This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

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. One-line donations may be made through the Bibleline website at calbryoftampa.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Like in 1975 about that I Set down and wrote down a lot of Stuff that I like on How to think how to think I? Put out a book in the 1978 on notes jokes and quotes a little things that I had learned over the years and They were over 3,000 of them that were in it and And some of those have worked their way into this, but I thought I’d just give you a copy of them and hope that it’ll be a blessing to you.

Because I don’t feel like preaching much tonight, I just want to talk. Sometimes I raise my voice and I get excited sometimes. Sometimes I just have so much passion that I can’t stand it. I get motivated beyond my ability to perform. And so I’m hoping that somewhere along the line, I might be able to strike a match that can strike a match, that can strike a match, and there’ll be a flame in the wind. See, whenever you and I leave this world, we want to have been a flame in the wind, for the Holy Spirit of God is able to sweep across your life and set a lot of people on fire for the Lord, Because you want others to know the Lord and to love the Lord, to serve the Lord.

And so anyway, I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 4. 1 Corinthians chapter 4. And what makes it this sermon even worse is that that’s not even one of the verses that are on your notes. And you know that I’ve got to have at least a 20-30 minute just to introductory. But not really. Look in verse one, 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse one. Verse one, let a man sow account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Moreover it is required in stewards that a man be found rich. Popular. Faithful. It is required that you be found faithful. Now if you’re faithful, you will be successful. And if you are successful, it was because you were faithful. Faithfulness is the key. Walk by faith. Be consistent. Faithfulness will get you wherever God wants you to go. Faithfulness will help you to do everything God wants you to do. Be faithful. Don’t let the devil ever take anything away from your rob you.

Now I want you to take your notes there and just look at them with me. And there’s a lot of little quotes in here. And so I won’t dwell long on them because you’ll have them and you can read them for yourselves. But I used to put this down into 10 things. You know, one run, two, three, three, four, four, five, five, six, six, seven, heaven, eight, eight, nine, nine, ten, ten. And I had a little memory pegs and I could remember all of these points on here.

And so number one is the run and the attitude. And you got the planning for profit. All these things that will help you in your Christian life to be faithful. So where I have it to top of it, how to be successful, is how to be, and you ought to write this word above it, faithful. How to be faithful? Because if you’re faithful, you’ll be successful. You may not be a success in the eyes of the world, but we’re not talking about it in the eyes of the world.

We’re talking about in God’s eyes. Where you’re pleasing to the Lord with what you do with your life. So number one, attitude or altitude determines your altitude. Attitude determines your altitude. Determine how high you go. What kind of an attitude do you have? Do you have a positive attitude or a negative attitude? You always see what you can do or you always see what you can’t do. Remember the 10 spies that went into the land? Well, how many spies went into the land?

Oh, that’s right. The 10 were negative and two were positive. But the two that were positive were right in the 10 that were negative and they were wrong. So you got to watch that you don’t let that bent that you have of a negative attitude. Always seeing the problems keep you from going with God wants you to do. So look at this. All actions are born within the mind. potential is established by your positive biblical attitude. Renew the caliber of your thoughts to renew the caliber of your life.

In other words if you don’t like the way your life is, it’s because it is the direct ratio according to the quality of your mind. And so therefore you have to improve the quality of your thoughts to improve the quality of your life. You will live how you believe. So you let the Word of God control the mind, and actions will take care of themselves. So I’ve never tried to get people to change their life. Changing their life will take place when their mind is changed.

That’s why you renew the mind. And so teach truth, have confidence in the word, and trust the Word to do what you can’t do. The next statement is number two, have goal will travel. They used to have a guy on TV named Paladin. Anybody remember Paladin? Have gun will travel. Oh I like that show. Have gun will travel and have a little card. We ought to have one called have gospel will travel. Have a gospel will travel. Once I’m pretty good.

Have a goal will travel. So you got to decide what is my goal. So you know where you’re going. What do you want to do with your life? life. That’s your purpose in life. And every man needs a purpose. So I have down here, I rather aim at something and miss the name at nothing and hit it. Dr. Lee Robertson, I heard him say that the first time in 1964, I wrote it down. But I’ve heard other since then, but they already get it from a source, you know.

He also said, everything rises or falls on leadership. Everything rises or falls on leadership. So what kind of a leader are you going to be? Because there’s people that are watching you and will follow you. And they will sometimes be like whatever you are. If you’re a dud, there’ll be a dud. You’re sharp, you might be sharp. You’re so whether they might be so winners, doesn’t know what you are. See, the greatest thing you’ll ever build is not a ministry but yourself.

And then whatever you are, you reproduce after your own time. God has placed it with us the ability to reproduce after our own kind. And so that’s why it’s so important to reproduce. Think about who you are and what you are and what God wants you to do. The next statement I have here is if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do. Isn’t that a good statement? If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do.

It doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter what you’re going, because you don’t know where you’re going anyway, but when you know what you want, then you got to get on the right road to get there. And then the next statement, you will never achieve success until you define what success means to you. Do you want to be a success in life or a failure? You have to decide what does faithfulness mean and how do you get faith?

If I got to be so faithful, where do I get it. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. See, the Holy Spirit that lives within us leads and guides us according to the power of the Holy Spirit. He leads us according to the Word. He never leads you contrary to the Word. It’s the Holy Spirit that leads you according to the Holy Bible. So keep that in mind. Without a goal, you are a drifter and a drifter is equal to a loser.

So without a goal, without a way of reaching what you want, without the desire to be faithful, you are a loser. You’ll lose. You’ll gain, like the Apostle Paul says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. You live for anything else and you’ve wasted your life. You’ll lose. There’s nothing more important than the Lord.

Never joined the crowd until you know where it’s going. Yard by yard, it’s hard. Inch by inch, it’s a cinch. You know what I did one time? I pretended. I had a little hot seat that was supposed to be electricity going through a chair. And I was going to have my brother take the hot seat. and was gonna pretend like it was hooked up and it was gonna shock him and then he was supposed to fall down on the floor like he’s had a heart attack and he was dead and then I was gonna say we need the rapture to take place well anyway my brother came up there and he said in the hot seat and I asked him some questions and he lied but if you tell a lie you know he’s supposed to get shocked so I I did it and he got shot and he went, oh, he went,

I mean he can act buddy. Oh, he went all over the place. And he fell out on the floor and he’s dead. And I said, boy, now the time for the reactor to take place. And I had just covered about the trumpets are going to blow. And the guy Michael Jackson, and this is not the one with the white glove, it’s a Michael Jackson, and he was behind a counter in the back of the auditorium. And he jumps up and he plays the trumpet.

When he played the trumpet, I had just talked about the trumpet’s gonna sound and the rutches gonna take play. It hit the trumpet and it blasted buddy. I mean, it hit hard. My brother jumps up off a thing and he jumps up, ah, he jumps up like that, you know? And then I was on the thing and I ran up the stool. I had a stool sitting there and I jumped on the stool like I was going up and everybody’s going up.

Scared him to death, but we had people trust the Lord that night. It was, that was a good skit. I was like, just like good skit. But a guy that y’all have probably heard of is Oliver B. Green. He’s on the radio everywhere. He’s dead now, but he’s been dead for years. But he used to come to the church that I passed up there in North Side Baptist Church in Athens, Georgia. And this was back in 1961, 62. And so he had a casket.

And he had a person in there. But we didn’t know the person was in. And he was just going to talk on the resurrection and things like that. And it wasn’t long before he talked about they got to come up out of the grave. And almost that thing opened up and this guy starts getting out of it. Kids start crying. Kids start crying because it scares the kids to death. And then the next night he was talking on how that Jesus Christ said he was the light of the world.

And if he’s the light of the world that when he put him on the cross that God was going to show the world that He was truly who He came to be, the light. And so God threw the main switch of heaven and all the lights went out. It was dark upon the earth. Well, He had somebody stationed back to the church and all the lights went out. And He said, all the lights went out and all the lights went out.

Pitched dark and then whack. She’d start a crying and screaming. She’d just scared people of that. I don’t do stuff like that. And it’s just, you know, it’s just, you’re trying to be vivid, trying to make sure things come alive. Dr. Curtis Hudson was preaching, and he was telling this one story how that this good guy was always told in Bible college, you know, that whatever you do, if you’ve got a point to make and you can’t remember the next point, just repeat the last point and just keep hammering it until you think of what the next one was going to be.

And so this guy was up there preaching along and he’s preaching on the second coming of Christ. And behold, he comes and the Bible says, Jesus said, I will come again. And he couldn’t remember the next point. I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m coming. And all of a sudden he got so excited, but he landed on top of the podium and it fell over and he landed over the top of the thing and landed in the lap of the lady sitting on the front pier.

He says, ma’am, I apologize. I am so sorry. I am so sorry, I apologize, I just for nothing. You told me three times you were coming. So you have something to worry about real good. And sometimes you just don’t remember everything you’re supposed to. These are things that I tried to remember over the years of how I’m supposed to think. But my attitude determines my altitude. And I gotta have the right kind of an attitude. And I have to have a goal in my life.

I have to know where I’m going. And if I don’t know what I want, I’m just going to go in circles. And it’s too far down the road now to lose direction. And it was like running a race. I’m almost at the finish line. Oh, I forgot which way I’m supposed to go. Oh, no, to run. Finish your course. Finish the race. Number three, plan for profit. Plan for profit. Always try to figure out something to do every day of your life that helps you to reach that goal that you have.

And if you want to have a well done someday, you need to be faithful every day. Every day seek to be faithful, faithful to the Lord. A short pencil is better than a long memory. If your memory is not perfect, learn to take notes and write things down. That’s why it’s always good. I’ve had people say, Boy, I enjoyed that sermon preacher, and by the time they get to the door, they can’t remember what I preached on. Now, I can’t either, and I just did the preaching.

A short pencil is better than a long memory. That’s why I like to put things down in notes now. I’ve got notes galore. Do you know I’ve got sermons from the first time that I started preaching back in the 60s? I’ve got notes. I don’t throw away anything like that. A little scrap piece of the paper. napkins, still got them. They’re disintegrating, but I’ve not got them. All kinds of things that I’ve got. Little poems that I’ve read, not found about three or four poems the other day that I wrote years ago, I forgot all about.

But once I wrote down, you can always go back and find some of these things, and it’s so important. But I wrote a little statement here, it’s in the thing here. But it’s called plan your work and work your plan and work your plan as long as your plan will work when your plan don’t work, you change your plan. Isn’t that simple?

Plan your work and your work your plan. If you work your plans long as you plan to work, when your plan don’t work, you change the plan. But you’ve got to have a plan. See, most people do not, you know, plan to fail. They just fail to plan. See the next statement? No one ever plans to fail. They just fail to execute the right plan. People seldom fail because they lack ability, but because they lack a schedule to fulfill their goal.

And this little statement of light, your dreams are more lightly to be fulfilled if you don’t oversleep. You can’t love sleep and accomplish much for the Lord. Because if all you want to do is sleep all the time and goof off and with no direction, you waste a lot of time. When you waste time, you waste life because that’s what life is made out of. So you’ve got to have something. I try to go every day and just go.

Even when I don’t feel good. I don’t feel good now. But I don’t serve the Lord just when I feel good. And all the time, just go. Just go. Just keep on going. You’ve got to try to do what you can. But if you wait until you’re always in top shape to do anything, you’d be surprised how little you’ll get accomplished. But always push yourself. Push yourself. Make yourself go. Make yourself do the things you’re supposed to do. Let me just mention this to you.

Do you realize that when I was going to Bible college hard, it must be? Just think about it. To work a full-time job, I worked about 10, 11, 12 hours a day. And go to college full-time. That only left me with a few hours, just a few hours, that I couldn’t even sleep. I didn’t see my wife and kids. It didn’t seem like for just a little bit. Hello, hon. Good night. Because I was always going, and I kept one if it would always be worth it.

It was worth it. It was worth all the sacrifice. And those long days and those long nights, because I would work some time. I never went to bed until after 12 o’clock at night. And then I only got a couple hours of sleep and I was up early in the morning. But go and go. You’d be surprised that your body can take a lot more than you think. If you’ll just make yourself go, control the body. Don’t let the body control you.

It is a great servant, but it’s a terrible master. And you do well, I don’t feel like it. I just don’t feel like it. Take that word feel and throw it out to one and do what you’re supposed to do regardless. You’ll always have excuses. The devil will always be working on you and trying to discourage you. And he works through the flesh. Number four, think big, plan big. And when he’s talking about think big, because God is big.

Do you realize we have a big God? Do you believe that? And because God is big, I can think big. If I can think big, then I can expect a big God to do big things in my life. And I’ve enjoyed looking back over my life, but you know what? I’m not dead yet. I’m still expecting big things in the future. I don’t know how long I’m gonna live. I don’t really care, but buddy, I wanna live every moment until it’s all over.

And I’m looking forward to whatever God has for me down the road. Be convinced you can do all that God says you can do. God confidence that is not backed by action is dead. That’s James chapter 2 by the way. The little statement there inside the box. How you live is an expression of your opinion about God. You only limit yourself by your own limited thinking. No man is ever any bigger than what it takes to get him down.

What will it take for you to have your dreams destroyed? What is that vision, that dream that you have this? You want to do? And what is it that’s going to take to destroy it? And in other words, the death of a vision, when it seemed like there’s no hope and you’re in total despair. You see, you have to have the knowledge that if I quit because I got a little discouraged, Down the road, 5, 10, 15 years later, you’ll figure, what did that little discouragement cost me?

Well, I think what I could have done, I could have had, and I got a little discouraged. I looked at the problems instead of the God who’s a big God, they can solve anything. The God of solutions. Number five, this is fear. Fear is a success crusher. God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of love and power and of a sound mind. But anyway, number five, fear not controlled will destroy success. To fill a man’s mind, and this is important, with worry, fear and anxiety, is the most costly and the least productive activity of man.

These are dead giveaways to an undisciplined mind. They are a poor substitute for clear, cut thinking. Happiness, like success, is not a destination, but a way of travel. As love grows, fear goes. As you learn to love the Lord more and more and more, it’ll dissipate all the fears. And you’ll have less fear in your life. right now when you’re young, so you become afraid to step out by faith. Don’t you think Peter was a little fearful of stepping out of the boat?

But you know why he stepped out of the boat? He wanted to walk on water. Have you ever wanted to walk on water? Or do you want to be like everybody else? Never does anything. You want to live your life like millions and millions and millions of people. They were born, they lived, they died, accomplished nothing. Or do you want to do something with your life? Fear will keep you from doing it because you’ll be afraid afraid I’ve been a failure Frayed God won’t come through Because your trust is not really in him and you limit yourself by your own limited thinking So thinking about what you could do in that little box.

I got there on bottom worry and fear Are acquired habits? You weren’t born that way You learned how to worry. And most people today are experts at it. You can start them and you can stop them. They’re in your hands. And some people will worry all their life. As Paul Harvey would say, age two. Look at number six. Sewing before reaping. You see, if you want good things to happen, so good things first. Before you can reap the harvest out there in the field, you have to plant the seeds.

And some people, they want all these good things to happen to them. Start sowing. Start sowing good things, doing good things for people. Everywhere Jesus went, he went about doing good, just doing good, doing right. So the right thing. Do you realize when Peter, it didn’t have the money to pay his taxes? Jesus says, go catch fish. The money was in the fish’s mouth. The money’s in the fish’s mouth. What I’ve seen in 50 years is, majority of the time, the money that I’ve needed for the Lord’s work was always in the fish’s mouth.

The fish that I caught. People that I wanted to Christ. They seem to have caught a vision, and it’s a yank, you need to be on radio, and they would help me pay the bill. I’ve had some say that, Yekah, you need to be on TV. And they would pay the bill. I’ve had people, and I went on the road. I had people in different places all across the United States that would send me just a little bit every once in a while.

People that I led to the Lord over the years. You see, there is an advantage. The money’s in the fish’s mouth. When a church is not growing and the church doesn’t have the finances, the money’s in the fish’s mouth, we need to go fishing. You need to go fishing. What about that as an individual? Go fishing. Remember what the Lord says, the first that came of God and His righteousness and all these other things will be what? He’ll be added.

We see you’ve got to get your priorities straight. The number one thing that you can always do is seek in the lost. Let it be your goal that motivates you in everything that you do. Because that’s what holds your testimony in line. It helps you to be aware of what’s going on. So important. Look at the next statement here on the number six. Don’t expect physical and material blessings on credit. If he’s in 113 says that God has already blessed us with spiritual blessings in the heavenlies.

There must first be action before reaction or response to set in. You must sow righteousness to reap blessings or rewards. If you stand still and watch the world go by, they will. So what are you doing? Oh, I just sat in on the corner watching all the girls. I mean the world go by and it will. It’ll go by. And one of these days you’re going to wake up an old person and realize that all I did was stand and watch the world go by.

I didn’t do anything. Compensation works regardless and guarantees you 100% fair treatment, but it demands payment in advance. Sacrifice is not hard if you perceive what it really means. To give up something of lesser value for something of greater value. When God asked you and I to yield our bodies as a living sacrifice, we’re going to give this up. But is it a big sacrifice to give up something of lesser value for something of greater value? Do you think you could serve the Lord and lose?

Your heavenly Father is going to give you so much more. It will be worth it all. And he says that the glory that we’re going to have, he says, the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which we will go on to get. So whatever it is, it’s going to be worth it. That’s why we should look that away and believe it. But as a Christian, so in and reaping, sow the seeds first.

In other words, put forth your hatefulness. Serve the Lord and do what’s right and then trust the Lord from all those seeds that you plant. Someday down the road to grow. As God will take care of it, you just keep sowing. Just always keep sowing. The warehouse gonna work just so the seed. Why do you do that? Because you have confidence in the seed. You have confidence in the Word. You’re just gonna keep planting the Word, planting the seeds.

God’s going to bless you because you do that. 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. Our two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bible 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 home page. If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 1030 and at six o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.org.

Thanks for joining us on Vital Line, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen, the trumpet will sound, and 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.