straw, till it breaks off and then you could bring it in there and they would put a stick in there and wrap around it and they would sweep the floor with it. We did it at our house. So I knew how to do it for them. So they sent me out to do it.

But I cried so many nights, and I had no clue where my mom or my dad was. I hadn’t seen my sisters. But it really took its toll upon me, because even when you’re a young child, you can feel rejected, dejected. Remember, I didn’t have the best coming into the world, and then after being raised in the world, not everything was wonderful. I didn’t have that kind of a childhood. But I know what it’s like to be discouraged, even though I didn’t know how to say it, I didn’t even know what the word was.

I didn’t know what depressed was. But I remember crying an awful lot. And I remember them trying to get me to not cry so much. And then I remember one day they took us over to see Jim Elaine. And I saw Nat and Lizzie, the one that was older than me. And I saw them coming from the house. They hadn’t seen me and I hadn’t seen them. We didn’t know where each other was. And we just ran up to each other and we cried and slobbered all over each other and wiped our noses all over each other.

And we were just so glad to see each other. But you know, even though that happened to me, over 63 years ago, I still remember that. And nothing will ever make me forget that. But as you go on in life, you’ll find that there’s a lot of things that will happen. You did not cause. So you can be abandoned and it can cause you great depression. It can happen because a husband leaves a wife. Oh, the wife leaves the husband.

See number two there, a husband or wife whose spouse commits adultery. And what can cause such hurt and heartache? And yet it may not be no fault of your own, but it can so discourage you. Cause you to be so down because you’ve been so hurt. You’ve been defrauded. Another kind is a crime victim. You’re the victim of a crime. Somebody can sin against you, do wrong to you. And these are things that can take its toll upon you.

And yet it’s not because of something that you did wrong, but it can cause you to have all these guilt feelings. But look at number two, the false guilt. 1 John 3 20, I want you to look at this verse, it’s a very good version, you need to know where it is, and that it’s in the Bible. 1 John 3, and look in verse 20, because it’s talking about your own conscience, your conscience, and you can have a good conscience, a clear conscience, a defiled conscience, a guilty conscience.

But it makes a statement here in verse 24, if our heart can dim us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Now in verse 21, if our heart can dim us not, then have we confidence toward God. So there’s things that you and I do that we give ourselves permission to do. If you give yourself permission to do it with all the scripture that you know, And it doesn’t bother your conscience because you believe it’s right.

Then believe it’s right. And don’t have a false guilt that you place upon yourself that it’s nothing wrong with it. You see, you can weigh yourself down because of things that can happen beyond your power to control. And it may have nothing to do with what you have done or haven’t done, so you don’t condemn yourself for that which somebody else does, like a child believing that mom and daddy got divorced because it was my fault. And maybe they’re only five or six years old or eight or ten years old.

I talked to when Kitty came from a broken home, he said, yeah, I broke it. But you need to understand that there are some things that can cause depression that you were not the cause of it. And if you don’t learn how to handle some of these things, it will take its toll upon you. So look at number two, guilt feelings that arise when no sin has been committed. Have you ever had an accident, a car accident, anything? I have turned around quickly and bumped right into people.

And the thing I say, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. Now, should I feel guilty for the rest of the day because of what I did? Yes, I should. I knew he was going to say that. If it’s an accident, it means you didn’t plan it. You didn’t plan it. Accidents, mistakes of common human error committed without pre-planning or stressful decisions, stressful decisions. There’s a lot of decisions you have to make in life, and you may not want to make them.

But after you’ve made them, you feel guilty for having made it. But you have to do it. And sometimes that takes place with loved ones. For example, you love your mother or your father as some relativists real close, and while you may find yourself because of certain circumstances, you may have to put them in a nursing home. because you’re not able to take care of them, for whatever the reasons. But then you feel guilty because you did it. But why would you condemn yourself for doing what you believe was the right thing to do?

So you can lay guilt upon yourself that’s not the result of a sin that you’d committed, but because of stressful decisions, sometimes you have to make. times when I had to tell my children, no, no. I’ll have to admit now, they had a hard time learning what the word meant. So even when it was 16 and 17 years old, I still had a hard time convincing them what the word no meant. And it can be very stressful at times because they want to do something and I didn’t think it was a wise thing to do and I would say, say no.

And then I would feel, I hate to have to say that. I wish that didn’t have to do that. But you see, sometimes you have to make decisions that are filled with stress. Because you don’t want to have to make it. They don’t want to have to hear it. You don’t know how they’re going to accept it. Do you think that as the pastor of a church that sometimes I make a lot of decisions and under stress that I’d rather not make.

Sometimes I deal with people and I’d rather not do. Sometimes I cancel with people I’d rather not do it. And sometimes it can be very stressful. Why? Because you don’t know the outcome. You don’t know how people are going to accept things. I’ve talked to married couples and single people and you name it, I’ve had to do it. But it’s a part of the responsibility. Now I can just stress myself out until I’d have to have a, you know, a weak vacation.

You know, this sounds good. I think I need a cruise. I think I need to go on a cruise. You know, just to get my senses back and rest a little bit because of the stressful situation. Did you know there’s stress a little bit with just having a summer camp? When you think about what it cost, the money you’ve got to raise, the speakers you’ve got to have, all the workers and counselors you’ve got to have, and dealing with the people you’ve got to deal with, and you haven’t got a clue how it’s going to work out.

about just what there’s their Sunday school that can produce stress. I want to can produce stress Saturday night and have stress. We can be under a lot of time. I’ll bet you that those little ladies that were playing the piano and the organ for the first time were stressed out. You think so? When Peter had to direct the choir I’ll bet he had some stress upon him. You don’t think that he got it down path. It didn’t bother him at all.

But everybody has stress. You’ve got to go through it. That’s what reveals what kind of strength you have. It’s just like whenever they want to put a gas line into a house or water line, they usually test a certain amount of pressure they put in to see if it’s got a leak. Well, why are they doing that? Because they want to put a lot of pressure on it. And if it doesn’t leak with all the pressure, they’re putting on it, it’s not going to leak with the pressure you put on it.

So therefore it should be okay. All right, God will do a lot of that same kind of testing upon you and I with pressure, pressure. And we talk about time, heat and pressure. And you and I are under that as we go through life and It causes us sometimes to be so discouraged and so depressed. And so there are some things that we cause because of our mind not being right and we. We harbor ill feelings and our emotions are all run away.

You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the Clear Gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. If you wish to hear today’s program again or would like to download a free MP3 of today’s or any previous Bibleline program, Go to BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the spinning globe in the upper right corner of our homepage.

If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. 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, 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 as coming soon and just keep looking up.