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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 by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. 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.

I young one talked to your budget a few things. Y’all remember years ago they had this commercial always come on ones and a while, I was like, are you ready? And everybody knew what the next word was, but what? See there? See, I didn’t say it, y’all said it. So you already knew it. We covered the other night, a verse, well, Sunday morning, on Romans 1 16, where Paul had made the statement in the verse I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.

I am ready. So I thought, you know, he is ready. He is ready. And sometimes we think that we’re ready. Well, let me just run this by you just a little bit because we know that we’re supposed to be ready. But if you’re discouraged or in despair down just a little bit, ask yourself this question. Why? Are you worried? Not sleeping good at night. troubles on your mind and you feel like maybe you know you just want to go out in the garden and eat worms feel like your pet rock died you know and you just don’t know what to do with yourself you’re not ready you weren’t ready for something now let me ask you a question if you have trusted Christ is your Savior you say I’m gonna serve the Lord who is your biggest enemy that’s going to try to keep you from serving the

Lord. In the old devil, Satan, you ever heard of him? Do you think he’s ready? Do you think he is ready for you? He’s ready. He don’t care if you’re ready. He’s ready. And he is gonna do whatever it takes to get you. So he’s ready to attack. Do you know when he’s gonna attack? No? Do you know where he’s gonna attack? Well, no. Do you know how he’s gonna attack? Well, no, it doesn’t matter if you’re ready, right?

Are you ready? Are you really ready? What would it take for the devil to really get you down? And if he could, how could he? If you were ready, are you ready? Are you really, really, ready? Can you say, I am ready, pause, I’m ready. So I think it’s something that we ought to think about and to be ready. Are you ready to meet the Lord? You know, when the greatest thing that’s ever gonna happen in all of our lives is we’re gonna meet God.

One day it’s gonna happen. I was just prepared to meet thy God. So all of life is getting ready for this big meeting we got. I am going to meet God. I don’t know if I’ll scare you after death. I’m gonna meet God. Face to face, are you ready? Are you ready? I get a chance to do a lot of funerals at times and no one over the years I’ve done a bunch. I’ve even done a bunch of weddings, a lot of weddings.

I hope God forgives me. But you know, in every one of those situations when they got married, they all said, I’m ready. I’m ready and I thought you ain’t ready. They haven’t got a clue what they’re doing. No more than I did when I got married. But I guess that’s the way she goes. You know, we have a lot on the news today about the key is compromise. You know, here’s all these people on this side of the aisle and there’s these on this side of the aisle and they got a different ideology.

And everybody’s like, you got to compromise. What we want is bipartisanship. What they mean is we want you to agree with us. Then it’s bipartisan. But they have no intentions of agreeing with you. It’s always one-sided. Bipartisan means if I can get somebody on this side of the aisle to agree with me, then it’s bipartisan. See there, it’s a bipartisanship. Compromise. That’s the name of the game. Compromise. We have a lot of politicians that run and they get in the office and they learn how to compromise.

They can’t get the whole loaf so they compromise and settle for a slice. Not even a half a loaf. Did you hear about the hunter? The bear hunter. He went up in the mountains and he was looking for a bear. And lo and behold, a bear came out and ready to eat him up. He said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. He got his gun and he was ready to shoot this bear. The bear said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let’s talk about this thing.

Let’s have a dialogue here. He says, what do you want? The hunter says, well, I want me a fur coat. They said, well, we have to negotiate. We have to compromise a little bit. You know, give a little bit. Hunter said, well, what do you want? He says, well, I just want a warm meal. So they compromised. And the bear got a warm meal, and the hunter got a fur coat. Now, y’all can figure that out, can’t you? Now, that’s the con.

Compromise are talking about right in Washington. It’s where these are the bad guys and these are the good guys. And in every case, the good guy is always given to the bad guys. It never goes the other way. So there’s the art of compromise. Now remember, in serving the Lord, you have where God wants you to do something for me. You know, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we got to have a dialogue. We have to have we got to negotiate this thing.

I mean after all, what am I going to get out of this? What are you going to give me? Well, we want to know upfront God. What am I going to get? I serve the Lord. And so sometimes you find out that God doesn’t compromise. God’s gifts and callings are without repentance. I mean, God doesn’t change his mind. The Bible says in the book of Luke, forsaking all and following Him. That doesn’t look like any compromise whatsoever. And I find out that whether you study the Scriptures you’ll find that how many of these men were willing to die for their faith because there was no compromise.

They’d made up their mind, I’m gonna serve the Lord and that’s it. And to follow truth and obey truth regardless of where it may lead. So we don’t always understand all these things, but we know that we should be ready to meet God. And all of life is just us getting ready to meet the Lord. I preach a sermon one time on, I think right here, are you ready to suffer for the Lord? That means that you know that you’re going to not have everything go your way.

You know you’re going to lose on some things. There’s things that you’re going to hurt and sacrifice in this life. And that you’re going to be misunderstood. There’s going to be a lot of hurt and so forth. The devil’s going to do whatever he can to stop you. As I’ve lived over these last 51 years and watching people who know the Lord, love the Lord, you’d be surprised how many of God’s people have had a rough life. I mean, that want to walk with God and do what God wants them to do.

They have it rough. It’s not a cakewalk. They struggle. There’s always a problem, some bad problem, trying to keep them from doing what they could do. They think, if I didn’t have this problem, what I could do, I used to think as a pastor of a ministry, what I could do if I just had everybody, you know, working together. But I can’t seem to get everybody and make everybody work together. And then by the time you finally get some of them to really understand it and want to go forward and do something, then some of the key ones that helped you to get something, then they become, I don’t think it’s going to work.

They throw cold water all over everything. And then they discourage people. And then they get mad, then they quit, then they get somebody else to get mad, then they quit. I’m like, what if we didn’t have to go through all of that? And yet you might want them to the Lord, challenge them to serve the Lord, and then you have the teach a person enough that they can disagree with you. I’ve had people who will they’ll come along and pastor whatever you say whatever you say whatever you say whatever you say boy they just come right along they’re just so wonderful this will love you doesn’t so great and then after they learn enough Now they become superior.

Now they know more than you know. How to do it a lot better than you do. And then it’s no longer submission. It becomes authoritative and become bosses. And so then, and I’ve watched ministries around the country and so much damage, it can be done. Think, what do they understand? Truth. You don’t compromise truth. You just stay with truth and just live truth and obey truth and let God’s Word go forth. But you’re going to have all these things.

things and people who want you to slow down, don’t be so hard, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this, and become a Christian light that’s nothing but being negative. I still like being positive what we can do, not why we can’t do something. This whole idea about maybe starting a Bible college, it’s enough to scare you to death, but it’s also an element of excitement about it.

The venture out because you don’t know what’s going to happen. You can’t see that far down the road. You don’t know what’s going to happen with all this. And yet I’d love to see a tremendous Bible college where people can come and be trained and go into all the world and preach the gospel. What have you a fantastic thing? I’ve even dreamed for men. I’d love to see a great Christian school. I wish all the people in this whole County would take their kids out of the public school put them in a good strong Christian school and teach those kids the things of God.

Teach them truth. Teach them how to know the Constitution. Teach what’s right and wrong. And love the kids. Love them. Because you got to you got something down the road you want them to do. You want to see to truly educate a teenager or some little child is because you want them to serve the Lord. Not just reading and writing. You can teach them to read and write and come into China. You can teach them how to read and write in Russia, but you can’t teach them how to serve the Lord.

There has to be a purpose behind all this education. Man, it wouldn’t have been neat. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? But if always you’ve got to have dreams. You’ve got to have dreams about serving the Lord. But are you ready? Opportunities are on wheels. They’ll roll your way. And if you’re prepared, you can take advantage of opportunities. A lot of times, opportunities come your way and you’re not prepared so they just keep on rolling by. You know what’ll happen if you stand in the corner and watch everything go by?

It will. I used to hear this saying, standing down the corner watching all the girls go by. I never did that. I couldn’t go to town. We live down the woods. But anyway, in the Word of God it says that you and I must be ready to suffer for the sake of the Lord. you don’t know how much that means or when it’s going to start, how bad it’s going to be. I used to think, you know, if I knew this is what was going to happen, well, I wouldn’t have done that.

I would have never done this if I had known. You’re supposed to maybe think the worst and anything better than that is a bonus. I used to tell kids in college, I Look, expect nothing from other people and anything as a bonus. Because something that we live according to expectations, your expectations appear, reality’s down here, you have a built-in area of frustration because it’s gonna leave you empty. It’s not gonna work that way. And we leave it or not, even we have these expectations between us and God.

You expected God to come through here and to do this and God to do that and then God didn’t do it. God is not on our string. We don’t pull the strings on God and make God do things. God’s the one that, supposed to be pulling strings. We do what we do because of Him. Not God is somebody we just use to accomplish what we want in life. It’s not what He wants. But are you ready to preach to God?

Do you know how to do the wall of illustration? Have you watched it? How many times have you ever seen the wall of illustration? Have you ever counted them? I’ve often wondered how many times I have pulled out my wallet, and people have never given the gospel to anybody. They can’t make people do it. But once you start doing it and it gets easier and easier, it’s difficult at first. But are you ready to preach the gospel? If God was to let a person come up to you and they said to you, would you please tell me how to go to heaven?

No, I’ve never had that happen like that. But if it did, are you ready? Are you prepared? Can you do it? Can you do such a thing? Well, the reason I wound up going to Bible school, because I didn’t feel like I was ready, the Bible talks about being able to give an answer to every man that asks a reason of the hope that lies within you. Can you answer a person as to why you do what you do?

Can you answer their questions concerning the Scriptures? I can’t explain everything, but I try to keep it on the best. Sometimes somebody asks me a question and I don’t know the answer. You know what I say? I don’t know. I don’t have to know everything, but I know he feeds you to a nine says for by grace or you save through faith and that not of yourself. It’s the gift of God not of works list any man should boast.

The word of the king get his wife. No, that’s a good question. But I know it says in 1 John 5 13 these things have written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. You can always talk what you do know, but I think I have an idea where he got his wife anyway. But you have to watch this chasing those rabbits that leads to nowhere. You answer that question, they got another one.

They answered that question, they got another one. And never get to the gospel. Somebody else is ready for you. Did you know the devil gets up before you? Probably goes a bit after you. He’s probably on duty all the time, 24-7. And he knows what he’s doing, and he is prepared. And if you’re ready to serve the Lord, He’s ready to see that you don’t, because He is ready. And He has a lot of little demons that you can’t see, but work behind the scene that will press you, put things, thoughts, and so forth into your mind.

Remember what Peter said? And the Lord says, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat. and have desired to sift you Peter. Jesus knew that the devil was after Peter. He knew that. And the devil wants to sift you like we, flower. I remember my mommy used to have one of those things as you put us to have an injury. You all of a saying one of those things? I remember my mom lived way back in the woods. We had a cow and we had to milk the cow.

Now I was only five or six, seven years old. And I remember milking the cow. But I never accomplished anything. I would just watch them and then after they would go, I’d get down there and I’d turn that thing up. It squared my eye. And it was so warm that was called by warm milk. And nobody worried about was it pasteurized, homogenized, fortified, petrified, you know, the normal. And you would just drink that milk. Desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow there by.

But I remember my mama, she would get a thing of milk and she would put this great big old churn between her legs and she would have a little hole in the top of it. And she would pump that thing and you’re talking about trying to make butter. And she’d say, yank, you get over there and do that. And I’d do that to my arm, I was hardly big enough to do anything. But after a while she’d take the little off air and she pulled it up air and said, there’s some butter on the thing.

Do you know what happened? these two frogs fell in a milk pail deep. And one frog did nothing but weep. And he, he whined and he pined and he moaned and he groaned. And he kept on until his legs were like lead. And in the morning they found him dead. The other frog says, I’m too young to die. I might as well give it a masterful try. So he kicked with his legs four in high. There’s nothing like having a masterful mind.

And in the morning, this froggy was found on the pound of fresh butter he floated around. Just one more kick may bring the butter. That’s why you don’t faint. Wimp her or mutter. You know what you ought to remember that now. So I’m ready to preach the gospel. Let me ask you a question. Are you ready to die? Are you ready to die? I was just talking to Betty when she called up and she says, Yankee, I’m going to see the mortuary up there, you know, the funeral home and make sure that everything’s in order.

Cause we’ve already figured out, you know, whenever I die, now I don’t have any plans, I don’t really wanna die. But in case I die, you know, we gotta have a will. Who gets this and who gets this and who gets this and who gets that? I’m worth more dead than alive. And that’s a scary thought. Every time, you know, when things get a little tight, Betty just looks at me. Not really. So we go to the funeral home and we try to figure out how to get everything taken care of and what they’re gonna do with my body and the size of the casket, the price of the casket and trying to save money and do all this stuff, you know?

And then we gotta get a headstone and all that stuff. So we’ve got everything taken care. If I die, all she gotta do is boom, put me in that casket and drop me in the ground. Or she might wanna burn me up, I don’t know, whatever she wants to do. But anyway, we have a lot of things already planned. So we’re planning that if it happens, and I die, what am I gonna do?” And you already done the same thing for her because you’re going to die.

But have you made any preparations for your death? Now a lot of people always plan on it. They’re going to. They just never do it. Never make out a will. Never solve the problem. And then whenever they die, it’s nothing but a nightmare for the others that got to try to figure out what they’re doing. And you could have solved so many problems in advance. But you just knew the Lord was going to come back and take you out of here and you didn’t have to worry about it.

But if you was to drop dead right now, have you prepared for your funeral? There’s some things that you ought to do and to think about. You say, I don’t like to think about stuff like that. It’s morbid. Everything in the Bible, I guess you could say, is morbid. Talks about, you can’t even get that heaven unless you leave here. You’re going to die someday. So when you die, who gets what you have? You say, well, I don’t care.

So the state eats it all up. All lawyers get it all. Probate court and all that stuff like that. Or you can bypass all of that stuff by taking care of things in advance. But anyway, it’s something that we all have to do. The other question was, are you ready to defend your faith? Are you ready to defend your faith? Can you tell people why you do what you do, why you believe, the way you believe? I have studied long enough that I feel fairly comfortable in telling people why I believe what I believe.

And it’s not just that because, well, I went to Florida Bible College, and so I believe like them. I believe what they taught at Florida Bible College because I saw it in the Bible, and I believe that that’s really what it said. I don’t believe what I do because, well, that’s the way Ray Stanford did it. Ray Stanford is not my God. He’s a man. I’m just a man. I want you to be strong enough in the Word of God that you know why you believe what you believe, so that you can defend your faith, so that you can explain to somebody why they should either trust Christ’s Savior or why they should serve the Lord.

And what’s the wisest thing that you want people to do with their lives? Well, that’s the direction you should try to challenge them into, and it’s so important. But I just want to show another verse to you. Look over there in the book of Revelation in chapter 2. Revelation in chapter 2. And look in verse 8. And verse 8 says, and unto the angel of the church in Smyrna, write, these things, saith the first and the last, which was dead and is alive.

I know thy works and tribulation and poverty, but thou art rich. Now get this. There’s a lot of truth said right there in that little verse that just few words. The Lord says, I know, I know your works, I know your tribulations, I know your poverty. But you see, God doesn’t always change all the tribulation out of our life and take it out of us. He wants us to go through the tribulation through poverty, if necessarily. That’s the way God lets it So he didn’t stop you from being poor.

People think, well, if I serve the Lord God, you’re going to automatically bless me. And we think that means, you know, especially material blessings because there’s so many preachers that teach the health and wealth philosophy. But he makes the statement, but thou art rich. So evidently, they were not rich concerning the things of this world. He said, and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, are not, but are the synagogue of Satan fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer.

Did you know that most of our fear comes because of what we’re afraid to suffer? We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to hurt. We shrink back from tribulations and things that causes us heartache and grief and all these things. We don’t want to go through things like that. It’s natural. It’s normal. But you see you and I as a child of God are supposed to have something so much more important worth living for. And these people, look what he said.

He says in verse 10, fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison. Well why don’t God stop the devil from doing it? I mean if he knows this is what the devil’s gonna do, why don’t God stop the devil from doing it? Remember the Bible says Paul wanted to do such and such and he says, but Satan hindered me. Satan hindered me. There’s a lot of things I would love to do, but Satan has hindered me at times.

I’ve had to battle against what the devil is doing in and through people with finances like I was on television and then all of a sudden the finances just dried up. So why did you dry up? It’s not because God didn’t tell people to support it. It’s because they didn’t obey God. They listened to what Satan says and then they don’t do it because they lose their vision. So they begin to compromise. I don’t have to do it. This is more important.

Or I need this and somebody else will help support the radio or the TV ministry and so they hold back and somebody else will do it and I don’t have to do it. And so they withdraw and make sure Satan It’s the victory. You go off the radio. You go off television. And a great harm is done. The devil is alive. If he does that in the work, he can do it every family in this church. The devil is going to fight you.

And God doesn’t stop all of that. He wants you to lean upon him and keep doing what he says to do, even if you suffer doing it. And again, what else he says to you? He says that you may be tried you shall have tribulation ten days be thou faithful until the check comes in the mail and know what it said be faithful to the check arrives it’s on its way and I will give thee a crown of light look he says be faithful and you mean I could die you mean this could bring death and he says I’ll make it worth your while Oh wait a minute, that this is getting a loop.

You’re going too far now. I mean all this other stuff I don’t mind, but I mean you’re talking about dying. Take a Bible, look here in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11. Hebrews in chapter 11. And look what he says here in verse 33. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 33. As he’s talking about the great heroes of faith, what happened in the Old Testament. Now a lot of these, believe it or not, came from the book of Judges, and down the road we’re going to cover some of the major topics in the book of Judges.

But it says in verse 33, who through faith subdued kingdoms brought righteousness? A pain promises stopped the mouths of lions. This is what some of God’s people did by faith, because they believed him and God used him, and this is what they accomplished. Quince the violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword. of weakness were made strong, waxed, valiant, and fight, turned to fight to fight the enemies, the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again.

Others were tortured. God, didn’t you know they were being tortured? Why didn’t he let them be tortured? Why does God let you suffer the loss of a job or the loss of your health or the loss of it? God can allow a lot of things. God’s going to let you suffer in this life just like everybody else suffers in this life. He doesn’t stop it because you’re a Christian. He just gives you a reason to endure it, a reason to go through it.

That’s how he gets his glory. Not because he takes all those things away from you, but because you give him honor and glory in the midst of it. 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. Part 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 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. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are 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 broadcasts of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline 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.