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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. 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 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.

In 1 Peter chapter 4 it makes this statement. He says, you have been called to suffer, but in the suffering there is fellowship with the Lord. And he says, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you. As though some strange thing happened unto you. He said, don’t think it’s strange because it’s going to happen and you’re going to have to pay a price. Look at number four in your notes there. Human affliction can cause believers.

You see, what will it do for me? What can I gain out of this? What’s the purpose of it? Do you know there’s things that God may want you to learn by the things that you go through? Now, it wasn’t long ago when I became 60. I thought, man, I thought it was going to die. I thought it was going to die. I almost did twice. And it’s a miracle that I’m here today. And I have suffered. I had to take pain pills for over a year and a half.

One Sunday I had to take five pain pills to try to get through the day. And I hadn’t got a clue what I preached on. I couldn’t remember. I was like in the days, but I had to go through it. And I heard I suffered. I suffered. Physically suffered. And I remember when we had this western day. Now I’m not against western day, I love western day. But we had the dunking booth. You ever seen a dunking booth? You know where the guy sits on the little ledge and somebody out there throws the little ball hits that little round thing?

Well, we’ve been playing horseshoes and so forth, but they holled and says, preacher, preacher, it’s your turn. All righty, so I go over there and I take off my coat and I’ll take off my tie, and you know, and I got into the dunking boat, took off my shoes, and so I’m climbing up on the ledge, and by now half the water’s gone. It’s been splashed out of there. So it was only half full. So I got in there, and I’m crawling up on the little ledge, and it’s kind of shaky, so you gotta be slow and careful, or it’ll go down before you’re ready.

Well, I finally get up on there, and I’m leaning sideways, and I gotta scoot over on it, And I saw this guy, he was my brother-in-law, he’s winding up. And I said, and I’m, everybody’s hollering for him to throw, throw, throw. And I thought, no, don’t, don’t, not yet. I’m not ready yet. And then I thought, he could hit the broad side of a barn.

Well, he did. He hit that little round thing over there, dead center. And when he hit it, I was leaning on the side, and buddy, I went down into that tank, And my foot hit up against the corner of that metal bin. And there wasn’t much water, and so there wasn’t much support. And I hit that thing and it twisted my ankle. And I’m talking about excruciating pain, shot up through my leg, and oh, it hurt. Now, if I hadn’t have been a grown man, if I hadn’t have been in that tank, and I hadn’t seen people watching me, I’d have cried.

I suffered, that hurt. But I laughed and got up there, and I crawled back on the limb again, and they put me down again. And I hit it again. I crawled back up there and I laughed at so far, I said, you can’t hit, you can’t hit me. I’m gone again. They delight in seeing the preacher suffer. They didn’t know how bad I was hurting. That night when I got home, I could hardly walk. So I thought, I didn’t tell my wife.

I took two ibuprofen, 800 milligrams. But I didn’t know you were supposed to have, you know, a four-mill or anything like that. I just took to them and swallowed. Believe it or not, my ankle felt better. But the next night, it was still sore a little bit. I thought, I’ll just take two more. So I took two more on an empty stomach right before I go to bed. Well, the next day. I was in Hertzville. I didn’t know that I had a bleeding ulcer and I was in bad shape.

And I couldn’t hardly walk. I lay down on the floor and I couldn’t hardly get up. I finally got up enough and I called Betty on the phone. I says, honey, I says, I think you need to take me to the doctor. At this time, I still had no clue what I needed to do. I didn’t know what was wrong. I said, I’m coming home. I want you to take me to the VA. I drove home and it seemed like I was flying and I looked down at the speedometer and I’m going about 20 miles an hour down that road It took me seemed like forever to get there, but it seemed like I was flying But I couldn’t hardly adjust things and my knuckles were turning white my hands were all turning white and By the time I got to the house and I didn’t know if

I’d ever make it Betty She jumped in the car and she was going about a hundred and ten around the bin and and got down there and they tried to stand me up and I couldn’t stand up. I was so weak they said, you have to sit in this chair. I said, I can’t, I lay down on the floor. They said, you can’t lay on the floor. I said, ma’am, I’m laying on the floor. They said, we’ll get him a, they moved me in and they actually know.

They said, oh my God, he’s got a bleeding ulcer. And they did immediate surgery. Right off the bat. It was interesting. And my wife’s wondering whether or not is am I going to live or am I going to die. she suffered just as much as I suffered, even though I was the one that was in the bed, and they were having to give me some blood, and I was crying because, see, it was Thursday and Friday. I said, I’ve got to get out of a hospital on Friday.

And they said, you’re not going anywhere. I said, I’m getting out of here Friday. I said, I’m supposed to be in Egypt. I’m leaving for Egypt on Monday. I’m going to eat with Ray Stanford. And I said, I’ve got to get out of here. And so they gave me some more blood on Friday. I got out. I was preaching on Sunday morning in church. That Monday, Betty was pushing me through the Atlanta airport in a wheelchair because I couldn’t walk out.

And they finally got me on the airplane. And I had just enough strength each day to do what I needed to do each day. Egypt is the last place you want to go when you have stomach trouble. But I like to died. Now, I don’t know whether the devil, all I know is that I did make some stupid decisions. I shouldn’t have took the ibuprofen on an empty stomach. It ate right through my stomach. And I could have died so easy.

And they said I got down to the hospital just in time. And then another time after that, I got there. And they said, another 12 hours, you would have been either in a coma. This was six months later. You would have been in the coma or you would have been dead. And they had to do emergency surgery on me again. So I am lucky to be here. I am fortunate to be here. I could have been in heaven.

I want to have been so bad. But you in this life, you’re going to have something. It’s going to hit you upside that you can’t explain it. Well, Lord, why I don’t know why I don’t care why. I think, well, God, you’re God and you could stop this or you can allow it. So whatever, I didn’t ask when to be born and I don’t care when I leave. I am at your disposal. I’m going to try to do whatever the leave is right.

And if you let me live, praise the Lord. If you want to take me home, praise the Lord, whatever you want to do, I really don’t care. And so I guess he doesn’t want me yet. Eight, nine more years has passed. And maybe one of these days I’ll be standing here telling you, hey, I’m 79 now. And who knows? You don’t have any clue just how fast something can hit you. My mama, she went through just about everything you can think of.

And I really don’t want to follow that trail, but sometimes we’re going to have to suffer. But there’s lessons to be learned. Look at number, letter A, to learn God’s word. Psalms 119, I believe he’s talking about when I was afflicted,Relle. He said, before I was a, I went astray. And so God’s affliction sometimes can bring you back. Because sometimes it causes you to search yourself and see, is there something that I’m doing that’s wrong? And sometimes there is, sometimes there’s things that you need to correct.

But you don’t think about it until something happens, and then you wonder why God doesn’t answer your prayer, and then you think, well, maybe it’s because of this, or maybe it’s because of that. God does want you to search yourself. God does one that’s the cert. An unexamined life is not worth living. Always examining yourself, seeing where my spirit’s living. What’s my attitude to the truth? Always remember that. To learn patience. Romans chapter 5, tribulation, worketh, patience. It’s the hard time.

Because you can’t make it end. You can’t solve all the problems. It’s beyond you. So you have to let God do it. Have you had situations that you have come to the limit of your own wisdom and ability and you say, if God, you don’t get me out of this, I won’t get out of this. I am at my which and I don’t know what else to do. God says, great. That’s where I’ve been trying to get you. and you’re right where God wanted to get you.

It’s kind of like this. Suppose I put a hole up there in that ceiling, and I went up on the roof, and I had a whole bunch of money up there, and I want to bless people, and whoever gets under that opening, I’m going to throw some money down. And lo and behold, James walks in the room. All I want to bless James. I can’t seem to get James maneuvered under that hole up there. If I could just get him under that hole, I’d just double a whole bunch of money on him.

So I work all kind of things in his life. And I bring somebody else in his life and they’ll try to get him over to here. And then somebody gets him over to here and then somebody gets him over there. And finally he gets into the right spot right where I wanted him. Now he got there quicker if he’d just listened to the first person I sent, but no, he won’t do that. So I had to send ten people to try to tell them and moving and working in his life and putting this obstacle in his life and opening up this door and closing that door so I can get him right where I want him.

And then when he finally got there I blessed him. He says, man, isn’t God good? But until he got there, you know, I don’t know if God knows who I am anymore. I don’t even know if he knows where I’m at. What’s going on in my life? And God says, I’ve been trying to get you someplace. I’ve been working in your life. He didn’t leave you alone. He loves you. And he’s working. Because he’s doing that with every one of his children.

Remember this, your heavenly Father is going to give you personal lies to tension. He’s going to let you go. He knows everything that’s happening in your life. He knows you. He knows what’s going to happen tomorrow. And everything’s okay. It’s in his hands. All you got to do is just trust him. And he’ll bless you because of it. Look at letter D to prevent spiritual pride. Have you ever got a problem with pride? Have you ever had a problem with pride?

Did you know how God can take away that pride? It’s for him to humble you. He said, if you be lifted up in pride, God says he will humble you. But if you will humble you, he will exalt you. So where yet? Did you realize that sometimes God what calls he wants to use you, he’s got to empty you of you. He’s got to drain all of you out of you. To where he can, I guess you could say, fill you, put something into you.

To be filled with the Holy Spirit controlled by the Holy Spirit, he has to get you where you will not try to control yourself. You’ll let him control you. And he’ll let you make some decisions that will prick you. In other words, I used to tell the teenagers in college, most of the more teenagers, I’m going to pray a hedge of thorns about you. Sometimes you want a hedge of blessings around them. But when people become rebellious, you pray a hedge of thorns around them.

It means that every time they say or do something, it seems like they’re just pricking themselves. I used to pick blackberries. And you know it’s difficult sometimes to get all those blackberries without getting your hand all scratched up. And if you squeeze the blackberry too hard, well then it just goes all over the place. So you got to be gentle. But sometimes it always seems like the biggest blackberries, the juiciest ones, are always hiding back there behind those thorns.

You got to reach over and around and under and so forth. And if you want those, then there might be a price to pay. And sometimes God will put a hedge of thorns about you so that your bad decisions will will prick you and hurt you. And why does he do that? Because he hates you. Because he loves you. And it’s to wake you up, to cause you to be aware, to realize that maybe I made a wrong decision.

Maybe I need to check with the Lord again. So it’s very important. You’ve ever heard of a verse called Romans 828? You’ve ever heard that verse? All things work together for good to those who love the Lord, to those who are called according to His purpose. So God has a purpose and He may not have told you what it is. But you know that He has one and so you’re going to believe it. And faith in the Lord means you can trust Him.

And you can trust somebody if you really believe they love you. And when you doubt His love, it’s hard for you to trust Him. So the death of God. all is going to do whatever He possibly can to get you to doubt the love of God. Because if God really loved you, He wouldn’t have let that happen to you. Yes, He would. Because He can use the things that happens in this world to strengthen you, to draw you closer to Him.

And let her eat, to give us a true skill of our value. In the words, brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations. But such is common to man. So So you’re going to have all of these problems. But when you find out there’s something that you don’t know, he says, ask of God, and he will give to all men liberally. He will not chide you or mock you or make fun of you. But let him ask in faith, not wavering, like a ship upon the sea tossed to and fro.

He says, let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord. The next point, number five, trusting the Lord through suffering prepares you to help others find the comfort of God in their own suffering because the lessons that you learn in 2 Corinthians 1 is a very important chapter you ought to read it some day and study it real carefully. But he is called the Father of comforts. It means let the Father comfort you so that whenever you’re comforted you may able to use that same comfort to comfort somebody else.

In other words, God’s given you tools to use. God’s given you experiences in life to help. God’s preparing you in a greater way. Don’t you want God to use you in a great way? Okay, whether he has to prepare you. Got to teach you some things and you’re not going to learn them in a book. You don’t learn them in a Bible college. It’s the school of hard knocks, the school of experience. You You see, wisdom is not the same thing as knowledge.

Knowledge is an accumulation of facts. Wisdom is being able to take those facts and apply them to life. And you’re not wise because you know what to do. You’re wise if you do what you’re supposed to do. A lot of difference. Number six, enduring suffering for Christ can bring believers future rewards in heaven. And you know this. We’ve taught it long enough. know that if you serve the Lord now, for whatever price you have to pay, that when you get to heaven, it will be worth it all.

But look at the last one. Number seven, number seven, suffering for Christ is worth it, not only in heaven, but now. You see why? Because of what it does. If you suffer from the Lord now, you do right and there’s a price goaltending the Above the Lord. And that’s not the Lord. He wants you to do right. Because he gets glory from your life. He wants you in spite of how bad it might be. You have glory to God.

And praise the Lord. And thank the Lord. And that’s now. That’s not later. He wants you to do that now. point due to the salvation of others. We see we’re talking about winning people when we get to heaven. We’re talking about winning people to the Lord now. So the suffering that you go through now could be the salvation of somebody else. Somebody here in understanding and trusting Christ is saving you because they heard the gospel through your lips. Did you know that there might be people that want to know the truth and because of that God is got to get somebody to him.

And in order to get somebody to this person over here, God may have to send you into the hospital in order to talk to this person. But what of the reason? There might be somebody at the grocery store that God has sent you there. It could be at a service station. You see, God knows where the hungry hearts are. And God has a person who has the desires of the Lord use me in any way you want. So God may have to allow certain things to happen.

There might be a guy that drives a tow truck, and he’s driving his truck one, and I wonder where I’m going to go when I die. Lo and behold, your car broke down and you had to call a tow truck. Isn’t that wonderful? Now you’re not the kind that’s going to curse God because the power blew out or the motor blew up because God had to work in your life because you know that. you know how God works, so it doesn’t bother you.

But see, when you don’t know that and you don’t understand that, all you’re thinking about, look what this is doing to me. I’m not on my schedule. When you dedicate your life to the Lord, expect God to interrupt your schedule. See, God has a schedule. God has a plan. God has a purpose. And yours may not be the same one. But now God says, if you will be faithful, God says, when you get to heaven, I’m going to reward you.

I’m going to bless you. But see, you’re getting somebody to trust the Lord. Now, let us see, due to the ministry, two believers. See, there’s believers. Did you know that you sometimes you watch people and you know they’re going through a hard time? And did you know that you evaluate a person based upon how they handle their problems? And you know everybody’s got them. And so you watch and see how are they gonna handle this? Do they really love the Lord?

Are they gonna fall apart? How are they doing spiritually? What kind of attitude do they have? Does it seem like they’re blaming and cursing God? Do they have a lot of bitterness in their heart? Or the kind that says, I don’t understand at all. Praise God anyway. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He gave and he took away. And in all of this to maintain your integrity. See, God is watching. He really is watching. And He is working in your life in ways that you may not know and understand.

Because see, if you were in charge, you wouldn’t do it that way. But see, you’re not God. You’re supposed to believe that you have a Heavenly Father, a wonderful, loving Heavenly Father. And He’s working in your life. The last thing here, due to your own spiritual growth, due to your own spiritual growth, did you know that that’s how you grow? You see, your faith has to be challenged. It’s just like, you know, they’re having the playoffs for the Super Bowl, and they have the best in each division and so forth, and they have the playoffs, and then they have the wild card stuff, and then they’ll have the division.

They do all that, because they’re trying to get the two best teams They come together. The two best teams. What your spiritual growth in the Lord, in order for you to grow, you have to be challenged by something that’s equal to your faith. It’s where you are right now. In order for you to have to dig a little bit more and pray a little bit more and trust a little bit more. In other words, if you had a thousand dollars in the bank and you had a bill for Or 500, you ain’t got a problem.

But what if you only had $1,000 in the bank and you owed $1,500? Oh, now that’s different. Now what am I going to do? What am I going to do? So that’s what God does in your life. So He will allow you to be challenged so that your own personal spiritual growth can be greater than what it is now. God wants us to mature, to grow stronger and stronger in the Lord as we get older. And the last thing, and later.

It’s now and later. In other words, it will be worth it all. Do you believe that? I believe it. I believe it with all my heart. I’ve seen God work in my life. I’ve had him turn me upside down and spank me pretty good. But I love knowing how God works, because He is going to work in your life. Look up here very quickly. This hand represents you and me and the wall of represents sin. Now we all have sin on us.

God loves us, but He hates what we do wrong. Now if you’re hearing you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, then God says that you need to hear the gospel, some good news. But in order to appreciate the good news, I got to tell you the bad news first. You see, we have all sinned. That’s bad news. And the wages of sin to pay for it is death and hell. That’s bad news too. Now to go to heaven, you have to be perfect.

Well, I got some more bad news for you. We’re not. And I got some more bad news for you. You can’t earn eternal life. You can’t work your way to heaven. You said, well, do you have any good news? Share. It’s your do. This end represents Jesus Christ. He’s God’s Son. And the Bible says that God so loved the world. That’s good news. That He gave His only begotten Son. You see, Christ came into the world because He loves us.

But He hates our sin. So He did something for us. That was He took the sin, paid for it on the cross, and came back from the dead. Now that’s good news. And He says, all that we have. to do was believe he did it for us. That’s good news. All I have to do is believe. I don’t have to stop something or join something or turn or burn or forsake or bake or wine or pine. All I got to do is just believe it that he did it for me.

And he would put this payment to my account and give me the free gift of eternal life. That’s more good news. So see, there’s a lot of good news here. God loves you. paid for your sins. Came back from the dead and said, if you trust me, that I did it for you, I’ll give you as a free gift. Everlasting life, and you get to go to heaven on what I did. You didn’t earn it, you didn’t work for it.

That’s the gift of God. Not a works list, any man should boast. Let’s pray, shall we? Every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around. If you’re here tonight and you’ve never trusted Christ trust the Christ of Savior. Or if you listen by way of internet and you never trust the Lord, then friend I urge you right now in the quietness of this moment. Just talk to the Lord and say something simple like this, Lord, I’m a sinner.

Friend, that’s just been honest. We all are. But I believe you died on that cross and paid from my sins. Tonight I will trust you as my Savior. I believe you died for me. And friend God said, if you would accept Him, He would give you eternal life as a gift and never cast you out and never lose you. Would you do that? If you’re making that decision, I’d like to have prayer for you. So with the headbound nice and close, no one looking around, I’m not going to have you forward, not going to embarrass you.

But I’d like to have prayer for you. I’d like to know what I said, may sense to you. So if you’re trusting Christ as your Savior tonight, you’ve never done it before, say pray for me. We’ll just slip you in it very quickly and put a right back down. Is there anyone at all? Our Father, we do thank You so much for Your Word that You’ve given us, not only to have eternal life, but also to understand and appreciate the ministry of suffering.

And what I pray Your will to be done in the lives of each person here, and some people in this auditorium I know and they’ve suffered a lot, gone through an awful lot. They’ve heard some need jobs, some have had surgery, and some are no doubt lonely and all kind of things that goes on in a person’s life. But Father, I know that your grace is sufficient. We want you to order to put your arms about each person here and just let them know that you love them.

And let them know that we love them, that we love each other, and we care for one another. Help us to do the things that are right. Put things in this proper perspective. Reliesing that there’s value now in suffering. And there’s value later. In Christ name 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.

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. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryuptampa.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bible Live and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen, the trumpet will sound. We will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, and just keep looking up.