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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.

All of you brought your fliers back from last week that I gave you, because I gave them out last week and so you don’t get a new one this week. But I do have something I want to share with you. So if you have those notes from last week on how to pray for missionaries, the reason that’s so important is because you are one. You are a missionary. You may be a home missionary, but you are a missionary. If you’re not a missionary, you’re a mess.

You’re supposed to either be a missionary or a mission field. You’re supposed to either be reaching somebody or somebody should be reaching you. Don’t that make sense? Cause if you’re not reaching somebody, somebody needs to reach you to convince you that you should. And so we’ve gone through some ABCs and got all the way down to even the open door. But I do want you to see here, Of course, in Scripture, don’t have time to cover everything, of course.

But why right here? Look there in the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 16. 1 Corinthians chapter 16. In the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 16, you’ll notice the apostle Paul had a lot of things going on and he depended upon people. And he says here in verse six, And it may be that I will abide Yay and winter with you, that ye may bring me on my journey whether so ever I go. In other words, I might come and spend the winter with you.

How’d you like to have company call you up and tell you that? And then when I get ready to leave, you can help take and send me on my journey. Isn’t that bold? We see Paul had led these people to the Lord and he expected things from them. And he had no problem laying on them the responsibility that was theirs. And then notice what he says here, this is a tremendous verse in verse 9, for a great door and effectual is open unto me.

And there are many adversaries. In other words, there’s a great opportunity, but a lot of problems. Anytime you and I decide to serve a Lord, you might as well speak, you may have an open door, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a free-sailing. You’re going to have problems. Any person who wants to serve a Lord must understand the devil is going to do everything in his power to keep you from doing what you’re supposed to do.

It’s not going to be a free ride. Elevation is a free ride all because Christ paid for but now that you have eternal life in your God’s child It is the will of God that you serve the Lord and if you’re gonna serve the Lord that there is a price to pay And the devil is gonna try to discourage you somehow. I do recommend that if you’re not here on Wednesday night To get a copy of the last three Wednesday nights on Depression you said well, I’m not depressed if you get discouraged You’re depressed.

If you think of quitting, serving the Lord, you’re depressed. If you were talking about being burned out, then you’re depressed. So you need those messages that would really help you, I believe. So you and I know that as a child of God, we are going to have open doors. God will open the doors for us, but that doesn’t mean there’s not going to be problems. And sometimes those problems convince us, well, we should have done that. done that. I shouldn’t have done that.

A lot of people who committed themselves to go to the mission field believe in this is the will of God for me and then problem after problem after problem and so they said well I guess it must not be the Lord’s will because of all the problems. Not necessarily. Be wise. Now take your Bible and turn to the hundredth Psalm, the hundredth Psalm. And you’ll notice down there where it has the word, thankful heart, thankful heart. This is one of the key ingredients of staying happy and serving the Lord.

Learn to have the joy of the Lord. Whenever you consider yourself, are you a joyful individual? or pretty much are you a down and outer. I mean, do you carry a smile on your face or you usually have a frown on your face? If somebody looked at you, what they think, you’re filled with the joy of the Lord, or you’ve got a real problem. How do they read you? Well, look here at the 100 Psalm. First time I ever heard the 100 Psalm was my wife quoted it.

And I couldn’t stand it. I forgot what we were, and somebody said something, and she just quoted the 100 Psalm. I think it was at a North Side Baptist Church, but it was back in about 1961 to something like that. And anyway, she just quoted the verse of the whole Psalm. But anyway, look there at this verse. In verse one, make a joyful noise unto the Lord when everything is going your way. You know what he says? No, make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands.

The Lord’s God wants everybody everywhere to praise the Lord. And then look what he says in verse 2. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence would sing. You know, it’s hard to do that when you’re always down and discouraged and so forth. I think I’ve been beddy this morning. Every time I come into the church here, I either come in that door or I’ll come in this door, and I’ll sing. There’s just something about walking in this place.

I just wanna sing. And Lord, well, it’s always the best when nobody else is here. Because sometimes I forget about other people being here, but anyway, it’s just I love to sing. I used to go out kind of every year, and once in a while I’d take my son with me. And after about an hour or two, he said, Daddy, you’re not gonna get anything. I said, why? He said, because you gotta stop singing. I’m going through the woods.

I got my gun with short end. Just a singing till you could hear me a mile away. I get on top of those mountain peaks. See out there, we go hunting. We go looking for the animal. Here you wait and the animal comes looking for you. That is not my way to hunt. I like to go out there in the woods and trips you all over the place and looking, trying to find one, sneaking up on one. I don’t want one sneaking up on me.

I want to sneak up on it. But anyway, I loved to hunt and I had to figure out I got to be quiet. Maybe that’s why I’ve only got one elk in 18 years. But I got a lot of deer. They like my singing. But here in this verse, looking verse three, And know ye that the Lord, He is God. It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves. I’m a self-made man. Well, you quit too soon.

And he says, we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. And look at those two words, be thankful unto Him. bless his name. Why? For the Lord is good. It’s a good song. This is a tremendous song. We’re coming up on Thanksgiving and a lot of people are not thankful to the Lord. Remember, I made a statement not long ago that what if you only had tomorrow what you were thankful to the Lord for today?

You may not have much tomorrow, but since you have so much today, be thankful for it. Don’t whine about what you don’t have and how something didn’t work out. But think of how many things do work out. And how many things that you do have that you ought to be blessed in to thank the Lord for it. Verse 5, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and his truth endures to all generations. You see, if this is the way I’m supposed to be, this is why we pray for the missionaries that they will stay thankful on the foreign fields.

Because it’s so easy to get down and discouraged. And that’s why if we take on a missionary and we help them, we want to continue to do so. I would hate for our admissions given to go down to where they’re not getting enough and they’re counting on it. You know, they depend upon it. So I’m thankful that we’ve done what we’ve done and you all have been tremendous in that and I thank the Lord for you. But anyway, once you look at another statement here, the unsaid pray that the missionary will remember and you ought to underline this primary goal primary goal.

The primary goal, keep the main thing, the main thing. And it’s so easy to get so busy doing so many things that you never have time to share the gospel with anybody. I get thrilled every week just listening for the report to come in from Friday night, so winning. And they never know, sometimes they’ll have 15, sometimes they’ll have 20, sometimes they’ll have 25, one night they call it had 28. And then they blew me clean out of my lounge chair last night Friday night.

Peter calls up and he says they had 77. That’s the teenager and I said, how many went 100? He said they had about 11, something like that, that went so winning. And they had a tremendous time and they hit a hot spot. You ever go fishing and you just hit a hot spot. And then sometimes you go fishing and you get a couple of little bites and then you move to another in a couple of little bites or you finally pull one in, one little one in and then nothing else.

And then sometimes you just hit into a school of them and you just go wild. Well, they hit some teenagers at a park or something like that, at a carnival. So praise the Lord for that. And but those are the kind of things I’d love to hear about because see, when everything else is all over and all the problems that you have, when you get to heaven and those people are gonna be there because somebody went and told them how to have eternal life.

That’s a wonderful thing. Some of you don’t know that believe it or not. We did have a wedding here on Friday afternoon, 4.30. And I’d been talking to this couple for a good while, almost a year. So we made sure that they trusted the Lord. And I said, no, I don’t do a wedding unless I explain the gospel and that there’s no problem. And so, but at a wedding, I don’t use a raise of hand, but I try to make it clear.

But I had come in and there was a guy sitting right back there right exactly where Ishmael is sitting. And I walked in and I looked at him and he was there to run the sound so the girl was gonna sing, you know. And so I walked by him, I said, Hey, how you doing? And he said, I’m doing fine. I said, you’re here early. He says, I gotta run that sound thing for the girl that’s coming to sing.

I said, well, can let me ask you a question. I said, what kind of a church do you go to? He says, I don’t go to church. He says, I’m an agnostic. I says, an agnostic. So that means without knowledge. I says, that means you don’t have enough evidence to make a decision. You see, yeah, that’s it. That’s it. I says, well, let me run two things by you. So anyway, I haven’t you always heard all your life?

that Jesus Christ down on the cross and paid for all the sins of the world. It’s the eye I’ve heard that. I said, let me ask you another question. I said, if he paid for all of our sins, I said, why are you going to go to hell? Why would I go to hell if he paid for it? And he’s just like a blank stare. You know, most people, they never think this through. They don’t think about that. I says, it’s because you don’t believe he did it for you.

I talked a little bit more, and he just lit up. He trusted Christ’s Savior. He was thrilled. By the time he walked out of here, he’s both arms like this year, you know. We give him CDs. I gave him a hang, linsed him a little CD on, how permits your salvation. I think it’s great. So we gave him that one, gave him some tracks and the church flyer and all that. And you never know, he just loved it. Show up here sometimes, do you?

But it is important. We have been given a wonderful, wonderful message. And it’s the most powerful thing in all the world. But the primary goal is still always so winning. Look at the next statement. And that is the victory. Pray that the missionary will know victory in spiritual warfare because you see almost all of our problems are spiritual problems of how you handle it. And if you’re spiritually strong, you can face anything. It’s just that problems reveal how weak we are sometimes.

And missionaries on the foreign field, they got to go through the same thing. But sometimes they don’t have, you know, they can’t huddle around with all the people who know and understand what they’re going through because they’re on the foreign field. And sometimes they don’t have, you know, the friendship, so the fellowship with other people that are, you get a deep knowledge of God’s Word and can really be a blessing to them. So that’s why little notes and things like that can always help them and pray for them.

So it’s a very important thing. The other thing is weariness. Now we know nobody here gets weary. I mean these are not things we would apply ourselves, right? But weariness, they get bogged down doing petty things, little things. And this used to just irritate me to no end. Because I would rather, rather, just my wallet in my hand and preach the gospel all the time. But it’s, that’s not reality. You still got to do all these other things. Your car still breaks down.

You got to go get gas. I hate getting gas. I despise stopping and getting gas. I feel like it’s the biggest waste of my time. But then I realize if I don’t get gas in this car, this car’s not going to go. I don’t go. I don’t go. So I got to do that. I really now, I do enjoy eating, but I hate stopping and taking the time for eating, but I do it because I know I got to eat or I die.

and I don’t want to die yet. And I tell Betty, I says, honey, it’s a shame to have to take a bath. I’m just going to get dirty again. I hate shaving. I don’t like to shave. And I got to shave every, I said, honey, I don’t want to shave that she says you’re the preacher. Honey, but I don’t want to shave. She says it’s your image. Oh, this image. And I got to shave. And sometimes I just, I hate to shave.

And as much as possible, I don’t like coats and ties. But all these things are things that I have to do. But it doesn’t mean I have to enjoy doing them. The Bible says endure all things. It did not say enjoy all things. Well, it says say rejoice always, so I try to find a way to do that. But you and I, it’s so easy to get weary and well doing. Just keep on doing what’s right. And some things you just got to remember the priority, keep the main thing, the main thing.

The other thing that I wanted you to mention to you, and I want you to take your Bible and look at this, look in the 139th Psalm, the 139th Psalm. Because this is where you talk about your X-ray vision, X-ray vision. Now you and I may not have the X-ray vision, but I know somebody who does. He can see everything, everybody, everywhere. And body he really knows us. But look how he prayed here, David did in 139th Psalm, look in verse 23.

And you want to do this, and you want the missionaries to always keep examining themselves. See in verse 23, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me, means test me and see if I’m not real. But test me. Know my thoughts, my thoughts about God, about the mission field, everything that I’m doing, my motives. And then he says here in verse 24, and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the path of everlasting.

In other words, I wanna do what’s right, but I know I have a wicked heart, and I’m trusting in looking to you to reveal things to me that I may not be aware of so that I can make the right decision. And that’s something that all of us needs to do. The next thing is to be yielded to the Lord. And if you read the sixth chapter of the book of Romans, you’ll find the word yield, yield, yield, yield, all the way through it.

So you’re to submit yourself to the Lord, not fight the Lord. The word zeal down here, it talks about that in the book of John in chapter two, about the zeal of the Lord have eaten me up. And why Jesus got kind of, you would say, been out of shape because of sin, the money changers in the temple and all the things that they were doing and what’s going on. And he says, you’ve taken and made the house of prayer into a den of thieves.

Anyway, he got upset, but there’s a zeal, a zeal that you and I ought to have in serving the Lord. See, it’s one thing to have the zeal, the desire to want to do something and then you don’t have the knowledge to do it, at least a frustration. But if you had the knowledge to do everything but no zeal, then what’s good is the knowledge. So you want the knowledge and you want the zeal, the desire to want to do something with your life, to love the Lord, to serve the Lord and to fight a good fight.

Now I gave you these two poems because I wanted to read to you because the statement, the Steiner and the last one that the missionary will be a flame in the wind, a flame in the wind. So a few years ago I wrote a couple of little poems. One is called the Flame in the Wind to Dr. Curtis Hudson. Dr. Curtis Hudson had an opportunity to speak together preaching these sort conferences. And he got his doctor from Florida Bible College and the man was clear on the gospel and he He took a stand and he suffered some persecution from a lot of independent fundamental Bible even missionary minded Baptists too.

And they really took him to task because he would come out in the sword of the Lord that salvation. It’s very simple, very clear, just believe no turning from sin and explain repentance. And he would take things right out of the personal evangelism handbook and put it in the sword Lord. It went all over the world. Well, there’s a lot of preachers that preached that and they didn’t like that. And he told them about lordship salvation. You don’t make Christ the Lord and the master of your life in order to be saved.

Well, they didn’t like that. And so Dr. Hudson took a strong stand. And he was sixty years old and found out he had cancer. I was preaching with him in March, not for God the year, but it was in San Antonio, Texas. And he had just finished up speaking at night and Tuesday night. And he got a phone call that he had to leave that his dad had just passed away with bone cancer. Three months before he had just buried brother with bone cancer.

And so he got in the car and it was raining and it rained all the way on him. He had to drive from San Antonio, Texas. He went through Murphy, Berb, Tennessee, picked up his wife and then headed on over there to Carolina, I think, someplace. Anyway, he got over there, did the funeral for his dad and his wife, sweet woman, she says, Curtis, don’t you think you need to be checked? Honey, I’m fine. I’m healthy. and he was, he looked sharp.

He was 60 years old, but he really looked good. And we played golf together, and he didn’t have a pain, he didn’t look bad, he felt great. And she just wasn’t let up, and she just kept hammering him. And so finally, when he came down here to Florida to preach, he went to see the doctor. And when he went to see the doctor, the doctor looked at him and says, do you realize you’ve only got about six months to live?

And he’s sitting there looking at the doctor and he feels fine. He says, you’re eating up with cancer. And of course, you know what that does to the woman? Well, it shocked the man too. So he went on this crashed diet. I mean, he started eating carrots. Me and Betty went by the same one time. He was sitting out on the back porch and he had some horses down there. That beautiful little ranch house up there in Murfreesboro. And he’s sitting out there and he has a bowl of oatmeal.

This bowl of oatmeal was huge. So he’s eating all this oatmeal. Then we saw a basket full of carrots. And I said, well, those are for the horses. He smiled and says, no, they’re for me. He was eating so many carrots, even his skin turned yellow. And he was doing everything he possibly could to try to counteract the cancer, but he had waited too long. He bought a little time, but two years later he passed away. And so I wrote this.

I had a beautiful little plaque, had a little flame on it, you know, flame in the wind. What went you out to see? A reed shaken by the wind? Not this man from Tennessee to the spirit only would he bend. my friend what went ye out to hear? The gospel of grace made crystal clear. Salvation by grace is the gift of God. Rewards are earned, but rebellion the rod. The eyes of God ran to and fro through a man with a heart of fire, a burning passion to reach the lost and make this blaze the saints desire.

The flame has died down, but sparks shot up to descend, blown upon by the breath of God to produce more flames in the wind. The sword of the Lord was the power of the pen, but Dr. Curtis Hudson was the flame in the wind. A living sacrifice on the altar was laid, hot coals from the altar in revivals were made. Oh Lord, this offering was burn up for his reword shall be great, but his salvation was free. But anyway, Dr.

Hudson was a good friend. He loved the Lord. And you often wonder, you know, why do what they’re doing now that they’re in heaven, you know, like Hank, now he’s up in heaven. I wonder what know what they’re doing, or can they really see and know what we are doing down here. Or if we lead somebody to Lord, are they still jumping and hollering and yelling and shouting all over heaven? I don’t know, but I believe it’s a joyous occasion.

And, but see, whether or not in this life you are appreciated doesn’t really matter. It’s whenever you leave this world and you get to heaven. Your father says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. When God puts his praise, honor, and glory up on you for what you’ve done and all the sacrifices you made. Do you think it’s going to be worth it then? I think it’ll be worth it. On the back of this, I wrote a little poem about a guy named Ray Stanford.

Do you ever heard of him? I had the opportunity at the time that I had wrote this point. It was just a couple years before this. Ray was 79 years old at the time. I had him come up to Georgian because we had the TV ministry. I said, Ray, I said, I got a camera right here. And I said, I’d like to just interview you. I just want to ask you some questions and you just answer them. and I said, just to put it all on tape.

I said, because someday down the road it might be worth having and to let people know because you know, you’re not going to live forever. He says, I’m only 79. Yes, sir. And I said, I want to do this. I said, would you mind if I did it? He says, no, let’s go for it. So anyway, he came to the church and we had a little table set in there and and we had the camera set and I don’t remember who run the camera.

Did you do it? My wife did. And so I’m sitting there and I’m talking back and forth with Ray and by the time we got through, we had a couple hours of just going through everything. And as I know of, well, I know it’s true. I’m the only one that has it that have all of this documented about race, Stanford, how Ranch got started, about the Jim Tingen story, how the college got started, the church, and all these things.

I got it all on tape. And I have spent quite a few hours getting it edited down to where I could present it. So it’s in four parts. The first part, I’m I’m going to show it tonight. And I want you to hear the interview, what was said. And because you see, the reason it’s important is because whether you know it or not, it’s your heritage. Ray Stanford is the one that led Dr. Hank Lindstrom to the Lord. Dr.

Stanford is the one who trained me. And everything we’ve done since then because of what we learn from this man. 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 10-30 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, believing that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.