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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 a 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 concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family. You should always examine, see, now, have I been the kind of an example that I’m supposed to be? What kind of an example am I? What if I said or what have I done that would bring the criticism that comes to me? Maybe there’s something that we do. Sometimes we don’t always see ourselves the way we really are.

And sometimes we respond in such a way and we answer in such a way that is kind of hurting, sharp words. But we didn’t see it that way because we didn’t mean it that way, but it still come across that way. Sometimes whenever we let people become the interpreter of what we mean because we’re not clear, you can’t blame the interpreter for what he interpreted. What his understanding was because we were not clear ourselves. I want you to take your Bible look into the book of Galatians.

The book of Galatians in chapter 6. Galatians in chapter six, I want you to look there in verse one. Galatians six and verse one. And it says brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fall, is it what’s the fall? A Christian walking in the flesh from the previous chapter. So if you see a brother walking in the flesh and he’s bringing both the works of the flesh, well then you that are spiritual are walking in the spirit. in chapter 5 verse 16 walk in the spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Okay, if you see a Christian that is walking in the flesh. What do you do about it? You, well, number one, draw attention to that person. Make sure everybody knows that they’re walking in the flesh. And if they fall, you walk up and put your foot on their head and push them down into the mud and make them cry uncle. And let them know you saw every, we know one of the best ways I think of Christians to live one eye and one ear.

Don’t see everything and don’t hear everything. And working with teenagers, I had to develop that. Because at first I saw everything they did wrong and I knew what I expected of them and I wanted so much for these kids but they can’t see what I want for them. Their blind is a bat and everything that they said everything they did. Man, I could so criticize everything. And I could see every area of flesh and they just revel in it.

And I wanted to be so spiritually minded. I wanted them to be so godly. And they were so worldly. Boy, I had a problem. And I realized, see what one eye and hear would one ear. Because I would become so bitter and so critical at them because they disappointed me over and over again because I wanted so much. Don’t they see what I want for them? No. Don’t they care? No. Don’t they care about me and my feelings like I care about them?

No. And a lot of people, they don’t care what you think. They don’t care how you live. Most of them just leave me alone and let me do my thing. Don’t you know this is the 21st century. This is everybody do whatever makes you happy? Century. And yet you love them. But you also got to realize that with people you have to be patient. If people see fault in me, don’t you think I see a few in you? No, I don’t see anything wrong with y’all.

Y’all little darlings, y’all the perfect little angels you are. And somebody says thank you. Somebody’s getting the wrong message here. But look what he says here. Yee, which are spiritual. Restore such a one in the spirit of migness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted.” In other words, except for the grace of God, it could be you. And be careful how you judge somebody because, you know, it might come back home to roost. If you want to receive mercy, then you need to show mercy.

If you want a little grace from people, then maybe you need to show a little grace to people. If you want to receive a little forgiveness, maybe you need to give a little forgiveness. You know, the Bible says you reap what you… what you sow. You sow meanness. You might reap meanness. But if you sow some kindness, you might reap a little kindness. and a soft answer turneth away wrath. For example, it’s so easy between boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife.

Say something bad and if that person comes back bad boy you could get at it real quick. But if the answer was a real soft voice, it kind of deflates you because you know that’s what I should have done. Especially when you’re supposed to know better and we fail, we mess up. In Matthew chapter 7 and verse 3 and 5, where it talks about realizing what you’re doing and how you’re saying these things, look over there very quickly in Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew and chapter 7, and look there in verse 3, verse 3, and why beholdest thou the that is in thy brother’s eye, but consider if not the beam that is in thine own eye, or how will thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of thine eye and behold a beam is in thine own eye. Thou hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then thou shall see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother’s eye.

See it didn’t say you couldn’t see the moat. It It didn’t say that you can’t help the mode out of his eye. It just says, make sure you get the two before out of yours first. That’s why I said, because of that you judge, that you be not judged. In other words, so that when you try to correct somebody, they’re going to try to correct you back. So first of all, examine your own life. Is there something that is in my life that could hinder someone from being the way they ought to be?

Could they stumble over my pride, my arrogance? Because you see, we don’t always see ourselves the way we are, but we sure can dissect other people very easily. And we can see all their faults and all their flaws. You see, whenever you go and tell him his fault to him alone, it’s got several good points to bring up. It assures that you’re loyal because you went to the person, because you want to resolve the problem. You’re not condemning and you’re coming as a learner.

Or is there something that I’ve said or done that caused you to react toward me this way or for you to say what you said? Have you ever said these words? I didn’t mean that. You said something and somebody took it and they got hurt because and then later on you find out, you said, I didn’t mean that. I have said a lot of them. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t say it the right way. You can say things with a certain tone or say something and you get a word left out that can and change the whole meaning of it.

As you get a little bit older, like I am, and I have a hearing aid in this year, and I got another one for this one, but I can’t stand it with both of them in there because they just talked back and forth and I can’t understand anything. And sometimes I can’t hear the words, and then when I can hear the words, I can’t discern what the words are. And I was sitting talking with somebody today, and I could not hear what they were saying.

And it’s very, very difficult. I just hope that people don’t get offended because of it. Or sometimes you may talk to me and I give you an answer that clean off the books. Has nothing to do with what you asked. Because what you said and what I heard are not even in the same room. And all I can say is I’m sorry about that, but I can’t improve that. I don’t know how to improve that. I’ve asked people over and over again sometimes I says, huh, what?

And sometimes it gets to be a joke. And sometimes I just figured, I don’t guess I really need to know what they said. And if I gave an answer and nobody said anything strange, I guess it was the right one. Whatever the question was, I don’t know. But I know that I’ve lived long enough, and so have you, that sometimes we say something but we don’t mean that. Or we didn’t mean for people to take it in the wrong way.

And so sometimes it happens and people get offended. But when somebody comes to you, how they do it is so important. And so that’s why you need to understand there’s things about attitudes that you have. The attitude by which you can be confronted. Can somebody confront you with a problem without you falling apart? Without you getting mad and coming and glued on the person. For example, can the husband talk to the wife or the wife talk to the husband?

Can you talk to your kids? talk people on your job. Can you talk people in the church? But they’re afraid to talk to you because they think you’re going to explode. That’s not right. You don’t need to explode. People should be able to come to you, and if they’re wrong in whatever they said, and if they come to you and they’re wrong in the way they do it, you can still be kind to one another. Because, see, some people are having a hard time.

Some people that takes every bit of courage in the world to come and see somebody. And if somebody comes to you and they want to correct you on something. Now, you and I know that we’re perfect and we don’t mess up. But some people don’t see us the way we really are and they think we did something wrong. Let them be able to say to you whatever it is they need to say without you jumping on top of them and trying to stop them and correct them.

Have you ever seen somebody you start talking to them and before you can finish what you’re saying they already know what you’re going to say, come up with an answer and give you three solutions. And then you have to tell them, that wasn’t my problem. Because sometimes we don’t want to listen to everything. We got ears. We’re supposed to listen. God gave us one mouth and two ears. It means He wants us to listen twice as much as we talk.

And sometimes we don’t want to do that. But we should do that. So anyway, you and I are supposed to come to a person as though we’re trying and seeking to learn. What was the one main ingredient between what Christ says about His disciples and how you would know that you are my disciples indeed is that you what? Love one another. So regardless of what the problem may be, how you accept criticism is very important. So we ought to be able to give it and receive it and believe that the purpose is for constructive criticism, not destructive.

If your purpose in trying to bring something to light is because your goal is wanting to destroy someone, I don’t believe that that’s a good thing to do. Now, a man who is a man of character, I do not believe you should try to destroy a man of character, but I do believe you ought to have the right to describe a man’s character because that’s the way he is. And there’s even the Bible, Paul talked about certain individuals and gave their name and said how they helped destroy people’s faith because that’s what they were doing, a public thing known.

Another sermon for another time. Look there in Proverbs chapter 16 and look there in verse 28 verse 28, a forward man soeth strife and a whisper separated chief friends. If you want to see a lot of damage done it’s with people who just plant little seeds of questions and doubts and other people’s minds about somebody that has to be very careful that you do this. Otherwise you can destroy somebody, but you say, well, that’s not my purpose and my goal.

Okay, but make sure that you only tell somebody who is part of the solution to a problem. There would be no reason for me to share things with somebody unless they are part of the solution to a problem. Or unless you want me to go with you to help solve a problem. But the real issue is sometimes a person is scared to death to confront somebody about a particular problem if they have hurt them or offended them because they’re afraid of being hurt and offended even more.

And sometimes they’re afraid of confronting a person because they don’t know how that person’s going to come across. Don’t know if they’re going to get mad or become angry and furious or what they’re going to do. And so to avoid it they just avoid the thing. But if possible, like God says in his word in the book of Romans in chapter 12 that if possible live peaceably with all men, it’s not always possible to live peaceably with everybody. Though I believe that should be our goal in what we should try to do.

But look in Proverbs 25 you’re right there, Proverbs chapter 25, Proverbs 25 and verse 9. In verse 9 says, debate thy cause with thy neighbor himself and discover not a secret to another. Sometimes we know that if somebody tells us things in confidence, it should be in confidence and it’s not something that you necessarily have to go around and reveal that to other people. But sometimes people are trying to find more dirt and they’re trying to discover things And so they can become real kind and sweet, but they’re really looking for dirt on somebody.

Be careful that you don’t allow somebody to dump their trash under your piece of property. In other words, if you’re driving down the highway and you look over there and they got a beautiful lawn, you drive down a little bit further and you got trash all over the lawn. But people have driven by and just dumped their garbage there. But on the one piece of property, it’s nice and clean and everybody respects that. Chances are somebody went down the road and they had some trash and they just dumped it out.

But they left it there. Somebody else comes down the road and they got some trash too andgently you can’t put it back there but you can put it up here. This is acceptable. So they dumped some more trash there. Did you know that yard is your, your brain up here, it’s your mind, that’s your little piece of territory. And as we live our life, we allow people to dump their trash into our minds. And when you feed upon garbage, your mind will become garbage.

You will have germs and disease of all kinds because of garbage. And you will not be a healthy individual. So the best thing you do is when people to gossip to you, remember they will also gossip about you. The only difference between a buzzard and a gossip is one devours you while you’re alive and the other one eats you while you’re dead. But they want to devour you. And the Bible talks about do not devour one another, where you’re just trying to totally destroy another individual.

God’s people are supposed to love one another, care about one another, pray for one another, exhort one another. But you will not find where it says Christians destroy one another, hate one another, be mean one to another, but you’ll find it be tender-hearted, kind one to another. Am I lying to you or am I telling you the truth? So you’ve got to watch that you don’t allow people just to dump their garbage in your yard and you have to take a strong stand because of that.

Now, he makes the statement here in verse 9 and discover not a secret to another. It’s just some things that you’re not supposed to do. But anyway, the other thing is in James chapter 3 the whole chapter talks about the tongue and then it talks about let your speech be seasoned with salt. So how do you season your words with salt? Well before you always carry a little bottle of salt around with you. Stick out your tongue and put salt on your tongue so that when you talk you can talk and just beat the things with salt and then that way it won’t be as offensive.

But it means to flavor your words. Don’t be just hard and cold. You may be right. You may be telling the truth but the way we do it isn’t always the sweetest way. We could said sometime the same thing but said it with a sweeter tone. I’m always having to work on the tone of my voice. God gave me a very strong voice and I know that. I am very boom and yet inwardly I’m meek as a lamb. I’m sweet and kind and y’all believe everything I’m saying and I wouldn’t hurt anybody for anything in the world.

Really? But sometimes we just don’t always say and do the the things that we are supposed to do. And sometimes we just fail. We just fall completely apart. Let me give you a couple of other things that I want to mention to you very quickly. What would happen if we actually followed Matthew 18? Well, they say that slander is telling the truth with a design to hurt. Gossip is sharing detrimental information with those who are not part of the problem or part of the solution.

But gossip and slander would cease. if we would commit ourselves to only giving good reports about each other. And Christians will be giving and receiving loving corrections which will edify each other. If you have to confront somebody, pray first, and you want that person know that look, I love you and I really appreciate you. And I just wanna let you know, I appreciate you sharing with me what you said. And I will correct that as much as I possibly can.

And see, you may not always agree with their view, but there’s some things that you could just let them know that look, I will seriously think about what you said. And I can see that I could have said it a better way. And it learned to be able to accept constructive criticism and take it that way, even though they didn’t say it the right way. But realizing that God, you’ve often made statements like, God, I want you to speak to me, I want you to lead me, I want you to guide me, I want you to correct me, I want you to reveal if there’s any wicked way in me.

And here comes 15 people and they all tell you the same thing. You say, well Lord, that’s not what I meant. Sometimes God may speak to you through somebody else who has the nerve to hurt you. And it might hurt you, but you might need to correct the problem, so be willing to do that. And it will also build loyalty and security, because you know that everybody’s committed to giving a good report about you. I would like to believe that everybody in this whole church loved me enough that you wouldn’t say anything against me to nobody.

Now is that wrong for me to want that or to desire that? But shouldn’t I have, you think the same thing that my pastor loves me enough that he’s not going to try to destroy me? You realize I try to do everything I possibly can. I don’t care the littlest kid to the old, to try to open up doors of opportunities for y’all to serve and do whatever y’all can do for the Lord. True. In ranch last night, even though we had some little kids there, I still wanted them little kids to understand.

Look, if God can use Yankee, God can use anybody. So y’all see me now, smooth and polished. But you never saw me when I was a teenager, praise the Lord. But I want the little kids to know, look, I might be the pastor, pastor, but I love you and I want the best for you. This ranch meeting here is designed because we want to give you a chance, a place that you can serve the Lord. I’m so glad they got somebody like Peter.

I want somebody to know that we got somebody that loves us and cares about us. I want those little kids in a Wanna, those kids in Sunday school. I want them to know anything that those people over them, they love them and they’re that help them. And even though we might see things in people’s lives that are not right, yeah, but we got things in ours too. We’re always needing to grow. Nobody has arrived. We still got a lot of work to do.

And it doesn’t matter if you’ve lived to be as old as Al. You still, you’re still going to make mistakes and you might even forget when your anniversary is. You can figure it all out. But look, I’ll bet you. I’ll bet you. She forgave him. Not yet. I’ll tell me. OK, so as the world turns, then anyway, as an individual, just in your own mind, you don’t have to make somebody else do anything. It’s just something that you do for yourself.

One is you don’t want to be guilty of just a gossiper, saying detrimental things about somebody for the purpose of destroying somebody. And to say things to somebody who can be a help to the problem, to solve the problem. And ask the Lord to give you the grace that you need to examine your own life so that you can have the strength and boldness that you need to maybe to help somebody else who has wronged you. And be forgiving, because the rest of that chapter in Matthew 18, it talks about, and the disciples asked that question, Lord, how many times should I forgive them?

Seven times? He said, 70 times seven. 490? It didn’t matter. Just forgive people and just keep moving ahead. And love one another as God says we should, because when you get right down to it, that is the Christian thing to do. That is the Christ thing. You know, people were not in the beginning called Christians. It was because in Antioch, they were first called Christians because they were of the Christ way, because of the way they lived. Their actions were like Christ.

They way they loved each other and the way they forgave one another and cared about each other. They lived like a Christian. Today, when we trust Christ as our Savior, everybody knows we’re, well, you’re a Christian when you get saved. Yum, in your name, but in your actions, you may not live like a Christian. So I just think we ought to live like Christians. Act like Christians. and God blesses for doing so. Look up here. So much easier to get this smaller wall of that on my pants.

The other night I was in Herkville. I couldn’t get my sand out. And I pull out that wall and I said, man, that thing is huge. And I knew that my sins were not that big. I mean, they’re this side, but they weren’t that other size. So I figured I’d just give that wall to Peter O’Mato. Now see, now he can get offended if that he wanted to. He can get offended. But see, sometimes you get an offended because he is your choice.

You don’t have to. You know, nobody can offend you unless you choose to do so. So sometimes you got to get the chips off your shoulders and don’t let little things hurt you. Let things kind of slide around a little bit. I can give people some room to maneuver. Don’t be so mean and so strict. Don’t be law. Have a little grace. Don’t that just sound like just plain old good sense? I think so. You’ll be happier if you do.

This is you and me. This is sin. We all have sin upon us and God loves us. Loves all love us, but He hates what we do wrong. And we’ve all sinned. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection. God says for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God in hell. But He loves us and wants us to have eternal life and go to heaven when we die. And God says you can’t save yourself. So to go to heaven you have to be perfect no sin and nobody like that here.

So the Bible says you can’t save yourself by your deeds. This sin represents Jesus Christ, He is the Lord and God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us but He hates what we do wrong because it separates us from Him. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead and said if we believe He did it for us, he put that payment to our account and we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did.

By grace are you saved through faith, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. Let’s pray, shall we? If you’re here tonight and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, remember this, God does love you. He has paid for your sins. Yes, we all fail. We don’t always do the things that we know is right. God loves us anyway. But to go to heaven, you see, we have to be as righteous as God, and by our works we’ll never be.

This church cannot save you. Your good works, given money, all those things cannot save you. The only way you can get to heaven is to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. So if you’re here tonight or if you’re watching by internet, I just want you to know that you can be saved from hell. God will give you eternal life and you’ll go to heaven whenever you die if you simply accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. And so if you’ll do that, God said he would save you and I’d like to know and I’d like to have prayer for you.

So a hedge bound nice close and no one looking around is there anyone else? So yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior tonight and preach our life for you to pray for me. We just sleep in it very quickly and put a rep back down. Say it one at all. Our Father, we thank You so much for this opportunity to talk to Your people about the subject of Christian unity, of how we’re supposed to solve some of our differences.

And Father, help us more than anything else, just to love each other and forgive each other and to do what’s right and realizing that we’re supposed to truly care about the lives other people and try to challenge and motivate them to do right. We just thank you so much for this time together. Thank you for these good people and Lord, just bless them. They’re going to have a hard week and just a lot of things. And we just pray your will to be done in Christ and 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 are 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 tool 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 Broad 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 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast 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. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.